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http://www.archive.org/details/childshistoryofeOOdick
THE UNIVERSAL EDITION
OF
THE WORKS OF CHARLES DICKENS
IN 22 VOLUMES
A CHILD'S
HISTORY OF ENGLAND
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
"-4 ChiUVs History of England''^ first
appeared in " Household Words ''''from January
2oth, 1851, to December 10th, 1853, and was
published in three volumes in 1852, 1853, and
1854 respectively.
This Edition contains all the emendations
made in the text as revised by the Author in
1867 and 1868, and reproductions of the illus-
trations made by Marcus Stone, B.A., and J,
Mahony for the " Library " Edition.
J^//iea {,'"^1 me ^yjea^neia fi ^o^t^ae.
A CHILD'S HISTORY
OF ENGLAND
BY
CHARLES DICKENS
WITH 8 ILLUSTRATIONS BY
MARCUS STONE, R.A., AND J. MAHONY
LONDON
CHAPMAN & HALL, Ltd.
1914
\
THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
AeTU«, LtNUX *N1»
TfLOEN FOUNDaTKSNI
£ If
THIS
CHILD^S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
IS DEDICATED TO
MY OWN DEAR CHILDREN
WHOM I HOPE IT MAY HELP, BYE AND BYE, TO
EEAD WITH INTEREST LARGER AND BETTER
BOOKS ON THE SAME SUBJECT.
Christmas 1851.
>1 • ■" * ♦ ^ • 4
TABLE OF THE REIGNS
Beginning with King Alfred the Great
The Peign of Alfred the Great.
The Kpi^n of Edward the Elder
The Reigii of Athclstari .
The lieigus of the Six Boy-King3
THE SAXOXS
began in 871
began in 901
began in 925
began in 941
ended in 901
ended in 925
ended in 941
ended in 1016
and lasted 30 years,
and lasted 24 years,
and lasted 16 years,
and lasted 75 years.
THE DANES, AND THE RESTORED SAXONS
The I?eign of Canute . . . began in 1016 . ended in 1035 , and lasted 19 years.
'J'he Reign of Harold Harefoot. . began in 1035 . ended in 1040 . and lasted 5 years.
The Keign of Hardieanute . . b<gan in 1040 . ended iu 1042 . and lasted 2 years.
The Reign of Edward the Confessor, began in 1042 . ended in lOliB . and lasted 2 1 years.
The Reign of Harold the Second, and the Xorman Conquest, were also within
the year 1066.
THE NORMANS
The Reign of William the First,
called the Cuiiqucror
brgan in 1166
''tn'edRufu's '''"'!'"" '!"" -"f°'>'^:|. began in 1087
'^'FiilThofa""''^ '^' f"'"*',^"'!^';} began in 1100
The Reigns of Matilda and Stephen, began in 1135
ended in 1087
ended in 1100
ended in 1135
ended in 1154
and lasted 21 years.
and lasted 13 years.
and lasted 35 years,
and lasted 19 years.
THE PLANTAGENETS
The Reign of Henry the Second
The Reign of Richard the First,
called the Lion-Heart .
The Reign of John, called Lackland.
The Reign of Henry the Third
The Reign of Edward the First,
called lx)ngsliank3
The Reign ot Edward the Second
The Reign of Edward the Third
'J'he Reign of Richard the Second
The R( ign of Henry the Fourth,
called bolingbroke , .
began in 1154
I began in 1189
began in 1199
began in 1216
I brgan in 1272
began in 1307
began in 1327
began in 1377
)
ended in
ended in
1189
1199
and lasted :
and lasted
ended in
ended in
1216
1272
35 years.
10 years.
17 years.
56 years.
35 years.
20 years.
50 years.
2 years.
began in 1399 . ended in 1413 . and lasted 14 years.
ended in 1307
ended in
ended in
ended in
1327
1377
1399
and lasted
and lasted i
and lasted :
and lasted i
uud lasted :
Vlll
TABLE OF THE REIGNS
THE PLANTAGENETS— (Con<m«ed)
The Reign of Henry the Fifth , began in 1413 . ended in 1422
The lieign of Henry the Sixth , began in 1422 . ended in 1461
The Keigu of Edward the Fourth . began in 1461 , ended in 1483
The Reign of Edward the Fiftli . began in 1483 . ended In 1483
The Reign of Richard the Thud . began in 1483 . ended in 1485
and lasted 9 years.
and lasted 39 years.
I and lasted 22 years.
fand lasted a few
' \ weeks.
, and lasted 2 yeara.
The Reign of Henry the Seventh
The Keigu of Henry the Eighth
The Reign of Edward the Sixth
The Reign of Mary ,
The.Reign of Elizabeth .
THE TUDORS
began in 1485
began in 1509
began in 1547
began in 1553
began ia 1658
ended in 1509
ended in 1547
ended in 1553
ended in 1558
ended in 1603
and lasted 24 years,
and lasted 38 years,
and lasted 6 years.
and lasted 5 years,
and lasted 45 yeara.
The Reign of James the First .
The Reign of Charles the First
THE STUARTS
began in 1603
began in 1625
ended In 1625
ended in 1649
and lasted 22 years,
and lasted 24 years.
THE COMMONWEALTH
The Council of State and Govern- ),, j^ jg^g ended in 1653 . and lasted 4 years,
ment by Parliament . . . j ° •'
l began in 1653 . ended in 1658 . and lasted 5 years.
|beganinl6S8 . ended in 1659 . and lasted 7 months
i resumed in 1659 ended in 1660 • {""^oluhs^ '"''''"
The Protectorate of Oliver Crom
well
The Protectorate of Richard Crom
well
The Council of State and Govern
ment by Parliament . •
THE STUARTS RESTORED
The Reign of Charles the Second
The Reigu of James the Second
began in 1660
began in 1685
ended in 1685
ended in 1683
and lasted 25 years,
and lasted 3 jears.
THE REVOLUTION.— 1G88.
(Comprised in the concluding chapter),
of William III. andj^^g^jjj^iggg
The Reign
Mary II. .
The Reign of William III
The Reign of Anne . . . beg.an in 1702
The Reign of George the First . . began in 1714
The Reign of George the Second . began in 1727
The Reign of George the Third . began in 1760
The Reign of George the Fourth . began in 1820
The Reign of William the Fourth . began in 1830
The Reign of Victoria . . . began in 1837.
ended in 1695
ended in 1702
ended in 1714
ended In 1727
ended in 1760
ended in 1820
ended in 1830
ended in 1837
and lasted 6 years.
and lasted 13 years,
and lasted 12 years,
and lasted 13 years,
and lasted 33 years,
and lasted 60 years,
and lasted 10 years,
and lasted 1 years.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, AND TABLE
OF CONTENTS
PAGB
Bibliographical Note ii
Dedication v
Table of the Reigns vii
CHAPTER I
TACt
ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS. From 50 years before Christ, to the
year of our Lord 450 . x
CHAPTER n
ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS. From the year 450, to
the year 871 ■ 9
CHAPTER HI
ENGLAND UNDER THE GOOD SAXON ALFRED, AND EDWARD THE
ELDER. From the year 871, to the year 901 13
CHAPTER IV
ENGLAND UNDER ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS. From the
year 9251 'o ^^^ y*^^ 1016 *7
CHAPTER V
ENGLAND UNDER CANUTE THE DANE. From the year 1016, to the year 1035 26
CHAPTER VI
ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD HAREFOOT, HARDICANUTE, AND ED-
WARD THE CONFESSOR. From the year 1035, to the year 1066 ... 23
CHAPTER VII
ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD THE SECOND, AND CONQUERED BY
THE NORMANS. All in the same year, 1066 34
CHAPTER VIII
ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE FIRST, THE NORMAN CONQUEROR.
From the year 1066, to the year IC87 37
X CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, AND CONTENTS
CHAPTER IX
PACK
ENGLAND UNDER V/ILLIAM THE SECOND, CALLED RUFUS. From
the year 1087, to the year I loo 43
CHAPTER X
ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIRST, CALLED FINE-SCHOLAR.
From the year 1 100, to the year 1133 49
CHAPTER XI
ENGLAND UNDER MATILDA AND STEPHEN. From the year 1133, to the
year 1134 S7
CHAPTER XII
Parts First and Second
ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SECOND. From the year 1154, to the year
1189 60
CHAPTER XIII
ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE FIRST, CALLED THE LION-HEART.
From the year 1189, to the year 1199 75
CHAPTER XIV
ENGLAND UNDER JOHN, CALLED LACKLAND. From the year 1 199, to the
year 1216 ...03
CHAPTER XV
ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD. From the year 1216, to the year
1272 92
CHAPTER XVI
ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIRST, CALLED LONGSHANKS.
From the year 1272, to the year 1307 ;o2
CHAPTER XVH
ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SECOND. From the year 1307, to the yc.ir
1327
116
CHAPTER XVHI
ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD. From the year 1327, to the year
137; "3
CHAPTER XIX
ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE SECOND. From the year 1377, to the year
1399 ••• 133
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, AND CONTENTS xi
CHAPTER XX
PAGE
ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FOURTH, CALLED BOLINGBROKE.
From the year 1399, to the year 1413 14a
CHAPTER XXI
Farts First and Second
ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIFTH. From the year 1413, to the year 1423 147
CHAPTER XXn
Parts First, Second {The Story 0/ Joan of Arc), and Third
ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SIXTH. From the year 1422, to the year 1451 135
CHAPTER XXni
ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FOURTH. From the year 1461, to the ye.ir
1483 170
CHAPTER XXIV
ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIFTH. For a few weeks in the year 1483 177
CHAPTER XXV
ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE THIRD. From the year 1483, to the year
1485 180
CHAPTER XXVI
ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SEVENTH. From the year 1485, to the year
1503 . » 184
CHAPTER XXVII
ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH, CALLED BLUFF KING
HAL AND BURLY KING HARRY. From the yearisog, to the year 1533 . 193
CHAPTER XXVIII
ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH, CALLED BLUFF KING
HAL AND BURLY KING HARRY. From the yeari533, to the year 1347 • 20*
CHAPTER XXIX
ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SIXTH. From the year 1347, '0 the year
1533 2"
CHAPTER XXX
ENGLAND UNDER MARY. From the year 1353, to the year 1358 • • . • a'?
CHAPTER XXXI
Parts First, Second, and Third
|;NGLAND UNDER ELIZABETH. Froin the year 1558, to tfee year 1603 . • 337
xii CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, AND CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXXII
Paris First and Second vac*
ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST. From the year 1603, to the year 1625 247
Chapter xxxni
Parts First, Second, Third, and Fourth
ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST. From the year 1615, to the year
1649 .. 260
CHAPTER XXXIV
Parts First and Second
ENGLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL. From the year 1649, to the year 1660 2C3
CHAPTER XXXV
Parts First and Second
ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND, CALLED THE MERRY
MONARCH. From the year 1660, to the year 1685 296
CHAPTER XXXVI
ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE SECOND. From the year 1685, to the year
1688 314
CHAPTER XXXVn
CONCLUSION. From the year 1688, to the year 1837 324
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGB
Alfred in the Neatherd's Cottage . . Marcus Stone, B.A.
Frontispiece
The Finding of the Body of Rufus ... J. Mahony 48
Author and Hubert .... Marcus Stone, B.A. 86
The Intercession of Qdeen Philippa for the Citizens of
Calais /. Mahony 130
Joan of Arc tending her Flock . Marcus Stone, B.A. 158
Queen Margaret and the Eobbeb . . , J. Mahony 170
Lady Jane Grey watching the Body of her Husband being
carried past the Window after Execution . . . 220
Marcus Stone, B.A.
Charles I. taking leave of his Children . J. Mahony 280
A CHILD S HISTORY OF
ENGLAND
CHAPTER I
ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS
If you look at a Map of the "World, you will see, in the left-hand
upper corner of the Eastern Hemisphere, two Islands lying in the
sea. They are England and Scotland, and Ireland. England and
Scotland form the greater part of these Islands. Ireland is the
next in size. The little neighbouring islands, which are so small
upon the Map as to be mere dots, are chiefly little bits of Scotland,
— broken off, I dare say, in the course of a great length of time, by
the power of the restless water.
In the old days, a long, long while ago, before Our Saviour was
born on earth and lay asleep in a manger, these Islands were in
the same place, and the stormy sea roared round them, just as it
roars now. But the sea was not alive, then, with great ships and
brave sailors, sailing to and from all parts of the world. It was
very lonely. The Islands lay solitary, in the great expanse of
water. The foaming waves dashed against their cliffs, and the
bleak winds blew over their forests ; but the winds and waves
brought no adventurers to land upon the Islands, and the savage
Islanders knew nothing of the rest of the world, and the rest of the
world knew nothing of them.
It is supposed that the Phoenicians, who were an ancient people,
famous for carrying on trade, came in ships to these Islands, and
found that they produced tin and lead ; both very useful things, as
you know, and both produced to this very hour upon the sea-coast.
The most celebrated tin mines in Cornwall are, still, close to the
B
2 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
sea. One of them, which I have seen, is so close to it that it is
hollowed out underneath the ocean; and the miners say, that in
stormy weather, when they are at work down in that deep place,
they can hear the noise of the waves thundering above their heads.
So, the Phanicians, coasting about the Islands, would come, without
Pxiuch difficulty, to where the tin and lead were.
The Phoenicians traded with the Islanders for these metals, and
gave the Islanders some other useful things in exchange. The
Islanders were, at first, poor savages, going almost naked, or only
dressed in the rough skins of beasts, and staining their bodies, as
other savages do, with coloured earths and the juices of plants.
But the Phcenicians, sailing over to the opposite coasts of France
and Belgium, and saying to the people there, * We have been to
those white cliffs across the water, which you can see in fine weather,
and from that country, which is called Britain, we bring this tin
and lead,' tempted some of the French and Belgians to come over
also. These people settled themselves on the south coast of
England, which is now called Kent ; and, although they were a
rough people too, they taught the savage Britons some useful arts,
and improved that part of the Islands. It is probable that other
people came over from Spain to Ireland, and settled there.
Thus, by little and little, strangers became mixed with the
Islanders, and the savage Britons grew into a wild, bold people ;
almost savage, still, especially in the interior of the country away
from the sea where the foreign settlers seldom went ; but hardy,
brave, and strong.
The whole country was covered with forests, and swamps. The
greater part of it was very misty and cold. Tliere were no roads,
no bridges, no streets, no houses that you would think deserving of
the name. A town was nothing but a collection of straw-covered
huts, hidden in a thick wood, with a ditch all round, and a low
wall, made of mud, or the trunks of trees placed one upon another.
The people planted little or no corn, but lived upon the flesh of
their flocks and cattle. They made no coins, but used metal rings
for money. They were clever in basket-work, as savage people
often are ; and they could make a coarse kind of cloth, and some
very bad earthenware. But in building fortresses they were much
more clever.
They made boats of basket-work, covered with the skins of animals,
but seldom, if ever, ventured far from the shore. They made
swords, of copper mixed with tin ; but, these swords were of an
awkward shape, and so soft that a heavy blow would bend one.
They made light shields, short pointed daggers, and spears — which
they jerked back after they had thrown them at an enemy, by a
long strip of leather fastened to the stem. The butt-end was a
rattle, to frighten an enemy's horse. The ancient Britons, being
ENGLAND UNDER THE ROMANS 3
divided into as many as thirty or forty tribes, each commanded by
its own little king, were constantly fighting with one another, as
savage people usually do ; and they always fought with these
weapons.
They were very fond of horses. The standard of Kent was the
picture of a white horse. They could break them in and manage
them wonderfully well. Indeed, the horses (of which they had an
abundance, though they were rather small) were so well taught in
those days, that they can scarcely be said to have improved since ;
though the men are so much wiser. They understood, and obeyed,
every word of command ; and would stand still by themselves, in
all the din and noise of battle, while their masters went to fight on
foot. The Britons could not have succeeded in their most remark-
able art, without the aid of these sensible and trusty animals. The
art I mean, is the construction and management of war-chariots or
cars, for which they have ever been celebrated in history. Each of
the best sort of these chariots, not quite breast high in front, and
open at the back, contained one man to drive, and two or three
others to fight — all standing up. The horses who drew them were
so well trained, that they would tear, at full gallop, over the most
stony ways, and even through the woods ; dashing down their
masters' enemies beneath their hoofs, and cutting them to pieces
with the blades of swords, or scythes, which were fastened to the
wheels, and stretched out beyond the car on each side, for that
cruel purpose. In a moment, while at full speed, the horses would
stop, at the driver's command. The men within would leap out,
deal blows about them with their swords like hail, leap on the horses,
on the pole, spring back into the chariots anyhow ; and, as soon as
they were safe, the horses tore away again.
The Britons had a strange and terrible religion, called the
Religion of the Druids. It seems to have been brought over, in
very early times indeed, from the opposite country of France,
anciently called Gaul, and to have mixed up the worship of the
Serpent, and of the Sun and Moon, with the worship of some of
the Heathen Gods and Goddesses. Most of its ceremonies were
kept secret by the priests, the Druids, who pretended to be en-
chanters, and who carried magicians' wands, and wore, each of
them, about his neck, what he told the ignorant people was a
Serpent's egg in a golden case. But it is certain that the Druidical
ceremonies included the sacrifice of human victims, the torture of
some suspected criminals, and, on particular occasions, even the
burning alive, in immense wicker cages, of a number of men and
animals together. The Druid Priests had some kind of veneration
for the Oak, and for the mistletoe — the same plant that we hang
up in houses at Christmas Time now — when its white berries grew
upon the Oak. They met together in dark woods, which they
4 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
called Sacred Groves ; and there they instructed, in their mysterious
arts, young men who came to them as pupils, and who sometimes
stayed with them as long as twenty years.
These Druids built great Temples and altars, open to the sky,
fragments of some of which are yet remaining. Stonehenge, on
Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire, is the most extraordinary of these.
Three curious stones, called Kits Coty House, on Bluebell Hill,
near Maidstone, in Kent, form another. We know, from examina-
tion of the great blocks of which such buildings are made, that they
could not have been raised without the aid of some ingenious
machines, which are common now, but which the ancient Britons
certainly did not use in making their own uncomfortable houses. I
should not wonder if the Druids, and their pupils who stayed with
them twenty years, knowing more than the rest of the Britons, kept
the people out of sight while they made these buildings, and then
pretended that they built them by magic. Perhaps they had a hand
in the fortresses too ; at all events, as they were very powerful, and
very much believed in, and as they made and executed the laws,
and paid no taxes, I don't wonder that they liked their trade. And,
as they persuaded the people the more Druids there were, the
better off the people would be, I don't wonder that there were a
good many of them. But it is pleasant to think that there are no
Druids, no7L'^ who go on in that way, and pretend to carry Enchanters'
Wands and Serpents' Eggs — and of course there is nothing of the
kind, anywhere.
Such was the improved condition of the ancient Britons, fifty-five
years before the birth of Our Saviour, when the Romans, under
their great General, Julius Caesar, were masters of all the rest of
the known world. Julius Cssar had then just conquered Gaul ;
and hearing, in Gaul, a good deal about the opposite Island with
the white cliffs, and about the bravery of the Britons who inhabited
it — some of whom had been fetched over to help the Gauls in the
war against him — he resolved, as he was so near, to come and
conquer Britain next.
So, Julius Caesar came sailing over to this Island of ours, with
eighty vessels and twelve thousand men. And he came from the
French coast between Calais and Boulogne, ' because thence was
the shortest passage into Britain ; ' just for the same reason as our
steam-boats now take the same track, every day. He expected to
conquer Britain easily : but it was not such easy work as he supposed
— for the bold Britons fought most bravely ; and, what with not
having his horse-soldiers with him (for they had been driven back
by a storm), and what with having some of his vessels dashed to
pieces by a high tide after they were drawn ashore, he ran great
risk of being totally defeated. However, for once that the bold
Britons beat him, he beat them twice; though not so soundly but
ENGLAND UNDER THE ROMANS 5
that he was very glad to accept their proposals of peace, and go
away.
But, in the spring of the next year, he came back ; this time,
with eight hundred vessels and thirty thousand men. The British
tribes chose, as their general-in-chief, a Briton, whom the Romans
in their Latin language called Cassivellaunus, but whose British
name is supposed to have been Caswallon. A brave general he
was, and well he and his soldiers fought the Roman army ! So
well, that whenever in that war the Roman soldiers saw a great
cloud of dust, and heard the rattle of the rapid British chariots,
they trembled in their hearts. Besides a number of smaller battles,
there was a battle fought near Canterbury, in Kent; there was a
battle fought near Chertsey, in Surrey; there was a battle fought
near a marshy little town in a wood, the capital of that part of
Britain which belonged to Cassivellaunus, and which was probably
near what is now Saint Albans, in Hertfordshire. However, brave
Cassivellaunus had the worst of it, on the whole ; though he and
his men always fought like lions. As the other British chiefs were
jealous of him, and were always quarrelling with him, and with one
another, he gave up, and proposed peace. Julius Caesar was very
glad to grant peace easily, and to go away again with all his remain-
ing ships and men. He had expected to find pearls in Britain, and
he may have found a few for anything I know ; but, at all events,
he found delicious oysters, and I am sure he found tough Britons
■ — of whom, I dare say, he made the same complaint as Napoleon
Bonaparte the great French General did, eighteen hundred years
afterwards, when he said they were such unreasonable fellows that
they never knew when they were beaten. They never did know, I
believe, and never will.
Nearly a hundred years passed on, and all that time, there was
peace in Britain. The Britons improved their towns and mode of
life : became more civilised, travelled, and learnt a great deal from
the Gauls and Romans. At last, the Roman Emperor, Claudius,
sent AuLUS Plautius, a skilful general, with a mighty force, to
subdue the Island, and shortly afterwards arrived himself. 'I'hey
did little ; and Ostorius Scapula, another general, came. Some
of the British Chiefs of Tribes submitted. Others resolved to
fight to the death. Of these brave men, the bravest was Carac-
TACUS, or Caradoc, who gave battle to the Romans, with his army,
among the mountains of North ^^'ales. ' This day,' said he to his
soldiers, ' decides the fate of Britain ! Your liberty, or your
eternal slavery, dates from this hour. Remember your brave
ancestors, who drove the great C?esar himself across the sea ! '
On hearing these words, his men, with a great shout, rushed upon
the Romans. But the strong Roman swords and armour were too
much for the weaker British weapons in close conflict. The Britons
5 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
lost the day. The wife and daughter of the brave Caractacus
were taken prisoners; his brothers delivered themselves up; he
himself was betrayed into the hands of the Romans by his false and
base stepmother : and they carried him, and all his family, in
triumph to Rome.
But a great man will be great in misfortune, great in prison,
great in chains. His noble air, and dignified endurance of distress,
so touched the Roman people who thronged the streets to see him,
that he and his family were restored to freedom. No one knows
whether his great heart broke, and he died in Rome, or whether he
ever returned to his own dear country. English oaks have grown
up from acorns, and withered away, when they were hundreds of
years old — and other oaks have sprung up in their places, and died
too, very aged — since the rest of the history of the brave Caractacus
was forgotten.
Still, the Britons would not yield. They rose again and again,
and died by thousands, sword in hand. They rose, on every
possible occasion. Suetonius, another Roman general, came,
and stormed the Island of Anglesey (then called Mona), which
was supposed to be sacred, and he burnt the Druids in their own
wicker cages, by their own fires. But, even while he was in Britain,
with his victorious troops, the Britons rose. Because Boadicea,
a British queen, the widow of the King of the Norfolk and Suffolk
people, resisted the plundering of her property by the Romans who
were settled in England, she was scourged, by order of Catus a
Roman officer ; and her two daughters were shamefully insulted in
her presence, and her husband's relations were made slaves. To
avenge this injury, the Britons rose, with all their might and rage.
They drove Catus into Gaul ; they laid the Roman possessions
waste ; they forced the Romans out of London, then a jjoor little
town, but a trading place ; they hanged, burnt, crucified, and slew
by the sword, seventy thousand Romans in a few days. Suetonius
strengthened his army, and advanced to give them battle. They
strengthened their army, and desperately attacked his, on the field
where it was strongly posted. Before the first charge of the Britons
was made, Boadicea, in a war-chariot, with her fair hair streaming
in the wind, and her injured daughters lying at her feet, drove
among the troops, and cried to them for vengeance on their
oppressors, the licentious Romans. The Britons fought to the
last ; but they were vanquished with great slaughter, and the un-
happy queen took poison.
Still, the spirit of the Britons was not broken. When Suetonius
left the country, they fell upon his troops, and retook the Island
of Anglesey. Agricola came, fifteen or twenty years afterwards,
and retook it once more, and devoted seven years to subduing the
country, especially that part of it which is now called Scotland ;
ENGLAND UNDER THE ROMANS 7
but, its people, the Caledonians, resisted him at every inch of
ground. They fought the bloodiest battles with him ; they killed
their very wives and children, to prevent his making prisoners of
them ; they fell, fighting, in such great numbers that certain hills in
Scotland are yet supposed to be vast heaps of stones piled up
above their graves. Hadrian came, thirty years afterwards, and
still they resisted him. Severus came, nearly a hundred years
afterwards, and they worried his great army like dogs, and rejoiced
to see them die, by thousands, in the bogs and swamps. Caracalla,
the son and successor of Severus, did the most to conquer them,
for a time ; but not by force of arms. He knew how little that
would do. He yielded up a quantity of land to the Caledonians,
and gave the Britons the same privileges as the Romans possessed.
There was peace, after this, for seventy years.
Then new enemies arose. They were the Saxons, a fierce, sea-
faring people from the countries to the North of the Rhine, the
great river of Germany on the banks of which the best grapes grow
to make the German wine. They began to come, in pirate ships.
to the sea-coast of Gaul and Britain, and to plunder them. They
were repulsed by Carausius, a native either of Belgium or of
Britain, who was appointed by the Romans to the command, and
under whom the Britons first began to fight upon the sea. But,
after this time, they renewed their ravages. A few years more, and
the Scots (which was then the name for the people of Ireland), and
the Picts, a northern people, began to make frequent plundering
incursions into the South of Britain. All these attacks were
repeated, at intervals, during two hundred years, and through a long
succession of Roman Emperors and chiefs ; during all which length
of time, the Britons rose against the Romans, over and over again.
At last, in the days of the Roman Honorius, when the Roman
power all over the world was fast declining, and when Rome wanted
all her soldiers at home, the Romans abandoned all hope of con-
quering Britain, and went away. And still, at last, as at first, the
Britons rose against them, in their old brave manner ; for, a very
little while before, they had turned away the Roman magistrates,
and declared themselves an independent people.
Five hundred years had passed, since Julius Cresar's first invasion
of the Island, when the Romans departed from it for ever. In the
course of that time, although they had been the cause of terrible
fighting and bloodshed, they had done much to improve the con-
dition of the Britons. They had made great military roads ; they
had built forts ; they had taught them how to dress, and arm them-
selves, much better than they had ever known how to do before ;
they had refined the whole British way of living. Agricola had
built a great wall of earth, more than seventy miles long, extending
from Newcastle to beyond Carlisle, for the purpose of keeping out
8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
the Picts and Scots ; Hadrian had strengthened it ; Severus,
finding it much in want of repair, had built it afresh of stone.
Above all, it was in the Roman time, and by means of Roman
ships, that the Christian Religion was first brought into Britain, and
its people first taught the great lesson that, to be good in the sight
of God, they must love their neighbours as themselves, and do
unto others as they would be done by. The Druids declared that
it was very wicked to believe in any such thing, and cursed all the
people who did believe it, very heartily. But, when the people
found that they were none the better for the blessings of the Druids,
and none the worse for the curses of the Druids, but, that the sun
shone and the rain fell without consulting the Druids at all, they
just began to think that the Druids were mere men, and that it
signified very little whether they cursed or blessed. After which,
the pupils of the Druids fell off greatly in numbers, and the Druids
took to other trades.
Thus I have come to the end of the Roman time in England.
It is but little that is known of those five hundred years ; but some
remains of them are still found, * Often, when labourers are digging
up the ground, to make foundations for houses or churches, they
light on rusty money that once belonged to the Romans. Fragments
of plates from which they ate, of goblets from which they drank, and
of pavement on which they trod, are discovered among the earth
that is broken by the plough, or the dust that is crumbled by the
gardener's spade. Wells that the Romans sunk, still yield water;
roads that the Romans made, form part of our highways. In some
old battle-fields, British spear-heads and Roman armour have been
found, mingled together in decay, as they fell in the thick pressure
of the fight. Traces of Roman camps overgrown with grass, and
of mounds that are the burial-places of heaps of Britons, are to be
seen in almost all parts of the country. Across the bleak moors of
Northumberland, the wall of Severus, overrun with moss and weeds,
still stretches, a strong ruin ; and the shepherds and their dogs lie
sleeping on it in the summer weather. On Salisbury Plain, Stone-
henge yet stands : a monument of the earlier time when the Roman
name was unknown in Britain, and when the Druids, with their
best magic wands, could not have written it in the sands of the
wild sea-shore.
ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS
CHAPTER n
ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS
The Romans had scarcely gone away from Britain, when the
Britons began to wish they had never left it. For, the Romans
being gone, and the Britons being much reduced in numbers by
their long wars, the Picts and Scots came pouring in, over the
broken and unguarded wall of Severus, in swarms. They plundered
the richest towns, and killed the people ; and came back so often
for more booty and more slaughter, that the unfortunate Britons
lived a life of terror. As if the Picts and Scots were not bad
enough on land, the Saxons attacked the islanders by sea ; and,
as if something more were still wanting to make them miserable,
they quarrelled bitterly among themselves as to what prayers they
ought to say, and how they ought to say them. The priests, being
very angry with one another on these questions, cursed one another
in the heartiest manner ; and (uncommonly like the old Druids)
cursed all the people whom they could not persuade. So, altogether,
the Britons were very badly off, you may believe.
They were in such distress, in short, that they sent a letter to
Rome entreating help — which they called the Groans of the Britons ;
and in which they said, ' The barbarians chase us into the sea, the
sea throws us back upon the barbarians, and we have only the hard
choice left us of perishing by the sword, or perishing by the waves.'
But, the Romans could not help them, even if they were so inclined ;
for they had enough to do to defend themselves against their own
enemies, who were then very fierce and strong. At last, the Britons,
unable to bear their hard condition any longer, resolved to make
peace with the Saxons, and to invite the Saxons to come into their
country, and help them to keep out the Picts and Scots.
It was a British Prince named Vortigern who took this resolu-
tion, and who made a treaty of friendship with Hengist and Horsa,
two Saxon chiefs. Both of these names, in the old Saxon language,
signify Horse ; for the Saxons, like many other nations in a rough
state, were fond of giving men the names of animals, as Horse, Wolf,
Bear, Hound. The Indians of North America, — a very inferior
people to the Saxons, though — do the same to this day.
Hengist and Horsa drove out the Picts and Scots; and
Vortigern, being grateful to them for that service, made no op-
position to their settling themselves in that part of England which
is called the Isle of Thanet, or to their inviting over more of their
countrymen to join them. But Hengist had a beautiful daughter
10 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
named Rowena ; and when, at a feast, she filled a golden goblet
to the brim with wine, and gave it to Vortigern, saying in a sweet
voice, ' Dear King, thy health ! ' the King fell in love with her.
My opinion is, that the cunning Hengist meant him to do so, in
order that the Saxons might have greater influence with him ; and
that the fair Rowena came to that feast, golden goblet and all,
on purpose.
At any rate, they were married ; and, long afterwards, whenever
the King was angry with the Saxons, or jealous of their encroach-
ments, Rowena would put her beautiful arms round his neck, and
softly say, ' Dear King, they are my people ! Be favourable to
them, as you loved that Saxon girl who gave you the golden goblet
of wine at the feast ! ' And, really, I don't see how the King could
help himself.
Ah ! We must all die ! In the course of years, Vortigern
died — he was dethroned, and put in prison, first, I am afraid ; and
Rowena died ; and generations of Saxons and Britons died ; and
events that happened during a long, long time, would have been
quite forgotten but for the tales and songs of the old Bards, who
used to go about from feast to feast, with their white beards, re-
counting the deeds of their forefathers. Among the histories of
which they sang and talked, there was a famous one, concerning
the bravery and virtues of King Arthur, supposed to have been
a British Prince in those old times. But, whether such a person
really lived, or whether there were several persons whose histories
came to be confused together under that one name, or whether all
about him was invention, no one knows.
I will tell you, shordy, what is most interesting in the early
Saxon times, as they are described in these songs and stories of
the Bards.
i In, and long after, the days of Vortigern, fresh bodies of Saxons,
under various chiefs, came pouring into Britain. One body, con-
quering the Britons in the East, and settling there, called their
kingdom Essex ; another body settled in the West, and called their
kingdom Wessex; the Northfolk, or Norfolk people, established
themselves in one place; the Southfolk, or Suffolk people, estab-
lished themselves in another ; and gradually seven kingdoms or
states arose in England, which were called the Saxon Heptarchy.
The poor Britons, falling back before these crowds of fighting men
whom they had innocently invited over as friends, redred into
Wales and the adjacent country ; into Devonshire, and into Corn-
wall. Those parts of England long remained unconquered. And
in Cornwall now — where the sea-coast is very gloomy, steep, and
rugged — where, in the dark winter-time, ships have often been
wrecked close to the land, and every soul on board has perished —
where the winds and wavts howl drearily, and split the solid rocks
ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS u
into arches and caverns — there are very ancient ruins, which the
people call the ruins of King Arthur's Castle.
Kent is the most famous of the seven Saxon kingdoms, because
the Christian religion was preached to the Saxons there (who
domineered over the Britons too much, to care for what they said
about their religion, or anything else) by Augustine, a monk from
Rome. King Ethelbert, of Kent, was soon converted ; and the
moment he said he was a Christian, his courtiers all said iJiey were
Christians ; after which, ten thousand of his subjects said they
were Christians too. Augustine built a litde church, close to
this King's palace, on the ground now occupied by the beautiful
cathedral of Canterbury. Sebert, the King's nephew, built on
a muddy marshy place near London, where there had been a
temple to Apollo, a church dedicated to Saint Peter, which is now
Westminster Abbey. And, in London itself, on the foundation of
a temple to Diana, he built another little church which has risen
up, since that old time, to be Saint Paul's.
After the death of Ethelbert, Edwin, King of Northumbria,
who was such a good king that it was said a woman or child might
openly carry a purse of gold, in his reign, without fear, allowed his
child to be baptised, and held a great council to consider whether
he and his people should all be Christians or not. It was decided
that they should be. Coifi, the chief priest of the old religion,
made a great speech on the occasion. In this discourse, he told
the people that he had found out the old gods to be impostors.
' I am quite satisfied of it,' he said. ' Look at me ! I have been
serving them all my life, and they have done nothing for me;
whereas, if they had been really powerful, they could not have
decently done less, in return for all I have done for them, than
make my fortune. As they have never made my fortune, I am
quite convinced they are impostors ! ' ^^'hen this singular priest
had finished speaking, he hastily armed himself with sword and
lance, mounted a war-horse, rode at a furious gallop in sight of
all the people to the temple, and flung his lance against it as an
insult. From that time, the Christian religion spread itself among
the Saxons, and became their faith.
The next very famous prince was Egbert. He lived about a
hundred and fifty years afterwards, and claimed to have a better
right to the throne of Wessex than Beortric, another Saxon prince
who was at the head of that kingdom, and who married Edburga,
the daughter of Offa, king of another of the seven kingdoms. This
Queen Edburga was a handsome murderess, who poisoned people
when they offended her. One day, she mixed a cup of poison
for a certain noble belonging to the court ; but her husband drank
of it too, by mistake, and died. Upon this, the people revolted,
in great crowds; and running to the palace, and thundering
12 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
at the gates, cried, ' Down with the wicked queen, who poisons
men ! ' They drove her out of the country, and aboUshed the title
she had disgraced. When years had passed away, some travellers
came home from Italy, and said that in the town of Pavia they had
seen a ragged beggar-woman, who had once been handsome, but
was then shrivelled, bent, and yellow, wandering about the streets,
crying for bread ; and that this beggar-woman was the poisoning
English queen. It was, indeed, Edburga; and so she died,
without a shelter for her wretched head.
Egbert, not considering himself safe in England, in consequence
of his having claimed the crown of Wessex (for he thought his
rival might take him prisoner and put him to death), sought refuge
at the court of Charlemagne, King of France. On the death of
Beortric, so unhappily poisoned by mistake, Egbert came back
to Britain ; succeeded to the throne of Wessex ; conquered some
of the other monarchs of the seven kingdoms ; added their territories
to his own ; and, for the first time, called the country over which
he ruled, England.
And now, new enemies arose, who, for a long time, troubled
England sorely. These were the Northmen, the people of Denmark
and Norway, whom the English called the Danes. They were a
warlike people, quite at home upon the sea ; not Christians ; very
daring and cruel. They came over in ships, and plundered and
burned wheresoever they landed. Once, they beat Egbert in
battle. Once, Egbert beat them. But, they cared no more for
being beaten than the English themselves. In the four following
short reigns, of Ethelwulf, and his sons, Ethelbald, Ethelbert,
and Ethelred, they came back, over and over again, burning and
plundering, and laying England waste. In the last-mentioned
reign, they seized Edmund, King of East England, and bound him
to a tree. Then, they proposed to him that he should change his
religion; but he, being a good Christian, steadily refused. Upon
that, they beat him, made cowardly jests upon him, all defenceless
as he was, shot arrows at him, and, finally, struck off his head.
It is impossible to say whose head they might have struck off next,
but for the death of King Ethelred from a wound he had received
in fighting against them, and the succession to his throne of the
best and wisest king that ever lived in England.
ALFRED THE GREAT 13
CHAPTER HI
ENGLAND UNDER THE GOOD SAXON, ALFRED
Alfred the Great was a young man, three-and-twcnty years of
age, when he became king. Twice in his childhood, he had been
taken to Rome, where the Saxon nobles were in the habit of going
on journeys which they supposed to be religious ; and, once, he
had stayed for some time in Paris. Learning, however, was so
little cared for, then, that at twelve years old he had not been
taught to read; although, of the sons of King Ethelwulf, he,
the youngest, was the favourite. But he had — as most men who
grow up to be great and good are generally found to have had — ■
an excellent mother; and, one day, this lady, whose name was
OsBURGA, happened, as she was sitting among her sons, to read
a book of Saxon poetry. The art of printing was not known until
long and long after that period, and the book, which was written,
was what is called ' illuminated,' with beautiful bright letters, richly
painted. The brothers admiring it very much, their mother said,
' I will give it to that one of you four princes who first learns to
read.' Alfred sought out a tutor that very day, applied himself
to learn with great diligence, and soon won the book. He was
proud of it, all his life.
This great king, in the first year of his reign, fought nine battles
with the Danes. He made some treaties with them too, by which
the false Danes swore they would quit the country. They pre-
tended to consider that they had taken a very solemn oath, in
swearing this upon the holy bracelets that they wore, and which
were always buried with them when they died ; but they cared
little for it, for they thought nothing of breaking oaths and treaties
too, as soon as it suited their purpose, and coming back again to
fight, plunder, and burn, as usual. One fatal winter, in the fourth
year of King Alfred's reign, they spread themselves in great
numbers over the whole of England ; and so dispersed and routed
the King's soldiers that the King was left alone, and was obliged
to disguise himself as a common peasant, and to take refuge in
the cottage of one of his cowherds who did not know his face.
Here, King Alfred, while the Danes sought him far and near,
w-as left alone one day, by the cowherd's wife, to watch some cakes
which she put to bake upon the hearth. But, being at work
upon his bow and arrows, with which he hoped to punish the false
Danes when a brighter time should come, and thinking deeply of
his poor unhappy subjects whom the Danes chased through the
14 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
land, his noble mind forgot the cakes, and they were burnt.
' What ! ' said the cowherd's wife, who scolded him well when she
came back, and little thought she was scolding the King, * you will
be ready enough to eat them by-and-by, and yet you cannot watch
them, idle dog ? '
At length, the Devonshire men made head against a new host
of Danes who landed on their coast ; killed their chief, and captured
their flag ; on which was represented the likeness of a Raven — a
very fit bird for a thievish army like that, I think. The loss of
their standard troubled the Danes greatly, for they believed it to
be enchanted — woven by the three daughters of one father in a
single afternoon — and they had a story among themselves that
when they were victorious in battle, the Raven stretched his wings
and seemed to fly ; and that when they were defeated, he would
droop. He had good reason to droop, now, if he could have done
anything half so sensible ; forjKiNG Alfred joined the Devonshire
men ; made a camp with them on a piece of firm ground in the
midst of a bog in Somersetshire ; and prepared for a great attemjjt
for vengeance on the Danes, and the deliverance of his oppressed
people.
But, first, as it was important to know how numerous those
pestilent Danes were, and how they were fortified. King Alfred,
being a good musician, disguised himself as a glee-man or minstrel,
and went, with his harp, to the Danish camp. He played and
sang in the very tent of Guthrum the Danish leader, and enter-
tained the Danes as they caroused, ^^^hile he seemed to think
of nothing but his music, he was watchful of their tents, their arms,
their discipline, everything that he desired to know. And right
soon did this great king entertain them to a different tune; for,
summoning all his true followers to meet him at an appointed
place, where they received him with joyful shouts and tears, as the
monarch whom many of them had given up for lost or dead, he
put himself at their head, marched on the Danish camp, defeated
the Danes with great slaughter, and besieged them for fourteen
days to prevent their escape. But, being as merciful as he was
good and brave, he then, instead of killing them, proposed peace :
on condition that they should altogether depart from that Western
part of England, and settle in the East ; and that Guthrum should
become a Christian, in remembrance of the Divine religion which
now taught his conqueror, the noble Alfred, to forgive the enemy
who had so often injured him. This, Guthrum did. At his
baptism. King Alfred was his godfather. And Guthrum was
an honourable chief who well deserved that clemency; for, ever
afterwards he was loyal and faithful to the king. The Danes under
him were faithful too. They plundered and burned no more, but
worked like honest men. They ploughed, and sowed, and reaped,
ALFRED THE GREAT 15
and led good honest English lives. And I hope the children of
those Danes played, many a time, with Saxon children in the sunny
fields ; and that Danish yomig men fell in love with Saxon girls,
and married them ; and that English travellers, henighted at the
doors of Danish cottages, often went in for shelter until morning ;
and that Danes and Saxons sat by the red fire, friends, talking of
King Alfred the Great.
All the Danes were not like these under Guthrum ; for, after
some years, more of them came over, in the old plundering and
burning way — among them a fierce pirate of the name of Hastings,
who had the boldness to sail up the Thames to Gravesend, with
eighty ships. For three years, there was a war with these Danes ;
and there was a famine in the country, too, and a plague, both upon
human creatures and beasts. But King Alfred, whose mighty
heart never failed him, built large ships nevertheless, with which to
pursue the pirates on the sea ; and he encouraged his soldiers,
by his brave example, to fight valiantly against them on the shore.
At last, he drove them all away ; and then there was repose in
England.
As great and good in peace, as he was great and good in war,
King Alfred never rested from his labours to improve his people.
He loved to talk with clever men, and with travellers from foreign
countries, and to write down what they told him, for his people to
read. He had studied Latin after learning to read English, and
now another of his labours was, to translate Latin books into the
English-Saxon tongue, that his people might be interested, and
improved by their contents. He made just laws, that they might
live more happily and freely ; he turned away all partial judges,
that no wrong might be done them ; he was so careful of their
property, and punished robbers so severely, that it was a common
thing to say that under the great King Alfred, garlands of golden
chains and jewels might have hung across the streets, and no man
would have touched one. He founded schools ; he patiently heard
causes himself in his Court of Justice ; the great desires of his heart
were, to do right to all his subjects, and to leave England better,
wiser, happier in all ways, than he found it. His industry in these
efforts v/as quite astonishing. Every day he divided into certain
portions, and in each portion devoted himself to a certain pursuit.
That he might divide his time exactly, he had wax torches or
candles made, which were all of the same size, were notched across
at regular distances, and were always kept burning. Thus, as the
candles burnt down, he divided the day into notches, almost as
accurately as we now divide it into hours upon the clock. But
when the candles were first invented, it was found that the wind
and draughts of air, blowing into the palace through the doors and
windows, and through the chinks in the walls, caused them to gutter
1 6 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
and burn unequally. To prevent this, the King had them put into
cases formed of wood and white horn. And these were the first
lanthorns ever made in England.
All this time, he was afflicted with a terrible unknown disease,
which caused him violent and frequent pain that nothing could
relieve. He bore it, as he had borne all the troubles of his life,
like a brave good man, until he was fifty-three years old ; and then,
having reigned thirty years, he died. He died in the year nine
hundred and one ; but, long ago as that is, his fame, and the love
and gratitude with which his subjects regarded him, are freshly
remembered to the present hour.
In the next reign, which was the reign of Edward, surnamed
The Elder, who was chosen in council to succeed, a nephew of
King Alfred troubled the country by trying to obtain the throne.
The Danes in the East of England took part with this usurper
(perhaps because they had honoured his uncle so much, and
honoured him for his uncle's sake), and there was hard fighting ;
but, the King, with the assistance of his sister, gained the day, and
reigned in peace for four and twenty years. He gradually extended
his power over the whole of England, and so the Seven Kingdoms
were united into one.
^Vhen England thus became one kingdom, ruled over by one
Saxon king, the Saxons had been settled in the country more than
four hundred and fifty years. Great changes had taken place in its
customs during that time. The Saxons were still greedy eaters and
great drinkers, and their feasts were often of a noisy and drunken
kind ; but many new comforts and even elegances had become
known, and were fast increasing. Hangings for the walls of rooms,
where, in these modern days, we paste up paper, are known to have
been sometimes made of silk, ornamented with birds and flowers in
needlework. Tables and chairs were curiously carved in different
woods ; were sometimes decorated with gold or silver ; sometimes
even made of those precious metals. Knives and spoons were used
at table ; golden ornaments were worn — with silk and cloth, and
golden tissues and embroideries ; dishes were made of gold and
silver, brass and bone. There were varieties of drinking-horns,
bedsteads, musical instruments. A harp was passed round, at a
feast, like the drinking-bowl, from guest to guest; and each one
usually sang or played when his turn came. The weapons of the
Saxons were stoutly made, and among them was a terrible iron
hammer that gave deadly blows, and was long remembered. The
Saxons themselves were a handsome people. The men were
proud of their long fair hair, parted on the forehead ; their ample
beards, their fresh complexions, and clear eyes. The beauty
of the Saxon women filled all England with a new delight and
grace.
ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS 17
I have more to tell of the Saxons yet, but I stop to say this now,
because under the Great Alfred, all the best points of the English-
Saxon character were first encouraged, and in him first shown. It
has been the greatest character among the nations of the earth.
Wherever the descendants of the Saxon race have gone, have sailed,
or otherwise made their way, even to the remotest regions of the
world, they have been patient, persevering, never to be broken in
spirit, never to be turned aside from enterprises on which they have
resolved. In Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the whole world over ;
in the desert, in the forest, on the sea; scorched by a burning sun,
or frozen by ice that never melts; the Saxon blood remains un-
changed. "\Vheresoever that race goes, there, law, and industry, and
safety for life and property, and all the great results of steady
perseverance, are certain to arise.
I pause to think with admiration, of the noble king who, in his
single person, possessed all the Saxon virtues. Whom misfortune
could not subdue, whom prosperity could not spoil, whose persever-
ance nothing could shake. Who was hopeful in defeat, and generous
in success. Who loved justice, freedom, truth, and knowledge.
Who, in his care to instruct his people, probably did more to preserve
the beautiful old Saxon language, than I can imagine. Without
whom, the English tongue in which I tell this story might have
wanted half its meaning. As it is said that his spirit still inspires
some of our best English laws, so, let you and I pray that it may
animate our English hearts, at least to this — to resolve, when we see
any of our fellow-creatures left in ignorance, that we will do our
best, while life is in us, to have them taught ; and to tell those rulers
whose duty it is to teach them, and who neglect their duty, that
they have profited very little by all the years that have rolled away
since the year nine hundred and one, and that they are far behind
the bright example of King Alfred the Great.
CHAPTER IV
ENGLAND UNDER ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS
Athelstan, the son of Edward the Elder, succeeded that king.
He reigned only fifteen years ; but he remembered the glory of his
grandfother, the great Alfred, and governed England well. He
reduced the turbulent people of Wales, and obliged them to pay
him a tribute in money, and in cattle, and to send him their best
hawks and hounds. He was victorious over the Cornish men, who
were not yet quite under the Saxon government. He restored such
c
i8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
of the old laws as were good, and had fallen into disuse ; made
some wise new laws, and took care of the poor and weak. A strong
alliance, made against him by Anlaf a Danish prince, Constantine
King of the Scots, and the people of North Wales, he broke and
defeated in one great battle, long famous for the vast numbers slain
in it. After that, he had a quiet reign ; the lords and ladies about
him had leisure to become polite and agreeable ; and foreign princes
were glad (as they have sometimes been since) to come to England
on visits to the English court.
When Athelstan died, at forty-seven years old, his brother Edmund,
who was only eighteen, became king. He was the first of six boy-
kings, as you will presently know.
They called him the Magnificent, because he showed a taste for
improvement and refinement. But he was beset by the Danes, and
had a short and troubled reign, which came to a troubled end.
One night, when he was feasting in his hall, and had eaten much
and drunk deep, he saw, among the company, a noted robber named
Leof, who had been banished from England. Made very angry by
the boldness of this man, the King turned to his cup-bearer, and
said, ' There is a robber sitting at the table yonder, who, for his
crimes, is an outlaw in the land — a hunted wolf, whose life any
man may take, at any time. Command that robber to depart ! '
' I will not depart ! ' said Leof. ' No ? ' cried the King. ' No, by
the Lord ! ' said Leof. Upon that the King rose from his seat,
and, making passionately at the robber, and seizing him by his long
hair, tried to throw him down. But the robber had a dagger
underneath his cloak, and, in the scuffle, stabbed the King to
death. That done, he set his back against the wall, and fought so
desperately, that although he was soon cut to pieces by the King's
armed men, and the wall and pavement were splashed with his
blood, yet it was not before he had killed and wounded many of
them. You may imagine what rough lives the kings of those times
led, when one of them could struggle, half drunk, with a public
robber in his own dining-hall, and be stabbed in presence of the
company who ate and drank with him.
Then succeeded the boy-king Edred, who was weak and sickly
in body, but of a strong mind. And his armies fought the North-
men, the Danes, and Norwegians, or the Sea-Kings, as they were
called, and beat them for the time. And, in nine years, Edred
died, and passed away.
Then came the boy-king Edwy, fifteen years of age; but the
real king, who had the real power, was a monk named Dunstan — -
a clever priest, a little mad, and not a little proud and cruel.
Dunstan was then Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, whither the body
of King Edmund the Magnificent was carried, to be buried. "\Miile
.yet a boy, he had got out of his bed one night (being then in a
ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS 19
fever), and walked about Glastonbury Church when it was under
repair; and, because he did not tumble off some scaffolds that were
there, and break his neck, it was reported that he had been shown
over the building by an angel. He had also made a harp that was
said to play of itself — which it very likely did, as yl^'olian Harps,
which are played by the wind, and are understood now, always do.
For these wonders he had been once denounced by his enemies,
who were jealous of his favour with the late King Athelstan, as a
magician ; and he had been waylaid, bound hand and foot, and
thrown into a marsh. But he got out again, somehow, to cause a
great deal of trouble yet.
The priests of those days were, generally, the only scholars.
They were learned in many things. Having to make their own
convents and monasteries on uncultivated grounds that were granted
to them by the Crown, it was necessary that they should be good
farmers and good gardeners, or their lands would have been too
poor to support them. For the decoration of the chapels where
they prayed, and for the comfort of the refectories where they ate
and drank, it was necessary that there should be good carpenters,
good smiths, good painters, among them. For their greater safety
in sickness and accident, living alone by themselves in solitary
places, it was necessary that they should study the virtues of plants
and herbs, and should know how to dress cuts, burns, scalds, and
bruises, and how to set broken limbs. Accordingly, they taught
themselves, and one another, a great variety of useful arts ; and
became skilful in agriculture, medicine, surgery, and handicraft.
And when they wanted the aid of any little piece of machinery,
which would be simple enough now, but was marvellous then, to
impose a trick upon the poor peasants, they knew very well how to
make it; and did make it many a time and often, I have no doubt.
Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, was one of the most
sagacious of these monks. He was an ingenious smith, and worked
at a forge in a little cell. This cell was made too short to admit of
his lying at full length when he went to sleep — as if thai did any
good to anybody ! — and he used to tell the most extraordinary lies
about demons and spirits, who, he said, came there to persecute
him. For instance, he related that one- day when he was at work,
the devil looked in at the little window, and tried to tempt him to
lead a life of idle pleasure ; whereupon, having his pincers in the
fire, red hot, he seized the devil by the nose, and put him to such
pain, that his bellowings were heard for miles and miles. Some
people are inclined to think this nonsense a part of Dunstan's
madness (for his head never quite recovered the fever), but I think
not. I observe that it induced the ignorant people to consider him
a holy man, and that it made him very powerful. Which was
exactly what he always wanted.
£0 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
On the day of the coronation of the handsome boy-king Edwy, it
was remarked by Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury (who was a Dane
by birth), that the King quietly left the coronation feast, while all
the company were there. Odo, much displeased, sent his friend
Dunstan to seek him. Dunstan finding him in the company of his
beautiful young wife Elgiva, and her mother Ethelgiva, a good
and virtuous lady, not only grossly abused them, but dragged the
young King back into the feasting-hall by force. Some, again,
think Dunstan did this because the young King's fair wife was his
own cousin, and the monks objected to people marrying their own
cousins ; but I believe he did it, because he was an imperious,
audacious, ill-conditioned priest, who, having loved a young lady
himself before he became a sour monk, hated all love now, and
everything belonging to it.
The young King was quite old enough to feel this insult. Dunstan
had been Treasurer in the last reign, and he soon charged Dunstan
with having taken some of the last king's money. The Glastonbury
Abbot fled to Belgium (very narrowly escaping some pursuers who
were sent to put out his eyes, as you will wish they had, when you
read what follows), and his abbey was given to priests who were
married ; whom he always, both before and afterwards, opposed.
But he quickly conspired with his friend, Odo the Dane, to set up
the King's young brother, Edgar, as his rival for the throne ; and,
not content with this revenge, he caused the beautiful queen Elgiva,
though a lovely girl of only seventeen or eighteen, to be stolen from
one of the Royal Palaces, branded in the cheek with a red-hot iron,
and sold into slavery in Ireland. But the Irish people pitied and
befriended her ; and they said, ' Let us restore the girl-queen to the
boy-king, and make the young lovers happy ! ' and they cured her
of her cruel wound, and sent her home as beautiful as before. But
the villain Dunstan, and that other villain, Odo, caused her to be
waylaid at Gloucester as she was joyfully hurrying to join her
husband, and to be hacked and hewn with swords, and to be
barbarously maimed and lamed, and left to die. When Edwy the
Fair (his people called him so, because he was so young and hand-
some) heard of her dreadful fate, he died of a broken heart ; and so
the pitiful story of the poor young wife and husband ends ! Ah !
Better to be two cottagers in these better times, than king and queen
of England in those bad days, though never so fair !
Then came the boy-king, Edgar, called the Peaceful, fifteen
years old. Dunstan, being still the real king, drove all married
priests out of the monasteries and abbeys, and replaced them by
solitary monks like himself, of the rigid order called the Bene-
dictines. He made himself Archbishop of Canterbury, for his
greater glory ; and exercised such power over the neighbouring
Br;tish princes, and so collected them about the King, that once,
ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS 21
when the King held his court at Chester, and went on the river Dee
to visit the monastery of St. John, the eight oars of his boat were
pulled (as the people used to delight in relating in stories and songs)
by eight crowned kings, and steered by the King of England. As
Edgar was very obedient to Dunstan and the monks, they took
great pains to represent him as the best of kings. But he was
really profligate, debauched, and vicious. He once forcibly carried
off a young lady from the convent at Wilton; and Dunstan, pre-
tending to be very much shocked, condemned him not to wear his
crown upon his head for seven years — no great punishment, I dare
say, as it can hardly have been a more comfortable ornament to
wear, than a stewpan without a handle. His marriage with his
second wife, Elfrida, is one of the worst events of his reign.
Hearing of the beauty of this lady, he despatched his favourite
courtier, Athelwold, to her father's castle in Devonshire, to see if
she were really as charming as fame reported. Now, she was so
exceedingly beautiful that Athelwold fell in love with her himself,
and married her ; but he told the King that she was only rich — ■
not handsome. The King, suspecting the truth when they came
home, resolved to pay the newly-married couple a visit ; and,
suddenly, told Athelwold to prepare for his immediate coming.
Athelwold, terrified, confessed to his young wife what he had said
and done, and implored her to disguise her beauty by some ugly
dress or silly manner, that he might be safe from the King's anger.
She promised that she would ; but she was a proud woman, who
would far rather have been a queen than the wife of a courtier.
She dressed herself in her best dress, and adorned herself with her
richest jewels ; and when the King came, presently, he discovered
the cheat. So, he caused his false friend, Athelwold, to be murdered
in a wood, and married his widow, this bad Elfrida. Six or seven
years afterwards, he died ; and was buried, as if he had been all
that the monks said he was, in the abbey of Glastonbury, which he
■ — or Dunstan for him— had much enriched.
England, in one part of this reign, was so troubled by wolves,
which, driven out of the open country, hid themselves in the moun-
tains of Wales when they were not attacking travellers and animals,
that the tribute payable by the Welsh people was forgiven them, on
condition of their producing, every year, three hundred wolves'
heads. And the Welshmen were so sharp upon the wolves, to save
their money, that in four years there was not a wolf left.
Then came the boy-king, Edward, called the Martyr, from the
manner of his death. Elfrida had a son, named Ethelred, for
whom she claimed the throne ; but Dunstan did not choose to
favour him, and he made Edward king. The boy was hunting, one
day, down in Dorsetshire, when he rode near to Corfe Castle,
where Elfrida and Ethelred lived. Wishing to see them kindly,
22 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
he rode away from his attendants and galloped to the castle gate,
where he arrived at twilight, and blew his hunting-horn. ' You are
welcome, dear King,' said Elfrida, coming out, with her brightest
smiles. ' Pray you dismount and enter.' ' Not so, dear madam,'
said the King. ' My company will miss me, and fear that I have
met with some harm. Please you to give me a cup of wine, that
I may drink here, in the saddle, to you and to my little brother,
and so ride away with the good speed I have made in riding here.'
Elfrida, going in to bring the wine, whispered an armed servant,
one of her attendants, who stole out of the darkening gateway, and
crept round behind the King's horse. As the King raised the cup
to his lips, saying, ' Health ! ' to the wicked woman who was smiling
on him, and to his innocent brother whose hand she held in hers,
and who was only ten years old, this armed man made a spring and
stabbed him in the back. Pie dropped the cup and spurred his
horse away ; but, soon fainting with loss of blood, dropped from
the saddle, and, in his fall, entangled one of his feet in the stirrup.
The frightened horse dashed on ; trailing his rider's curls upon the
ground ; dragging his smooth young face through ruts, and stones,
and briers, and fallen leaves, and mud ; until the hunters, tracking
the animal's course by the King's blood, caught his bridle, and
released the disfigured body.
• Then came the sixth and last of the boy-kings, Ethelred, whom
Elfrida, when he cried out at the sight of his murdered brother
riding away from the castle gate, unmercifully beat with a torch
which she snatched from one of the attendants. The people so
disliked this boy, on account of his cruel mother and the murder
she had done to promote him, that Dunstan would not have had
him for king, but would have made Edgitha, the daughter of the
dead King Edgar, and of the lady whom he stole out of the convent
at Wilton, Queen of England, if she would have consented. But
she knew the stories of the youthful kings too well, and would not
be persuaded from the convent where she lived in peace ; so,
Dunstan put Ethelred on the throne, having no one else to put
there, and gave him the nickname of The Unready — knowing that
he wanted resolution and firmness.
At first, Elfrida possessed great influence over the young King,
but, as he grew older and came of age, her influence declined.
The infamous woman, not having it in her power to do any more
evil, then retired from court, and, according, to the fashion of the
time, built churches and monasteries, to expiate her guilt. As if a
church, with a steeple reaching to the very stars, would have been
any sign of true repentance for the blood of the poor boy, whose
murdered form was trailed at his horse's heels ! As if she could have
buried her wickedness beneath the senseless stones of the whole
world, piled up one upon another, for the monks to live in !
ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS 23
About the ninth or tenth year of this reign, Dunstan died. He
was growing old then, but was as stern and artful as ever. Two
circumstances that happened in connexion with him, in this reign
of Ethelred, made a great noise. Once, he was present at a
meeting of the Church, when the question was discussed whether
priests should have permission to marry ; and, as he sat with his
head hung down, apparently thinking about it, a voice seemed to
come out of a crucifix in the room, and warn the meeting to be of
his opinion. This was some juggling of Dunstan's, and was pro-
bably his own voice disguised. But he played off a worse juggle
than that, soon afterwards ; for, another meeting being held on the
same subject, and he and his supporters being seated on one side
of a great room, and their opponents on the other, he rose and
said, ' To Christ himself, as Judge, do I commit this cause ! '
Immediately on these words being spoken, the floor where the
opposite party sat gave way, and some were killed and many
wounded. You may be pretty sure that it had been weakened
under Dunstan's direction, and that it fell at Dunstan's signal. His
part of the floor did not go down. No, no. He was too good a
workman for that.
When he died, the monks settled that he was a Saint, and called
him Saint Dunstan ever afterwards. They might just as well have
settled that he was a coach-horse, and could just as easily have
called him one.
Ethelred the Unready was glad enough, I dare say, to be rid of
this holy saint ; but, left to himself, he was a poor weak king, and
his reign was a reign of defeat and shame. The restless Danes,
led by Sweyn, a son of the King of Denmark who had quarrelled
with his father and had been banished from home, again came
into England, and, year after year, attacked and despoiled large
towns. To coax these sea-kings away, the weak Ethelred paid
them money ; but, the more money he paid, the more money the
Danes wanted. At first, he gave them ten thousand pounds; on
their next invasion, sixteen thousand pounds ; on their next invasion,
four and twenty thousand pounds : to pay which large sums, the
unfortunate English people were heavily taxed. But, as the Danes
still came back and wanted more, he thought it would be a good
plan to marry into some powerful foreign family that would help
him with soldiers. So, in the year one thousand and two, he courted
and married Emma, the sister of Richard Duke of Normandy ; a
lady who was called the Flower of Normandy.
And now, a terrible deed was done in England, the like of which
was never done on English ground before or since. On the
thirteenth of November, in pursuance of secret instructions sent by
the King over the whole country, the inhabitants of every town and
city armed, and murdered all the Danes who were their neighbours.
24 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Young and old, babies and soldiers, men and women, every Dane
was killed. No doubt there were among them many ferocious men
who had done the English great wrong, and whose pride and
insolence, in swaggering in the houses of the English and insulting
their wives and daughters, had become unbearable ; but no doubt
there were also among them many peaceful Christian Danes who
had married English women and become like English men. They
were all slain, even to Gunhilda, the sister of the King of Denmark,
married to an English lord ; who was first obliged to see the murder
of her husband and her child, and then was killed herself.
When the King of the sea-kings heard of this deed of blood, he
swore that he would have a great revenge. He raised an army,
and a mightier fleet of ships than ever yet had sailed to England ;
and in all his army there was not a slave or an old man, but every
soldier was a free man, and the son of a free man, and in the prime
of life, and sworn to be revenged upon the English nation, for the
massacre of that dread thirteenth of November, when his country-
men and countrywomen, and the little children whom they loved,
were killed with fire and sword. And so, the sea-kings came to
England in many great ships, each bearing the flag of its own
commander. Golden eagles, ravens, dragons, dolphins, beasts of
prey, threatened England from the prows of those ships, as they
came onward through the water ; and were reflected in the shining
shields that hung upon their sides. The ship that bore the standard
of the King of the sea-kings was carved and painted like a mighty
serpent ; and the King in his anger prayed that the Gods in whom
he trusted might all desert him, if his serpent did not strike its
fangs into England's heart.
And indeed it did. For, the great army landing from the great
fleet, near Exeter, went forward, laying England waste, and striking
their lances in the earth as they advanced, or throwing them into
rivers, in token of their making all the island theirs. In remem-
brance of the black November night when the Danes were murdered,
wheresoever the invaders came, they made the Saxons prepare and
spread for them great feasts ; and when they had eaten those feasts,
and had drunk a curse to England with wild rejoicings, they drew
their swords, and killed their Saxon entertainers, and marched on.
For six long years they carried on this war : burning the crops,
farmhouses, barns, mills, granaries ; killing the labourers in the
fields ; preventing the seed from being sown in the ground ; causing
famine and starvation ; leaving only heaps of ruin and smoking
ashes, where they had found rich towns. To crown this misery,
English ofificers and men deserted, and even the favourites of
Ethelred the Unready, becoming traitors, seized many of the
English ships, turned pirates against their own country, and aided
.by a storm occasioned the loss of nearly the whole English navy.
ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS 25
There was but one man of note, at this miserable pass, who was
true to his country and the feeble King. He was a priest, and a
brave one. For twenty days, the Archbishop of Canterbury de-
fended that city against its Danish besiegers ; and when a traitor
in the town threw the gates open and admitted them, he said, in
chains, ' I will not buy my life with money that must be extorted
from the suffering people. Do with me what you please ! ' Again
and again, he steadily refused to purchase his release with gold
wrung from the poor.
At last, the Danes being tired of this, and being assembled at a
drunken merry-making, had him brought into the feasting-hall.
' Now, bishop,' they said, ' we want gold ! '
He looked round on the crowd of angry faces ; from the shaggy
beards close to him, to the shaggy beards against the walls, where
men were mounted on tables and forms to see him over the heads
of others : and he knew that his time was come.
' I have no gold,' he said.
' Get it, bishop ! ' they all thundered.
' That, I have often told you I will not,' said he.
They gathered closer round him, threatening, but he stood un-
moved. Then, one man struck him ; then, another; then a cursing
soldier picked up from a heap in a corner of the hall, where frag-
ments had been rudely thrown at dinner, a great ox-bone, and cast
it at his face, from which the blood came spurting forth ; then, others
ran to the same heap, and knocked him down with other bones, and
bruised and battered him ; until one soldier whom he had baptised
(willing, as I hope for the sake of that soldier's soul, to shorten the
sufferings of the good man) struck him dead with his battle-axe.
If Ethelred had had the heart to emulate the courage of this
noble archbishop, he might have done something yet. But he paid
the Danes forty-eight thousand pounds, instead, and gained so little
by the cowardly act, that Sweyn soon afterwards came over to
subdue all England. So broken was the attachment of the English
people, by this time, to their incapable King and their forlorn
country which could not protect them, that they welcomed Sweyn
on all sides, as a deliverer. I-ondon fliithfuUy stood out, as long
as the King was within its walls; but, when he sneaked away, it
also welcomed the Dane. Then, all was over ; and the King took
refuge abroad with the Duke of Normandy, who had already given
shelter to the King's wife, once the Flower of that country, and to
her children.
Still, the English people, in spite of their sad sufferings, could not
quite forget the great King Alfred and the Saxon race. When
Sweyn died suddenly, in little more than a month after he had been
proclaimed King of England, they generously sent to Ethelred, to
say that they would have him for their King again, ' if he would
2 6 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
only govern them better than he had governed them before.' The
Unready, instead of coming himself, sent Edward, one of his sons,
to make promises for him. At last, he followed, and the English
declared him King. The Danes declared Canute, the son of
Sweyn, King. Thus, direful war began again, and lasted for three
years, w^hen the Unready died. And I know of nothing better that
he did, in all his reign of eight and thirty years.
Was Canute to be King now? Not over the Saxons, they
said ; they must have Edmund, one of the sons of the Unready,
who was surnamed Ironside, because of his strength and stature.
Edmund and Canute thereupon fell to, and fought five battles — O
unhappy England, what a fighting-ground it was ! — and then Iron-
side, who was a big man, proposed to Canute, who was a little man,
that they two should fight it out in single combat. If Canute had
been the big man, he would probably have said yes, but, being the
little man, he decidedly said no. However, he declared that he
was willing to divide the kingdom — to take all that lay north of
Watling Street, as the old Roman military road from Dover to
Chester was called, and to give Ironside all that lay south of it.
Most men being weary of so much bloodshed, this was done. But
Canute soon became sole King of England ; for Ironside died
suddenly within two months. Some think that he was killed, and
killed by Canute's orders. No one knows.
CHAPTER V
ENGLAND UNDER CANUTE THE DANE
Canute reigned eighteen years. He was a merciless King at first.
After he had clasped the hands of the Saxon chiefs, in token of the
sincerity with which he swore to be just and good to them in return
for their acknowledging him, he denounced and slew many of them,
as well as many relations of the late King. ' He who brings me
the head of one of my enemies,' he used to say, ' shall be dearer to
me than a brother.' And he was so severe in hunting down his
enemies, that he must have got together a pretty large family of
these dear brothers. He was strongly inclined to kill Edmund
and Edward, two children, sons of poor Ironside ; but, being afraid
to do so in England, he sent them over to the King of Sweden, with
a request that the King would be so good as ' dispose of them.' If
the King of Sweden had been like many, many other men of that
day, he would have had their innocent throats cut ; but he was a
kind man, and brought them up tenderly.
CANUTE 27
Normandy mn much in Canute's mind. In Normandy were the
two children of the late king — Edward and Alfred by name ; and
their uncle the Duke might one day claim the crown for them. But
the Duke showed so little inclination to do so now, that he proposed
to Canute to marry his sister, the widow of The Unready ; who,
lieing but a showy flower, and caring for nothing so much as
becoming a queen again, left her children and M'as wedded to him.
Successful and triumphant, assisted by the valour of the English
in his foreign wars, and with little strife to trouble him at home,
Canute had a prosperous reign, and made many improvements.
He was a poet and a musician. He grew sorry, as he grew older,
for the blood he had shed at first ; and went to Rome in a Pilgrim's
dress, by way of washing it out. He gave a great deal of money to
foreigners on his journey ; but he took it from the English before
he started. On the whole, however, he certainly became a far
better man when he had no opposition to contend with, and was as
great a King as England had known for some time.
The old writers of history relate how that Canute was one day
disgusted with his courtiers for their flattery, and how he caused his
chair to be set on the sea-shore, and feigned to command the tide
as it came up not to wet the edge of his robe, for the land was his ;
how the tide came up, of course, without regarding him ; and how
he then turned to his flatterers, and rebuked them, saying, what was
the might of any earthly king, to the might of the Creator, who could
say unto the sea, ' Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther ! ' We
may learn from this, I think, that a little sense will go a long way
in a king ; and that courtiers are not easily cured of flattery, nor
kings of a liking for it. If the courtiers of Canute had not known,
long before, that the King was fond of flattery, they would have
known better than to offer it in such large doses. And if they had
not known that he was vain of this speech (anything but a wonderful
speech it seems to me, if a good child had made it), they would not
have been at such great pains to repeat it. I fancy I see them all
on the sea-shore together ; the King's chair sinking in the sand ; the
King in a mighty good humour with his own wisdom ; and the
courtiers pretending to be quite stunned by it !
It is not the sea alone that is bidden to go ' thus far, and no
farther.' The great command goes forth to all the kings upon the
earth, and went to Canute in the year one thousand and thirt}'-fivc,
and stretched him dead upon his bed. Beside it, stood his Norman
wife. Perhaps, as the King looked his last upon her, he, who had
so often thought distrustfully of Normandy, long ago, thought once
more of the two exiled Princes in their uncle's court, and of the
little favour they could feel for either Danes or Saxons, and of a
rising cloud in Normandy that slowly moved towards England.
A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
CHAPTER VI
ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD HAREFOOT, HARDICANUTE, AND EDWARD
THE CONFESSOR
Canute left three sons, by name Sweyn, Harold, and Hardi-
CANUTE ; but his Queen, Emma, once the Flower of Normandy,
was the mother of only Hardicanute. Canute had wished his
dominions to be divided between the three, and had wished Harold
to have England ; but the Saxon people in the South of England,
headed by a nobleman with great possessions, called the powerful
Earl Godvi^in (who is said to have been originally a poor cow-boy),
opposed this, and desired to have, instead, either Hardicanute, or
one of the two exiled Princes who were over in Normandy. It
seemed so certain that there would be more bloodshed to settle this
dispute, that many people left their homes, and took refuge in the
woods and swamps. Happily, however, it was agreed to refer the
whole question to a great meeting at Oxford, which decided that
Harold should have all the country north of the Thames, with
London for his capital city, and that Hardicanute should have all
the south. The quarrel was so arranged ; and, as Hardicanute was
in Denmark troubling himself very little about anything but eating
and getting drunk, his mother and Earl Godwin governed the south
for him.
They had hardly begun to do so, and the trembling people who
had hidden themselves were scarcely at home again, when Edward,
the elder of the two exiled Princes, came over from Normandy with
a few followers, to claim the English Crown. His mother Emma,
however, who only cared for her last son Hardicanute, instead of
assisting him, as he expected, opposed him so strongly with all her
influence that he was very soon glad to get safely back. His brother
Alfred was not so fortunate. Believing in an affectionate letter,
written some time afterwards to him and his brother, in his mother's
name (but whether really with or without his mother's knowledge is
now uncertain), he allowed himself to be tempted over to England,
with a good force of soldiers, and landing on the Kentish coast, and
being met and welcomed by Earl Godwin, proceeded into Surrey,
as far as the town of Guildford. Here, he and his men halted in
the evening to rest, having still the Earl in their company ; who had
ordered lodgings and good cheer for them. But, in the dead of the
night, when they were off their guard, being divided into small parties
sleeping soundly after a long march and a plentiful supper in different
houses, they were set upon by the King's troops, and taken prisoners.
HAROLD HAREFOOT AND HARDICANUTE 29
Next morning they were drawn out in a line, to the number of six
hundred men, and were barbarously tortured and killed ; with the
exception of every tenth man, who was sold into slavery. As to
the wretched Prince Alfred, he was stripped naked, tied to a horse
and sent away into the Isle of Ely, where his eyes were torn out of
his head, and where in a few days he miserably died. I am not
sure that the Earl had wilfully entrapped him, but I susj)cct it
strongly.
Harold was now King all over England, though it is doubtful
whether the Archbishop of Canterbury (the greater part of the priests
were Saxons, and not friendly to the Danes) ever consented to crown
him. Crowned or uncrowned, with the Archbishop's leave or with-
out it, he was King for four years : after which short reign he died,
and was buried ; having never done much in life but go a hunting.
He was such a fast runner at this, his favourite sport, that the
people called him Harold Harefoot.
Hardicanute was then at Bruges, in Flanders, plotting, with his
mother (who had gone over there after the cruel murder of Prince
Alfred), for the invasion of England. The Danes and Saxons,
finding themselves without a King, and dreading new disputes,
made common cause, and joined in inviting him to occupy the
Throne. He consented, and soon troubled them enough ; for he
brought over numbers of Danes, and taxed the people so insupport-
ably to enrich those greedy favourites that there were many insur-
rections, especially one at Worcester, where the citizens rose and
killed his tax-collectors ; in revenge for which he burned their city.
He was a brutal King, whose first public act was to order the dead
body of poor Harold Harefoot to be dug up, beheaded, and thrown
into the river. His end was worthy of such a beginning. He fell
down drunk, with a goblet of wine in his hand, at a wedding-feast
at Lambeth, given in honour of the marriage of his standard-bearer,
a Dane named Towed the Proud. And he never spoke again.
Edward, afterwards called by the monks The Confessor, suc-
ceeded ; and his first act was to oblige his mother Emma, who had
favoured him so little, to retire into the country ; where she died
some ten years afterwards. He was the exiled prince whose brother
Alfred had been so foully killed. He had been invited over from
Normandy by Hardicanute, in the course of his short reign of two
years, and had been handsomely treated at court. His cause was
now favoured by the powerful Earl Godwin, and he was soon made
King. This Earl had been suspected by the people, ever since
Prince Alfred's cruel death ; he had even been tried in the last
reign for the Prince's murder, but had been pronounced not guilty ;
chiefly, as it was supposed, because of a present he had made to
the swinish King, of a gilded ship with a figure-head of solid gold,
and a crew of eighty splendidly armed men, It was his interest to
30 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
help the new King with his power, if the new King would help him
against the popular distrust and hatred. So they made a bargain.
Edward the Confessor got the Throne. The Earl got more power
and more land, and his daughter Editha was made queen ; for it
was a part of their compact that the King should take her for his
wife.
But, although she was a gentle lady, in all things worthy to be
beloved — good, .beautiful, sensible, and kind — the King from the
first neglected her. Her father and her six proud brothers, resent-
ing this cold treatment, harassed the King greatly by exerting all
their power to make him unpopular. Having lived so long in
Normandy, he preferred the Normans to the English. He made a
Norman Archbishop, and Norman Bishops ; his great officers and
favourites were all Normans ; he introduced the Norman fashions
and the Norman language ; in imitation of the state custom of
Normandy, he attached a great seal to his state documents, instead
of merely marking them, as the Saxon Kings had done, with the
sign of the cross — ^just as poor people who have never been taught
to write, now make the same mark for their names. All this, the
powerful Earl Godwin and his six proud sons represented to the
people as disfavour shown towards the English ; and thus they
daily increased their own power, and daily diminished the power of
the King.
They were greatly helped by an event that occurred when he had
reigned eight years. Eustace, Earl of Bologne, w-ho had married
the King's sister, came to England on a visit. After staying at the
court some time, he set forth, with his numerous train of attendants,
to return home. They were to embark at Dover. Entering that
peaceful town in armour, they took possession of the best houses,
and noisily demanded to be lodged and entertained without pay-
ment. One of the bold men of Dover, who would not endure to
have these domineering strangers jingling their heavy swords and
iron corselets up and down his house, eating his meat and drinking
his strong liquor, stood in his doorway and refused admission to
the first armed man who came there. The armed man drew, and
wounded him. The man of Dover struck the armed man dead.
Intelligence of what he had done, spreading through the streets to
where the Count Eustace and his men were standing by their horses,
bridle in hand, they passionately mounted, galloped to the house,
surrounded it, forced their way in (the doors and windows being
closed when they came up), and killed the man of Dover at his own
fireside. They then clattered through the streets, cutting down and
riding over men, women, and children. This did not last long, you
may believe. The men of Dover set upon them with great fury,
killed nineteen of the foreigners, wounded many more, and, block-
ading the road to the port so that they should not embark, beat
EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 31
them out of the town Ijy the way they had come. Hereupon, Couiit
Eustace rides as hard as man can ride to Gloucester, where Edward
is, surrounded by Norman monks and Norman lords. ' Justice ! '
cries the Count, ' upon the men of Dover, who have set upon and
slain my people ! ' The King sends immediately for the powerful
Earl Godwin, who happens to be near; reminds him that Dover is
under his government ; and orders him to repair to Dover and do
military execution on the inhabitants. ' It does not become you,'
says the proud Earl in reply, ' to condemn without a hearing those
whom you have sworn to protect. I will not do it.'
The King, therefore, summoned the Earl, on pain of banishment
and loss of his titles and property, to appear before the court to
answer this disobedience. The Earl refused to appear. He, his
eldest son Harold, and his second son Sweyn, hastily raised as
many fighting men as their utmost power could collect, and demanded
to have Count Eustace and his followers surrendered to the justice
of the country. The King, in his turn, refused to give them up,
and raised a strong force. After some treaty and delay, the troops
of the great Earl and his sons began to fall off. The Earl, with
a part of his family and abundance of treasure, sailed to Flanders ;
Harold escaped to Ireland ; and the power of the great family was
for that time gone in England, But, the people did not forget
them.
Then, Edward the Confessor, with the true meanness of a mean
spirit, visited his dislike of the once powerful father and sons upon
the helpless daughter and sister, his unoffending wife, whom all who
saw her (her husband and his monks excepted) loved. He seized
rapaciously upon her fortune and her jewels, and allowing her only
one attendant, confined her in a gloomy convent, of which a sister
of his — no doubt an unpleasant lady after his own heart — was abbess
or jailer.
Having got Earl Godwin and his six sons v.'ell out of his way,
the King favoured the Normans more than ever. He invited over
William, Duke of Normandv, the son of that Duke who had
received him and his murdered brother long ago, and of a peasant
girl, a tanner's daughter, with whom that Duke had fallen in love
for her beauty as he saw her washing clothes in a brook. 'William,
who was a great warrior, with a passion for fine horses, dogs, and
arms, accepted the invitation ; and the Normans in England, finding
themselves more numerous than ever when he arrived with his retinue,
and held in still greater honour at court than before, became more
and more haughty towards the people, and were more and more
disliked by them.
The old Earl Godwin, though he was abroad, knew well how
the people felt ; for, with part of the treasure he had carried away
with him, he kept spies and agents in his pay all over England.
33 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Accordingly, he thought the time was come for fitting out a great
expedition against the Norman-loving King. With it, he sailed
to the Isle of Wight, where he was joined by his son Harold, the
most gallant and brave of all his family. And so the father and son
came sailing up the Thames to Southwark ; great numbers of the
people declaring for them, and shouting for the English Earl and
the English Harold, against the Norman favourites !
The King was at first as blind and stubborn as kings usually have
been whensoever they have been in the hands of monks. But the
people rallied so thickly round the old Earl and his son, and the
old Earl was so steady in demanding without bloodshed the resto-
ration of himself and his family to their rights, that at last the court
took the alarm. The Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, and the
Norman Bishop of London, surrounded by their retainers, fought
their way out of London, and escaped from Essex to France in a
fishing-boat. The other Norman favourites dispersed in all direc-
tions. The old Earl and his sons (except Sweyn, who had com-
mitted crimes against the law) were restored to their possessions
and dignities. Editha, the virtuous and lovely Queen of the insen-
sible King, was triumphantly released from her prison, the convent,
and once more sat in her chair of state, arrayed in the jewels of
which, when she had no champion to support her rights, her cold-
blooded husband had deprived her.
The old Earl Godwin did not long enjoy his restored fortune.
He fell down in a fit at the King's table, and died upon the third day
afterwards. Harold succeeded to his power, and to a far higher
place in the attachment of the people than his father had ever held.
By his valour he subdued the King's enemies in many bloody fights.
He was vigorous against rebels in Scotland — this was the time when
Macbeth slew Duncan, upon which event our English Shakespeare,
hundreds of years afterwards, wrote his great tragedy ; and he
killed the restless Welsh King Griffith, and brought his head to
England.
\\'hat Harold was doing at sea, when he was driven on the
French coast by a tempest, is not at all certain ; nor does it at all
matter. That his ship was forced by a storm on that shore, and
that he was taken prisoner, there is no doubt. In those barbarous
days, all shipwrecked strangers were taken prisoners, and obliged
to pay ransom. So, a certain Count Guy, who was the Lord of
Ponthieu where Harold's disaster happened, seized him, instead of
relieving him like a hospitable and Christian lord as he ought to
have done, and expected to m.ake a very good thing of it.
But Harold sent off immediately to Duke William of Normandy,
complaining of this treatment; and the Duke no sooner heard of it
than he ordered Harold to be escorted to the ancient town of
Rouen, where he then was, and where he received hiin as an
EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 33
honoured guest. Now, some writers tell us that Edward the Con-
fessor, who was by this time old and had no children, had made a
will, appointing Duke William of Normandy his successor, and had
informed the Duke of his having done so. There is no doubt that
he Avas anxious about his successor; because he had even invited
over, from abroad, Edward the Outlaw, a son of Ironside, who
had come to England with his wife and three children, but whom
the King had strangely refused to see when he did come, and who
had died in London suddenly (princes were terribly liable to sudden
death in those days), and had been buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.
The King might possibly have made such a will ; or, having always
been fond of the Normans, he might have encouraged Norman
"William to aspire to the English crown, by something that he said
to him when he was staying at the English court. But, certainly
William did now aspire to it ; and knowing that Harold would be a
powerful rival, he called together a great assembly of his nobles,
offered Harold his daughter Adele in marriage, informed him that
he meant on King Edward's death to claim the English crown as
his own inheritance, and required Harold then and there to swear
to aid him. Harold, being in the Duke's power, took this oath upon
the Missal, or Prayer-book. It is a good example of the super-
stitions of the monks, that this Missal, instead of being placed upon
a table, was placed upon a tub ; which, when Harold had sworn,
was uncovered, and shown to be full of dead men's bones — bones,
as the monks pretended, of saints. This was supposed to make
Harold's oath a great deal more impressive and binding. As if the
great name of the Creator of Heaven and earth could be made
more solemn by a knuckle-bone, or a double-tooth, or a finger-nail,
of Dunstan !
AVithin a week or two after Harold's return to England, the
dreary old Confessor was found to be dying. After wandering in
his mind like a very weak old man, he died. As he had put
himself entirely in the hands of the monks when he was alive, they
praised him lustily when he was dead. They had gone so far,
already, as to persuade him that he could work miracles ; and had
brought people afflicted with a bad disorder of the skin, to him, to
be touched and cured. This was called ' touching for the King's
Evil,' which afterwards became a royal custom. You know, how-
ever. Who really touched the sick, and healed them ; and you know
His sacred name is not among the dusty line of human kings.
34 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ExNGLAND
CHAPTER VII
ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD THE SECOND, AND CONQUERED BY THE
NORMANS
Harold was crowned King of England on the very day of the
maudhn Confessor's funeral. He had good need to be quick
about it. When the news reached Norman William, hunting in his
park at Rouen, he dropped his bow, returned to his palace, called
his nobles to council, and presently sent ambassadors to Harold,
calling on him to keep his oath and resign the Crown. Harold
would do no such thing. The barons of France leagued together
round Duke William for the invasion of England. Duke William
promised freely to distribute English wealth and English lands
among them. The Pope sent to Normandy a consecrated banner,
and a ring containing a hair which he warranted to have grown on
the head of Saint Peter. He blessed the enterprise ; and cursed
Harold ; and requested that the Normans would pay * Peter's
Pence ' — or a tax to himself of a penny a year on every house — •
a little more regularly in future, if they could make it convenient.
King Harold had a rebel brother in Flanders, who was a vassal
of Harold Hardrada, King of Norway. This brother, and this
Norwegian King, joining their forces against England, with Duke
William's help, won a fight in which the English were commanded
by two nobles; and then besieged York. Harold, who was
waiting for the Normans on the coast at Hastings, with his army,
marched to Stamford Bridge upon the river Derwent to give them
instant battle.
He found them drawn up in a hollow circle, marked out by their
shining spears. Riding round this circle at a distance, to survey it,
he saw a brave figure on horseback, in a blue mantle and a bright
helmet, whose horse suddenly stumbled and threw him.
' Who is that man who has fallen ? ' Harold asked of one of his
captains.
' The King of Norway,' he replied.
' He is a tall and stately king,' said Harold, 'but his end is near.'
He added, in a little while, ' Go yonder to my brother, and tell
him, if he withdraw his troops, he shall be Earl of Northumberland,
and rich and powerful in England.'
The captain rode away and gave the message.
' What will he give to my friend the King of Norway ? ' asked
the brother.
' Seven feet of earth for a grave,' replied the captain.
HAROLD THE SECOND 35
' No more ? ' returned the brother, with a smile.
' The King of Norway being a tall man, perhaps a little more,'
replied the captain.
' Ride back ! ' said the brother, ' and tell King Harold to make
ready for the fight ! '
He did so, very soon. And such a fight King Harold led
against that force, that his brother, and the Norwegian King, and
every chief of note in all their host, except the Norwegian King's
son, Olave, to whom he gave honourable dismissal, were left dead
upon the field. The victorious army marched to York. As King
Harold sat there at the feast, in the midst of all his company, a stir
was heard at the doors ; and messengers all covered with mire from
riding far and fast through broken ground came hurrying in, to
report that the Normans had landed in England.
The intelligence was true. They had been tossed about by
contrary winds, and some of their ships had been wrecked. A part
of their own shore, to which they had been driven back, was strewn
with Norman bodies. But they had once more made sail, led by
the Duke's own galley, a present from his wife, upon the prow
whereof the figure of a golden boy stood pointing towards England.
By day, the banner of the three Lions of Normandy, the diverse
coloured sails, the gilded vans, the many decorations of this
gorgeous ship, had ghttered in the sun and sunny water ; by night,
a light had sparkled like a star at her mast-head. And now,
encamped near Hastings, with their leader lying in the old Roman
castle of Pevensey, the English retiring in all directions, the land
for miles around scorched and smoking, fired and pillaged, was the
whole Norman power, hopeful and strong on English ground.
Harold broke up the feast and hurried to London. Within a
week, his army was ready. He sent out spies to ascertain the
Norman strength. William took them, caused them to be led
through his whole camp, and then dismissed. ' The Normans,'
said these spies to Harold, ' are not bearded on the upper lip as we
English are, but are shorn. They are priests.' ' My men,' replied
Harold, with a laugh, ' will find those priests good soldiers !'
' The Saxons,' reported Duke William's outposts of Norman
soldiers, who were instructed to retire as King Harold's army
advanced, ' rush on us through their pillaged country with the fury
of madmen.'
' Let them come, and come soon ! ' said Duke William.
Some proposals for a reconciliation were made, but were soon
abandoned. In the middle of the month of October, in the year
one thousand and sixty-six, the Normans and the English came
front to front. All night the armies lay encamped before each
other, in a part of tlie country then called Senlac, now called (in
remembrance of them) Battle. With the fust dawn of day, they
36 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
arose. There, in the faint light, were the EngUsh on a hill ; a wood
behind them ; in their midst, the Royal banner, representing a
fighting warrior, woven in gold thread, adorned with precious stones ;
beneath the banner, as it rustled in the wind, stood King Harold on
foot, with two of his remaining brothers by his side ; around them,
still and silent as the dead, clustered the whole English army — ■
every soldier covered by his shield, and bearing in his hand his
dreaded English battle-axe.
On an opposite hill, in three lines, archers, foot-soldiers, horse-
men, was the Norman force. Of a sudden, a great battle-cry,
' God help us ! ' burst from the Norman lines. The English
answered with their own battle-cry, ' God's Rood ! Holy Rood ! '
The Normans then came sweeping down the hill to attack the
English.
There was one tall Norman Knight who rode before the
Norman army on a prancing horse, throwing up his heavy sword
and catching it, and singing of the bravery of his countrymen.
An English Knight, who rode out from the English force to meet
him, fell by this Knight's hand. Another English Knight rode
out, and he fell too. But then a third rode out, and killed the
Norman. This was in the first beginning of the fight. It soon
raged everywhere.
The English, keeping side by side in a great mass, cared no
more for the showers of Norman arrows than if they had been
showers of Norman rain. When the Norman horsemen rode
against them, with their battle-axes they cut men and horses down.
The Normans gave way. The English pressed forward. A cry
went forth among the Norman troops that Duke William was killed.
Duke William took off his helmet, in order that his face might be
distinctly seen, and rode along the line before his men. This gave
them courage. As they turned again to face the English, some of
their Norman horse divided the pursuing body of the English from
the rest, and thus all that foremost portion of the English army fell,
fighting bravely. The main body still remaining firm, heedless of
the Norman arrows, and with their battle-axes cutting down the
crowds of horsemen when they rode up, like forests of young trees,
Duke William pretended to retreat. The eager English followed.
The Norman army closed again, and fell upon them with great
slaughter.
' Still,' said Duke William, ' there are thousands of the English,
firms as rocks around their King. Shoot upward, Norman archers,
that your arrows may fall down upon their faces ! '
The sun rose high, and sank, and the battle still raged. Through
all the wild October day, the clash and din resounded in the air.
In the red sunset, and in the white moonlight, heaps upon heaps
of dead men lay strewn, a dreadful spectacle, all over the ground.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 37
King Harold, wounded with an arrow in the eye, was nearly bhnd.
His brothers were already killed. Twenty Norman Knights, whose
battered armour had flashed fiery and golden in the sunshine all
day long, and now looked silvery in the moonlight, dashed forward
to seize the Royal banner from the English Knights and soldiers,
still faithfully collected round their blinded King. The King
received a mortal wound, and dropped. The English broke and
fled. The Normans rallied, and the day was lost.
O what a sight beneath the moon and stars, when lights were
shining in the tent of the victorious Duke William, which was
pitched near the spot where Harold fell — and he and his knights
were carousing, within — and soldiers with torches, going slowly to
and fro, without, sought for the corpse of Harold among piles of
dead — and the Warrior, w^orked in golden thread and precious
stones, lay low, all torn and soiled with blood — and the three
Norman Lions kept watch over the field I
CHAPTER VIII
ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE FIRST, THE NORMAN CONQUEROR
Upon the ground where the brave Harold fell, William the Norman
afterwards founded an abbey, which, under the name of Battle
Abbey, was a rich and splendid place through many a troubled
year, though now it is a grey ruin overgrown with ivy. But the
first work he had to do, was to conquer the English thoroughly ;
and that, as you know by this time, was hard work for any man.
He ravaged several counties ; he burned and plundered many
towns ; he laid waste scores upon scores of miles of pleasant
country ; he destroyed innumerable lives. At length Stigand,
Archbishop of Canterbury, with other representatives of the clergy
and the people, went to his camp, and submitted to him. Edgar,
the insignificant son of Edmund Ironside, was proclaimed King by
others, but nothing came of it. He fled to Scotland afterwards,
where his sister, who was young and beautiful, married the Scottish
King. Edgar himself was not important enough for anybody to
care much about him.
On Christmas Day, William was crowned in Westminster Abbey,
under the title of William the First; but he is best known as
William the Conqueror. It was a strange coronation. One
of the bishops who performed the ceremony asked the Normans,
in French, if they would have Duke William for their king ? They
answered Yes. Another of the bishops put the same question to
38 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
the Saxons, in English. They too answered Yes, with a loud shout.
The noise being heard by a guard of Norman horse-soldiers outside,
was mistaken for resistance on the part of the English. The guard
instantly set fire to the neighbouring houses, and a tumult ensued ;
in the midst of which the King, being left alone in the Abbey, with
a few priests (and they all being in a terrible fright together), was
hurriedly crowned. When the crown was placed upon his head,
he swore to govern the English as well as the best of their own
monarchs. I dare say you think, as I do, that if we except the
Great Alfred, he might pretty easily have done that.
Numbers of the English nobles had been killed in the last
disastrous battle. Their estates, and the estates of all the nobles
who had fought against him there, King William seized upon, and
gave to his own Norman knights and nobles. Many great English
families of the present time acquired their English lands in this way,
and are very proud of it.
But what is got by force must be maintained by force. These
nobles were obliged to build castles all over England, to defend
their new property ; and, do what he would, the King could neither
soothe nor quell the nation as he wished. He gradually introduced
the Norman language and the Norman customs ; yet, for a long
time the great body of the English remained sullen and revengeful.
On his going over to Normandy, to visit his subjects there, the
oppressions of his half-brother Odd, whom he left in charge of his
English kingdom, drove the people mad. The men of Kent even
invited over, to take possession of Dover, their old enemy Count
Eustace of Boulogne, who had led the fray when the Dover man
was slain at his own fireside. The men of Hereford, aided by the
Welsh, and commanded by a chief named Edric the Wild, drove
the Normans out of their country. Some of those who had been
dispossessed of their lands, banded together in the North of
England; some, in Scotland; some, in the thick woods and marshes;
and whensoever they could fall upon the Normans, or upon the
English who had submitted to the Normans, they fought, despoiled,
and murdered, like the desperate outlaws that they were. Con-
spiracies were set on foot for a general massacre of the Normans,
like the old massacre of the Danes. In short, the English were in
a murderous mood all through the kingdom.
King William, fearing he might lose his conquest, came back,
and tried to pacify the London people by soft words. He then set
forth to repress the country people by stern deeds. Among the
towns which he besieged, and where he killed and maimed the
inhabitants without any distinction, sparing none, young or old,
armed or unarmed, were Oxford, ^^'arwick, Leicester, Nottingham,
Derby, Lincoln, York. In all these places, and in many others,
fire and sword worked their utmost horrors, and made the land
WILLIA^r THE CONQUEROR 39
dreadful to behold. The streams and rivers were discoloured
Avith blood; the sky was blackened with smoke; the fields
were wastes of ashes ; the waysides were heaped up with dead.
Such are the fatal results of conquest and ambition ! Although
William was a harsh and angry man, I do not suppose that he
deliberately meant to work this shocking ruin, when he invaded
England. But what he had got by the strong hand, he could
only keep by the strong hand, and in so doing he made England
a great grave.
Two sons of Harold, by name Edmund and Godwin, came
over from Ireland, with some ships, against the Normans, but were
defeated. This was scarcely done, when the outlaws in the woods
so harassed York, that the Governor sent to the King for help.
The King despatched a general and a large force to occupy the
town of Durham. The Bishop of that place met the general
outside the town, and warned him not to enter, as he would be in
danger there. The general cared nothing for the warning, and
went in with all his men. That night, on every hill within sight of
Durham, signal fires were seen to blaze. When the morning
dawned, the English, who had assembled in great strength, forced
the gates, rushed into the town, and slew the Normans every one.
The English afterwards besought the Danes to come and help
them. I'he Danes came, with two hundred and forty ships. The
outlawed nobles joined them ; they captured York, and drove the
Normans out of that city. Then, ^^'illiam bribed the Danes to go
away ; and took such vengeance on the English, that all the former
fire and sword, smoke and ashes, death and ruin, were nothing
compared with it. In melancholy songs, and doleful stories, it was
still sung and told by cottage fires on winter evenings, a hundred
years afterwards, how, in those dreadful days of the Normans, there
was not, from the River Humbcr to the River Tyne, one inhabited
village left, nor one cultivated field— how there was nothing but a
dismal ruin, where the human creatures and the beasts lay dead
together.
The outlaws had, at this time, what they called a Camp of
Refuge, in the midst of the fens of Cambridgeshire. Protected by
those marshy grounds which were dilBcult of approach, they lay
among the reeds and rushes, and were hidden by the mists that
rose up from the watery earth. Now, there also was, at that time,
over the sea in Flanders, an Englishman named Hereward, whose
father had died in his absence, and whose property had been given
to a Norman. When he heard of this wrong that had been done
him (from such of the exiled English as chanced to wander into
that country), he longed for revenge ; and joining the outlaws
in their camp of refuge, became their commander. He was so
good a soldier, that the Normans supposed him to be aided by
40 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
enchantment. William, even after he had made a road three miles
in length across the Cambridgeshire marshes, on purpose to attack
this supposed enchanter, thought it necessary to engage an old
lady, who pretended to be a sorceress, to come and do a little
enchantment in the royal cause. For this purpose she was pushed
on before the troops in a wooden tower ; but Hereward very soon
disposed of this unfortunate sorceress, by burning her, tower and
all. The monks of the convent of Ely near at hand, however,
who were fond of good living, and who found it very uncomfortable
to have the country blackaded and their supplies of meat and drink
cut off, showed the King a secret way of surprising the camp. So
Hereward was soon defeated, ^^'hether he afterwards died quietly,
or whether he was killed after killing sixteen of the men who
attacked him (as some old rhymes relate that he did), I cannot say.
His defeat put an end to the Camp of Refuge ; and, very soon
afterwards, the King, victorious both in Scotland and in England,
quelled the last rebellious English noble. He then surrounded
himself with Norman lords, enriched by the property of English
nobles ; had a great survey made of all the land in England, which
was entered as the property of its new owners, on a roll called
Doomsday Book ; obliged the people to put out their fires and
candles at a certain hour every night, on the ringing of a bell which
was called The Curfew ; introduced the Norman dresses and
manners ; made the Normans masters everywhere, and the English,
servants ; turned out the English bishops, and put Normans in their
places ; and showed himself to be the Conqueror indeed.
But, even with his own Normans, he had a restless life. They
were always hungering and thirsting for the riches of the English ;
and the more he gave, the more they wanted. His priests were as
greedy as his soldiers. We know of only one Norman who plainly
told his master, the King, that he had come with him to England
to do his duty as a faithful servant, and that property taken by
force from other men had no charms for him. His name was
GuiLBERT. We should not forget his name, for it is good to
remember and to honour honest men.
Besides all these troubles, William the Conqueror was troubled
by quarrels among his sons. He had three living. Robert,
called CuRTHOsE, because of his short legs; William, called Rufus
or the Red, from the colour of his hair ; and Henry, fond of
learning, and called, in the Norman language, Beauclerc, or Fine-
Scholar. When Robert grew up, he asked of his father the govern-
ment of Normandy, which he had nominally possessed, as a child,
under his mother, Matilda. The King refusing to grant it,
Robert became jealous and discontented ; and happening one day,
while in this temper, to be ridiculed by his brothers, who threw
water on him from a balcony as he was walking before the door,
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 41
he drew his sword, rushed up-stairs, and was only prevented by the
King himself from putting them to death. That same night, he
hotly departed with some followers from his father's court, and
endeavoured to take the Castle of Rouen by surprise. Failing in
this, he shut himself up in another Castle in Normandy, which the
King besieged, and where Robert one day unhorsed and nearly
killed him without knowing who he was. His submission when he
discovered his father, and the intercession of the queen and others,
reconciled them ; but not soundly ; for Robert soon strayed abroad,
and went from court to court with his complaints. He was a gay,
careless, thoughtless fellow, spending all he got on musicians and
dancers ; but his mother loved him, and often, against the King's
command, supplied him with money through a messenger named
Samson. At length the incensed King swore he would tear out
Samson's eyes ; and Samson, thinking that his only hope of safety
was in becoming a monk, became one, went on such errands no
more, and kept his eyes in his head.
All this time, from the turbulent day of his strange coronation,
the Conqueror had been struggling, you see, at any cost of cruelty
and bloodshed, to maintain what he had seized. All his reign, he
struggled still, with the same object ever before him. He was a
stern, bold man, and he succeeded in it.
He loved money, and was particular in his eating, but he had
only leisure to indulge one other passion, and that was his love of
hunting. He carried it to such a height that he ordered whole
villages and towns to be swept away to make forests for the deer.
Not satisfied with sixty-eight Royal Forests, he laid waste an
immense district, to form another in Hampshire, called the New
Forest. The many thousands of miserable peasants who saw their
little houses pulled down, and themselves and children turned into
the open country without a shelter, detested him for his merciless
addition to their many sufferings ; and when, in the twenty-first
year of his reign (which proved to be the last), he went over to
Rouen, England was as full of hatred against him, as if every leaf
on every tree in all his Royal Forests had been a curse upon his
head. In the New Forest, his son Richard (for he had four sons)
had been gored to death by a Stag ; and the people said that this
so cruelly-made Forest would yet be fatal to others of the Con-
queror's race.
He was engaged in a dispute with the King of France about
some territory, ^^1^ile he stayed at Rouen, negotiating with that
King, he kept his bed and took medicines : being advised by his
physicians to do so, on account of having grown to an unwieldy
size. Word being brought to him that the King of France made
light of this, and joked about it, he swore in a great rage that he
sliould rue his jests. He assembled his army, marched into the
42 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
disputed territory, burnt — his old way ! — the vines, the crops, and
fruit, and set the town of Mantes on fire. But, in an evil hour ;
for, as he rode over the hot ruins, his horse, setting his hoofs upon
some burning embers, started, threw him forward against the
pommel of the saddle, and gave him a mortal hurt. For six weeks
he lay dying in a monastery near Rouen, and then made his will,
giving England to William, Normandy to Robert, and five thousand
poimds to Henry. And now, his violent deeds lay heavy on his
mind. He ordered money to be given to many English churches
and monasteries, and— which was much better repentance — released
his prisoners of state, some of whom had been confined in his
dungeons twenty years.
It was a September morning, and the sun was rising, when the
King was awakened from slumber by the sound of a church bell.
'What bell is that?' he faintly asked. They told him it was the
bell of the chapel of Saint Mary. ' I commend my soul,' said he,
' to Mary ! ' and died.
Think of his name, The Conqueror, and then consider how he
lay in death ! The moment he was dead, his physicians, priests,
and nobles, not knowing what contest for the throne might now
take place, or what might happen in it, hastened away, each man
for himself and his own property ; the mercenary servants of the
court began to rob and plunder ; the body of the King, in the in-
decent strife, was rolled from the bed, and lay alone, for hours, upon
the ground. O Conqueror, of whom so many great names are
proud now, of whom so many great names thought nothing then,
it were better to have conquered one true heart, than England !
By-and-by, the priests came creeping in with prayers and candles ;
and a good knight, named Herluin, undertook (which no one else
would do) to convey the body to Caen, in Normandy, in order that
it might be buried in St. Stephen's church there, which the Con-
queror had founded. But fire, of which he had made such bad use
in his life, seemed to follow him of itself in death. A great con-
flagration broke out in the town when the body was placed in the
church ; and those present running out to extinguish the flames, it
was once again left alone.
It was not even buried in peace. It was about to be let down,
in its Royal robes, into a tomb near the high altar, in presence of a
great concourse of people, when a loud voice in the crowd cried
out, ' This ground is mine ! Upon it, stood my father's house.
This King despoiled me of both ground and house to build this
church. In the great name of God, I here forbid his body to be
covered with the earth that is my right ! ' The priests and bishops
present, knowing the speaker's right, and knowing that the King
had often denied him justice, paid him down sixty shillings for the
grave. Even then, the corpse was not at rest. The tomb was too
WILLIAM THE SECOND 43
small, and they tried to force it in. It broke, a dreadful smell
arose, the people hurried out into the air, and, for the third time, it
was left alone.
^\'here were the Conqueror's three sons, that they were not at
their father's burial? Robert was lounging among minstrels,
dancers, and gamesters, in France or Germany. Henry was
carrying his five thousand pounds safely away in a convenient chest
he had got made, ^^'illiam the Red was hurrying to England, to
lay hands upon the Royal treasure and the crown.
CHAPTER IX
ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE SECOND, CALLED RUFUS
William the Red, in breathless haste, secured the three great
forts of Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings, and made with hot speed
for Winchester, where the Royal treasure was kept. The treasurer
delivering him the keys, he found that it amounted to sixty thousand
pounds in silver, besides gold and jewels. Possessed of this wealth,
he soon persuaded the Archbishop of Canterbury to crown him,
and became William the Second, King of England.
Rufus was no sooner on the throne, than he ordered into prison
again the unhappy state captives whom his father had set free, and
directed a goldsmith to ornament his father's tomb profusely with
gold and silver. It would have been more dutiful in him to have
attended the sick Conqueror when he was dying ; but England
itself, like this Red King, who once governed it, has sometimes
made expensive tombs for dead men whom it treated shabbily
when they were alive.
The King's brother, Robert of Normandy, seeming quite con-
tent to be only Duke of that country ; and the King's other brother,
Fine-Scholar, being quiet enough with his five thousand pounds in
a chest ; the King flattered himself, we may suppose, with the hope
of an easy reign. But easy reigns were difficult to have in those
days. The turbulent Bishop Odd (who had blessed the Norman
army at the Battle of Hastings, and who, I dare say, took all the
credit of the victory to himself) soon began, in concert with some
powerful Norman nobles, to trouble the Red King,
The truth seems to be that this bishop and his friends, who had
lands in England and lands in Normandy, wished to hold both
under one Sovereign ; and greatly preferred a thoughtless good-
natured person, such as Robert was, to Rufus ; who, though far
from being an amiable man in any respect, was keen, and not to be
44 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
imposed upon. They declared in Robert's favour, and retired to
their castles (those castles were very troublesome to kings) in a
sullen humour. The Red King, seeing the Normans thus falling
from him, revenged himself upon them by appealing to the English ;
to whom he made a variety of promises, which he never meant to
perform — in particular, promises to soften the cruelty of the Forest
Laws ; and who, in return, so aided him with their valour, that Odo
was besieged in the Castle of Rochester, and forced to abandon it,
and to depart from England for ever : whereupon the other rebellious
Norman nobles were soon reduced and scattered.
Then, the Red King went over to Normandy, where the people
suffered greatly under the loose rule of Duke Robert. The King's
object was to seize upon the Duke's dominions. This, the Duke,
of course, prepared to resist ; and miserable war between the two
brothers seemed inevitable, when the powerful nobles on both sides,
who had seen so much of war, interfered to prevent it. A treaty
was made. Each of the two brothers agreed to give up something
of his claims, and that the longer-liver of the two should inherit all
the dominions of the other. When they had come to this loving
understanding, they embraced and joined their forces against Fine-
Scholar ; who had bought some territory of Robert with a part of
his five thousand pounds, and was considered a dangerous indi-
vidual in consequence.
St. Michael's Mount, in Normandy (there is another St. Michael's
Mount, in Cornwall, wonderfully like it), was then, as it is now, a
strong place perched upon the top of a high rock, around which,
when the tide is in, the sea flows, leaving no road to the mainland.
In' this place, Fine-Scholar shut himself up with his soldiers, and
here he was closely besieged by his two brothers. At one time,
when he was reduced to great distress for want of water, the
generous Robert not only permitted his men to get water, but sent
Fine-Scholar wine from his own table ; and, on being remonstrated
with by the Red King, said ' What ! shall we let our own brother
die of thirst ? Where shall we get another, when he is gone ? ' At
another time, the Red King riding alone on the shore of the bay,
looking up at the Castle, was taken by two of Fine-Scholar's men,
one of whom was about to kill him, when he cried out, ' Hold,
knave ! I am the King of England ! ' The story says that the
soldier raised him from the ground respectfully and humbly, and
that the King took him into his service. The story may or may
not be true ; but at any rate it is true that Fine-Scholar could not
hold out against his united brothers, and that he abandoned Mount
St. Michael, and wandered about — as poor and forlorn as other
scholars have been sometimes known to be.
The Scotch became unquiet in the Red King's time, and were
twice defeated — the second time, with the loss of their King,
WILLIAM THE SECOND 45
INIalcolm, and his son. The Welsh became unquiet too. Against
them, Rufus was less successful ; for they fought among their native
mountains, and did great execution on the King's troops. Robert
of Normandy became unquiet too ; and, complaining that his
brother the King did not faithfully perform his part of their agree-
ment, took up arms, and obtained assistance from the King of
France, whom Rufus, in the end, bought off with vast sums of
money. England became unquiet too. Lord INIowbray, the
powerful Earl of Northumberland, headed a great conspiracy to
depose the King, and to place upon the throne, Stephen, the
Conqueror's near relative. The plot was discovered ; all the chief
conspirators were seized ; some were fined, some were put in
prison, some were put to death. The Earl of Northumberland
himself was shut up in a dungeon beneath Windsor Castle, where
he died, an old man, thirty long years afterwards. The Priests in
England were more unquiet than any other class or power ; for the
Red King treated them Avith such small ceremony that he refused
to appoint new bishops or archbishops when the old ones died,
but kept all the wealth belonging to those offices in his own
hands. In return for this, the Priests wrote his life when he was
dead, and abused him well. I am inclined to think, myself, that
there was little to choose between the Priests and the Red King ;
that both sides were greedy and designing ; and that they were
fairly matched.
The Red King was false of heart, selfish, covetous, and mean.
He had a worthy minister in his favourite, Ralph, nicknamed — for
almost every famous person had a nickname in those rough days —
Flambard, or the Firebrand. Once, the King being ill, became
penitent, and made Anselm, a foreign priest and a good man,
Archbishop of Canterbury. But he no sooner got well again than
he repented of his repentance, and persisted in wrongfully keeping
to himself some of the wealth belonging to the archbishopric.
This led to violent disputes, which were aggravated by there being
in Rome at that time two rival Popes ; each of whom declared he
was the only real original infallible Pope, who couldn't make a
mistake. At last, Anselm, knowing the Red King's character, and
not feeling himself safe in England, asked leave to return abroad.
The Red King gladly gave it ; for he knew that as soon as Anselm
was gone, he could begin to store up all the Canterbury money
again, for his own use.
By such means, and by taxing and oppressing the English people
in every possible way, the Red King became very rich, ^^'hen he
wanted money for any purpose, he raised it by some means or
other, and cared nothing for the injustice he did, or the misery he
caused. Having the opportunity of buying from Robert the whole
duchy of Normandy for five years, he taxed the English people
46 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
more than ever, and made the very convents sell their plate and
valuables to supply him with the means to make the purchase.
But he was as quick and eager in putting down revolt as he was in
raising money ; for, a part of the Norman people objecting — very
naturally, I think — to being sold in this way, he headed an army
against them with all the speed and energy of his father. He was
so impatient, that he embarked for Normandy in a great gale of
wind. And when the sailors told him it was dangerous to go to
sea in such angry weather, he replied, ' Hoist sail and away ! Did
you ever hear of a king who was drowned ? '
You will wonder how it was that even the careless Robert came
to sell his dominions. It happened thus. It had long been the
custom for many English people to make journeys to Jerusalem,
which were called pilgrimages, in order that they might pray beside
the tomb of Our Saviour there. Jerusalem belonging to the Turks,
and the Turks hating Christianity, these Christian travellers were
often insulted and ill used. The Pilgrims bore it patiently for some
time, but at length a remarkable man, of great earnestness and
eloquence, called Peter the Hermit, began to preach in various
places against the Turks, and to declare that it was the duty of
good Christians to drive away those unbelievers from the tomb of
Our Saviour, and to take possession of it, and protect it. An
excitement such as the world had never known before was created.
Thousands and thousands of men of all ranks and conditions de-
parted for Jerusalem to make war against the Turks. The war is
called in history the first Crusade ; and every Crusader wore a cross
marked on his right shoulder.
All the Crusaders were not zealous Christians. Among them
were vast numbers of the restless, idle, profligate, and adventurous
spirit of the time. Some became Crusaders for the love of change ;
some, in the hope of plunder ; some, because they had nothing to
do at home ; some, because they did what the priests told them ;
some, because they liked to see foreign countries ; some, because
they were fond of knocking men about, and would as soon knock
a Turk about as a Christian. Robert of Normandy may have been
influenced by all these motives ; and by a kind desire, besides, to
save the Christian Pilgrims from bad treatment in future. He
wanted to raise a number of armed men, and to go to the Crusade.
He could not do so without money. He had no money ; and he
sold his dominions to his brother, the Red King, for five years.
With the large sum he thus obtained, he fitted out his Crusaders
gallantly, and went away to Jerusalem in martial state. The Red
King, who made money out of everything, stayed at home, busily
squeezing more money out of Normans and English.
After three years of great hardship and suffering — from shipwreck
at sea ; from travel in strange lands ; from hunger, thirst, and fever,
WILLIAM THE SECOND 47
upon the burning sands of the desert; and from the fury of the
Turks — the vaUant Crusaders got possession of Our Saviour's tomb.
The Turks were still resisting and fighting bravely, but this success
increased the general desire in Europe to join the Crusade. Another
great French Duke was proposing to sell his dominions for a term
to the rich Red King, when the Red King's reign came to a sudden
and violent end.
You have not forgotten the New Forest which the Conqueror
made, and which the miserable people whose homes he had laid
waste, so hated. The cruelty of the Forest Laws, and the torture
and death they brought upon the peasantry, increased this hatred.
The poor persecuted country people believed that the New Forest
was enchanted. They said that in thunder-storms, and on dark
nights, demons appeared, moving beneath the branches of the
gloomy trees. They said that a terrible spectre had foretold to
Norman hunters that the Red King should be punished there.
And now, in the pleasant season of May, when the Red King had
reigned almost thirteen years ; and a second Prince of the Con-
queror's blood — another Richard, the son of Duke Robert — was
killed by an arrow in this dreaded Forest; the people said that
the second time was not the last, and that there was another death
to come.
It was a lonely forest, accursed in the people's hearts for the
wicked deeds that had been done to make it; and no man save
the King and his Courtiers and Huntsmen, liked to stray there.
But, in reality, it was like any other forest. In the spring, the
green leaves broke out of the buds ; in the summer, flourished
heartily, and made deep shades ; in the winter, shrivelled and blew
down, and lay in brown heaps on the moss. Some trees were
stately, and grew high and strong ; some had fallen of themselves ;
some were felled by the forester's axe ; some were hollow, and the
rabbits burrowed at their roots ; some few were struck by hghtning,
and stood white and bare. There were hill-sides covered with rich
fern, on which the morning dew so beautifully sparkled ; there were
brooks, where the deer went down to drink, or over which the
whole herd bounded, flying from the arrows of the huntsmen ; there
were sunny glades, and solemn places where but little light came
through the rustling leaves. The songs of the birds in the New
Forest were pleasanter to hear than the shouts of fighting men
outside ; and even when the Red King and his Court came hunting
through its sohtudcs, cursing loud and riding hard, with a jingling
of stirrups and bridles and knives and daggers, they did much less
harm there than among the English or Normans, and the stags died
(as they lived) far easier than the people.
Upon a day in August, the Red King, now reconciled to his
brother, Fine-Scholar, came with a great train to hunt in the New
4S A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Forest. Fine-Scholar was of the party. They were a merry party,
and had lain all night at Malwood-Keep, a hunting-lodge in the
forest, where they had made good cheer, both at supper and break-
fast, and had drunk a deal of wine. The party dispersed in various
directions, as the custom of hunters then was. The King took
with him only Sir Walter Tyrrel, who was a famous sportsman,
and to whom he had given, before they mounted horse that morning,
two fine arrows.
The last time the King was ever seen alive, he w^as riding with
Sir Walter Tyrrel, and their dogs were hunting together.
It was almost night, when a poor charcoal-burner, passing through
the forest with his cart, came upon the solitary body of a dead man,
shot with an arrow in the breast, and still bleeding. He got it into
his cart. It was the body of the King. Shaken and tumbled, wath
its red beard all whitened with lime and clotted with blood, it was
driven in the cart by the charcoal-burner next day to Winchester
Cathedral, where it was received and buried.
Sir ^\^alter Tyrrel, who escaped to Normandy, and claimed the
protection of the King of France, swore in France that the Red
King was suddenly shot dead by an arrow from an unseen hand,
while they were hunting together ; that he was fearful of being
suspected as the King's murderer ; and that he instantly set spurs
to his horse, and fled to the sea-shore. Others declared that the
King and Sir Walter Tyrrel were hunting in company, a little before
sunset, standing in bushes opposite one another, when a stag came
between them. That the King drew his bow and took aim, but the
string broke. That the King then cried, ' Shoot, Walter, in the
Devil's name ! ' That Sir Walter shot. That the arrow glanced
against a tree, was turned aside from the stag, and struck the King
from his horse, dead.
By whose hand the Red King really fell, and whether that hand
despatched the arrow to his breast by accident or by design, is only
known to God. Some think his brother may have caused him to
be killed ; but the Red King had made so many enemies, both
among priests and people, that suspicion may reasonably rest upon
a less unnatural murderer. Men know no more than that he was
found dead in the New Forest, which the suffering people had
regarded as a doomed ground for his race.
<L.//ie ^^ncU'n.fj^ o/ ^Ae o^cJiPa//
HENRY THE FIRST 49
CHAPTER X
ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIRST, CALLED FINE-SCHOLAR
Fine-Scholar, on hearing of the Red Kmg's death, hurried to
Winchester with as much speed as Rufus himself had made, to
seize the Royal treasure. But the keeper of the treasure, who had
been one of the hunting-party in the Forest, made haste to
Winchester too, and, arriving there at about the same time, refused
to yield it up. Upon this, Fine-Scholar drew his sword, and
threatened to kill the treasurer ; who might have paid for his
fidelity with his life, but that he knew longer resistance to be
useless when he found the Prince supported by a company of
powerful barons, who declared they were determined to make him
King. The treasurer, therefore, gave up the money and jewels of
the Crown : and on the third day after the death of the Red King,
being a Sunday, Fine-Scholar stood before the high altar in West-
minster Abbey, and made a solemn declaration that he would
resign the Church property which his brother had seized ; that he
would do no wrong to the nobles ; and that he would restore to the
people the laws of Edward the Confessor, with all the improvements
of William the Conqueror. So began the reign of King Henry
THE First.
The people were attached to their new King, both because he
had known distresses, and because he was an J^nglishman by birth
and not a Norman. To strengthen this last hold upon them, the
King wished to marry an English lady ; and could think of no
other wife than Maud the Good, the daughter of the King of
Scotland. Although this good Princess did not love the King, she
was so affected by the representations the nobles made to her of
the great charity it would be in her to unite the Norman and Saxon
races, and prevent hatred and bloodshed between them for the
future, that she consented to become his wife. After some disputing
among the priests, who said that as she had been in a convent in
her youth, and had worn the veil of a nun, she could not lawfully
be married — against which the Princess stated that her aunt, with
whom she had lived in her youth, had indeed sometimes thrown a
piece of black stuff over her, but for no other reason than because
the nun's veil was the only dress the conquering Normans respected
in girl or woman, and not because she had taken the vows of a nun,
which she never had — she was declared free to marry, and was
made King Henry's Queen. A good Queen she was ; beautiful,
kind hearted, and worthy of a better husband than the King.
E
50 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
For he was a cunning and unscrupulous man, though firm and
clever. He cared very little for his word, and took any means to
gain his ends. All this is shown in his treatment of his brother
Robert — Robert, who had suffered him to be refreshed with water,
and who had sent him the wine from his own table, when he was
shut up, with the crows flying below him, parched with thirst, in the
castle on the top of St. Michael's Mount, where his Red brother
would have let him die.
Before the King began to deal with Robert, he removed and
disgraced all the favourites of the late King ; who were for the
most part base characters, much detested by the people. Flambard,
or Firebrand, whom the late King had made Bishop of Durham, of
all things in the world, Henry imprisoned in the Tower ; but
Firebrand was a great joker and a jolly companion, and made
himself so popular with his guards that they pretended to know
nothing about a long rope that was sent into his prison at the
bottom of a deep flagon of wine. The guards took the wine, and
Firebrand took the rope ; with which, when they were fast asleep,
he let himself down from a window in the night, and so got cleverly
aboard ship and away to Normandy.
Now Robert, when his brother Fine-Scholar came to the throne,
was still absent in the Holy Land. Henry pretended that Robert
had been made Sovereign of that country ; and he had been away
so long, that the ignorant people believed it. But, behold, when
Henry had been some time King of England, Robert came home to
Normandy ; having leisurely returned from Jerusalem through Italy,
in which beautiful country he had enjoyed himself very much, and
had married a lady as beautiful as itself ! In Normandy, he found
Firebrand waiting to urge him to assert his claim to the English
crown, and declare war against King Henry. This, after great loss
of time in feasting and dancing with his beautiful Italian wife among
his Norman friends, he at last did.
The English in general were on King' Henry's side, though many
of the Normans were on Robert's. But the English sailors deserted
the King, and took a great part of the English fleet over to
Normandy ; so that Robert came to invade this country in no
foreign vessels, but in English ships. The virtuous Anselm, how-
ever, whom Henry had invited back from abroad, and made
Archbishop of Canterbury, was steadfast in the King's cause ; and
it was so well supported that the two armies, instead of fighting,
made a peace. Poor Robert, who trusted anybody and everybody,
readily trusted his brother, the King ; and agreed to go home and
receive a pension from England, on condition that all his followers
were fully pardoned. This the King very faithfully promised, but
Robert was no sooner gone than he began to punish them.
Among them was the Earl of Shrewsbury, who, on being
HENRY THE FIRST 51
summoned by the King to answer to five-andforty accusations,
rode away to one of his strong castles, shut himself up therein,
called around him his tenants and vassals, and fought for his
liberty, but was defeated and banished. Robert, with all his faults,
was so tme to his word, that when he first heard of this nobleman
having risen against his brother, he laid waste the Earl of Shrewsbury's
estates in Normandy, to show the King that he would favour no
breach of their treaty. Finding, on better information, afterwards,
that the Earl's only crime was having been his friend, he came over
to England, in his old thoughtless, warm-hearted way, to intercede
with the King, and remind him of the solemn promise to pardon
all his followers.
This confidence might have put the false King to the blush, but
it did not. Pretending to be very friendly, he so surrounded his
brother with spies and traps, that Robert, who was quite in his
power, had nothing for it but to renounce his pension and escape
while he could. Getting home to Normandy, and understanding
the King better now, he naturally allied himself with his old friend
the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had still thirty castles in that country.
This was exactly what Henry wanted. He immediately declared
that Robert had broken the treaty, and next year invaded
Normandy.
He pretended that he came to deliver the Normans, at their own
request, from his brother's misrule. There is reason to fear that
his misrule was bad enough ; for his beautiful wife had died, leaving
him with an infant son, and his court was again so careless, dis-
sipated, and ill- regulated, that it was said he sometimes lay in bed
of a day for want of clothes to put on — his attendants having stolen
all his dresses. But he headed his army like a brave prince and a
gallant soldier, though he had the misfortune to be taken prisoner
by King Henry, with four hundred of his Knights. Among them
was poor harmless Edgar Atheling, who loved Robert well. Edgar
was not important enough to be severe with. The King afterwards
gave him a small pension, which he lived upon and died upon, in
peace, among the quiet woods and fields of England.
And Robert — poor, kind, generous, wasteful, heedless Robert,
with so many faults, and yet with virtues that might have made a
better and a happier man — what was the end of him ? If the King
had had the magnanimity to say with a kind air, ' Brother, tell mc,
Ijeforc these noblemen, that from this time you will be my faithful
follower and friend, and never raise your hand against me or my
forces more ! ' he might have trusted Robert to the death. But the
King was not a magnanimous man. He sentenced his brother to
be confined for life in one of the Royal Castles. In the beginning
of his imprisonment, he was allowed to ride out, guarded ; but he
one day broke away from his guard and galloped off. He had the
52 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
evil fortune to ride into a swamp, where his horse stuck fast and he
was taken. When the King heard of it he ordered him to be
bhnded, which was done by putting a red-hot metal basin on his
eyes.
And so, in darkness and in prison, many years, he thought of all
his past life, of the time he had wasted, of the treasure he had
squandered, of the opportunities he had lost, of the youth he had
thrown away, of the talents he had neglected. Sometimes, on fine
autumn mornings, he would sit and think of the old hunting parties
in the free Forest, where he had been the foremost and the gayest.
Sometimes, in the still nights, he would wake, and mourn for the
many nights that had stolen past him at the gaming-table ; some-
times, would seem to hear, upon the melancholy wind, the old
songs of the minstrels ; sometimes, would dream, in his blindness,
of the light and glitter of the Norman Court. Many and many a
time, he groped back, in his fancy, to Jerusalem, where he had
fought so well; or, at the head of his brave companions, bowed his
feathered helmet to the shouts of welcome greeting him in Italy,
and seemed again to walk among the sunny vineyards, or on the
shore of the blue sea, with his lovely wife. And then, thinking of
her grave, and of his fatherless boy, he would stretch out his solitary
arms and weep.
At length, one day, there lay in prison, dead, with cruel and
disfiguring scars upon his eyelids, bandaged from his jailer's sight,
but on which the eternal Heavens looked down, a worn old man of
eighty. He had once been Robert of Normandy. Pity him !
At the time when Robert of Normandy was taken prisoner by his
brother, Robert's little son was only five years old. This child was
taken, too, and carried before the King, sobbing and crying ; for,
young as he was, he knew he had good reason to be afraid of his
Royal uncle. The King was not much accustomed to pity those
who were in his power, but his cold heart seemed for the moment
to soften towards the boy. He was observed to make a great eftbrt,
as if to prevent himself from being cruel, and ordered the child to
be taken away ; whereupon a certain Baron, who had married a
daughter of Duke Robert's (by name, Helie of Saint Saen), took
charge of him, tenderly. The King's gentleness did not last long.
Before two years were over, he sent messengers to this lord's Castle
to seize the child and bring him away. The Baron was not there
at the time, but his servants were faithful, and carried the boy off in
his sleep and hid him. When the Baron came home, and was told
what the King had done, he took the child abroad, and, leading
him by the hand, went from King to King and from Court to Court,
relating how the child had a claim to the throne of England, and
how his uncle the King, knowing that he had that claim, would
have murdered him, perhaps, but for his escape.
HENRY THE FIRST 5^
The youth and innocence of the pretty httle William Fitz-
RoBERT (for that was his name) made him many friends at that
time. When he hecame a young man, the King of France, uniting
with the French Counts of Anjou and Flanders, supported his cause
against the King of England, and took many of the King's towns
and castles in Normandy. But, King Henry, artful and cunning
always, hribed some of William's friends with money, some with
promises, some with power. He bought off the Count of Anjou, by
promising to marry his eldest son, also named William, to the
Count's daughter; and indeed the whole trust of this King's life
was in such bargains, and he believed (as many another King has
done since, and as one King did in France a very little time ago)
that every man's truth and honour can be bought at some price.
For all this, he was so afraid of William Fitz-Robert and his friends,
that, for a long time, he believed his life to be in danger; and never
lay down to sleep, even in his palace surrounded by his guards,
without having a sword and buckler at his bedside.
To strengthen his power, the King with great ceremony betrothed
his eldest daughter INIatilda, then a child only eight years old, to
be the wife of Henry the Fifth, the Emperor of Germany. To raise
her marriage-portion, he taxed the English people in a most oppres-
sive manner ; then treated them to a great procession, to restore
their good humour ; and sent Matilda away, in fine state, with the
German ambassadors, to be educated in the country of her future
husband.
And now his Queen, Maud the Good, unhappily died. It was a
sad thought for that gentle lady, that the only hope with which she
had married a man whom she had never loved — the hope of recon-
ciling the Norman and English races — had failed. At the very
time of her death, Normandy and all France was in arms against
England ; for, so soon as his last danger was over, King Henry had
been false to all the French powers he had promised, bribed, and
bought, and they had naturally united against him. After some
fighting, however, in which few suftcred but the unhai)]iy common
people (who always suffered, whatsoever was the matter), he began
to promise, bribe, and buy again ; and by those menus, and by the
help of the Pope, who exerted himself to save more bloodshed, and
by solemnly declaring, over and over again, that he really was in
earnest this time, and would keep his word, the King made peace.
One of the first consequences of this peace was, that the King
went over to Normandy with his son Prince William and a {.reat
retinue, to have the Prince acknowledged as his successor by the
Norman Nobles, and to contract the promised marriage (this was
one of the many promises the King had broken) between him and
the daughter of the Count of Anjou. Both these things were
triumphantly done, with great show and rejoicing; and on the
54 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
twenty-fifth of November, in the year one thousand one hundred
and twenty, the whole retinue prepared to embark at the Port of
B.irfleur, for the voyage home.
On that day, and at that place, there came to the King, Fitz-
Stephen, a sea-captain, and said :
' My liege, my father served your father all his life, upon the sea.
He steered the ship with the golden boy upon the prow, in which
your father sailed to conquer England. I beseech you to grant me
the same office. I have a fair vessel in the harbour here, called The
\\'hite Ship, manned by fifty sailors of renown. I pray you. Sire, to
let your servant have the honour of steering you in The White Ship
to England ! '
' I am sorry, friend,' replied the King, ' that my vessel is already
chosen, and that I cannot (therefore) sail with the son of the man
who served my father. But the Prince and all his company shall
go along with you, in the fair White Ship, manned by the fifty
sailors of renown.'
An hour or two afterwards, the King set sail in the vessel he had
chosen, accompanied by other vessels, and, sailing all night with a
fair and gentle wind, arrived upon the coast of England in the
morning. While it was yet night, the people in some of those ships
heard a faint wild cry come over the sea, and wondered what
it was.
Now, the Prince was a dissolute, debauched young man of
eighteen, who bore no love to the English, and had declared that
when he came to the throne he would yoke them to the plough like
oxen. He went aboard The White Ship, with one hundred and
forty youthful Nobles like himself, among whom were eighteen
noble ladies of the highest rank. All this gay company, with their
servants and the fifty sailors, made three hundred souls aboard the
fair White Ship.
' Give three casks of wine, Fitz-Stephen,' said the Prince, ' to the
fifty sailors of renown ! My father the King has sailed out of the
harbour. What time is there to make merry here, and yet reach
England with the rest ? '
' Prince ! ' said Fitz-Stephen, ' before morning, my fifty and The
White Ship shall overtake the swiftest vessel in attendance on your
father the King, if we sail at midnight ! '
Then the Prince commanded to make merry; and the sailors
drank out the three casks of wine ; and the Prince and all the noble
company danced in the moonlight on the deck of The White Ship.
When, at last, she shot out of the harbour of Barfleur, there
was not a sober seaman on board. But the sails were all set, and
the oars all going merrily. Fitz-Stephen had the helm. The gay
young nobles and the beautiful ladies, wrapped in mantles of various
bright colours to protect them from the cold, talked, laughed, and
HENRY THE FIRST 55
sang. The Prince encouraged the fifty sailors to row harder yet, for
the honour of The White Ship.
Crash ! A terrific cry broke from three hundred hearts. It was
the cry the people in the distant vessels of the King heard faintly
on the water. The White Ship had struck upon a rock— was filling
• — going down !
Fitz-Stephen hurried the Prince into a boat, with some few
Nobles. ' Push off,' he whispered ; ' and row to land. It is not
far, and the sea is smooth. The rest of us must die.'
But, as they rowed away, fast, from the sinking ship, the Prince
heard the voice of his sister Marie, the Countess of Perche, calling
for help. He never in his life had been so good as he was then.
He cried in an agony, ' Row back at any risk ! I cannot bear to
leave her ! '
They rowed back. As the Prince held out his arms to catch his
sister, such numbers leaped in, that the boat was overset. And in
the same instant The ^^'hite Ship went down.
Only two men floated. They both clung to the main yard of the
ship, which had broken from the mast, and now supported them.
One asked the other who he was ? He said, ' I am a nobleman,
Godfrey by name, the son of Gilbert de l'Aigle. And you ? '
said he. 'I am Berold, a poor butcher of Rouen,' was the answer.
Then, they said together, ' Lord be merciful to us both ! ' and tried
to encourage one another, as they drifted in the cold benumbing
sea on that unfortunate November night.
By-and-by, another man came swimming towards them, whom
they knew, when he pushed aside his long wet hair, to be Fitz-
Stephen. ' Where is the Prince ? ' said he. ' Gone ! Gone ! ' the
two cried together. ' Neither he, nor his brother, nor his sister, nor
the King's niece, nor her brother, nor any one of all the brave three
hundred, noble or commoner, except we three, has risen above the
water ! ' Fitz-Stephen, with a ghastly face, cried, ' Woe ! woe, to
me ! ' and sunk to the bottom.
The other two clung to the yard for some hours. At length the
young noble said faintly, ' I am exhausted, and chilled with the cold,
and can hold no longer. Farewell, good friend ! God preserve
you ! ' So, he dropped and sunk ; and of all the brilliant crowd, the
poor Butcher of Rouen alone was saved. In the morning, some
fishermen saw him floating in his sheep-skin coat, and got him into
their boat — the sole relater of the dismal tale.
For three days, no one dared to carry the intelligence to the King.
At length, they sent into his presence a little boy, who, weeping
bitterly, and kneeling at his feet, told him that The White Ship was
lost with all on board. The King fell to the ground like a dead
man, and never, never afterwards, was seen to smile.
But he plotted again, and promised again, and bribed and bought
56 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
again, in his old deceitful way. Having no son to succeed him,
after all his pains (' The Prince will never yoke us to the plough,
now ! ' said the English people), he took a second wife — Adelais
or Alice, a duke's daughter, and the Pope's niece. Having no
more children, however, he proposed to the Barons to swear that
they would recognise as his successor, his daughter Matilda, whom,
as she was now a widow, he married to the eldest son of the Count
of Anjou, Geoffrey, surnamed Plantagenet, from a custom he
had of wearing a sprig of flowering broom (called Genet in French)
in his cap for a feather. As one false man usually makes many, and
as a false King, in particular, is pretty certain to make a false Court,
the Barons took the oath about the succession of Matilda (and her
children after her), twice over, without in the least intending to keep
it. The King was now relieved from any remaining fears of William
Fitz-Robert, by his death in the Monastery of St. Omer, in France,
at twenty-six years old, of a pike-wound in the hand. And as
Matilda gave birth to three sons, he thought the succession to the
throne secure.
He spent most of the latter part of his life, which was troubled by
family quarrels, in Normandy, to be near Matilda. When he had
reigned upward of thirty-five years, and was sixty-seven years old,
he died of an indigestion and fever, brought on by eating, when he
was far from well, of a fish called Lamprey, against which he had
often been cautioned by his physicians. His remains were brought
over to Reading Abbey to be buried.
You may perhaps hear the cunning and promise-breaking of King
Henry the First, called ' policy ' by some people, and ' diplomacy '
by others. Neither of these fine words will in the least mean that
it was true ; and nothing that is not true can possibly be good.
His greatest merit, that I know of, was his love of learning.
I should have given him greater credit even for that, if it had been
strong enough to induce him to spare the eyes of a certain poet he
once took prisoner, who was a knight besides. But he ordered the
poet's eyes to be torn from his head, because he had laughed at
him in his verses ; and the poet, in the pain of that torture, dashed
out his own brains against his prison wall. King Henry the First
was avaricious, revengeful, and so false, that I suppose a man never
lived whose word was less to be relied upon.
MATILDA AND STEPHEN 57
CHAPTER XI
ENGLAND UNDER MATILDA AND STEPHEN
The King was no sooner dead than all the plans and schemes he
had laboured at so long, and lied so much for, crumbled away like
a hollow heap of sand. Stephen, whom he had never mistrusted
or suspected, started up to claim the throne.
Stephen was the son of Adela, the Conqueror's daughter, married
to the Count of Blois. To Stephen, and to his brother Henry,
the late King had been liberal ; making Henry Bishop of Winchester,
and finding a good marriage for Stephen, and much enriching him.
This did not prevent Stephen from hastily producing a false witness,
a servant of the late King, to swear that the King had named him
for his heir upon his death-bed. On this evidence the Archbishop
of Canterbury crowned him. The new King, so suddenly made,
lost not a moment in seizing the Royal treasure, and hiring foreign
soldiers with some of it to protect his throne.
If the dead King had even done as the false witness said, he
would have had small right to will away the English people, like so
many sheep or oxen, without their consent. But he had, in fact,
bequeathed all his territory to Matilda ; who, supported by Robert,
Earl of Gloucester, soon began to dispute the crown. Some of the
powerful barons and priests took her side ; some took Stephen's ; all
fortified their castles ; and again the miserable English people were
involved in war, from which they could never derive advantage
whosoever was victorious, and in which all parties plundered,
tortured, starved, and ruined them.
Five years had passed since the death of Henry the First — and
during those five years there had been two terrible invasions by the
people of Scotland under their King, David, who was at last defeated
with all his army — when Matilda, attended by her brother Robert
and a large force, appeared in England to maintain her claim. A
battle was fought between her troops and King Stephen's at Lincoln ;
in which the King himself was taken prisoner, after bravely fighting
until his battle-axe and sword were broken, and was carried into
strict confinement at Gloucester. Matilda then submitted herself
to the Priests, and the Priests crowned her Queen of England.
She did not long enjoy this dignity. The people of London had
a great affection for Stephen ; many of the Barons considered it
degrading to be ruled by a woman ; and the Queen's temper was
so haughty that she made innumerable enemies. The people of
London revolted ; and, in alliance with the troops of Stephen,
58 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
besieged her at Winchester, where they took her brother Robert
prisoner, whom, as her best soldier and chief general, she was glad
to exchange for Stephen himself, who thus regained his liberty.
Then, the long war went on afresh. Once, she was pressed so hard
in the Castle of Oxford, in the winter weather when the snow lay
thick upon the ground, that her only chance of escape was to dress
herself all in white, and, accompanied by no more than three
faithful Knights, dressed in like manner that their figures might not
be seen from Stephen's camp as they passed over the snow, to steal
away on foot, cross the frozen Thames, walk a long distance, and
at last gallop away on horseback. All this she did, but to no great
purpose then ; for her brother dying while the struggle was yet
going on, she at last withdrew to Normandy.
In two or three years after her withdrawal her cause appeared in
England, afresh, in the person of her son Henry, young Plantagenet,
who, at only eighteen years of age, was very powerful : not only on
account of his mother having resigned all Normandy to him, but also
from his having married Eleanor, the divorced wife of the French
King, a bad woman, who had great possessions in France. Louis,
the French King, not relishing this arrangement, helped Eustace,
King Stephen's son, to invade Normandy : but Henry drove their
united forces out of that country, and then returned here, to assist
his partisans, whom the King was then besieging at Wallingford
upon the Thames. Here, for two days, divided only by the river,
the two armies lay encamped opposite to one another — on the eve,
as it seemed to all men, of another desperate fight, when the Earl
OF Arundel took heart and said ' that it was not reasonable to
prolong the unspeakable miseries of two kingdoms to minister to
the ambition of two princes.'
Many other noblemen repeating and supporting this when it was
once uttered, Stephen and young Plantagenet went down, each to
his own bank of the river, and held a conversation across it, in
which they arranged a truce; very much to the dissatisfaction of
Eustace, who swaggered away with some followers, and laid violent
hands on the Abbey of St. Edmund's-Bury, where he presently died
mad. The truce led to a solemn council at Winchester, in which
it was agreed that Stephen should retain the crown, on condition
of his declaring Henry his successor ; that William, another son
of the King's, should inherit his father's rightful possessions ; and
that all the Crown lands which Stephen had given away should be
recalled, and all the Castles he had permitted to be built demolished.
Thus terminated the bitter war, which had now lasted fifteen years,
and had again laid England waste. In the next year Stephen died,
after a troubled reign of nineteen years.
Although King Stephen was, for the time in which he lived, a
humane and moderate man, with many excellent qualities; and
]\IATILDA AND STEPHEN 59
although nothmg worse is known of him than his usurpation of the
Crown, which he probably excused to himself by the consideration
that King Henry the First was a usurper too — which was no excuse
at all ; the people of England suffered more in these dread nineteen
years, than at any former period even of their suffering history. In
the division of the nobility between the two rival claimants of the
Crown, and in the growth of what is called the Feudal System
(which made the peasants the born vassals and mere slaves of the
Barons), every Noble had his strong CasUe, where he reigned the
cruel king of all the neighbouring people. Accordingly, he per-
petrated whatever cruelties he chose. And never were worse
cruelties committed upon earth than in wretched England in those
nineteen years.
The writers who were living then describe them fearfully. They
say that the castles were filled with devils rather than with men ;
that the peasants, men and women, were put into dungeons for their
gold and silver, were tortured with fire and smoke, were hung up by
the thumbs, were hung up by the heels with great weights to their
heads, were torn with jagged irons, killed with hunger, broken to
death in narrow chests filled with sharp-pointed stones, murdered in
countless fiendish ways. In England there was no corn, no meat,
no cheese, no butter, there were no tilled lands, no harvests. Ashes
of burnt towns, and dreary wastes, were all that the traveller, fearful
of the robbers who prowled abroad at all hours, would see in a long
da)''s journey ; and from sunrise until night, he would not come
upon a home.
The clergy sometimes suftered, and heavily too, from pillage, but
many of them had castles of their own, and fought in helmet and
armour like the barons, and drew lots with other fighting men for
their share of booty. The Pope (or Bishop of Rome), on King
Stephen's resisting his ambition, laid England under an Interdict at
one period of this reign ; which means that he allowed no service
to be performed in the churches, no couples to be married, no bells
to be rung, no dead bodies to be buried. Any man having the
power to refuse these things, no matter whether he were called a
Pope or a Poulterer, would, of course, have the power of afflicting
numbers of innocent people. That nothing might be wanting to
the miseries of King Stephen's time, the Pope threw in this con-
tril)ution to the public store— not very like the widow's contribution,
as I think, when Our Saviour sat in Jerusalem over-against the
Treasury, ' and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.'
6o A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
CHAPTER XII
england under henry the second
Part the First
Henry Plantagenet, when he was but twenty-one years old,
quietly succeeded to the throne of England, according to his
agreement made with the late King at Winchester. Six weeks
after Stephen's death, he and his Queen, Eleanor, were crowned
in that city ; into which they rode on horseback in great state, side
by side, amidst much shouting and rejoicing, and clashing of music,
and strewing of flowers.
The reign of King Henry the Second began well. The King
had great possessions, and (what with his own rights, and what
with those of his wife) was lord of one-third part of France. He
was a young man of vigour, ability, and resolution, and immediately
applied himself to remove some of the evils which had arisen in the
last unhappy reign. He revoked all the grants of land that had
been hastily made, on either side, during the late struggles ; he
obliged nimibers of disorderly soldiers to depart from England ; he
reclaimed all the castles belonging to the Crown ; and he forced
the wicked nobles to pull down their own castles, to the number of
eleven hundred, in which such dismal cruelties had been inflicted
on the people. The King's brother, Geoffrey, rose against him
in France, while he was so well employed, and rendered it necessary
for him to repair to that country ; where, after he had subdued and
made a friendly arrangement with his brother (who did not live
long), his ambition to increase his possessions involved him in a
war with the French King, Louis, with whom he had been on such
friendly terms just before, that to the French King's infant daughter,
then a baby in the cradle, he had promised one of his little sons in
marriage, who was a child of five years old. However, the war came
to nothing at last, and the Pope made the two Kings friends again.
Now, the clergy, in the troubles of the last reign, had gone on
very ill indeed. There were all kinds of criminals among them — •
murderers, thieves, and vagabonds ; and the worst of the matter
was, that the good priests would not give up the bad priests to
justice, when they committed crimes, but persisted in sheltering
and defending them. The King, well knowing that there could be
no peace or rest in England while such things lasted, resolved to
reduce the power of the clergy ; and, when he had reigned seven
years, found (as he considered) a good opportunity for doing so,
HENRY THE SECOND 6i
in the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury. ' I will have for
the new Archbishop,' thought the King, ' a friend in whom I can
trust, who will help me to humble these rebellious priests, and to
have them dealt with, when they do wrong, as other men who do
Avrong are dealt with.' So, he resolved to make his favourite, the
new Archbishop ; and this favourite was so extraordinary a man,
and his story is so curious, that I must tell you all about him.
Once upon a time, a worthy merchant of London, named
GiLHERT A Becket, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and
was taken prisoner by a Saracen lord. This lord, who treated him
kindly and not like a slave, had one fair daughter, who fell in love
with the merchant ; and who told him that she wanted to become
a Christian, and was willing to marry him if they could fly to a
Christian country. The merchant returned her love, until he found
an opportunity to escape, when he did not trouble himself about
the Saracen lady, but escaped with his servant Richard, Avho had
been taken prisoner along with him, and arrived in England and
forgot her. The Saracen lady, who was more loving than the
merchant, left her father's house in disguise to follow him, and
made her way, under many hardships, to the sea-shore. The
merchant had taught her only two English words (for I suppose
he must have learnt the Saracen tongue himself, and made love in
that language), of which London was one, and his own name,
Gilbert, the other. She went among the ships, saying, ' London !
London ! ' over and over again, until the sailors understood that
she wanted to find an English vessel that would carry her there ;
so they showed her such a ship, and she paid for her passage
with some of her jewels, and sailed away. Well ! The merchant
was sitting in his counting-house in London one day, when he
heard a great noise in the street; and presently Richard came
running in from the warehouse, with his eyes wide open and his
breath almost gone, saying, ' jNLister, master, here is the Saracen
lady ! ' The merchant thought Richard was mad ; but Richard
said, ' No, master ! As I live, the Saracen lady is going up and
down the city, calling Gilbert ! Gilbert ! ' Then, he took the
merchant by the sleeve, and pointed out of window; and there
they saw her among the gables and water-spouts of the dark, dirty
street, in her foreign dress, so forlorn, surrounded by a wondering
crowd, and passing slowly along, calling Gilbert, Gilbert ! When
the merchant saw her, and thought of the tenderness she had shown
him in his captivity, and of her constancy, his heart was moved,
and he ran down into the street ; and she saw him coming, and
with a great cry fainted in his arms. They were married without
loss of time, and Richard (who was an excellent man) danced with
joy the whole day of the wedding; and they all lived happy ever
afterwards.
62 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
This merchant and this Saracen lady had one son, Thomas A
Becket. He it was who became the Favourite of King Henry the
Second.
He had become Chancellor, when the King thought of making
him Archbishop. He was clever, gay, well educated, brave ; had
fought in several battles in France ; had defeated a French knight
ill single combat, and brought his horse away as a token of the
victory. He lived in a noble palace, he was the tutor of the young
Prince Henry, he was served by one hundred and forty knights, his
riches were immense. The King once sent him as his ambassador
to France; and the French people, beholding in what state he
travelled, cried out in the streets, ' How splendid must the King of
England be, when this is only the Chancellor ! ' They had good
reason to wonder at the magnificence of Thomas k Becket, for,
when he entered a French town, his procession was headed by two
hundred and fifty singing boys ; then, came his hounds in couples ;
then, eight waggons, each drawn by five horses driven by five
drivers : two of the waggons filled with strong ale to be given away
to the people; four, with his gold and silver plate and stately
clothes; two, with the dresses of his numerous servants. Then,
came twelve horses, each with a monkey on his back ; then, a train
of people bearing shields and leading fine war-horses splendidly
equipped; then, falconers with hawks upon their wrists; then, a
host of knights, and gentlemen and priests; then, the Chancellor
with his brilliant garments flashing in the sun, and all the people
capering and shouting with delight.
■ The King was well pleased with all this, thinking that it only
made himself the more magnificent to have so magnificent a
favourite; but he sometimes jested with the Chancellor upon his
splendour too. Once, when they were riding together through the
streets of London in hard winter weather, they saw a shivering old
man in rags. ' Look at the pKDor object ! ' said the King. ' ^^'ould
it not be a charitable act to give that aged man a comfortable warm
cloak ? ' ' Undoubtedly it would,' said Thomas h, Becket, ' and
you do well. Sir, to think of such Christian duties.' ' Come ! ' cried
the King, 'then give him your cloak!' It was made of rich
crimson trimmed with ermine. The King tried to pull it oft; the
Chancellor tried to keep it on, both were near rolling from their
saddles in the mud, when the Chancellor submitted, and the King
gave the cloak to the old beggar : much to the beggar's astonish-
ment, and much to the merriment of all the courtiers in attendance.
For, courtiers are not only eager to laugh when the King laughs,
but they really do enjoy a laugh against a Favourite.
' I will make,' thought King Henry the Second, ' this Chancellor
of mine, Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. He will
then be the head of the Church, and, being devoted to me, will
HENRY THE SECOND 63
help me to correct the Church. He has ahvays upheld my ]'<n\cr
against the power of the clergy, and once publicly told some bishops
(1 remember), that men of the Church were equally bound to me
with men of the sword. Thomas c\ Becket is the man, of all other
men in England, to help me in my great design,' So the King,
regardless of all objection, either that he was a fighting man, or
a lavish man, or a courtly man, or a man of pleasure, or anything
but a likely man for the office, made him Archbishop accordingly.
Now, Thomas h. Becket was proud and loved to be famous.
He was already famous for the pomp of his life, for his riches, his
gold and silver plate, his waggons, horses, and attendants. He
could do no more in that way than he had done ; and being tired
of that kind of fame (which is a very poor one), he longed to have
his name celebrated for something else. Nothing, he knew, would
render him so famous in the world, as the setting of his utmost
power and ability against the utmost power and ability of the King.
He resolved with the whole strength of his mind to do it.
He may have had some secret grudge against the King besides.
The King may have offended his proud humour at some time or
other, for anything I know. I think it likely, because it is a
common thing for Kings, Princes, and other great people, to try
the tempers of their favourites rather severely. Even the little
affair of the crimson cloak must have been anything but a pleasant
one to a haughty man. Thomas h Becket knew better than any
one in England what the King expected of him. In all his
sumptuous life, he had never yet been in a position to disappoint
the King. He could take up that proud stand now, as head of the
Church ; and he determined that it should be written in history,
either that he subdued the King, or that the King subdued him.
So, of a sudden, he completely altered the whole manner of his
life. He turned off all his brilliant followers, ate coarse food,
drank bitter water, wore next his skin sackcloth covered with dirt
and vermin (for it was then thought very religious to be very dirty),
flogged his back to punish himself, lived chiefly in a little cell,
washed the feet of thirteen poor people every day, and looked as
miserable as he possibly could. If he had put twelve hundred
monkeys on horseback instead of twelve, and had gone in pro-
cession with eight thousand waggons instead of eight, he could not
have half astonished the people so much as by this great change.
It soon caused him to be more talked about as an Archbishop than
he had been as a Chancellor.
The King was very angry; and was made still more so, when
the new Archbishop, claiming various estates from the nobles as
being rightfully Church property, required the King himself, for
the same reason, to give up Rochester Castle, and Rochester City
too. Not satisfied with this, he declared that no power but himself
64 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
should appoint a priest to any Church in the part of England over
which he was Archbishop ; and when a certain gentleman of Kent
made such an appointment, as he claimed to have the right to do,
Thomas h, Becket excommunicated him.
Excommunication was, next to the Interdict I told you of at
the close of the last chapter, the great weapon of the clergy. It
consisted in declaring the person who was excommunicated, an
outcast from the Church and from all religious offices ; and in
cursing him all over, from the top of his head to the sole of his
foot, whether he was standing up, lying down, sitting, kneeling,
walking, running, hopping, jumping, gaping, coughing, sneezing, or
whatever else he was doing. This unchristian nonsense would of
course have made no sort of difference to the person cursed — who
could say his prayers at home if he were shut out of church, and
whom none but God could judge — but for the fears and supersti-
tions of the people, who avoided excommunicated persons, and
made their lives unhappj'. So, the King said to the New Arch-
bishop, ' Take off this Excommunication from this gentleman of
Kent.' To which the Archbishop replied, ' I shall do no such
thing.'
The quarrel went on. A priest in ^^^orcestershire committed
a most dreadful murder, that aroused the horror of the whole nation.
The King demanded to have this wretch delivered up, to be tried
in the same court and in the same way as any other murderer.
The Archbishop refused, and kept him in the Bishop's prison.
The King, holding a solemn assembly in Westminster Hall, de-
manded that in future all priests found guilty before their Bishops
of crimes against the law of the land should be considered priests
no longer, and should be delivered over to the law of the land for
punishment. The Archbishop again refused. The King required
to know whether the clergy would obey the ancient customs of
the country ? Every priest there, but one, said, after Thomas k
Becket, ' Saving my order.' This really meant that they would
only obey those customs when they did not interfere -NAith their own
claims ; and the King went out of the Hall in great wrath.
Some of the clergy began to be afraid, now, that they were going
too far. Though Thomas h. Becket was otherwise as unmoved as
Westminster Hall, they prevailed upon him, for the sake of their
fears, to go to the King at Woodstock, and promise to observe the
ancient customs of the country, without saying anything about his
order. The King received this submission favourably, and summoned
a great council of the clergy to meet at the Castle of Clarendon,
by Salisbury. But when the council met, the Archbishop again
insisted on the words ' saving my order ; ' and he still insisted,
though lords entreated him, and priests wept before him and knelt
to him, and an adjoining room was thrown open, filled with armed
HENRY THE SECOND 65
soldiers of the King, to threaten him. At length he gave way, for
that time, and the ancient customs (which included what the King
had demanded in vain) were stated in writing, and were signed and
sealed by the chief of the clergy, and were called the Constitutions
of Clarendon.
The quarrel went on, for all that. The Archbishop tried to see
the King. The King would not see him. The Archbishop tried
to escape from England. The sailors on the coast would launch
no boat to take him away. Then, he again resolved to do his
worst in opposition to the King, and began openly to set the
ancient customs at defiance.
The King summoned him before a great council at Northampton,
where he accused him of high treason, and made a claim against
him, which was not a just one, for an enormous sum of money.
Thomas a Becket was alone against the whole assembly, and the
very Bishops advised him to resign his office and abandon his
contest with the King. His great anxiety and agitation stretched
him on a sick-bed for two days, but he was still undaunted. He
went to the adjourned council, carrying a great cross in his right
hand, and sat down holding it erect before him. The King angrily
retired into an inner room. The whole assembly angrily retired
and left him there. But there he sat. The Bishops came out
again in a body, and renounced him as a traitor. He only said,
' I hear ! ' and sat there still. They retired again into the inner
room, and his trial proceeded without him. By-and-by, the Earl
of Leicester, heading the barons, came out to read his sentence.
He refused to hear it, denied the power of the court, and said he
would refer his cause to the Pope. As he walked out of the hall,
with the cross in his hand, some of those present picked up rushes
—rushes were strewn upon the floors in those days by way of
carpet — and threw them at him. He proudly turned his head, and
said that were he not Archbishop, he would chastise those cowards
with the sword he had known how to use in bygone days. He
then mounted his horse, and rode away, cheered and surrounded
by the common people, to whom he threw open his house that
night and gave a supper, supping with them himself. That same
night he secretly departed from the town ; and so, travelling by
night and hiding by day, and calling himself ' Brother Dearman,'
got away, not without difficulty, to T lander;';.
The struggle still went on. The angry King took possession of
the revenues of the archbishopric, and banished all the relations
and servants of Thomas h. Becket, to the number of four hundred.
The Pope and the French King both protected him, and an abbey
was assigned for his residence. Stimulated by this support, Thomas
k Becket, on a great festival day, formally proceeded to a great
church crowded with people, and going up into the pulpit publicly
F
66 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
cursed and excommunicated all who had supported the Constitutions
of Clarendon : mentioning many English noblemen by name, and
not distantly hinting at the King of England himself.
When intelligence of this new affront was carried to the King" in
his chamber, his passion was so furious that he tore his clothes, and
rolled like a madman on his bed of straw and rushes. But he was
soon up and doing. He ordered all the ports and coasts of England
to be narrowly watched, that no letters of Interdict might be brought
into the kingdom ; and sent messengers and bribes to the Pope's
palace at Rome. Meanwhile, Thomas k Becket, for his part, was
not idle at Rome, but constandy employed his utmost arts in his
own behalf. Thus the contest stood, until there was peace between
France and England (which had been for some time at war), and
until the two children of the two Kings were married in celebration
of it. Then, the French King brought about a meeting between
Henry and his old favourite, so long his enemy.
Even then, though Thomas k Becket knelt before the King, he
was obstinate and immovable as to those words about his order.
King Louis of France was weak enough in his veneration for
Thomas a Becket and such men, but this was a little too much for
him. He said that h, Becket ' wanted to be greater than the saints
and better than St. Peter,' and rode away from him with the King
of England. His poor French Majesty asked k Becket's pardon for
so doing, however, soon afterwards, and cut a very piuful figure.
At last, and after a world of trouble, it came to this. There was
another meeting on French ground between King Henry and Thomas
h. Becket, and it was agreed that Thomas a Becket should be Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, according to the customs of former Arch-
bishops, and that the King should put him in possession of the
revenues of that post. And now, indeed, you might suppose the
struggle at an end, and Thomas a Becket at rest. No, not even
yet. For Thomas h Becket hearing, by some means, that King
Henry, when he was in dread of his kingdom being placed under
an interdict, had had his eldest son Prince Henry secretly crowned,
not only persuaded the Pope to suspend the Archbishop of York
who had performed that ceremony, and to excommunicate the Bishops
who had assisted at it, but sent a messenger of his own into England,
in spite of all the King's precautions along the coast, who delivered
the letters of excommunication into the Bishops' own hands. Thomas
h Becket then came over to England himself, after an absence of
seven years. He was privately warned that it was dangerous to
come, and that an ireful knight, named Ranulf de Broc, had
threatened that he should not live to eat a loaf of bread in
England ; but he came. *
The common people received him well, and marched about with
him in a soldierly way, armed with such rustic weapons as they
HENRY THE SECOND 67
could get. He tried to see the young prince ^Yho had once been
his pupil, but was prevented. He hoped for some little support
among the nobles and priests, but found none. He made the most
of the peasants who attended him, and feasted them, and went from
Canterbury to Harrow-on-the-Hill, and from Harrow-on-thc-Hill
back to Canterbury, and on Christmas Day preached in the Cathedral
there, and told the people in his sermon that he had come to die
among them, and that it was likely he would be murdered. He had
no fear, however — or, if he had any, he had much more obstinacy
■ — for he, then and there, excommunicated three of his enemies, of
whom Ranulf de Broc, tlie ireful knight, was one.
As men in general had no fancy for being cursed, in their sitting
and walking, and gaping and sneezing, and all the rest of it, it was
very natural in the persons so freely excommunicated to complain
to the King. It was equally natural in the King, who had hoped
that this troublesome opponent was at last quieted, to fall into a
mighty rage when he heard of these new affronts; and, on the
Archbishop of York telling him that he never could hope for rest
while Thomas h. Becket lived, to cry out hastily before his court,
' Have I no one here who will deliver me from this man ? ' There
were four knights present, who, hearing the King's words, looked at
one another, and went out.
The names of these knights were Reginald Fitzurse, William
Tracy, Hugh de Morville, and Richard Brito; three of whom
had been in the train of Thomas k Becket in the old days of his
splendour. They rode away on horseback, in a very secret manner,
and on the third day after Christmas Day arrived at Saltwood
House, not far from Canterbury, which belonged to the family of
Ranulf de Broc. They quietly collected some followers here, in
case they should need any ; and proceeding to Canterbury, suddenly
appeared (the four knights and twelve men) before the Archbishop,
in his own house, at two o'clock in the afternoon. They neither
bowed nor spoke, but sat down on the floor in silence, staring at
the Archbishop.
Thomas a Becket said, at length, ' What do you want ? '
' We want,' said Reginald Fitzurse, ' the excommunication taken
from the Bishops, and you to answer for your offences to the King.'
Thomas h Becket defiantly replied, that the power of the clergy
was above the power of the King. That it was not for such men
as they were, to threaten him. That if he were threatened by all
the swords in England, he would never yield.
' Then we will do more than threaten ! ' said the knights. And
they went out with the twelve men, and put on their armour, and
drew their shining swords, and came back.
His servants, in the meantime, had shut up and barred the great
gate of the palace. At first, the knights tried to shatter it with their
68 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
battle-axes ; but, being shown a window by which they could enter,
they let the gate alone, and climbed in that way. While they were
battering at the door, the attendants of Thomas k Becket had im-
plored him to take refuge in the Cathedral ; in which, as a sanctuary
or sacred place, they thought the knights would dare to do no violent
deed. He told them, again and again, that he would not stir. Hearing
the distant voices of the monks singing the evening service, however,
he said it was now his duty to attend, and therefore, and for no
other reason, he would go.
There was a near way between his Palace and the Cathedral, by
some beautiful old cloisters which you may yet see. He went into
the Cathedral, without any hurry, and having the Cross carried
before him as usual. When he was safely there, his servants would
have fastened the door, but he said No ! it was the house of God
and not a fortress.
As he spoke, the shadow of Reginald Fitzurse appeared in the
Cathedral doorway, darkening the little light there was outside, on
the dark winter evening. This knight said, in a strong voice,
' Follow me, loyal servants of the King ! ' The rattle of the armour
of the other knights echoed through the Cathedral, as they came
clashing in.
It was so dark, in the lofty aisles and among the stately pillars of
the church, and there were so many hiding-places in the crypt below
and in the narrow passages above, that Thomas k Becket might
even at that pass have saved himself if he would. But he would
not. He told the monks resolutely that he would not. And
though they all dispersed and left him there with no other follower
than Edward Gryme, his faithful cross-bearer, he was as firm then,
as ever he had been in his life.
The knights came on, through the darkness, making a terrible
noise with their armed tread upon the stone pavement of the
church. ' Where is the traitor ? ' they cried out. He made no
answer. But when they cried, ' Where is the Archbishop ? ' he said
proudly, ' I am here ! ' and came out of the shade and stood before
them.
The knights had no desire to kill him, if they could rid the King
and themselves of him by any other means. They told him he
must either fly or go with them. He said he would do neither ;
and he threw AVilHam Tracy off with such force when he took hold
of his sleeve, that Tracy reeled again. By his reproaches and his
steadiness, he so incensed them, and exasperated their fierce humour,
that Reginald Fitzurse, whom he called by an ill name, said, ' Then
die I ' and struck at his head. But the faithful Edward Gryme put
out his arm, and there received the main force of the blow, so
that it only made his master bleed. Another voice from among
the knights again called to Thomas k Becket to fly ; but, with
HENRY THE SECOND 69
his blood running down his face, and his hands clasped, and his
head bent, he commended himself to God, and stood firm. Then
they cruelly killed him close to the altar of St. Bennet ; and his
body fell upon the pavement, which was dirtied with his blood and
brains.
It is an awful thing to think of the murdered mortal, who had so
showered his curses about, lying, all disfigured, in the church, where
a few lamps here and there were but red specks on a pall of dark-
ness ; and to think of the guilty knights riding away on horseback,
looking over their shoulders at the dim Cathedral, and remembering
what they had left inside.
Part the Second
When the King heard how Thomas k Becket had lost his life in
Canterbury Cathedral, through the ferocity of the four Knights, he
was filled with dismay. Some have supposed that when the King
spoke those hasty words, ' Have I no one here who will deliver me
from this man ? ' he wished, and meant a Becket to be slain. But
few things are more unlikely ; for, besides that the King was not
naturally cruel (though very passionate), he was wise, and must
have known full well what any stupid man in his dominions must
have known, namely, that such a murder would rouse the Pope and
the whole Church against him.
He sent respectful messengers to the Pope, to represent his inno-
cence (except in having uttered the hasty words) ; and he swore
solemnly and publicly to his innocence, and contrived in time to
make his peace. As to the four guilty Knights, who fled into York-
shire, and never again dared to show themselves at Court, the Pope
excommunicated them ; and they lived miserably for some time,
shunned by all their countrymen. At last, they went humbly to
Jerusalem as a penance, and there died and were buried.
It happened, fortunately for the pacifying of the Pope, that an
opportunity arose very soon after the murder of h. Becket, for the
King to declare his power in Ireland — which was an acceptable
undertaking to the Pope, as the Irish, who had been converted to
Christianity by one Patricius (otherwise Saint Patrick) long ago,
before any Pope existed, considered that the Pope had nothing
at all to do with them, or they with the Pope, and accordingly
refused to pay him Peter's Pence, or that tax of a penny a house
which I have elsewhere mentioned. The King's opportunity arose
in this way.
The Irish were, at that time, as barbarous a people as you can
well imagine. They were continually quarrelling and fighting,
cutting one another's throats, slicing one another's noses, burning
one another's houses, carrying away one another's wives, and
70 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
committing all sorts of violence. The country was divided into
five kingdoms — Desmond, Thomond, Conn aught, Ulster, and
Leinster — each governed by a separate King, of whom one
claimed to be the chief of the rest. Now, one of these Kings,
named Dermond Mac Murrough (a wild kind of name, spelt in
more than one wild kind of way), had carried off the wife of a
friend of his, and concealed her on an island in a bog. The friend
resenting tliis (though it was quite the custom of the country), com-
plained to the chief King, and, with the chief King's help, drove
Dermond ]\Lac Murrough out of his dominions. Dermond came
over to England for revenge ; and offered to hold his realm as a
vassal of King Henry, if King Henry would help him to regain
it. The King consented to these terms ; but only assisted him,
then, with what were called Letters Patent, authorising any English
subjects who were so disposed, to enter into his service, and aid
his cause.
There was, at Bristol, a certain Earl Richard de Clare,
called Strongbow; of no very good character; needy and des-
perate, and ready for anything that offered him a chance of im-
proving his fortunes. There were, in South Wales, two other
broken knights of the same good-for-nothing sort, called Robert
Fitz-Stephen, and Maurice Fitz-Gerald. These three, each
with a small band of followers, took up Dermond's cause ; and it
was agreed that if it proved successful, Strongbow should marry
Dermond's daughter Eva, and be declared his heir.
The trained English followers of these knights were so superior
in all the discipline of battle to the Irish, that they beat them
against immense superiority of numbers. In one fight, early in the
war, they cut off three hundred heads, and laid them before Mac
Murrough; who turned them every one up with his hands, re-
joicing, and, coming to one which was the head of a man whom
he had much disliked, grasped it by the hair and ears, and tore off
the nose and lips with his teeth. You may judge from this, what
kind of a gentleman an Irish King in those times was. The
captives, all through this war, were horribly treated ; the victorious
party making nothing of breaking their limbs, and casting them
into the sea from the tops of high rocks. It was in the midst of
the miseries and cruelties attendant on the taking of Waterford,
where the dead lay piled in the streets, and the filthy gutters ran
with blood, that Strongbow married Eva. An odious marriage-
company those mounds of corpses must have made, I think, and
one quite worthy of the young lady's father.
He died, after Waterford and Dublin had been taken, and various
successes achieved ; and Strongbow became King of Leinster.
Now came King Henry's opportunity. To restrain the growing
power of Strongbow, he himself repaired to Dublin, as Strongbow's
HENRY THE SECOND 71
Royal Master, and deprived him of his kingdom, but confirmed
him in the enjoyment of great possessions. The King, then,
holding state in Dublin, received the homage of nearly all the
Irish Kings and Chiefs, and so came home again with a great
addition to his reputation as Lord of Ireland, and with a new claim
on the favour of the Pope. And now, their reconciliation was com-
pleted— more easily and mildly by the Pope, than the King miglit
have expected, I think.
At this period of his reign, when his troubles seemed so few^ and
his prospects so bright, those domestic miseries began which gradu-
ally made the King the most unhappy of men, reduced his great
spirit, wore away his health, and broke his heart.
He had four sons. Henry, now aged eighteen — his secret
crowning of whom had given such offence to I'homas h. Bccket ;
Richard, aged sixteen ; Geoffrey, fifteen ; and John, his favourite,
a young boy whom the courtiers named Lackland, because he had
no inheritance, but to whom the King meant to give the Lordship
of Ireland. All these misguided boys, in their turn, were un-
natural sons to him, and unnatural brothers to each other. Prince
Henry, stimulated by the French King, and by his bad mother,
Queen Eleanor, began the undutiful history.
First, he demanded that his young wife, Margaret, the French
King's daughter, should be crowned as well as he. His father,
the King, consented, and it was done. It was no sooner done,
than he demanded to have a part of his father's dominions, during
his father's life. This being refused, he made off from his father
in the night, with his bad heart full of bitterness, and took refuge
at the French King's Court. Within a day or two, his brothers
Richard and Geoffrey followed. Their mother tried to join them.
— escaping in man's clothes — but she was seized by King Henry's
men, and immured in prison, where she lay, deservedly, for sixteen
years. Every day, however, some grasping English noblemen, to
whom the King's protection of his people from their avarice and
oppression had given offence, deserted him and joined the Princes.
Every day he heard some fresh intelligence of the Princes levying
armies against him ; of Prince Henry's wearing a crown before his
own ambassadors at the French Court, and being called the Junior
King of England ; of all the Princes swearing never to make peace
with him, their father, without the consent and approval of the
Barons of France. But, with his fortitude and energy unshaken,
King Henry met the shock of these disasters with a resolved and
cheerful face. He called upon all Royal fathers who had sons, to
help him, for his cause was theirs ; he hired, out of his riches,
twenty thousand men to fight the false French King, who stirred his
own blood against him ; and he carried on the war with such vigour,
that Louis soon proposed a conference to treat for peace.
7? A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
The conference was held beneath an old wide-spreading green
elm-tree, upon a plain in France, It led to nothing. The war
recommenced. Prince Richard began his fighting career, by leading
an army against his father ; but his father beat him and his army
back ; and tliousands of his men would have rued the day in which
they fought in such a wicked cause, had not the King received
news of an invasion of England by the Scots, and promptly come
home through a great storm to repress it. And whether he really
began to fear that he suffered these troubles because a Becket had
been murdered ; or whether he wished to rise in the favour of the
Pope, who had now declared a Becket to be a saint, or in the
favour of his own people, of whom many believed that even k
Becket's senseless tomb could work miracles, I don't know : but
the King no sooner landed in England than he went straight to
Canterbury ; and when he came within sight of the distant Cathedral,
he dismounted from his horse, took off his shoes, and walked with
bare and bleeding feet to h Becket's grave. There, he lay down on
the ground, lamenting, in the presence of many people ; and by-
and-by he went into the Chapter House, and, removing his clothes
from his back and shoulders, submitted himself to be beaten with
knotted cords (not beaten very hard, I dare say though) by eighty
Priests, one after another. It chanced that on the very day when
the King made this curious exhibition of himself, a complete victory
was obtained over the Scots ; which very much delighted the Priests,
who said that it was won because of his great example of repentance.
For the Priests in general had found out, since k Becket's death,
that they admired him of all things — though they had hated him
very cordially when he was alive.
The Earl of Flanders, who was at the head of the base conspiracy
of the King's undutiful sons and their foreign friends, took the
opportunity of the King being thus employed at home, to lay siege
to Rouen, the capital of Normandy. But the King, who was extra-
ordinarily quick and active in all his movements, was at Rouen, too,
before it was supposed possible that he could have left England ;
and there he so defeated the said Earl of Flanders, that the con-
spirators proposed peace, and his bad sons Henry and Geoffrey
submitted. Richard resisted for six weeks ; but, being beaten out
of castle after castle, he at last submitted too, and his father
forgave him.
To forgive these unworthy princes was only to afford them
breathing-time for new faithlessness. They were so false, disloyal,
and dishonourable, that they were no more to be trusted than
common thieves. In the very next year. Prince Henry rebelled
again, and was again forgiven. In eight years more. Prince Richard
rebelled against his elder brother ; and Prince Geoffrey infamously
said that the brothers could never agree well together, unless they
HENRY THE SECOND 73
were united against their father. In the very next year after their
reconcihation by the King, Prince Henry again rebelled against his
father ; and again submitted, swearing to be true ; and was again
forgiven ; and again rebelled with (leoftrey.
But the end of this perfidious Prince was come. He fell sick at
a French town ; and his conscience terribly reproaching him with
his baseness, he sent messengers to the King his father, imploring
him to come and see him, and to forgive him for the last time on
his bed of death. The generous King, who had a royal and for-
giving mind towards his children always, would have gone; but
this Prince had been so unnatural, that the noblemen about the
King suspected treachery, and represented to him that he could
not safely trust his life with such a traitor, though his own eldest
son. Therefore the King sent him a ring from off his finger as a
token of forgiveness; and when the Prince had kissed it, with much
grief and many tears, and had confessed to those around him how
bad, and wicked, and undutiful a son he had been ; he said to the
attendant Priests : ' O, tie a rope about my body, and draw me out
of bed, and lay me down upon a bed of ashes, that I may die with
prayers to God in a repentant manner ! ' And so he died, at twenty-
seven years old.
Three years afterwards, Prince Geoffrey, being unhorsed at a
tournament, had his brains trampled out by a crowd of horses
passing over him. So, there only remained Prince Richard, and
Prince John — who had grown to be a young man now, and had
solemnly sworn to be faithful to his father. Richard soon rebelled
again, encouraged by his friend the French King, Philip the
Second (son of Louis, who was dead) ; and soon submitted and
was again forgiven, swearing on the New Testament never to rebel
again ; and in another year or so, rebelled again ; and, in the
presence of his father, knelt down on his knee before the King of
France ; and did the French King homage : and declared that with
his aid he would possess himself, by force, of all his father's French
dominions.
And yet this Richard called himself a soldier of Our Saviour !
And yet this Richard wore the Cross, which the Kings of P'rance
and England had both taken, in the previous year, at a brotherly
meeting underneath the old wide-spreading elm-tree on the plain,
when they had sworn (like him) to devote themselves to a new
Crusade, for the love and honour of the Truth !
Sick at heart, wearied out by the falsehood of his sons, and
almost ready to lie down and die, the unhappy King who had so
long stood firm, began to fail. But the Pope, to his honour, sup-
ported him ; and obliged the French King and Richard, though
successful in fight, to treat for peace. Richard wanted to be
crowned King of England, and pretended that he wanted to be
74 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
married (which he really did not) to the French King's sister, his
promised wife, whom King Henry detained in England. King
Henry wanted, on the other hand, that the French King's sister
should be married to his favourite son, John : the only one of his
sons (he said) who had never rebelled against him. At last King
Henry, deserted by his nobles one by one, distressed, exhausted,
broken-hearted, consented to establish peace.
One final heavy sorrow was reserved for him, even yet. When
they brought him the proposed treaty of peace, in writing, as he
lay very ill in bed, they brought him also the list of the deserters
from their allegiance, whom he was required to pardon. The first
name upon this list was John, his favourite son, in whom he had
trusted to the last.
' O John ! child of my heart ! ' exclaimed the King, in a great
agony of mind. ' O John, whom I have loved the best ! O John,
for whom I have contended through these many troubles ! Have
you betrayed me too ! ' And then he lay down with a heavy groan,
and said, ' Now let the world go as it will. I care for nothing
more ! '
After a time, he told his attendants to take him to the French
town of Chinon — a town he had been fond of, during many years.
But he was fond of no place now ; it was too true that he could
care for nothing more upon this earth. He wildly cursed the hour
when he was born, and cursed the children whom he left behind
him ; and expired.
As, one hundred years before, the servile followers of the Court
had abandoned the Conqueror in the hour of his death, so they now
abandoned his descendant. The very body was stripped, in the
plunder of the Royal chamber ; and it was not easy to find the
means of carrying it for burial to the abbey church of Fontevraud.
Richard was said in after years, by way of flattery, to have the
heart of a Lion. It would have been far better, I think, to have
had the heart of a Man. His heart, whatever it was, had cause to
beat remorsefully within his breast, when he came — as he did — into
the solemn abbey, and looked on his dead father's uncovered face.
His heart, whatever it was, had been a black and perjured heart, in
all its dealings with the deceased King, and more deficient in a
single touch of tenderness than any wild beast's in the forest.
There is a pretty story told of this Reign, called the story of Fair
Rosamond. It relates how the King doted on Fair Rosamond,
who was the loveliest girl in all the world; and how he had a
beautiful Bower built for her in a Park at Woodstock ; and how it
was erected in a labyrinth, and could only be found by a clue of
silk. How the bad Queen Eleanor, becoming jealous of Fair
Rosamond, found out the secret of the clue, and one day, appeared
before her, with a dagger and a cup of poison, and left her to the
RICHARD THE FIRST 75
choice between those deaths. How Fair Rosamond, after shedding
many piteous tears and offering many useless prayers to the cruel
Queen, took the poison, and fell dead in the midst of the beautiful
bower, while the unconscious birds sang gaily all around her.
Now, there 7vas a fair Rosamond, and she was (I dare say) the
loveliest girl in all the world, and the King was certainly very fond
of her, and the bad Queen Eleanor was certainly made jealous.
But I am afraid — I say afraid, because I like the story so much —
that there was no bower, no labyrinth, no silken clue, no dagger,
no poison. I am afraid fair Rosamond retired to a nunnery
near Oxford, and died there, peaceably ; her sister-nuns hanging a
silken drapery over her tomb, and often dressing it with flowers, in
remembrance of the youth and beauty that had enchanted the King
when he too was young, and when his life lay fair before him.
It was dark and ended now ; faded and gone. Henry Planta-
genet lay quiet in the abbey church of Fontevraud, in the fifty-
seventh year of his age — never to be completed — after governing
England well, for nearly thirty-five years.
CHAPTER XIII
ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE FIRST, CALLED THE LION-HEART
In the year of our Lord one thousand one hundred and eighty-nine,
Richard of the Lion Heart succeeded to the throne of King Henry
the Second, whose paternal heart he had done so much to break.
He had been, as we have seen, a rebel from his boyhood ; but, the
moment he became a king against whom others might rebel, he
found out that rebellion was a great wickedness. In the heat of
this pious discovery, he punished all the leading people who had
befriended him against his father. He could scarcely have done
anything that would have been a better instance of his real nature,
or a better warning to fawners and parasites not to trust in lion-
hearted princes.
He likewise put his late father's treasurer in chains, and locked
him up in a dungeon from which he was not set free until he had
relinquished, not only all the Crown treasure, but all his own
money too. So, Richard certainly got the Lion's share of the
wealth of this wretched treasurer, whether he had a Lion's heart
or not.
He was crowned King of England, with great pomp, at West-
minster : walking to the Cathedral under a silken canopy stretched
on the tops of four lances, each carried by a great lord. On the
76 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
day of his coronation, a dreadful murdering of the Jews took place,
which seems to have given great delight to numhers of savage
persons calling themselves Christians, The King had issued a
proclamation forhidding the Jews (who were generally hated,
though they were the most useful merchants in England) to appear
at the ceremony ; hut as they had assembled in London from all
parts, bringing presents to show their respect for the new Sovereign,
some of them ventured down to Westminster Hall with their gifts ;
which were very readily accepted. It is supposed, now, that some
noisy fellow in the crowd, pretending to be a very delicate
Christian, set up a howl at this, and struck a Jew who was trying to
get in at the Hall door with his present. A riot arose. The Jews
who had got into the Hall, were driven forth; and some of the
rabble cried out that the new King had commanded the unbelieving
race to be put to death. Thereupon the crowd rushed through the
narrow streets of the city, slaughtering all the Jews they met ; and
when they could find no more out of doors (on account of their
having fled to their houses, and fastened themselves in), ■ they ran
madly about, breaking open all the houses where the Jews lived,
rushing in and stabbing or spearing them, sometimes even flinging
old people and children out of window into blazing fires they had
lighted up below. This great cruelty lasted four-and-twenty hours,
and only three men were punished for it. Even they forfeited their
lives not for murdering and robbing the Jews, but for burning the
houses of some Christians.
King Richard, who was a strong, restless, burly man, with one
idea always in his head, and that the very troublesome idea of
breaking the heads of other men, was mightily impatient to go on
a Crusade to the Holy Land, with a great army. As great armies
could not be raised to go, even to the Holy Land, without a great
deal of money, he sold the Crown domains, and even the high
offices of State ; recklessly appointing noblemen to rule over his
English subjects, not because they were fit to govern, but because
they could pay high for the privilege. In this way, and by selling
pardons at a dear rate, and by varieties of avarice and oppression,
he scraped together a large treasure. He then appointed two
Bishops to take care of his kingdom in his absence, and gave great
powers and possessions to his brother John, to secure his friendship.
John would rather have been made Regent of England ; but he was
a sly man, and friendly to the expedition; saying to himself, no
doubt, ' The more fighting, the more chance of my brother being
killed ; and when he is killed, then I become King John ! '
Before the newly levied army departed from England, the recruits
and the general populace distinguished themselves by astonishing
cruelties on the unfortunate Jews : whom, in many large towns, they
murdered by hundreds in the most horrible manner.
RICHARD THE FIRST 77
At York, a large body of Jews took refuge in the Castle, in the
absence of its Governor, after the wives and children of many of
them had been slain before their eyes. Presently came the Governor,
and demanded admission. ' How can we give it thee, O Governor ! '
said the Jews upon the walls, ' when, if we open the gate by so
much as the width of a foot, the roaring crowd behind thee will
press in and kill us ? '
Upon this, the unjust Governor became angry, and told the
people that he approved of their killing those Jews ; and a
mischievous maniac of a friar, dressed all in white, put himself
at the head of the assault, and they assaulted the Castle for
three days.
Then said Jocen, the head-Jew (who was a Rabbi or Priest),
to the rest, ' Brethren, there is no hope for us with the Christians
who are hammering at the gates and walls, and who must soon
break in. As we and our wives and children must die, either by
Christian hands, or by our own, let it be by our own. Let us
destroy by fire what jewels and other treasure we have here, then
fire the castle, and then perish ! '
A few could not resolve to do this, but the greater part complied.
They made a blazing heap of all their valuables, and, when those
were consumed, set the castle in flames. While the flames roared
and crackled around them, and shooting up into the sky, turned it
blood-red, Jocen cut the throat of his beloved wife, and stabbed
himself. AH the others who had wives or children, did the like
dreadful deed. When the populace broke in, they found (except
the trembling few, cowering in corners, whom they soon killed)
only heaps of greasy cinders, with here and there something like
part of the blackened trunk of a burnt tree, but which had lately
been a human creature, formed by the beneficent hand of the
Creator as they were.
After this bad beginning, Richard and his troops went on, in no
very good manner, with the Holy Crusade. It was undertaken
jointly by the King of England and his old friend Philip of France.
They commenced the business by reviewing their forces, to the
number of one hundred thousand men. Afterwards, they severally
embarked their troops for Messina, in Sicily, which was appointed
as the next place of meeting.
King Richard's sister had married the King of this place, but he
was dead : and his uncle Tancred had usurped the crown, cast the
Royal Widow into prison, and possessed himself of her estates.
Richard fiercely demanded his sister's release, the restoration of her
lands, and (according to the Royal custom of the Island) that she
should have a golden chair, a golden table, four-and-twenty silver
cups, and four-and-twenty silver dishes. As he was too powerful to
be successfully resisted, Tancred yielded to his demands ; and then
78 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
the French King grew jealous, and complained that the English
King wanted to be absolute in the Island of Messina and everywhere
else. Richard, however, cared little or nothing for this complaint ;
and in consideration of a present of twenty thousand pieces of gold,
promised his pretty little nephew Arthur, then a child of two years
old, in marriage to Tancred's daughter, AVe shall hear again of
pretty little Arthur by-and-by.
This Sicilian aftair arranged Avithout anybody's brains being
knocked out (which must have rather disappointed him), King
Richard took his sister away, and also a fair lady named Berengaria,
with whom he had fallen in love in France, and whom his mother.
Queen Eleanor (so long in prison, you remember, but released by
Richard on his coming to the Thone), had brought out there to be
his wife ; and sailed with them for Cyprus.
He soon had the pleasure of fighting the King of the Island of
Cyprus, for allowing his subjects to pillage some of the English
troops who were shipwrecked on the shore ; and easily conquering
this poor monarch, he seized his only daughter, to be a companion
to the lady Berengaria, and put the King himself into silver fetters.
He then sailed away again with his mother, sister, wife, and the
captive princess ; and soon arrived before the town of Acre, which
the French King with his fleet was besieging from the sea. But
the French King was in no triumphant condition, for his army had
been thinned by the swords of the Saracens, and wasted by the
plague ; and Saladin, the brave Sultan of the Turks, at the head
of a numerous army, was at that time gallantly defending the place
from the hills that rise above it.
Wherever the united army of Crusaders A\ent, they agreed in few
points except in gaming, drinking, and quarrelling, in a most
unholy manner ; in debauching the people among whom they
tarried, whether they were friends or foes ; and in carrying disturb-
ance and ruin into quiet places. The French King was jealous of
the English King, and the English King was jealous of the French
King, and the disorderly and violent soldiers of the two nations
were jealous of one another; consequently, the two Kings could
not at first agree, even upon a joint assault on Acre ; but when they
did make up their quarrel for that purpose, the Saracens promised
to yield the town, to give up to the Christians the wood of the Holy
Cross, to set at liberty all their Christian captives, and to pay two
hundred thousand pieces of gold. All this was to be done within
forty days ; but, not being done. King Richard ordered some three
thousand Saracen prisoners to be brought out in the front of his
camp, and there, in full view of their own countrymen, to be
butchered.
The French King had no part in this crime ; for he was by that
time travelling homeward with the greater part of his men ; being
RICHARD THE FIRST 79
offended by the overbearing conduct of the Enghsh King ; being
anxious to look after his own dominions ; and being ill, besides,
from the un^Yholesome air of that hot and sandy country. King
Richard carried on the war without him ; and remained in the
East, meeting with a variety of adventures, nearly a year and a half.
Every night when his army was on the march, and came to a halt,
the heralds cried out three times, to remind all the soldiers of the
cause in which they were engaged, ' Save the Holy Sepulchre ! ' and
then all the soldiers knelt and said 'Amen !' Marching or encamping,
the army had continually to strive with the hot air of the glaring
desert, or with the Saracen soldiers animated and directed by the
brave Saladin, or with both together. Sickness and death, battle
and wounds, were always among them ; but through every difificulty
King Richard fought like a giant, and worked like a common
labourer. Long and long after he was quiet in his grave, his
terrible battle-axe, with twenty English pounds of English steel in
its mighty head, was a legend among the Saracens ; and when all
the Saracen and Christian hosts had been dust for many a year, if
a Saracen horse started at any object by the wayside, his rider
would exclaim, ' What dost thou fear, Fool ? Dost thou think
King Richard is behind it ? '
No one admired this King's renown for bravery more than
Saladin himself, who was a generous and gallant enemy. When
Richard lay ill of a fever, Saladin sent him fresh fruits from
Damascus, and snow from the mountain-tops. Courtly messages
and compliments were frequently exchanged between them — and
then King Richard would mount his horse and kill as many
Saracens as he could ; and Saladin would mount his, and kill as
many Christians as he could. In this way King Richard fought to
his heart's content at Arsoof and at Jaffa ; and finding himself with
nothing exciting to do at Ascalon, except to rebuild, for his own
defence, some fortifications there which the Saracens had destroyed,
he kicked his ally the Duke of Austria, for being too proud to work
at them.
The army at last came within sight of the Holy City of Jerusalem;
but, being then a mere nest of jealousy, and quarrelling and fighting,
soon retired, and agreed with the Saracens upon a truce for three
years, three months, three days, and three hours. Then, the English
Christians, protected by the noble Saladin from Saracen revenge,
visited Our Saviour's tomb ; and then King Richard embarked with
a small force at Acre to return home.
But he was shipwrecked in the Adriatic Sea, and was fain to pass
through Germany, under an assumed name. Now, there were many
people in Germany who had served in the Holy Land under that
proud Duke of Austria who had been kicked ; and some of them,
easily recognising a man so remarkable as King Richard, carried
8o A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
their intelligence to the kicked Duke, who straightway took him
prisoner at a little inn near Vienna.
The Duke's master the Emperor of Germany, and the King of
France, were equally delighted to have so troublesome a monarch
in safe keeping. Friendships which are founded on a partnership
in doing wrong, are never true ; and the King of France was now
quite as heartily King Richard's foe, as he had ever been his friend
in his unnatural conduct to his father. He monstrously pretended
that King Richard had designed to poison him in the East ; he
charged him with having murdered, there, a man whom he had in
truth befriended ; he bribed the Emperor of Germany to keep him
close prisoner ; and, finally, through the plotting of these two
princes, Richard was brought before the German legislature,
charged with the foregoing crimes, and many others. But he
defended himself so well, that many of the assembly were moved to
tears by his eloquence and earnestness. It was decided that he
should be treated, during the rest of his captivity, in a manner more
becoming his dignity than he had been, and that he should be set
free on the payment of a heavy ransom. This ransom the English
people willingly raised. When Queen Eleanor took it over to
Germany, it was at first evaded and refused. But she appealed to
the honour of all the princes of the German Empire in behalf of her
son, and appealed so well that it was accepted, and the King released.
Thereupon, the King of France wrote to Prince John — ' Take care
of thyself. The devil is unchained ! '
Prince John had reason to fear his brother, for he had been a
traitor to him in his captivity. He had secretly joined the French
King ; had vowed to the English nobles and people that his brother
was dead ; and had vainly tried to seize the crown. He was now
in France, at a place called Evreux. Being the meanest and basest
of men, he contrived a mean and base expedient for making himself
acceptable to his brother. He invited the French officers of the
garrison in that town to dinner, murdered them all, and then took
the fortress. With this recommendation to the good will of a lion-
hearted monarch, he hastened to King Richard, fell on his knees
before him, and obtained the intercession of Queen Eleanor. ' I
forgive him,' said the King, ' and I hope I may forget the injury he
has done me, as easily as I know he will forget my pardon.'
While King Richard was in Sicily, there had been trouble in his
dominions at home : one of the bishops whom he had left in charge
thereof, arresting the other ; and making, in his pride and ambition,
as great a show as if he were King himself. But the King hearing
of it at Messina, and appointing a new Regency, this Longchamp
(for that was his name) had fled to France in a woman's dress, and
had there been encouraged and supported by the French King.
With all these causes of offence against Philip in his mind. King
RICHARD THE FIRST 8i
Richard had no sooner been welcomed home by his enthusiastic
subjects with great display and splendour, and had no sooner been
crowned afresh at Winchester, than he resolved to show the French
King that the Devil was unchained indeed, and made war against
him with great fury.
There was fresh trouble at home about this time, arising out of
the discontents of the poor people, who complained that they were
far more heavily taxed than the rich, and who found a spirited
champion in William Fitz-Osbert, called Longbkard. He
became the leader of a secret society, comprising fifty thousand
men ; he was seized by surprise ; he stabbed the citizen who first
laid hands upon him ; and retreated, bravely fighting, to a church,
which he maintained four days, until he was dislodged by fire, and
run through the body as he came out. He was not killed, though ;
for he was dragged, half dead, at the tail of a horse to Smithfield,
and there hanged. Death was long a favourite remedy for
silencing the people's advocates ; but as we go on with this history,
I fancy we shall find them difificult to make an end of, for all
that.
The French war, delayed occasionally by a truce, was still in
progress when a certain Ford named Vidomar, Viscount of
Limoges, chanced to find in his ground a treasure of ancient coins.
As the King's vassal, he sent the King half of it ; but the King
claimed the whole. The lord refused to yield the whole. The
King besieged the lord in his castle, swore that he would take
the castle by storm, and hang every man of its defenders on the
battlements.
There was a strange old song in that part of the country, to the
effect that in Limoges an arrow would be made by v/hich King
Richard would die. It may be that Bertrand de Gourdon, a
young man who was one of the defenders of the castle, had often
sung it or heard it sung of a winter night, and remembered it when
he saw, from his post upon the ramparts, the King attended only by
his chief officer riding below the walls surveying the place. He
drew an arrow to the head, took steady aim, said between his teeth,
' Now I pray God speed thee well, arrow ! ' discharged it, and struck
the King in the left shoulder.
Although the wound was not at first considered dangerous, it Avas
severe enough to cause the King to retire to his tent, and direct the
assault to be made without him. The castle was taken ; and every
man of its defenders was hanged, as the King had sworn all should
be, except Bertrand de Gourdon, who was reserved until the royal
pleasure respecting him should be known.
By that time unskilful treatment had made the wound mortal,
and the King knew that he was dying. He directed Bertrand to be
brought into his tent. The young man was brought there, heavily
• O
82 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
chained. King Richard looked at him steadily. He looked, as
steadily, at the King.
' Knave ! ' said King Richard. ' ^Vhat have I done to thee that
thou shouldest take my life ? '
' What hast thou done to me ? ' replied the young man. ' With
thine own hands thou hast killed my father and my two brothers.
Myself thou wouldest have hanged. Let me die now, by any
torture that thou wilt. My comfort is, that no torture can save
Thee. Thou too must die ; and, through me, tlie world is quit of
thee ! '
Again the King looked at the young man steadily. Again the
young man looked steadily at him. Perhaps some remembrance of
his generous enemy Saladin, who was not a Christian, came into
the mind of the dying King.
' Youth ! ' he said, ' I forgive thee. Go unhurt ! '
Then, turning to the chief officer who had been riding in his
company when he received the wound. King Richard said :
' Take off his chains, give him a hundred shillings, and let him
depart.'
He sunk down on his couch, and a dark mist seemed in his
w^eakened eyes to fill the tent wherein he had so often rested, and
he died. His age was forty-two ; he had reigned ten years. His
last command was not obeyed ; for the chief officer flayed Bertrand
de Gourdon alive, and hanged him.
There is an old tune yet known — a sorrowful air will sometimes
outlive many generations of strong men, and even last longer than
battle-axes with twenty pounds of steel in the head — by which this
King is said to have been discovered in his captivity. Blondel, a
favourite Minstrel of King Richard, as the story relates, faithfully
seeking his Royal master, went singing it outside the gloomy walls
of many foreign fortresses and prisons; until at last he heard it
echoed from within a dungeon, and knew the voice, and cried out
in ecstasy, ' O Richard, O my King ! ' You may believe it, if
you like ; it would be easy to believe worse things. Richard was
himself a Minstrel and a Poet. If he had not been a Prince too,
he might have been a better man perhaps, and might have gone
out of the world with less bloodshed and waste of life to answer
for.
JOHN Ss
CHAPTER XIV
ENGLAND UNDER KING JOHN, CALLED LACKLAND
At two-and-thirty years of age, John became King of England.
His pretty little nephew Arthur had the best claim to the throne ;
but John seized the treasure, and made fine promises to the nobility,
and got himself crowned at \\'estminster within a few weeks after
his brother Richard's death. I doubt whether the crown could
possibly have been put upon the head of a meaner coward, or a
more detestable villain, if England had been searched from end to
end to find him out.
The French King, Philip, refused to acknowledge the right of
John to his new dignity, and declared in favour of Arthur. You
must not suppose that he had any generosity of feeling for the
fatherless boy ; it merely suited his ambitious schemes to oppose
the King of England. So John and the French King went to war
about Arthur.
He was a handsome boy, at that time only twelve years old. He
was not born when his father, Geoffrey, had his brains trampled out
at the tournament; and, besides the misfortune of never having
known a father's guidance and protection, he had the additional
misfortune to have a foolish mother (Constance by name), lately
married to her third husband. She took Arthur, upon John's
accession, to the French King, who pretended to be very much his
friend, and who made him a Knight, and promised him his daughter
in marriage ; but, who cared so little about him in reality, that find-
ing it his interest to make peace with King John for a time, he did
so without the least consideration for the poor little Prince, and
heartlessly sacrificed all his interests.
Young Arthur, for two years afterwards, lived quietly ; and in the
course of that time his mother died. But, the French King then
finding it his interest to quarrel with King John again, again made
Arthur his pretence, and invited the orphan boy to court. ' You
know your rights. Prince,' said the French King, ' and you would
like to be a King. Is it not so ? ' ' Truly,' said Prince Arthur, ' I
should greatly like to be a King ! ' * Then,' said Philip, ' you shall
have two hundred gentlemen who are Knights of mine, and with
them you shall go to win back the provinces belonging to you, of
which your uncle, the usurping King of England, has taken pos-
session. I myself, meanwhile, will head a force against him in
Normandy.' Poor Arthur was so flattered and so grateful that he
signed a treaty with the crafty French King, agreeing to consider
84 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
him his superior Lord, and that the French King should keep for
himself whatever he could take from King John.
Now, King John was so bad in all ways, and King Philip was so
perfidious, that Arthur, between the two, might as well have been
a lamb between a fox and a wolf. But, being so young, he was
ardent and flushed with hope ; and, when the people of Brittany
(which was his inheritance) sent him five hundred more knights
and five thousand foot soldiers, he believed his fortune was made.
The people of Brittany had been fond of him from his birth, and
had requested that he might be called Arthur, in remembrance of
that dimly-famous English Arthur, of whom I told you early in this
book, whom they believed to have been the brave friend and com-
panion of an old King of their own. They had tales among them
about a prophet called Merlin (of the same old time), who had
foretold that their own King should be restored to them after
hundreds of years ; and they believed that the prophecy would be
fulfilled in Arthur ; that the time would come when he would rule
them with a crown of Brittany upon his head ; and when neither
King of France nor King of England would have any power over
them. When Arthur found himself riding in a glittering suit of
armour on a richly caparisoned horse, at the head of his train of
knights and soldiers, he began to believe this too, and to consider
old Merlin a very superior prophet.
He did not know — how could he, being so innocent and inex-
perienced?— that his little army was a mere nothing against the
power of the King of England. The French King knew it ; but
the poor boy's fate was little to him, so that the King of England
was worried and distressed. Therefore, King Philip went his way
into Normandy, and Prince Arthur went his way towards Mirebeau,
a French town near Poictiers, both very well pleased.
Prince Arthur went to attack the town of Mirebeau, because his
grandmother Eleanor, who has so often made her appearance in
this history (and who had always been his mother's enemy), was
living there, and because his Knights said, ' Prince, if you can take
her prisoner, you will be able to bring the King your uncle to
terms ! ' But she was not to be easily taken. She was old enough
by this time — ^eighty — but she was as full of stratagem as she was
full of years and wickedness. Receiving intelligence of young
Arthur's approach, she shut herself up in a high tower, and en-
couraged her soldiers to defend it like men. Prince Arthur with
his little army besieged the high tower. King John, hearing how
matters stood, came up to the rescue, with his army. So here was
a strange family-party ! The boy-Prince besieging his grandmother,
and his uncle besieging him !
This position of affairs did not last long. One summer night
King John, by treachery, got his men into the town, surprised
JOHN &$
Prince Arthur's force, took two hundred of his knights, and seized
the Prince himself in his bed. The Knights were put in heavy
irons, and driven away in open carts drawn by bullocks, to various
dungeons where they were most inhumanly treated, and where
some of them were starved to death. Prince Arthur was sent to
the castle of Falaise.
One day, while he was in prison at that castle, mournfully think-
ing it strange that one so young should be in so much trouble, and
looking out of the small window in the deep dark wall, at the summer
sky and the birds, the door was softly opened, and he saw his uncle
the King standing in the shadow of the archway, looking very grim.
' Arthur,' said the King, with his wicked eyes more on the stone
floor than on his nephew, ' will you not trust to the gentleness, the
friendship, and the truthfulness of your loving uncle ? '
' I will tell my loving uncle that,' repHed the boy, ' when he does
me right. Let him restore to me my kingdom of England, and
then come to me and ask the question.'
The King looked at him and went out. ' Keep that boy close
prisoner,' said he to the warden of the castle.
Then, the King took secret counsel with the worst of his nobles
how the Prince was to be got rid of. Some said, ' Put out his eyes
and keep him in prison, as Robort of Normandy was kept.' Others
said, ' Have him stabbed.' Others, ' Have him hanged.' Others,
' Have him poisoned.'
King John, feeling that in any case, whatever was done after-
wards, it would be a satisfaction to his mind to have those hand-
some eyes burnt out that had looked at him so proudly while his
own royal eyes were blinking at the stone floor, sent certain ruffians
to Falaise to blind the boy with red-hot irons. But Arthur so
pathetically entreated them, and shed such piteous tears, and so
appealed to Hubert de Bourg (or Burgh), the warden of the
castle, who had a love for him, and was an honourable, tender man,
that Hubert could not bear it. To his eternal honour he prevented
the torture from being performed, and, at his own risk, sent the
savages away.
The chafed and disappointed King bethought himself of the
stabbing suggestion next, and, with his shutitiing manner and his
cruel face, proposed it to one William de Bray. ' I am a gentleman
and not an executioner,' said William de Bray, and left the presence
with disdain.
But it was not difficult for a King to hire a murderer in those
days. King John found one for his money, and sent him down to
the castle of Falaise. ' On what errand dost thou come ? ' said
Hubert to this fellow. ' To despatch young Arthur,' he returned.
' Go back to him who sent thee,' answered Hubert, ' and say that I
will do it ! '
86 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
King John very well knowing that Hubert would never do it, but
that he courageously sent this reply to save the Prince or gain time,
despatched messengers to convey the young prisoner to the castle
of Rouen.
Arthur was soon forced from the good Hubert — of whom he had
never stood in greater need than then — carried away by night, and
lodged in his new prison : where, through his grated window, he
could hear the deep waters of the river Seine, rippling against the
stone wall below.
One dark night, as he lay sleeping, dreaming perhaps of rescue
by those unfortunate gentlemen who were obscurely suffering and
dying in his cause, he was roused, and bidden by his jailer to come
down the staircase to the foot of the tower. He hurriedly dressed
himself and obeyed. When they came to the bottom of the wind-
ing stairs, and the night air from the river blew upon their faces,
the jailer trod upon his torch and put it out. Then, Arthur, in the
darkness, was hurriedly drawn into a solitary boat. And in that
boat, he found his uncle and one other man.
He knelt to them, and prayed them not to murder him. Deaf
to his entreaties, they stabbed him and sunk his body in the river
with heavy stones. When the spring-morning broke, the tower-door
was closed, the boat was gone, the river sparkled on its way, and
never more was any trace of the poor boy beheld by mortal eyes.
The news of this atrocious murder being spread in England,
awakened a hatred of the King (already odious for his many vices,
and for his having stolen away and married a noble lady while his
own wife was living) that never slept again through his whole reign.
In Brittany, the indignation was intense. Arthur's own sister
Eleanor was in the power of John and shut up in a convent at
Bristol, but his half-sister Alice was in Brittany. The people chose
her, and the murdered prince's father-in-law, the last husband of
Constance, to represent them ; and carried their fiery complaints to
King Philip. King Philip summoned King John (as the holder of
territory in France) to come before him and defend himself. King
John refusing to appear. King Philip declared him false, perjured,
and guilty ; and again made war. In a little time, by conquering
the greater part of his French territory, King Philip deprived him
of one-third of his dominions. And, through all the fighting that
took place, King John was always found, either to be eating and
drinking, like a gluttonous fool, when the danger was at a distance,
or to be running away, like a beaten cur, when it was near.
You might suppose that when he was losing his dominions at this
rate, and when his own nobles cared so little for him or his cause
that they plainly refused to follow his banner out of England, he
had enemies enough. But he made another enemy of the Pope,
which he did in this way.
-IIHi'liFllllli
I'M/
11 ■('i!i
Jai///ff^ a/u/ t^Jwu^ei/.
JOHN 87
The Archbishop of Canterbury dymg, and the junior monks of
that place wishing to get the start of the senior monks in the
appointment of his successor, met together at midnight, secretly
elected a certain Reginald, and sent him off to Rome to get the
Pope's approval. The senior monks and the King soon finding
this out, and being very angry about it, the junior monks gave way,
and all the monks together elected the Bishop of Norwich, who was
the King's favourite. The Pope, hearing the whole story, declared
that neither election would do for him, and that he elected .Stephen
Langton. The monks submitting to the Pope, the King turned
them all out bodily, and banished them as traitors. The Pope sent
three bishops to the King, to threaten him with an Interdict. The
King told the bishops that if any Interdict were laid upon his
kingdom, he w^ould tear out the eyes and cut off the noses of all
the monks he could lay hold of, and send them over to Rome in
that undecorated state as a present for their master. The bishops,
nevertheless, soon published the Interdict, and fled.
After it had lasted a year, the Pope proceeded to his next step ;
which was Excommunication. King John was declared excom-
municated, with all the usual ceremonies. The King was so incensed
at this, and was made so desperate by the disaffection of his Barons
and the hatred of his people, that it is said he even privately sent
ambassadors to the Turks in Spain, offering to renounce his religion
and hold his kingdom of them if they would help him. It is related
that the ambassadors were admitted to the presence of the Turkish
Emir through long lines of Moorish guards, and that they found
the Emir with his eyes seriously fixed on the pages of a large book,
from which he never once looked up. That they gave him a letter
from the King containing his proposals, and were gravely dismissed.
That presently the Emir sent for one of them, and conjured him,
by his faith in his religion, to say what kind of man the King of
England truly was? That the ambassador, thus pressed, replied
that the King of England was a false tyrant, against whom his own
subjects would soon rise. And that this was quite enough for
the Emir.
Money being, in his position, the next best thing to men, King
John spared no means of getting it. He set on foot another
oppressing and torturing of the unhappy Jews (which was quite in
his way), and invented a new punishment for one wealthy Jew of
Bristol. Until such time as that Jew should produce a certain large
sum of money, the King sentenced him to be imprisoned, and, every
day, to have one tooth violently wrenched out of his head — beginning
with the double teeth. For seven days, the oppressed man bore
the daily pain and lost the daily tooth ; but, on the eighth, he paid
the money. With the treasure raised in such ways, the King made
an expedition into Ireland, where some English nobles had revolted.
8S A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
It was one of the very few places from \\hich he did not run away ;
because no resistance was shown. He made another expedition
into Wales^whence he did run away in the end : but not before he
had got from the Welsh people, as hostages, twenty-seven young
men of the best families ; every one of whom he caused to be slain
in the following year.
To Interdict and Excommunication, the Pope now added his
last sentence ; Deposition, He proclaimed John no longer King,
absolved all his subjects from their allegiance, and sent Stephen
Langton and others to the King of France to tell him that, if he
would invade England, he should be forgiven all his sins — at least,
should be forgiven them by the Pope, if that would do.
As there was nothing that King Philip desired more than to
invade England, he collected a great army at Rouen, and a fleet of
seventeen hundred ships to bring them over. But the English
people, however bitterly they hated the King, were not a people
to suffer invasion quietly. They flocked to Dover, where the
English standard was, in such great numbers to enrol themselves
as defenders of their native land, that there were not provisions for
them, and the King could only select and retain sixty thousand.
But, at this crisis, the Pope, who had his own reasons for objecting
to either King John or King Philip being too powerful, interfered.
He entrusted a legate, whose name was Pandolf, with the easy
task of frightening King John. He sent him to the English Camp,
from France, to terrify him with exaggerations of King Philip's
power, and his own weakness in the discontent of the English Barons
and people. Pandolf discharged his commission so well, that
King John, in a wretched panic, consented to acknowledge Stephen
Langton ; to resign his kingdom ' to God, Saint Peter, and Saint
Paul ' — which meant the Pope ; and to hold it, ever afterwards, by
the Pope's leave, on payment of an annual sum of money. To this
shameful contract he publicly bound himself in the church of the
Knights Templars at Dover : where he laid at the legate's feet a
part of the tribute, which the legate haughtily trampled upon. But
they do say, that this was merely a genteel flourish, and that he was
afterwards seen to pick it up and pocket it.
There was an unfortunate prophet, of the name of Peter, who had
greatly increased King John's terrors by predicting that he would
be unknighted (which the King supposed to signify that he would
die) before the Feast of the Ascension should be past. That was
the day after this humiliation. When the next morning came, and
the King, who had been trembling all night, found himself alive
and safe, he ordered the prophet— and his son too— to be dragged
through the streets at the tails of horses, and then hanged, for
having frightened him.
As King John had now submitted, the Pope, to King Philip's
JOHN 89
great astonishment, took him under his protection, and informed
King Phihp that he found he could not give him leave to invade
England. The angry Philip resolved to do it without his leave ;
but he gained noUiing and lost much; for, the English, commanded
by the Earl of Salisbury, went over, in five hundred ships, to the
French coast, before the French fleet had sailed away from it, and
utterly defeated the whole.
The Pope then took off his three sentences, one after another,
and empowered Stephen Eangton publicly to receive King John
into the favour of the Church again, and to ask him to dinner. The
King, who hated Langton with all his might and main — and with
reason too, for he was a great and a good man, with whom such a
King could have no sympathy — pretended to cry and to be very
grateful. There was a little difficulty about settling how much the
King should pay as a recompense to the clergy for the losses he
had caused them ; but, the end of it was, that the superior clergy
got a good deal, and the inferior clergy got little or nothing — which
has also happened since King John's time, I believe.
When all these matters were arranged, the King in his triumph
became more fierce, and false, and insolent to all around him than
he had ever been. An alliance of sovereigns against King Philip,
gave him an opportunity of landing an army in France ; with which
he even took a town ! But, on the French King's gaining a great
victory, he ran away, of course, and made a truce for five years.
And now the time approached when he was to be still further
bumbled, and made to feel, if he could feel anything, what a wretched
creature he was. Of all men in the world, Stephen Langton seemed
raised up by Heaven to oppose and subdue him. When he ruth-
lessly burnt and destroyed the property of his own subjects, because
their Lords, the Barons, would not serve him abroad, Stephen
Langton fearlessly reproved and threatened him. When he swore
to restore the laws of King Edward, or the laws of King Henry the
First, Stephen Langton knew his falsehood, and pursued him
through all his evasions. When the Barons met at the abbey of
Saint Edmund's-Bury, to consider their wrongs and the King's
oppressions, Stephen Langton roused them by his fervid words to
demand a solemn charter of rights and liberties from their perjured
master, and to swear, one by one, on the High Altar, that they
would have it, or would wage war against him to the death. When
the King hid himself in London from the Barons, and was at last
obliged to receive them, they told him roundly they would not
believe him unless Stephen Langton became a surety that he would
keep his word. When he took the Cross to invest himself with
some interest, and belong to something that was received with
favour, Stephen Langton was still immovable. When he appealed
to the Pope, and the Pope wrote to Stephen Langton in behalf of
90 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
his new favourite, Stephen Langton was deaf, even to the Pope
himself, and saw before him nothing but the welfare of England and
the crimes of the English King.
At Easter-time, the Barons assembled at Stamford, in Lincoln-
shire, in proud array, and, marching near to Oxford where the King
was, delivered into the hands of Stephen Langton and two others, a
list of grievances. ' And these,' they said, ' he must redress, or we
will do it for ourselves ! ' When Stephen Langton told the King as
much, and read the list to him, he went half mad with rage. But
that did him no more good than his afterwards trying to pacify the
Barons with lies. They called themselves and their followers, ' The
army of God and the Holy Church.' Marching through the
country, with the people thronging to them everywhere (except at
Northampton, where they failed in an attack upon the castle), they
at last triumphantly set up their banner in London itself, whither
the whole land, tired of the tyrant, seemed to flock to join them.
Seven knights alone, of all the knights in England, remained with the
King ; who, reduced to this strait, at last sent the Earl of Pembroke
to the Barons to say that he approved of everything, and would
meet them to sign their charter when they would. ' Then,' said the
Barons, ' let the day be the fifteenth of June, and the place,
Runny-Mead.'
On Monday, the fifteenth of June, one thousand two hundred and
fourteen, the King came from AVindsor Castle, and the Barons came
from the town of Staines, and they met on Runny-Mead, which is
still a pleasant meadow by the Thames, where rushes grow in the
clear water of the winding river, and its banks are green with grass
and trees. On the side of the Barons, came the General of their
army, Robert Fitz-AValter, and a great concourse of the nobility
of England, With the King, came, in all, some four-and-twenty
persons of any note, most of whom despised him, and were merely
his advisers in form. On that great day, and in that great company,
the King signed Magna Charta — the great charter of England —
by which he pledged himself to maintain the Church in its rights ;
to relieve the Barons of oppressive obligations as vassals of the
Crown — of which the Barons, in their turn, pledged themselves to
relieve their vassals, the people ; to respect the liberties of London
and all other cities and boroughs ; to protect foreign merchants who
came to England ; to imprison no man without a fair trial ; and to
sell, delay, or deny justice to none. As the Barons knew his false-
hood well, they further required, as their securities, that he should
send out of his kingdom all his foreign troops ; that for two months
they should hold possession of the city of London, and Stephen
Langton of the Tower; and that five-and-twenty of their body,
chosen by themselves, should be a lawful committee to watch the
keeping of the charter, and to make war upon him if he broke it.
JOHN Qi
All this he was obliged to yield. He signed the charter with a
smile, and, if he could have looked agreeable, would have done so,
as he departed from the splendid assembly. When he got home to
Windsor Castle, he was quite a madman in his helpless fury. And
he broke the charter immediately afterwards.
He sent abroad for foreign soldiers, and sent to the Pope for
help, and plotted to take London by surprise, while the Barons
should be holding a great tournament at Stamford, which they had
agreed to hold there as a celebration of the charter. The Barons,
however, found him out and put it off. Then, when the l^arons
desired to see him and tax him with his treachery, he made numbers
of appointments with them, and kept none, and shifted from place
to place, and was constantly sneaking and skulking about. At last
he appeared at Dover, to join his foreign soldiers, of whom numbers
came into his pay ; and with them he besieged and took Rochester
Castle, which was occupied by knights and soldiers of the Barons.
He would have hanged them every one ; but the leader of the
foreign soldiers, fearful of what the English people might afterwards
do to him, interfered to save the knights ; therefore the King was
fain to satisfy his vengeance with the death of all the common men.
Then, he sent the Earl of Salisbury, with one portion of his army,
to ravage the eastern part of his own dominions, while he carried fire
and slaughter into the northern part ; torturing, plundering, killing,
and inflicting every possible cruelty upon the people ; and, every
morning, setting a worthy example to his men by setting fire, with
his own monster-hands, to the house where he had slept last night.
Nor was this all ; for the Pope, coming to the aid of his precious
friend, laid the kingdom under an Interdict again, because the
people took part with the Barons. It did not much matter, for the
people had grown so used to it now, that they had begun to think
nothing about it. It occurred to them — perhaps to Stephen Langton
too — that they could keep their churches open, and ring their bells,
without the Pope's permission as well as with it. So, they tried the
experiment — and found that it succeeded perfectly.
It being now impossible to bear the country, as a wilderness of
cruelty, or longer to hold any terms with such a forsworn outlaw of
a King, the Barons sent to Louis, son of the French monarch, to
offer him the English crown. Caring as little for the Pope's
excommunication of him if he accepted the offer, as it is possible
his father may have cared for the Pope's forgiveness of his sins, he
landed at Sandwich (King John immediately running away from
Dover, where he happened to be), and went on to London. The
Scottish King, with whom many of the Northern English Lords had
taken refuge ; numbers of the foreign soldiers, numbers of the
Barons, and numbers of the people went over to him every day ; —
King John, the while, continually running away in all directions.
02 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
The career of Louis was checked however, by the suspicions of the
Barons, founded on the dying declaration of a French Lord, that
when the kingdom was conquered he was sworn to banish them as
traitors, and to give their estates to some of his own Nobles. Rather
than suffer this, some of the Barons liesitated : others even went
over to King John.
It seemed to be the turning-point of King John's fortunes, for,
in his savage and murderous course, he had now taken some towns
and met with some successes. But, happily for England and
humanity, his death was near. Crossing a dangerous quicksand,
called the Wash, not very far from Wisbeach, the tide came up and
nearly drowned his army. He and his soldiers escaped ; but,
looking back from the shore when he was safe, he saw the roaring
water sweep down in a torrent, overturn the waggons, horses, and
men, that carried his treasure, and engulf them in a raging whirl-
pool from which nothing could be delivered.
Cursing, and swearing, and gnawing his fingers, he went on to
Swinestead Abbey, where the monks set before him quantities of
pears, and peaches, and new cider — some say poison too, but there
is very little reason to suppose so — of which he ate and drank in
an immoderate and beastly way. All night he lay ill of a burning
fever, and haunted with horrible fears. Next day, they put him in
a horse-litter, and carried him to Sleaford Castle, where he passed
another night of pain and horror. Next day, they carried him,
with greater difficulty than on the day before, to the castle of
Newark upon Trent ; and there, on the eighteenth of October, in
the forty-ninth year of his age, and the seventeenth of his vile
reign, was an end of this miserable brute.
CHAPTER XV
ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD, CALLED, OF WINCHESTER
If any of the English Barons remembered the murdered Arthur's
sister, Eleanor the fair maid of Brittany, shut up in her convent at
Bristol, none among them spoke of her now, or maintained her
right to the Crown. The dead Usurper's eldest boy, Henry by
name, was taken by the Earl of Pembroke, the Marshal of England,
to the city of Cloucester, and there crowned in great haste when he
was only ten years old. As the Crown itself had been lost with the
King's treasure in the raging water, and as there was no time to
make another, they put a circle of plain gold upon his head instead.
•We have been the enemies of this child's father,' said Lord
HENRY THE THIRD 93
Pembroke, a good and true gentleman, to the few Lords who were
present, ' and he merited our ill-will ; but the child himself is
innocent, and his youth demands our friendship and protection,'
Those Lords felt tenderly towards the little boy, remembering their
own young children ; and they bowed their heads, and said, ' Long
live King Henry the Third ! '
Next, a great council met at Bristol, revised Magna Charta, and
made Lord Pembroke Regent or Protector of England, as the King
was too young to reign alone. The next thing to be done, was to
get rid of Prince Louis of France, and to win over those English
Barons who were still ranged under his banner. He was strong in
many parts of England, and in London itself; and he held, among
other places, a certain Castle called the Castle of Mount Sorel, in
Leicestershire. To this fortress, after some skirmishing and truce-
making, Lord Pembroke laid siege. Louis despatched an army of
six hundred knights and twenty thousand soldiers to relieve it.
Lord Pembroke, who was not strong enough for such a force,
retired with all his men. The army of the French Prince, which
had marched there with fire and plunder, marched away with fire
and plunder, and came, in a boastful swaggering manner, to Lincoln.
The town submitted ; but the Castle in the town, held by a brave
widow lady, named Nichola de Camville (whose property it was),
made such a sturdy resistance, that the French Count in command
of the army of the French Prince found it necessary to besiege this
Castle. AN'hile he was thus engaged, word was brought to him that
Lord Pembroke, with four hundred knights, two hundred and fifty
men with cross-bows, and a stout force both of horse and foot, was
marching towards him. 'What care I?' said the French Count.
' The Englishman is not so mad as to attack me and my great army
in a walled town ! ' But the Englishman did it for all that, and did
it— not so madly but so wisely, that he decoyed the great army into
the narrow, ill-paved lanes and byways of Lincoln, where its horse-
soldiers could not ride in any strong body; and there he made
such havoc with them, that the whole force surrendered themselves
prisoners, except the Count ; who said that he would never yield
to any English traitor alive, and accordingly got killed. The end
of this victory, which the English called, for a joke, the Fair of
Lincoln, was the usual one in those times — the common men were
slain without any mercy, and the knights and gentlemen paid
ransom and went home.
The wife of Louis, the fair Blanche of Castii.e, dutifully
equipped a fleet of eighty good ships, and sent it over from France
to her husband's aid. An English fleet of forty ships, some good
and some bad, gallantly met them near the mouth of the Thames,
and took or sunk sixty-five in one fight. This great loss put an
end to the French Prince's hopes. A treaty was made at Lambeth,
94 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
in virtue of which the English Barons who had remained attached
to his cause returned to their allegiance, and it was engaged on
both sides that the Prince and all his troops should retire peacefully
to France. It was time to go ; for war had made him so poor that
he was obliged to borrow money from the citizens of London to
pay his expenses home.
Lord Pembroke afterwards applied himself to governing the
country justly, and to healing the quarrels and disturbances that
had arisen among men in the days of the bad King John. He
caused Magna Charta to be still more improved, and so amended
the Forest Laws that a Peasant was no longer put to death for
killing a stag in a Royal Forest, but was only imprisoned. It
would have been well for England if it could have had so good
a Protector many years longer, but that was not to be. Within
three years after the young King's Coronation, Lord Pembroke
died ; and you may see his tomb, at this day, in the old Temple
Church in London.
The Protectorship was now divided. Peter de Roches, whom
King John had made Bishop of Winchester, was entrusted with the
care of the person of the young sovereign ; and the exercise of the
Royal authority w^as confided to Earl Hubert de Burgh. These
two personages had from the first no liking for each other, and soon
became enemies. When the young King was declared of age,
Peter de Roches, finding that Hubert increased in power and
favour, retired discontentedly, and went abroad. For nearly ten
years afterwards Hubert had full sway alone.
But ten years is a long time to hold the favour of a King. This
King, too, as he grew up, showed a strong resemblance to his
father, in feebleness, inconsistency, and irresolution. The best that
can be said of him is that he was not cruel. De Roches coming
home again, after ten years, and being a novelty, the King began
to favour him and to look coldly on Hubert. Wanting money
besides, and having made Hubert rich, he began to dislike Hubert.
At last he was made to believe, or pretended to believe, that Hubert
had misappropriated some of the Royal treasure ; and ordered him
to furnish an account of all he had done in his administration.
Besides which, the foolish charge was brought against Hubert that
he had made himself the King's favourite by magic. Hubert very
well knov.'ing that he could never defend himself against such
nonsense, and that his old enemy must be determined on his ruin,
instead of answering the charges fled to Merton Abbey. Then the
King, in a violent passion, sent for the Mayor of London, and said
to the Mayor, ' Take twenty thousand citizens, and drag me Hubert
de Burgh out of that abbey, and bring him here.' The Mayor
posted off to do it, but the Archbishop of Dublin (who was a friend
of Hubert's) warning the King that an abbey was a sacred place,
HENRY THE THIRD 95
and that if he committed any violence there, he must answer for
it to the Church, the King changed his mind and called the INIayor
back, and declared that Hubert should have four months to prepare
his defence, and should be safe and free during that time,
Hubert, who relied upon the King's word, though I think he was
old enough to have known better, came out of Merton Abbey upon
these conditions, and journeyed away to see his wife : a Scottish
Princess who was then at St. Edmund's-Bury.
Almost as soon as he had departed from the Sanctuary, his
enemies persuaded the weak King to send out one Sir Godfrey de
Crancumb, who commanded three hundred vagabonds called the
Black Band, with orders to seize him. They came up with him at
a little town in Essex, called Brentwood, when he was in bed. He
leaped out of bed, got out of the house, fled to the church, ran up
to the altar, and laid his hand upon the cross. Sir Godfrey and
the Black Band, caring neither for church, altar, nor cross, dragged
him forth to the church door, with their drawn swords flashing
round his head, and sent for a Smith to rivet a set of chains upon
him. When the Smith (I wish I knew his name !) was brought, all
dark and swarthy with the smoke of his forge, and panting with the
speed he had made ; and the Black Band, falling aside to show
him the Prisoner, cried with a loud uproar, ' IMake the fetters
heavy I make them strong ! ' the Smith dropped upon his knee — •
but not to the Black Band — and said, ' This is the brave Earl
Hubert de Burgh, who fought at Dover Castle, and destroyed the
French fleet, and has done his country much good service. You
may kill me, if you like, but I will never make a chain for Earl
Hubert de Burgh ! '
The Black Band never blushed, or they might have blushed at
this. They knocked the Smith about from one to another, and
swore at him, and tied the Earl on horseback, undressed as he was,
and carried him off to the Tower of London. The Bishops, how-
ever, were so indignant at the violation of the Sanctuary of the
Church, that the frightened King soon ordered the Black Band to
take him back again ; at the same time commanding the Sheriff" of
Essex to prevent his escaping out of Brentwood Church. Well !
the Sheriff dug a deep trench all round the church, and erected a
high fence, and watched the church night and day ; the Black Band
and their Captain watched it too, like three hundred and one black
wolves. For thirty-nine days, Hubert de Burgh remained within.
At length, upon the fortieth day, cold and hunger were too much
for him, and he gave himself up to the Black Band, who carried
him off, for the second time, to the Tower, ^^^hen his trial came
on, he refused to plead ; but at last it was arranged that he should
give up all the royal lands which had been bestowed upon him, and
should be kept at the Castle of Devizes, in what was called ' free
96 A. CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
prison,' in charge of four knights appointed by four lords. There,
he remained ahnost a year, until, learning that a follower of his
old enemy the Bishop was made Keeper of the Castle, and fearing
that he might be killed by treachery, he climbed the ramparts one
dark night, dropped from the top of the high Castle wall into the
moat, and coming safely to the ground, took refuge in another
church. From this place he was delivered by a party of horse
despatched to his help by some nobles, who were by this time in
revolt against the King, and assembled in Wales. He was finally
pardoned and restored to his estates, but he lived privately, and
never more aspired to a high post in the realm, or to a high place
in the King's favour. And thus end — more happily than the
stories of many favourites of Kings — the adventures of Earl Hubert
de Burgh.
The nobles, who had risen in revolt, were stirred up to rebellion
by the overbearing conduct of the Bishop of Winchester, who,
finding that the King secretly hated the Great Charter which had
been forced from his father, did his utmost to confirm him in that
dislike, and in the preference he showed to foreigners over the
English. Of this, and of his even publicly declaring that the
Barons of England were inferior to those of France, the English
Lords complained with such bitterness, that the King, finding them
well supported by the clergy, became frightened for his throne, and
sent away the Bishop and all his foreign associates. On his
marriage, however, with Eleanor, a French lady, the daughter of
the Count of Provence, he openly favoured the foreigners again ;
and so many of his wife's relations came over, and made such an
immense family-party at court, and got so many good things, and
pocketed so much money, and were so high with the English
whose money they pocketed, that the bolder English Barons mur-
mured openly about a clause there was in the Great Charter, which
provided for the banishment of unreasonable favourites. But, the
foreigners only laughed disdainfully, and said, ' What are your
English laws to us ? '
King Philip of France had died, and had been succeeded by
Prince Louis, who had also died after a short reign of three years,
and had been succeeded by his son of the same name — so moderate
and just a man that he was not the least in the world like a King,
as Kings \vent. Isabella, King Henry's mother, wished very
much (for a certain spite she had) that England should make war
against this King ; and, as King Henry was a mere puppet in any-
body's hands who knew how to manage his feebleness, she easily
carried her point with him. But, the Parliament were determined
to give him no money for such a war. So, to defy the Parliament,
he packed up thirty large ca.sks of silver — I don't know how he got
so much ; I dare say he screwed it out of the miserable Jews — and
HENRY THE THIRD 97
put them aboard ship, and went away himself to carry war into
France : accompanied by his mother and his brother Richard, Earl
of Cornwall, who was rich and clever. But he only got well beaten,
and came home.
The good-humour of the Parliament was not restored by this.
They reproached the King with wasting the public money to make
greedy foreigners rich, and were so stern with him, and so deter-
mined not to let him have more of it to waste if they could help it,
that he was at his wit's end for some, and tried so shamelessly to
get all he could from his subjects, by excuses or by force, that the
people used to say the King was the sturdiest beggar in England.
He took the Cross, thinking to get some money by that means ;
but, as it was very well known that he never meant to go on a
crusade, he got none. In all this contention, the Londoners were
particularly keen against the King, and the King hated them warmly
in return. Hating or loving, however, made no difference ; he con-
tinued in the same condition for nine or ten years, when at last the
Barons said that if he would solemnly confirm their liberties afresh,
the Parliament would vote him a large sum.
As he readily consented, there was a great meeting held in West-
minster Hall, one pleasant day in May, when all the clergy, dressed
in their robes and holding ever}' one of them a burning candle in
his hand, stood up (the Barons being also there) while the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury read the sentence of excommunication against
any man, and all men, who should henceforth, in any way, infringe
the Great Charter of the Kingdom. When he had done, they all
put out their burning candles with a curse upon the soul of any
one, and every one, who should merit that sentence. The King
concluded with an oath to keep the Charter, ' As I am a man, as I
am a Christian, as I am a Knight, as I am a King ! '
It was easy to make oaths, and easy to break them ; and the
King did both, as his father had done before him. He took to
his old courses again when he was supplied with money, and soon
cured of their weakness the few who had ever really trusted him.
A\'hen his money was gone, and he was once more borrowing and
begging everywhere with a meanness worthy of his nature, he got
into a difficulty with the Pope respecting the Crown of Sicily, which
the Pope said he had a right to give away, and which he ofitered to
King Henry for his second son. Prince Edmund. But, if you or
I give away what we have not got, and what belongs to somebody
else, it is likely that the person to whom we give it, will have some
trouble in taking it. It was exactly so in this case. It was neces-
sary to conquer the Sicilian Crown before it could be put upon
young Edmund's head. It could not be conquered without money.
The Pope ordered the clergy to raise money. The clergy, how-
ever, were not so obedient to him as usual; they had been
H
98 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
disputing with him for some time about his unjust preference of
Italian Priests in England ; and they had begun to doubt whether
the King's chaplain, whom he allowed to be paid for preaching in
seven hundred churches, could possibly be, even by the Pope's
favour, in seven hundred places at once. ' The Pope and the King
together,' said the Bishop of London, ' may take the mitre off my
head ; but, if they do, they will find that I shall put on a soldier's
helmet. I pay nothing.' The Bishop of Worcester was as bold as
the Bishop of London, and would pay nothing either. Such sums
as the more timid or more helpless of the clergy did raise were
squandered away, without doing any good to the King, or bringing
the Sicilian Crown an inch nearer to Prince Edmund's head. The
end of the business was, that the Pope gave the Crown to the
brother of the King of France (who conquered it for himself), and
sent the King of England in, a bill of one hundred thousand pounds
for the expenses of not having won it.
The King was now so much distressed that we might almost pity
him, if it were possible to pity a King so shabby and ridiculous.
His clever brother, Richard, had bought the title of King of the
Romans from the German people, and was no longer near him, to
help him with advice. The clergy, resisting the very Pope, were
in alliance with the Barons. The Barons were headed by Simon
DE MoNTFORT, Earl of Leicester, married to King Henry's sister,
and, though a foreigner himself, the most popular man in England
against the foreign favourites. When the King next met his Parlia-
ment, the Barons, led by this Earl, came before him, armed from
head to foot, and cased in armour. When the Parliament again
assembled, in a month's time, at Oxford, this Earl was at their
head, and the King was obliged to consent, on oath, to what was
called a Committee of Government : consisting of twenty-four
members : twelve chosen by the Barons, and twelve chosen by
himself.
But, at a good time for him, his brother Richard came back.
Richard's first act (the Barons would not admit him into England
on other terms) was to swear to be faithful to the Committee of
Government — which he immediately began to oppose with all his
might. Then, the Barons began to quarrel among themselves;
especially the proud Earl of Gloucester with the Earl of Leicester,
who went abroad in disgust. Then, the people began to be dis-
satisfied with the Barons, because they did not do enough for them.
The King's chances seemed so good again at length, that he took
heart enough — or caught it from his brother — to tell the Committee
of Government that he abolished them — as to his oath, never mind
that, the Pope said ! — and to seize all the money in the Mint, and
to shut himself up in the Tower of London. Here he was joined
by his eldest son, Prince Edward ; and, from the Tower, he made
HENRY THE THIRD 99
public a letter of the Pope's to the world in general, informing all
men that he had been an excellent and just King for five-and-forty
years.
As everybody knew he had been nothing of the sort, nobody
cared much for this document. It so chanced that the proud Earl
of Gloucester dying, was succeeded by his son ; and that his son,
instead of being the enemy of the Earl of Leicester, was (for the
time) his friend. It fell out, therefore, that these two Earls joined
their forces, took several of the Royal Castles in the country, and
advanced as hard as they could on London. The London people,
always opposed to the King, declared for them with great joy. The
King himsflf remained shut up, not at all gloriously, in the Tower.
Prince Edward made the best of his way to Windsor Castle. His
mother, the Queen, attempted to follow him by water; but, the
people seeing her barge rowing up the river, and hating her with
all their hearts, ran to London Bridge, got together a quantity of
stones and mud, and pelted the barge as it came through, crying
furiously, ' Drown the AV'itch ! Drown her ! ' They were so near
doing it, that the Mayor took the old lady under his protection,
and shut her up in St. Paul's until the danger was past.
It would require a great deal of writing on my part, and a great
deal of reading on yours, to follow the King through his disputes
with the Barons, and to follow the Barons through their disputes
with one another — so I will make short work of it for both of us,
and only relate the chief events that arose out of these quarrels.
The good King of France was asked to decide between them.
He gave it as his opinion that the King must maintain the Great
Charter, and that the Barons must give up the Committee of
Government, and all the rest that had been done by the Parliament
at Oxford : which the Royalists, or King's party, scornfully called
the ]\Iad Parliament. The Barons declared that these were not
fair terms, and they would not accept them. Then they caused
the great bell of St. Paul's to be tolled, for the purpose of rousing
up the London people, who armed themselves at the dismal sound
and formed quite an army in the streets. I am sorry to say, how-
ever, that instead of falling upon the King's party with whom their
quarrel was, they fell upon the miserable Jews, and killed at least
five hundred of them. They pretended that some of these Jews
were on the King's side, and that they kept hidden in their houses,
for the destruction of the people, a certain terrible composition
called Greek Fire, Avhich could not be put out with water, but only
burnt the fiercer for it. 'What they really did keep in their houses
was money; and this their cruel enemies wanted, and this their
cruel enemies took, like robbers and murderers.
The Earl of Leicester put himself at the head of these Londoners
and other forces, and followed the King to Lewes in Sussex, where
TOO A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
he lay encamped with his army. Before giving the King's forces
battle here, the Earl addressed his soldiers, and said that King
Henry the Third had broken so many oaths, that he had become
the enemy of God, and therefore they would wear white crosses on
their breasts, as if they were arrayed, not against a fellow-Christian,
but against a Turk. White-crossed accordingly, they rushed into
the fight. They would have lost the day — the King having on his
side all the foreigners in England : and, from Scotland, John
CoMYN, John Baliol, and Robert Bruce, with all their men —
but for the impatience of Prince Edward, who, in his hot desire
to have vengeance on the people of London, threw the whole of
his father's army into confusion. He was taken Prisoner ; so was
the King ; so was the King's brother the King of the Romans ; and
five thousand Englishmen were left dead upon the bloody grass.
■ For this success, the Pope excommunicated the Earl of Leicester:
which neither the Earl nor the people cared at all about. The
people loved him and supported him, and he became the real
King; haying all the power of the government in his own hands,
though he was outwardly respectful to King Henry the Third,
whom he took with him wherever he went, like a poor old limp
court-card. He summoned a Parliament (in the year one thousand
two hundred and sixty-five) which was the first Parliament in
England that the people had any real share in electing ; and he
grew more and more in favour with the people every day, and they
stood by him in whatever he did.
Many of the other Barons, and particularly the Earl of Gloucester,
who had become by this time as proud as his father, grew jealous
of this powerful and popular Earl, who was proud too, and began
to conspire against him. Since the battle of Lewes, Prince Edward
had been kept as a hostage, and, though he was otherwise treated
like a Prince, had never been allowed to go out without attendants
appointed by the Earl of Leicester, who watched him. The
conspiring Lords found means to propose to him, in secret, that
they should assist him to escape, and should make him their leader ;
to which he very heartily consented.
So, on a day that was agreed upon, he said to his attendants
after dinner (being then at Hereford), ' I should like to ride on
horseback, this fine afternoon, a little way into the country.' As
they, too, thought it would be very pleasant to have a canter in the
sunshine, they all rode out of the town together in a gay little troop.
When they came to a fine level piece of turf, the Prince fell to
comparing their horses one with another, and oftering bets that one
was faster than another ; and the attendants, suspecting no harm,
rode galloping matches until their horses were quite tired. The
Prince rode no matches himself, but looked on from his saddle,
and staked his money. Thus they passed the whole merry
HENRY THE THIRD loi
afternoon. Now, the sun was setting, and they were all going slowly
up a hill, the Prince's horse very fresh and all the other horses very
weary, when a strange rider mounted on a grey steed appeared at
the top of the hill, and waved his hat. ' What does the fellow
mean ? ' said the attendants one to another. The Prince answered
on the instant by setting spurs to his horse, dashing away at his
utmost speed, joining the man, riding into the midst of a little crowd
of horsemen who were then seen waiting under some trees, and who
closed around him; and so he departed in a cloud of dust, leaving
the road empty of all but the baffled attendants, who sat looking
at one another, while their horses drooped their ears and panted.
The Prince joined the Earl of Gloucester at Ludlow, The Earl
of Leicester, with a part of the army and the stupid old King, was
at Hereford. One of the Earl of Leicester's sons, Simon de
Montfort, with another part of the army, was in Sussex. To
prevent these two parts from uniting was the Prince's first object.
He attacked Simon de Montfort by night, defeated him, seized his
banners and treasure, and forced him into Kenilworth Castle in
Warwickshire, which belonged to his family.
His lather, the Earl of Leicester, in the meanwhile, not knowing
■what had happened, marched out of Hereford, with his part of the
army and the King, to meet him. He came, on a bright morning
in August, to Evesham, which is watered by the pleasant river
Avon. Looking rather anxiously across the prospect towards
Kenilworth, he saw his own banners advancing ; and his face
brightened with joy. But, it clouded darkly when he presently
perceived that the banners were captured, and in the enemy's
hands ; and he said, ' It is over. The Lord have mercy on our
souls, for our bodies are Prince Edward's ! '
He fought like a true Knight, nevertheless. When his horse was
killed under him, he fought on foot. It was a fierce battle, and the
dead lay in heaps everywhere. The old King, stuck up in a suit of
armour on a big war-horse, which didn't mind him at all, and which
carried him into all sorts of places where he didn't want to go, got
into everybody's way, and very nearly got knocked on the head by
one of his son's men. But he managed to pipe out, ' I am Harry
of Winchester ! ' and the Prince, who heard him, seized his bridle,
and took him out of peril. The Earl of Leicester still fought
bravely, until his best son Henry was killed, and the bodies of his
best friends choked his path ; and then he fell, still fighting, sword
in hand. They mangled his body, and sent it as a present to a
noble lady — but a very unpleasant lady, I should think — who was
the wife of his worst enemy. They could not mangle his memory
in the minds of the faithful people, though. ALany years afterwards,
they loved him more than ever, and regarded him as a Sahit, and
always spoke of him as ' Sir Simon the Righteous.'
102 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
And even though he was dead, the cause for which he had fought
still lived, and was strong, and forced itself upon the King in the
very hour of victory. Henry found himself obliged to respect the
Great Charter, however much he hated it, and to make laws similar
to the laws of the Great Earl of Leicester, and to be moderate and
forgiving towards the people at last — even towards the people of
London, who had so long opposed him. There were more risings
before all this was done, but they were set at rest by these means,
and Prince Edward did his best in all things to restore peace.
One Sir Adam de Gourdon was the last dissatisfied knight in arms ;
but, the Prince vanquished him in single combat, in a wood, and
nobly gave him his life, and became his friend, instead of slaying
him. Sir Adam was not ungrateful. He ever afterwards remained
devoted to his generous conqueror.
When the troubles of the Kingdom were thus calmed, Prince
Edward and his cousin Henry took the Cross, and went away to
the Holy Land, with many English Lords and Knights. Four
years afterwards the King of the Romans died, and, next year (one
thousand two hundred and seventy-two), his brother the weak King
of England died. He was sixty-eight years old then, and had
reigned fifty-six years. He was as much of a King in death, as he
had ever been in life. He was the mere pale shadow of a King at
all times.
CHAPTER XVI
ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIRST, CALLED LONGSHANKS
It was now the year of our Lord one thousand two hundred and
seventy-two; and Prince Edward, the heir to the throne, being
away in the Holy Land, knew nothing of his father's death. The
Barons, however, proclaimed him King, immediately after the
Royal funeral ; and the people very willingly consented, since most
men knew too well by this time what the horrors of a contest for
the crown were. So King Edward the First, called, in a not very
complimentary manner, Longshanks, because of the slenderness of
his legs, was peacefully accepted by the English Nation.
His legs had need to be strong, however long and thin they
were ; for they had to support him through many difficulties on the
fiery sands of Asia, where his small force of soldiers fainted, died,
deserted, and seemed to melt away. But his prowess made light of
it, and he said, ' I will go on, if I go on with no other follower than
my groom ! '
A Prince of this spirit gave the Turks a deal of trouble. He
EDWARD THE FIRST 103
stormed Nazareth, at ^vhich place, of all places on earth, I am
sorry to relate, he made a frightful slaughter of innocent people ;
and then he went to Acre, Avhere he got a truce of ten years from
the Sultan. He had very nearly lost his life in Acre, through the
treachery of a Saracen Nohle, called the Emir of Jaffa, who, making
the pretence that he had some idea of turning Christian and wanted
to know all ah out that religion, sent a trusty messenger to Edward
very often — with a dagger in his sleeve. At last, one Friday in
Whitsun week, when it was very hot, and all the sandy prospect lay
beneath the blazing sun, burnt up like a great overdone biscuit, and
Edward was lying on a couch, dressed for coolness in only a loose
robe, the messenger, with his chocolate-coloured face and his bright
dark eyes and white teeth, came creeping in with a letter, and
kneeled down like a tame tiger. But, the moment Edward stretched
out his hand to take the letter, the tiger made a spring at his heart.
He was quick, but Edward was quick too. He seized the traitor by
his chocolate throat, threw him to the ground, and slew him with
the very dagger he had drawn. The weapon had struck Edward in
the arm, and although the wound itself was slight, it threatened to
be mortal, for the blade of the dagger had been smeared with
poison. Thanks, however, to a better surgeon than was often to be
found in those times, and to some wholesome herbs, and above all,
to his faithful wife, Eleanor, who devotedly nursed him, and is
said by some to have sucked the poison from the wound with her
own red lips (which I am very willing to believe), Edward soon
recovered and was sound again.
As the King his father had sent entreaties to him to return home,
he now began the journey. He had got as far as Italy, when he
met messengers who brought him intelligence of the King's death.
Hearing that all was quiet at home, he made no haste to return to
his own dominions, but paid a visit to the Pope, and went in state
through various Italian Towns, where he was welcomed with accla-
mations as a mighty champion of the Cross from the Holy Land,
and where he received presents of purple mantles and prancing
horses, and went along in great triumph. The shouting people
little knew that he was the last English monarch who would ever
embark in a crusade, or that within twenty years every conquest
which the Christians had made in the Holy I>and at the cost of so
much blood, would be won back by the Turks. But all this came
to pass.
There was, and there is, an old town standing in a plain in
France, called Chalons, When the King was coming towards this
place on his way to England, a wily French Lord, called the Count
of Chalons, sent him a polite challenge to come with his knights
and hold a fair tournament with the Count and his knights, and
make a day of it with sword and lance. It was represented to the
104 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
King that the Count of Chalons was not to be trusted, and that,
instead of a hoUday fight for mere show and in good humour, he
secretly meant a real battle, in which the English should be defeated
by superior force.
The King, however, nothing afraid, went to the appointed place
on the appointed day with a thousand followers. When the Count
came with two thousand and attacked the English in earnest, the
English rushed at them with such valour that the Count's men and
the Count's horses soon began to be tumbled down all over the field.
The Count himself seized the King round the neck, but the King
tumbled hhn out of his saddle in return for the compliment, and,
jumping from his own horse, and standing over him, beat away at
his iron armour like a blacksmith hammering on his anvil. Even
when the Count owned himself defeated and offered his sword, the
King would not do him the honour to take it, but made him yield
it up to a common soldier. There had been such fury shown in
this fight, that it was afterwards called the little Battle of Chalons.
The English were very well disposed to be proud of their King
after these adventures ; so, when he landed at Dover in the year
one thousand two hundred and seventy-four (being then thirty-six
years old), and went on to Westminster where he and his good Queen
were crowned with great magnificence, splendid rejoicings took
place. For the coronation-feast there were provided, among other
eatables, four hundred oxen, four hundred sheep, four hundred and
fifty pigs, eighteen wild boars, three hundred flitches of bacon, and
twenty thousand fowls. The fountains and conduits in the street
flowed with red and white wine instead of water ; the rich citizens
hung silks and cloths of the brightest colours out of their windows
to increase the beauty of the show, and threw out gold and silver
by whole handfuls to make scrambles for the crowd. In short,
there was such eating and drinking, such music and capering, such
a ringing of bells and tossing of caps, such a shouting, and singing,
and revelling, as the narrow overhanging streets of old London City
had not witnessed for many a long day. All the people were merry
■ — except the poor Jews, who, trembling within their houses, and
scarcely daring to peep out, began to foresee that they would have
to find the money for this joviality sooner or later.
To dismiss this sad subject of the Jews for the present, I am
sorry to add that in this reign they were most unmercifully pillaged.
They were hanged in great numbers, on accusations of having
clipped the King's coin — which all kinds of people had done.
They were heavily taxed; they were disgracefully badged; they
were, on one day, thirteen years after the coronation, taken up with
their wives and children and thrown into beastly prisons, until they
purchased their release by paying to the King twelve thousand
pounds. Finally, every kind of property belonging to them was
EDWARD THE FIRST 105
seized by the King, except so little as would defray the charge of
their taking themselves away into foreign countries. Many years
elapsed before the hope of gain induced any of their race to return
to England, where they had been treated so heartlessly and had
suftered so much.
If King Edward the First had been as bad a king to Christians
as he was to Jews, he would have been bad indeed. But he was,
in general, a wise and great monarch, under whom the country much
improved. He had no love for the Great Charter — few Kings had,
through many, many years — but he had high qualities. The first
bold object which he conceived when he came home, w^as, to unite
under one Sovereign England, Scotland, and Wales ; the two last of
which countries had each a little king of its own, about whom the
people were always quarrelling and fighting, and making a prodigious
disturbance — a great deal more than he was worth. In the course
■of King Edward's reign he was engaged, besides, in a war with
France. To make these quarrels clearer, we will separate their
histories and take them thus. Wales, first. France, second.
Scotland, third.
Llewellyn was the Prince of Wales. He had been on the side
of the Barons in the reign of the stupid old King, but had after-
wards sworn allegiance to him. When King Edward came to the
throne, Llewellyn was required to swear allegiance to him also ;
which he refused to do. The King, being crowned and in his own
dominions, three times more required Llewellyn to come and do
homage ; and three times more Llewellyn said he would rather not.
He was going to be married to Eleanor de Montfort, a young
lady of the family mentioned in the last reign ; and it chanced that
this young lady, coming from France with her youngest brother,
Emeric, was taken by an English ship, and was ordered by the
English King to be detained. Upon this, the quarrel came to a
head. The King went, with his fleet, to the coast of "Wales, where,
so encompassing Llewellyn, that he could only take refuge in the
bleak mountain region of Snowdon in which no provisions could
reach him, he was soon starved into an apology, and into a treaty
of peace, and into paying the expenses of the war. The King,
however, forgave him some of the hardest conditions of the treaty,
and consented to his marriage. And he now thought he had
reduced Wales to obedience.
But the Welsh, although they were naturally a gentle, quiet,
pleasant people, who liked to receive strangers in their cottages
among the mountains, and to set before them with free hospitality
whatever they had to eat and drink, and to play to them on their
harps, and sing their native ballads to them, were a people of great
spirit when their blood was up. Englishmen, after this aftair, began
io6 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
to be insolent in Wales, and to assume the air of masters ; and the
Welsh pride could not bear it. Moreover, they believed in that
unlucky old Merlin, some of whose unlucky old prophecies some-
body always seemed doomed to remember when there was a chance
of its doing harm ; and just at this time some blind old gentleman
with a harp and a long white beard, who was an excellent person,
but had become of an unknown age and tedious, burst out with a
declaration that Merlin had predicted that when English money had
become round, a Prince of Wales would be crowned in London.
Now, King Edward had recently forbidden the English penny to be
cut into halves and quarters for halfpence and farthings, and had
actually introduced a round coin ; therefore, the Welsh people said
this was the time Merlin meant, and rose accordingly.
King Edward had bought over Prince David, Llewellyn's
brother, by heaping favours upon him; but he was the first to
revolt, being perhaps troubled in his conscience. One stormy night,
he surprised the Castle of Hawarden, in possession of which an
English nobleman had been left; killed the whole garrison, and
carried off the nobleman a prisoner to Snowdon. Upon this, the
Welsh people rose like one man. King Edward, with his army,
marching from '\\^orcester to the Menai Strait, crossed it — near to
where the wonderful tubular iron bridge now, in days so different,
makes a passage for railway trains — by a bridge of boats that
enabled forty men to march abreast. He subdued the Island of
Anglesea, and sent his men forward to observe the enemy. The
sudden appearance of the Welsh created a panic among them, and
they fell back to the bridge. The tide had in the meantime risen
and separated the boats ; the Welsh pursuing them, they were
driven into the sea, and there they sunk, in their heavy iron armour,
by thousands. After this victory Llewellyn, helped by the severe
winter-weather of Wales, gained another battle ; but the King
ordering a portion of his English army to advance through South
Wales, and catch him between two foes, and Llewellyn bravely
turning to meet this new enemy, he was surprised and killed — very
meanly, for he was unarmed and defenceless. His head was struck
off and sent to London, where it was fixed upon the Tower, en-
circled with a wreath, some say of ivy, some say of willow, some
say of silver, to make it look like a ghastly coin in ridicule of the
prediction.
David, however, still held out for six months, though eagerly
sought after by the King, and hunted by his own countrymen.
One of them finally betrayed him with his wife and children. He
was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered ; and from that
time this became the established punishment of Traitors in England
— a punishment wholly without excuse, as being revolting, vile, and
cruel, after its object is dead ; and which has no sense in it, as its
EDWARD THE FIRST 107
only real degradation (and that nothing can blot out) is to the
country that permits on any consideration such abominable
barbarity.
Wales was now subdued. The Queen giving birth to a young
prince in the Castle of Carnarvon, the King showed him to the
Welsh people as their countryman, and called him Prince of Wales ;
a title that has ever since been borne by the heir-apparent to the
English throne — which that little Prince soon became, by the death
of his elder brother. The King did better things for the ^^'elsh
than that, by improving their laws and encouraging their trade.
Disturbances still took place, chiefly occasioned by the avarice and
pride of the English Lords, on whom \\^elsh lands and castles had
been bestowed ; but they were subdued, and the country never
rose again. There is a legend that to prevent the people from
being incited to rebellion by the songs of their bards and harpers,
Edward had them all put to death. Some of them may have fallen
among other men who held out against the King ; but this general
slaughter is, I think, a fancy of the harpers themselves, who, I dare
say, made a song about it many years afterwards, and sang it by
the Welsh firesides until it came to be believed.
The foreign war of the reign of Edward the First arose in this
way. The crews of two vessels, one a Norman ship, and the other
an English ship, happened to go to the same place in their boats
to fill their casks with fresh water. Being rough angry fellows, they
began to quarrel, and then to fight — the English with their fists ;
the Normans with their knives — and, in the fight, a Norman was
killed. The Norman crew, instead of revenging themselves upon
those English sailors with whom they had quarrelled (who were too
strong for them, I suspect), took to their ship again in a great rage,
attacked the first English ship they met, laid hold of an unoffending
merchant who happened to be on board, and brutally hanged him
in the rigging of their own vessel with a dog at his feet. This so
enraged the English sailors that there was no restraining them ;
and whenever, and wherever, English sailors met Norman sailors,
they fell upon each other tooth and nail. The Irish and Dutch
sailors took part with the English ; the French and Genoese sailors
helped the Normans ; and thus the greater part of the mariners
sailing over the sea became, in their way, as violent and raging as
the sea itself when it is disturbed.
King Edward's fame had been so high abroad that he had been
chosen to decide a difference between France and another foreign
power, and had lived upon the Continent three years. At first,
neither he nor the French King Philip (the good Louis had been
dead some time) interfered in these quarrels ; but when a fleet of
eighty English ships engaged and utterly defeated a Norman fleet
of two hundred, in a pitched battle fought round a ship at anchor,
Jo8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
in which no quarter was given, the matter became too serious to
be passed over. King Edward, as Duke of Guienne, was summoned
to present himself before the King of France, at Paris, and answer
for the damage done by his sailor subjects. At first, he sent the
Bishop of London as his representative, and then his brother
Edmund, who was married to the French Queen's mother. I am
afraid Edmund was an easy man, and allowed himself to be talked
over by his charming relations, the French court ladies ; at all
events, he was induced to give up his brother's dukedom for forty
days — as a mere form, the French King said, to satisfy his honour
— and he was so very much astonished, when the time was out,
to find that the French King had no idea of giving it up again,
that I should not wonder if it hastened his death : which soon
took place.
King Edward was a King to win his foreign dukedom back again,
if it could be won by energy and valour. He raised a large army,
renounced his allegiance as Duke of Guienne, and crossed the sea
to carry war into France. Before any important battle was fought,
however, a truce was agreed upon for two years ; and in the course
of that time, the Pope eftected a reconciliation. King Edward,
who was now a widower, having lost his affectionate and good wife,
Eleanor, married the French King's sister, Margaret ; and the
Prince of Wales was contracted to the French King's daughter
Isabella.
Out of bad things, good things sometimes arise. Out of this
hanging of the innocent merchant, and the bloodshed and strife
it caused, there came to be established one of the greatest powers
that the English people now possess. The preparations for the
war being very expensive, and King Edward greatly wanting money,
and being very arbitrary in his ways of raising it, some of the
Barons began firmly to oppose him. Two of them, in particular,
FIUMPHREY BoHUN, Earl of Hereford, and Roger Bigod, Earl of
Norfolk, were so stout against him, that they maintained he had no
right to command them to head his forces in Guienne, and flatly
refused to go there. ' By Heaven, Sir Earl,' said the King to the
Earl of Hereford, in a great passion, ' you shall either go or be
hanged ! ' 'By Heaven, Sir King,' replied the Earl, ' I will neither
go nor yet will I be hanged ! ' and both he and the other Earl
sturdily left the court, attended by many Lords. The King tried
every means of raising money. He taxed the clergy, in spite of
all the Pope said to the contrary ; and when they refused to pay,
reduced them to submission, by saying Very well, then they had
no claim upon the government for protection, and any man might
plunder them who would — which a good many men were very ready
to do, and very readily did, and which the clergy found too losing
a game to be played at long. He seized all the wool and leather
EDWARD THE FIRST 109
in the hands of the merchants, promising to pay for it some fine
day ; and he set a tax upon the exportation of wool, which was so
unpopular among the traders that it was called ' The evil toll.' But
all would not do. The Barons, led by those two great Earls,
declared any taxes imposed without the consent of Parliament,
unlawful ; and the Parliament refused to impose taxes, until the
King should confirm afresh the two Great Charters, and should
solemnly declare in writing, that there was no power in the country
to raise money from the people, evermore, but the power of Parlia-
ment representing all ranks of the people. The King was very un-
willing to diminish his own power by allowing this great privilege
in the Parliament ; but there was no help for it, and he at last
complied. We shall come to another King by-and-by, who might
have saved his head from rolling off, if he had profited by this
example.
The people gained other benefits in Parliament from the good
sense and wisdom of this King. Many of the laws were much im-
proved ; provision was made for the greater safety of travellers, and
the apprehension of thieves and murderers ; the priests were pre-
vented from holding too much land, and so becoming too powerful ;
and Justices of the Peace were first appointed (though not at first
under that name) in various parts of the country.
And now we come to Scotland, which was the gi'eat and lasting
trouble of the reign of King Edward the First.
About thirteen years after King Edward's coronation, Alexander
the Third, the King of Scotland, died of a fall from his horse. He
had been married to Margaret, King Edward's sister. All their
children being dead, the Scottish crown became the right of a
young Princess only eight years old, the daughter of Eric, King
of Norway, who had married a daughter of the deceased sovereign.
King Edward proposed, that the Maiden of Norway, as this Prin-
cess was called, should be engaged to be married to his eldest son ;
but, unfortunately, as she was coming over to England she fell sick,
and landing on one of the Orkney Islands, died there. A great
commotion immediately began in Scotland, where as many as
thirteen noisy claimants to the vacant throne started up and made
a general confusion.
King Edward being much renowned for his sagacity and justice,
it seems to have been agreed to refer the dispute to him. He
accepted the trust, and went, with an army, to the Border-land
where England and Scotland joined. There, he called upon the
Scottish gentlemen to meet him at the Castle of Norham, on the
English side of the river Tweed; and to that Castle they came.
But, before he would take any step in the business, he required
those Scottish gentlemen, one and all, to do homage to him as
ixo A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
their superior Lord ; and when they hesitated, he said, ' By holy
Edward, whose crown I wear, I will have my rights, or I will die
in maintaining them ! ' The Scottish gentlemen, who had not ex-
pected this, were disconcerted, and asked for three weeks to think
about it.
At the end of the three weeks, another meeting took place, on a
green plain on the Scottish side of the river. Of all the com-
petitors for the Scottish throne, there were only two who had any
real claim, in right of their near kindred to the Royal Family.
These were John Baliol and Robert Bruce : and the right was,
I have no doubt, on the side of John Baliol. At this particular
meeting John Baliol was not present, but Robert Bruce was ; and
on Robert Bruce being formally asked whether he acknowledged
the King of England for his superior lord, he answered, plainly and
distinctly. Yes, he did. Next day, John Baliol appeared, and said
the same. This point settled, some arrangements were made for
inquiring into their titles.
The inquiry occupied a pretty long time — more than a year.
While it was going on. King Edward took the opportunity of
making a journey through Scotland, and calling upon the Scottish
people of all degrees to acknowledge themselves his vassals, or be
imprisoned until they did. In the meanwhile. Commissioners were
appointed to conduct the inquiry, a Parliament was held at Berwick
about it, the two claimants were heard at full length, and there was
a vast amount of talking. At last, in the great hall of the Castle
of Berwick, the King gave judgment in favour of John Baliol : who,
consenting to receive his crown by the King of England's favour
and permission, was crowned at Scone, in an old stone chair which
had been used for ages in the abbey there, at the coronations of
Scottish Kings. Then, King Edward caused the great seal of
Scotland, used since the late King's death, to be broken in four
pieces, and placed in the English Treasury ; and considered that
he now had Scotland (according to the common saying) under his
thumb.
Scotland had a strong will of its own yet, however. King
Edward, determined that the Scottish King should not forget he
was his vassal, summoned him repeatedly to come and defend him-
self and his Judges before the English Parliament when appeals
from the decisions of Scottish courts of justice were being heard.
At length, John Baliol, who had no great heart of his own, had so
much heart put into him by the brave spirit of the Scottish people,
who took this as a national insult, that he refused to come any
more. Thereupon, the King further required him to help him in
his war abroad (which was then in progress), and to give up, as
security for his good behaviour in future, the three strong Scottish
Castles of Jedburgh, Roxburgh, and Berwick. Nothing of this
EDWARD THE FIRST iii
being done ; on the contrary, the Scottish people concealing their
King among their mountains in the Highlands and showing a
determination to resist ; Edward marched to Berwick with an army
of thirty thousand foot, and four thousand horse ; took the Castle,
and slew its whole garrison, and the inhabitants of the town as well
— men, women, and children. Lord Warrenne, Earl of Surrey,
then went on to the Castle of Dunbar, before which a battle was
fought, and the whole Scottish army defeated with great slaughter.
The victory being complete, the Earl of Surrey was left as guardian
of Scotland ; the principal offices in that kingdom were given to
Englishmen ; the more powerful Scottish Nobles were obliged to
come and live in England ; the Scottish crown and sceptre were
brought away ; and even the old stone chair was carried off and
placed in \\^estminster Abbey, where you may see it now. Baliol
had the Tower of London lent him for a residence, with permission
to range about within a circle of twenty miles. Three years after-
wards he was allowed to go to Normandy, where he had estates,
and w here he passed the remaining six years of his life : far more
happily, I dare say, than he had lived for a long while in angry
Scotland,
Now, there was, in the West of Scotland, a gentleman of small
fortune, named William Wallace, the second son of a Scottish
knight. He was a man of great size and great strength ; he was
very brave and daring; when he spoke to a body of his country-
men, he could rouse them in a wonderful manner by the power of
his burning words ; he loved Scotland dearly, and he hated England
with his utmost might. The domineering conduct of the English
who now held the places of trust in Scotland made them as intoler-
able to the proud Scottish people as they had been, under similar
circumstances, to the Welsh ; and no man in all Scotland regarded
them with so much smothered rage as ^^'illiam Wallace. One day,
an Englishman in office, little knowing what he was, affronted hi)n.
Wallace instantly struck him dead, and taking refuge among the
rocks and hills, and there joining with his countryman. Sir William
Douglas, who was also in arms against King Edward, became the
most resolute and undaunted champion of a people struggling for
their independence that ever lived upon the earth.
The English Guardian of the Kingdom fled before him, and, thus
encouraged, the Scottish people revolted everywhere, and fell upon
the English without mercy. The Earl of Surrey, by the King's
commands, raised all the power of the Border-counties, and two
English armies poured into Scotland. Only one Chief, in the face
of those armies, stood by Wallace, who, with a force of forty thousand
men, awaited the invaders at a place on the river Forth, within two
miles of Stirling. Across the river there Avas only one poor wooden
bridge, called the bridge of Kildean — so narrow, that but two men
112 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
could cross it abreast. With his eyes upon this bridge, Wallace
posted the greater part of his men among some rising grounds, and
waited calmly. When the English army came up on the opposite
bank of the river, messengers were sent forward to offer terms.
Wallace sent them back with a defiance, in the name of the freedom
of Scotland. Some of the officers of the Earl of Surrey in command
of the English, with their eyes also on the bridge, advised him to be
discreet and not hasty. He, however, urged to immediate battle by
some other officers, and particularly by Cressingham, King Edward's
treasurer, and a rash man, gave the word of command to advance.
One thousand English crossed the bridge, two abreast ; the Scottish
troops were as motionless as stone images. Two thousand English
crossed ; three thousand, four thousand, five. Not a feather, all
this time, had been seen to stir among the Scottish bonnets. Now,
they all fluttered. ' Forward, one party, to the foot of the Bridge ! '
cried Wallace, ' and let no more English cross ! The rest, down
with me on the five thousand who have come over, and cut them
all to pieces ! ' It was done, in the sight of the whole remainder
of the English army, who could give no help. Cressingham himself
was killed, and the Scotch made whips for their horses of his skin.
King Edward was abroad at this time, and during the successes
on the Scottish side which followed, and which enabled bold Wallace
to win the whole country back again, and even to ravage the English
borders. But, after a few winter months, the King returned, and
took the field with more than his usual energy. One night, when a
kick from his horse as they both lay on the ground together broke
two of his ribs, and a cry arose that he was killed, he leaped into
his saddle, regardless of the pain he suffered, and rode through the
camp. Day then appearing, he gave the word (still, of course, in
that bruised and aching state) Forward ! and led his army on to
near Falkirk, where the Scottish forces were seen drawn up on some
stony ground, behind a morass. Here, he defeated Wallace, and
killed fifteen thousand of his men. With the shattered remainder,
Wallace drew back to Stirling ; but, being pursued, set fire to the
town that it might give no help to the English, and escaped. The
inhabitants of Perth afterwards set fire to their houses for the same
reason, and the King, unable to find provisions, was forced to
withdraw his army.
Another Robert Bruce, the grandson of him who had disputed
the Scottish crown with Baliol, was now in arms against the King
(that elder Bruce being dead), and also John Comyn, Baliol's
nephew. These two young men might agree in opposing Edward,
but could agree in nothing else, as they were rivals for the throne
of Scotland. Probably it was because they knew this, and knew
what troubles must arise even if they could hope to get the better
of the great English King, that the principal Scottish people applied
EDWARD THE FIRST 113
to the Pope for his interference. The Pope, on the principle of
losing nothing for want of trying to get it, very coolly claimed that
Scotland belonged to him ; but this was a little too much, and the
Parliament in a friendly manner told him so.
In the spring time of the year one thousand three hundred and
three, the King sent Sir John Segrave, whom he made Governor
of Scotland, with twenty thousand men, to reduce the rebels. Sir
John was not as careful as he should have been, but encamped at
Rosslyn, near Edinburgh, with his army divided into three parts.
The Scottish forces saw their advantage; fell on each part separately;
defeated each ; and killed all the prisoners. Then, came the King
himself once more, as soon as a great army could be raised ; he
I)assed through the whole north of Scotland, laying waste whatsoever
came in his way ; and he took up his winter quarters at Dunferm-
hne. The Scottish cause now looked so hopeless, that Comyn and
the other nobles made submission and received their pardons.
Wallace alone stood out. He was invited to surrender, though on
no distinct pledge that his life should be spared ; but he still defied
the ireful King, and lived among the steep crags of the Highland
glens, where the eagles made their nests, and where the mountain
torrents roared, and the white snow was deep, and the bitter winds
blew round his unsheltered head, as he lay through many a pitch-
dark night wrapped up in his plaid. Nothing could break his spirit ;
nothing could lower his courage; nothing could induce him to
forget or to forgive his country's wrongs. Even when the Castle
of Stirling, which had long held out, was besieged by the King with
every kind of military engine then in use ; even when the lead upon
cathedral roofs was taken down to help to make them ; even when
the King, though an old man, commanded in the siege as if he were
a youth, being so resolved to conquer ; even when the brave garrison
(then found with amazement to be not two hundred people, includ-
ing several ladies) were starved and beaten out and were made to
submit on their knees, and with every form of disgrace that could
aggravate their sufferings ; even then, when there was not a ray of
hope in Scotland, William Wallace was as proud and firm as if he
had beheld the powerful and relentless Edward lying dead at his
feet.
Who betrayed William Wallace in the end, is not quite certain.
That he was betrayed — probably by an attendant — is too true. He
■was taken to the Castle of Dumbarton, under Sir John Menteith,
and thence to London, where the great fame of his bravery and
resolution attracted immense concourses of people to behold him.
He w^as tried in Westminster Hall, with a crown of laurel on his
head — it is supposed because he was reported to have said that he
ought to wear, or that he would wear, a crown there — and was
found guilty as a robber, a murderer, and a traitor, ^^'hat they
I
114 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
called a robber (he said to those who tried him) he was, because he
had taken spoil from the King's men. What they called a murderer,
he was, because he had slain an insolent Englishman. What they
called a traitor, he was not, for he had never sworn allegiance to
the King, and had ever scorned to do it. He was dragged at the
tails of horses to West Smithfield, and there hanged on a high
gallows, torn open before he was dead, beheaded, and quartered.
His head was set upon a pole on London Bridge, his right arm was
sent to Newcastle, his left arm to Berwick, his legs to Perth and
Aberdeen. But, if King Edward had had his body cut into
inches, and had sent every separate inch into a separate town, he
could not have dispersed it half so far and wide as his fame.
Wallace will be remembered in songs and stories, while there are
songs and stories in the English tongue, and Scotland will hold him
dear while her lakes and mountains last.
Released from this dreaded enemy, the King made a fairer plan
of Government for Scotland, divided the offices of honour among
Scottish gentlemen and English gentlemen, forgave past offences,
and thought, in his old age, that his work was done.
But he deceived himself. Comyn and Bruce conspired, and
made an appointment to meet at Dumfries, in the church of the
Minorites. There is a story that Comyn was false to Bruce, and
had informed against him to the King ; that Bruce was warned of
his danger and the necessity of flight, by receiving, one night as he
sat at supper, from his friend the Earl of Gloucester, twelve pennies
and a pair of spurs ; that as he was riding angrily to keep his
appointment (through a snow-storm, with his horse's shoes reversed
that he might not be tracked), he met an evil-looking serving man,
a messenger of Comyn, whom he killed, and concealed in whose
dress he found letters that proved Comyn's treachery. However
this may be, they were likely enough to quarrel in any case, being
hot-headed rivals; and, whatever they quarrelled about, they
certainly did quarrel in the church where they met, and Bruce drew
his dagger and stabbed Comyn, who fell upon the pavement. When
Bruce came out, pale and disturbed, the friends who were waiting
for him asked what was the matter ? ' I think I have killed Comyn,'
said he. ' You only think so ? ' returned one of them ; ' I will
make sure ! ' and going into the church, and finding him alive,
stabbed him again and again. Knowing that the King would never
forgive this new deed of violence, the party then declared Bruce
King of Scotland: got him crowned at Scone — without the chair;
and set up the rebellious standard once again.
When the King heard of it he kindled with fiercer anger than he
had ever shown yet. He caused the Prince of Wales and two
hundred and seventy of the young nobility to be knighted — the
trees in the Temple Gardens were cut down to make room for
EDWARD THE FIRST 115
their tents, and they watched their armour all night, according to
the old usage : some in the Temple Church : some in ^Vestminster
Abbey — and at the public Feast which then took place, he swore,
by Heaven, and by two swans covered with gold network which
his minstrels placed upon the table, that he would avenge the death
of Comyn, and would punish tlie false Bruce. And before all the
company, he charged the Prince his son, in case that he should
die before accomplishing his vow, not to bury him until it was
fulfilled. Next morning the Prince and the rest of the young
Knights rode away to the Border-country to join the English army ;
and the King, now weak and sick, followed in a horse-litter.
Bruce, after losing a battle and undergoing many dangers and
much misery, fled to Ireland, where he lay concealed through the
winter. That winter, Edward passed in hunting down and exe-
cuting Bruce's relations and adherents, sparing neither youth nor
age, and showing no touch of pity or sign of mercy. In the follow-
ing spring, Bruce reappeared and gained some victories. In these
frays, both sides were grievously cruel. For instance— Bruce's
two brothers, being taken captives desperately wounded, were
ordered by the King to instant execution. Bnice's friend Sir John
Douglas, taking his own Castle of Douglas out of the hands of an
English Lord, roasted the dead bodies of the slaughtered garrison
in a great fire made of every movable within it; which dreadful
cookery his men called the Douglas Larder. Bruce, still successful,
however, drove the Earl of Pembroke and the Earl of Gloucester
into the Castle of Ayr and laid siege to it.
The King, who had been laid up all the winter, but had directed
the army from his sick-bed, now advanced to Carlisle, and there,
causing the litter in which he had travelled to be placed in the
Cathedral as an offering to Heaven, mounted his horse once more,
and for the last time. He was now sixty-nine years old, and had
reigned thirty-five years. He was so ill, that in four days he could
go no more than six miles ; still, even at that pace, he went on
and resolutely kept his face towards the Border. At length, he
lay down at the village of Burgh-upon-Sands ; and there, telling
those around him to impress upon the Prince that he was to
remember his father's vow, and Avas never to rest until he had
thoroughly subdued Scotland, he yielded up his last breath.
n6 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
CHAPTER XVII
ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SECOND
King Edward the Second, the first Prhice of Wales, was twenty-
three years old when his father died. There was a certain favourite
of his, a young man from Gascony, named Piers Gaveston, of
whom his father had so much disapproved that he had ordered him
out of England, and had made his son swear by the side of his
sick-bed, never to bring him back. But, the Prince no sooner
found himself King, than he broke his oath, as so many other
Princes and Kings did (they were far too ready to take oaths), and
sent for his dear friend immediately.
Now, this same Gaveston was handsome enough, but was a
reckless, insolent, audacious fellow. He was detested by the proud
English Lords : not only because he had such power over the King,
and made the Court such a dissipated place, but, also, because he
could ride better than they at tournaments, and was used, in his
impudence, to cut very bad jokes on them ; calling one, the old
hog ; another, the stage-player ; another, the Jew ; another, the
black dog of Ardenne. This was as poor wit as need be, but it
made those Lords very wroth ; and the surly Earl of AVarwick, who
was the black dog, swore that the time should come when Piers
Gaveston should feel the black dog's teeth.
It w^as not come yet, however, nor did it seem to be coming.
The King made him Earl of Cornwall, and gave him vast riches ;
and, when the King went over to France to marry the French
Princess, Isabella, daughter of Philip le Bel: who was said to
be the most beautiful woman in the world : he made Gaveston,
Regent of the Kingdom. His splendid marriage-ceremony in the
Church of Our Lady at Boulogne, where there were four Kings
and three Queens present (quite a pack of Court Cards, for I dare
say the Knaves were not wanting), being over, he seemed to care
little or nothing for his beautiful wife ; but was wild with impatience
to meet Gaveston again.
When he landed at home, he paid no attention to anybody else,
but ran into the favourite's arms before a great concourse of people,
and hugged him, and kissed him, and called him his brother. At
the coronation which soon followed, Gaveston was the richest and
brightest of all the glittering company there, and had the honour
of carrying the crown. This made the proud Lords fiercer than
ever; the people, too, despised the favourite, and would never call
him Earl of Cornwall, however much he complained to the King
EDWARD THE SECOND 117
and asked him to punish them for not doing so, but persisted in
styling him plain Piers Gaveston.
The Barons were so unceremonious with the King in giving him
to understand that they would not bear this favourite, that the
King was obliged to send him out of the country. The favourite
himself was made to take an oath (more oaths !) that he would
never come back, and the Barons supposed him to be banished in
disgrace, until they heard that he was appointed Governor of
Ireland. Even this was not enough for the besotted King, who
brought him home again in a year's time, and not only disgusted
the Court and the people by his doting folly, but offended his
beautiful wife too, who never liked him afterwards.
He had now the old Royal want — of money — and the Barons
had the new power of positi^"ely refusing to let him raise any.
He summoned a Parliament at York ; the Barons refused to make
one, while the favourite was near him. He summoned another
Parliament at Westminster, and sent Gaveston away. Then, the
Barons came, completely armed, and appointed a committee of
themselves to correct abuses in the state and in the King's house-
hold. He got some money on these conditions, and directly set
off with Gaveston to the Border-country, where they spent it in
idling away the time, and feasting, while I3mce made ready to drive
the English out of Scotland. For, though the old King had even
made this poor weak son of his swear (as some say) that he would
not bury his bones, but would have them boiled clean in a caldron,
and carried before the English army until Scotland was entirely
subdued, the second Edward was so unlike the first that Bruce
gained strength and power every day.
The committee of Nobles, after some months of deliberation,
ordained that the King should henceforth call a Parliament together,
once every year, and even twice if necessary, instead of summoning
it only when he chose. Further, that Gaveston should once more
be banished, and, this time, on pain of death if he ever came back.
The King's tears were of no avail; he was obliged to send his
favourite to Flanders. As soon as he had done so, however, he
dissolved the Parliament, with the low cunning of a mere fool, and
set off to the North of England, thinking to get an army about him
to oppose the Nobles. And once again he brought Gaveston home,
and heaped upon him all the riches and titles of which the Barons
had deprived him.
The Lords saw, now, that there was nothing for it but to .put the
favourite to death. They could have done so, legally, according to
the terms of his banishment ; but they did so, I am sorry to say, in
a shabby manner. Led by the Earl of Lancaster, the King's cousin,
they first of all attacked the King and Gaveston at Newcastle.
They had time to escape by sea, and the mean King, having his
ii8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
precious Gaveston with him, was quite content to leave his lovely
wife behind. When they were comparatively safe, they separated ;
the King went to York to collect a force of soldiers ; and the
favourite shut himself up, in the meantime, in Scarborough Castle
overlooking the sea. This was what the Barons wanted. They
knew that the Castle could not hold out ; they attacked it, and
made Gaveston surrender. He delivered himself up to the Earl of
Pembroke — that Lord whom he had called the Jew — on the Earl's
pledging his faith and knightly word, that no harm should happen
to him and no violence be done him.
Now, it was agreed with Gaveston that he should be taken to the
Castle of Wallingford, and there kept in honourable custody. They
travelled as far as Dedington, near Banbury, where, in the Castle of
that place, they stopped for a night to rest. Whether the Earl of
Pembroke left his prisoner there, knowing what would happen, or
really left him thinking no harm, and only going (as he pretended)
to visit his wife, the Countess, who was in the neighbourhood, is no
great matter now ; in any case, he was bound as an honourable
gentleman to protect his prisoner, and he did not do it. In the
morning, while the favourite was yet in bed, he was required to
dress himself and come down into the court-yard. He did so with-
out any mistrust, but started and turned pale when he found it full
of strange armed men. ' I think you know me ? ' said their leader,
also armed from head to foot. ' I am the black dog of Ardenne ! '
The time was come when Piers Gaveston was to feel the black
dog's teeth indeed. They set him on a mule, and carried him, in
mock state and with military music, to the black dog's kennel —
Warwick Castle — 'Where a hasty council, composed of some great
noblemen, considered what should be done with him. Some were
for sparing him, but one loud voice — it was the black dog's bark, I
dare say — sounded through the Castle Hall, uttering these wovds :
' You have the fox in your power. Let him go now, and you must
hunt him again.'
They sentenced him to death. He threw himself at the feet of
the Earl of Lancaster — the old hog^ — but the old hog was as savage
as the dog. He was taken out upon the pleasant road, leading
from Warwick to Coventry, where the beautiful river Avon, by
which, long afterwards, William Shakespeare was born and now
lies buried, sparkled in the bright landscape of the beautiful May-
day ; and there they struck off his wretched head, and stained the
dust with his blood.
When the King heard of this black deed, in his grief and rage he
denounced relentless war against his Barons, and both sides were in
arms for half a year. But, it then became necessary for them to
join their forces against Bruce, who had used the time well while
they were divided, and had now a great power iu Scotland.
EDWARD THE SECOND 119
Intelligence was brought that Bruce was then besieging Stirling
Castle, and that the Governor had been obliged to pledge himself
to surrender it, unless he should be relieved before a certain day.
Hereupon, the King ordered the nobles and their fighting-men to
meet him at Berwick ; but, the nobles cared so little for the King,
and so neglected the summons, and lost time, that only on the day
before that appointed for the surrender, did the King find himself
at Stirling, and even then with a smaller force than he had expected.
However, he had, altogether, a hundred thousand men, and Bruce
had not more than forty thousand ; but, Bruce's army was strongly
posted in three square columns, on the ground lying between the
Burn or Brook of Bannock and the walls of Stirling Castle,
On the very evening, when the King came up, Bruce did a brave
act that encouraged his men. He was seen by a certain Henry df
BoHUN, an EngUsh Knight, riding about before his army on a little
horse, with a light battle-axe in his hand, and a crown of gold on
his head. This English Knight, who was mounted on a strong war-
horse, cased in steel, strongly armed, and able (as he thought) to
overthrow Bruce by crushing him with his mere weight, set spurs
to his great charger, rode on him, and made a thrust at him with
his heavy spear. Bruce parried the thrust, and with one blow of
his battle-axe split his skull.
The Scottish men did not forget this, next day when the battle
raged. Randolph, Bruce's valiant Nephew, rode, with the small
body of men he commanded, into such a host of the English, all
shining in polished armour in the sunlight, that they seemed to be
swallowed up and lost, as if they had plunged into the sea. But,
they fought so well, and did such dreadful execution, that the English
staggered. Then came Bruce himself upon them, with all the rest
of his army. While they were thus hard pressed and amazed, there
appeared upon the hills what they supposed to be a new Scottish
army, but what were really only the camp followers, in number
fifteen thousand : whom Bruce had taught to show themselves at
that place and time. The Earl of Gloucester, commanding the
English horse, made a last rush to change the fortune of the day ;
but Bruce (like Jack the Giant-killer in the story) had had pits dug
in the ground, and covered over with turfs and stakes. Into these,
as they gave way beneath the weight of the horses, riders and horses
rolled by hundreds. The English were completely routed ; all their
treasure, stores, and engines, were taken by the Scottish men ; so
many waggons and other wheeled vehicles were seized, that it is
related that they would have reached, if they had been drawn out
in a line, one hundred and eighty miles. The fortunes of Scotland
were, for the time, completely changed ; and never was a battle
won, more famous upon Scottish ground, than this great battle of
Bannockburn.
J 20 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Plague and famine succeeded in England ; and still the powerless
King and his disdainful Lords were always in contention. Some
of the turbulent chiefs of Ireland made proposals to Bruce, to accept
the rule of that country. He sent his brother Edward to them, who
was crowned King of Ireland. He afterwards went himself to help
his brother in his Irish wars, but his brother was defeated in the
end and killed. Robert Bruce, returning to Scotland, still increased
his strength there.
As the King's ruin had begun in a favourite, so it seemed likely
to end in one. He was too poor a creature to rely at all upon him-
self; and his new favourite was one Hugh le Despenser, the son
of a gentleman of ancient family. Hugh was handsome and brave,
but he was the favourite of a weak King, whom no man cared a
rush for, and that was a dangerous place to hold. The Nobles
leagued against him, because the King liked him ; and they lay in
wait, both for his ruin and his father's. Now, the King had married
him to the daughter of the late Earl of Gloucester, and had given
both him and his father great possessions in Wales. In their
endeavours to extend these, they gave violent offence to an angry
Welsh gentleman, named John de Mowbray, and to divers other
angry Welsh gentlemen, who resorted to arms, took their castles,
and seized their estates. The Earl of Lancaster had first placed
the favourite (who was a poor relation of his own) at Court, and he
considered his own dignity offended by the preference he received
and the honours he acquired ; so he, and the Barons who were his
friends, joined the Welshmen, marched on London, and sent a
message to the King demanding to have the favourite and his father
banished. At first, the King unaccountably took it into his head
to be spirited, and to send them a bold reply ; but when they
quartered themselves around Holborn and Clerkenwell, and went
down, armed, to the Parliament at Westminster, he gave way, and
complied with their demands.
His turn of triumph came sooner than he expected. It arose
out of an accidental circumstance. The beautiful Queen happening
to be travelling, came one night to one of the royal castles, and
demanded to be lodged and entertained there until morning. The
governor of this castle, who was one of the enraged lords, was
away, and in his absence, his wife refused admission to the Queen ;
a scuffle took place among the common men on either side, and
some of the royal attendants were killed. The people, who cared
nothing for the King, were very angry that their beautiful Queen
should be thus rudely treated in her own dominions ; and the King,
taking advantage of this feeling, besieged the castle, took it, and
then called the two Despensers home. Upon this, the confederate
lords and the Welshmen went over to Bruce. The King encountered
them at Boroughbridge, gained the victory, and took a number of
EDWARD THE SECOND 121
distinguished prisoners ; among them, the Earl of Lancaster, now
an old man, upon whose destruction he was resolved. This Earl
was taken to his own castle of Pontefract, and there tried and
found guilty by an unfair court appointed for the purpose ; he was
not even allowed to speak in his own defence. He was insulted,
pelted, mounted on a starved pony without saddle or bridle, carried
out, and beheaded, Eight-and-twenty knights were hanged, drawn,
and quartered. When the King had despatched this bloody work,
and had made a fresh and a long truce with Bruce, he took the
Despensers into greater favour than ever, and made the father Earl
of Winchester.
One prisoner, and an important one, who was taken at Borough-
bridge, made his escape, however, and turned the tide against the
King. This was Roger Mortimer, always resolutely opi)osed to
him, who was sentenced to death, and placed for safe custody in
the Tower of London. He treated his guards to a quantity of
wine into which he had put a sleeping potion ; and, when they
were insensible, broke out of his dungeon, got into a kitchen,
climbed up the chimney, let himself down from the roof of the
building with a rope-ladder, passed the sentries, got down to the
river, and made away in a boat to where servants and horses were
waiting for him. He finally escaped to France, where Charles le
Bel, the brother of the beautiful Queen, was King. Charles sought
to quarrel with the King of England, on pretence of his not having
come to do him homage at his coronation. It was proposed that
the beautiful Queen should go over to arrange the dispute ; she
went, and wrote home to the King, that as he was sick and could
not come to France himself, perhaps it would be better to send over
the young Prince, their son, who was only twelve years old, who
could do homage to her brother in his stead, and in whose company
she would immediately return. The King sent him : but, both he
and the Queen remained at the French Court, and Roger Mortimer
became the Queen's lover.
When the King wrote, again and again, to the Queen to come
home, she did not reply that she despised him too much to live
with him any more (which was the truth), but said she was afraid of
the two Despensers. In short, her design was to overthrow the
favourites' power, and the King's power, such as it was, and invade
England. Having obtained a French force of two thousand men,
and being joined by all the English exiles then in France, she
landed, within a year, at Orewell, in Suffolk, where she was
immediately joined by the Earls of Kent and Norfolk, the King's
two brothers ; by other powerful noblemen ; and lastly, by the
first English general who was despatched to check her : who went
over to her with all his men. The people of London, receiving
these tidings, would do nothing for the King, but broke open the
122 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Tower, let out all his prisoners, and threw up their caps and
hurrahed for the beautiful Queen.
The King, with his two favourites, fled to Bristol, where he left
old Despenser in charge of the town and castle, while he went on
with the son to Wales. The Bristol men being opposed to the
King, and it being impossible to hold the town with enemies every-
where within the walls, Despenser yielded it up on the third day,
and was instantly brought to trial for having traitorously influenced
what was called ' the King's mind ' — though I doubt if the King
ever had any. He was a venerable old man, upwards of ninety
years of age, but his age gained no respect or mercy. He was
hanged, torn open while he was yet alive, cut up into pieces, and
thrown to the dogs. His son was soon taken, tried at Hereford
before the same judge on a long series of foolish charges, found
guilty, and hanged upon a gallows fifty feet high, with a chaplet of
nettles round his head. His poor old father and he were innocent
enough of any worse crimes than the crime of having been friends
of a King, on whom, as a mere man, they would never have deigned
to cast a favourable look. It is a bad crime, I know, and leads to
worse ; but, many lords and gentlemen — I even think some ladies,
too, if I recollect right — have committed it in England, who have
neither been given to the dogs, nor hanged up fifty feet high.
The wretched King was running here and there, all this time,
and never getting anywhere in particular, until he gave himself up,
and was taken off to Kenilworth Castle. When he was safely
lodged there, the Queen went to London and met the Parliament.
And the Bishop of Hereford, who was the most skilful of her
friends, said. What was to be done now ? Here was an imbecile,
indolent, miserable King upon the throne ; wouldn't it be better to
take him off, and put his son there instead ? I don't know whether
the Queen really pitied him at this pass, but she began to cry ; so,
the Bishop said, Well, my Lords and Gentlemen, what do you
think, upon the whole, of sending down to Kenilworth, and seeing
if His Majesty (God bless him, and forbid we should depose him !)
won't resign ?
My Lords and Gentlemen thought it a good notion, so a
deputation of them went down to Kenilworth ; and there the King
came into the great hall of the Castle, commonly dressed in a poor
black gown ; and when he saw a certain bishop among them, fell
down, poor feeble-headed man, and made a wretched spectacle of
himself. Somebody lifted him up, and then Sir William Trussel,
the Speaker of the House of Commons, almost frightened him to
death by making him a tremendous speech to the effect that he was
no longer a King, and that everybody renounced allegiance to him.
After which. Sir Thomas Blount, the Steward of the Household,
nearly finished him, by coming forward and breaking his white
EDWARD THE THIRD 123
wand — which was a ceremony only performed at a King's death.
Being asked in this pressing manner what he thought of resigning,
the King said he thought it was the best thing he could do. So, he
did it, and they proclaimed his son next day.
I wish I could close his history by saying that he lived a harmless
life in the Castle and the Castle gardens at Kenilworth, many years
• — that he had a favourite, and plenty to eat and drink — and, having
that, wanted nothing. But he was shamefully humiliated. He was
outraged, and slighted, and had dirty water from ditches given him
to shave with, and wept and said he would have clean warm water,
and was altogether very miserable. He was moved from this castle
to that castle, and from that castle to the other castle, because this
lord or that lord, or the other lord, was too kind to him : until at
last he came to Berkeley Castle, near the River Severn, where (the
Lord Berkeley being then ill and absent) he fell into the hands of
two black ruffians, called Thomas Gournay and William Ogle.
One night — it was the night of September the twenty-first, one
thousand three hundred and twenty-seven — dreadful screams were
heard, by the startled people in the neighbouring town, ringing
through the thick walls of the Castle, and the dark, deep night ;
and they said, as they were thus horribly awakened from their
sleep, ' May Heaven be merciful to the King ; for those cries
forbode that no good is being done to him in his dismal prison ! '
Next morning he was dead — not bruised, or stabbed, or marked
upon the body, but much distorted in the face ; and it was whispered
afterwards, that those two villains, Gournay and Ogle, had burnt
up his inside with a red-hot iron.
If you ever come near Gloucester, and see the centre tower of
its beautiful Cathedral, with its four rich pinnacles, rising lightly in
the air ; you may remember that the wretched Edward the Second
was buried in the old abbey of that ancient city, at forty-three years
old, after being for nineteen years and a half a perfectly incapable
King.
CHAPTER XVIII
ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD
Roger Mortimer, the Queen's lover (who escaped to France in
the last chapter), was far from profidng by the examples he had
had of the fate of favourites. Having, through the Queen's in-
fluence, come into possession of the estates of the two Despensers,
he became extremely proud and ambitious, and sought to be the
real ruler of England. The young King, who was crowned at
124 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
fourteen years of age with all the usual solemnities, resolved not to
bear this, and soon pursued Mortimer to his ruin.
The people themselves were not fond of INIortimer — first, because
he was a Royal favourite ; secondly, because he was supposed to
have helped to make a peace with Scotland which now took place,
and in virtue of which the young King's sister Joan, only seven
years old, was promised in marriage to David, the son and heir of
Robert Bruce, who was only five years old. The nobles hated
Mortimer because of his pride, riches, and power. They went so
far as to take up arms against him ; but were obliged to submit.
The Earl of Kent, one of those who did so, but who afterwards
went over to Mortimer and the Queen, was made an example of in
the following cruel manner :
He seems to have been anything but a wise old earl ; and he
was persuaded by the agents of the favourite and the Queen, that
poor King Edward the Second was not really dead ; and thus was
betrayed into writing letters favouring his rightful claim to the
throne. This was made out to be high treason, and he was tried,
found guilty, and sentenced to be executed. They took the poor
old lord outside the town of \\'inchester, and there kept him waiting
some three or four hours until they could find somebody to cut off
his head. At last, a convict said he would do it, if the government
would pardon him in return ; and they gave him the pardon ; and
at one blow he put the Earl of Kent out of his last suspense.
While the Queen was in France, she had found a lovely and
good young lady, named Philippa, who she thought would make
an excellent wife for her son. The young King married this lady,
soon after he came to the throne ; and her first child, Edward,
Prince of Wales, afterwards became celebrated, as we shall pre-
sendy see, under the famous title of Edward the Black Prince.
The young King, thinking the time ripe for the downfall of
Mortimer, took counsel with Lord Montacute how he should
proceed. A Parliament was going to be held at Nottingham, and
that lord recommended that the favourite should be seized by night
in Nottingham Castle, where he was sure to be. Now, this, like
many other things, was more easily said than done ; because, to
guard against treachery, the great gates of the Castle were locked
every night, and the great keys were carried up-stairs to the Queen,
who laid them under her own pillow. But the Castle had a
governor, and the governor being Lord Montacute's friend,
confided to him how he knew of a secret passage underground,
hidden from observation by the weeds and brambles with which
it was overgrown ; and how, through that passage, the conspirators
might enter in the dead of the night, and go straight to Mortimer's
room. Accordingly, upon a certain dark night, at midnight, they
made their way through this dismal place : startling the rats, and
EDWARD THE THIRD 125
frightening the owls and bats : and came safely to the bottom of
the main tower of the Castle, where the King met them, and took
them up a profoundly-dark staircase in a deep silence. They soon
heard the voice of Mortimer in council with some friends ; and
bursting into the room with a sudden noise, took him prisoner.
The Queen cried out from her bed-chamber, ' Oh, my sweet son,
my dear son, spare my gentle Mortimer ! ' They carried him off,
however ; and, before the next Parliament, accused him of having
made differences between the young King and his mother, and of
having brought about the death of the Earl of Kent, and even of
the late King ; for, as you know by this time, when they wanted to
get rid of a man in those old days, they were not very particular of
what they accused him. Mortimer was found guilty of all this, and
Avas sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn. The King shut his mother
up in genteel confinement, where she passed the rest of her life ;
and now he became King in earnest.
The first effort he made was to conquer Scotland. The English
lords who had lands in Scotland, finding that their rights were not
respected under the late peace, made war on their own account :
choosing for their general, Edward, the son of John Baliol, who
made such a vigorous fight, that in less than two months he won
the whole Scottish Kingdom. He was joined, when thus triumphant,
by the King and Parliament ; and he and the King in person
besieged the Scottish forces in Berwick. The whole Scottish army
coming to the assistance of their countrymen, such a furious battle
ensued, that thirty thousand men are said to have been killed in it.
Baliol was then crowned King of Scotland, doing homage to the
King of England ; but little came of his successes after all, for the
Scottish men rose against him, within no very long time, and David
Bruce came back within ten years and took his kingdom.
France was a far richer country than Scotland, and the King had
a much greater mind to conquer it. So, he let Scotland alone, and
pretended that he had a claim to the French throne in right of his
mother. He had, in reality, no claim at all ; but that mattered
little in those times. He brought over to his cause many little
princes and sovereigns, and even courted the alliance of the people
of Flanders— a busy, working community, who had very small
respect for kings, and whose head man was a brewer. With such
forces as he raised by these means, Edward invaded France ; but
he did little by that, except run into debt in carrying on the war to
the extent of three hundred thousand pounds. The next year he
did better ; gaining a great sea-fight in the harbour of Sluys. This
success, however, was very shortlived, for the Flemings took fright
at the siege of Saint Omer and ran away, leaving their weapons and
baggage behind them. Philip, the French King, coming up with his
army, and Edward being very anxious to decide the w ar, proposed
126 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
to settle the difference by single combat with him, or by a fight of
one hundred knights on each side. The French King said, he
thanked him ; but being very well as he was, he would rather not.
So, after some skirmishing and talking, a short peace was made.
It was soon broken by King Edward's favouring the cause of
John, Earl of Montford ; a French nobleman, who asserted a claim
of his own against the French King, and offered to do homage to
England for the Crown of France, if he could obtain it through
England's help. This French lord, himself, was soon defeated by
the French King's son, and shut up in a tower in Paris ; but his
wife, a courageous and beautiful woman, who is said to have had
the courage of a man, and the heart of a lion, assembled the people
of Brittany, where she then was ; and, showing them her infant son,
made many pathetic entreaties to them not to desert her and their
young Lord. They took fire at this appeal, and rallied round her
in the strong castle of Hennebon. Here she was not only besieged
without by the French under Charles de Blois, but was endangered
within by a dreary old bishop, who was always representing to the
people what horrors they must undergo if they were faithful — first
from famine, and afterwards from fire and sword. But this noble
lady, whose heart never failed her, encouraged her soldiers by her
own example ; went from post to post like a great general ; even
mounted on horseback fully armed, and, issuing from the castle by
a by-path, fell upon the French camp, set fire to the tents, and
threw the whole force into disorder. This done, she got safely
back to Hennebon again, and was received with loud shouts of joy
by the defenders of the castle, who had given her up for lost. As
they were now very short of provisions, however, and as they could
not dine off enthusiasm, and as the old bishop was always saying,
' I told you what it would come to ! ' they began to lose heart, and
to talk of yielding the castle up. The brave Countess retiring to
an upper room and looking with great grief out to sea, where she
expected relief from England, saw, at this very time, the English
ships in the distance, and was relieved and rescued ! Sir Walter
Manning, the English commander, so admired her courage, that,
being come into the castle with the English knights, and having
made a feast there, he assaulted the French by way of dessert, and
beat them off triumphantly. Then he and the knights came back
to the castle with great joy ; and the Countess who had watched
them from a high tower, thanked them with all her heart, and kissed
them every one.
This noble lady distinguished herself afterwards in a sea-fight
with the French off Guernsey, when she was on her way to England
to ask for more troops. Her great spirit roused another lady, the
wife of another French lord (whom the French King very bar-
barously murdered), to distinguish herself scarcely less. The time
EDWARD THE THIRD 127
was fast coming, however, when Edward, Prince of Wales, was to
be the great star of this French and EngUsh war.
It was in the month of July, in the year one thousand three
hundred and forty-six, when the King embarked at Southampton
for France, with an army of about thirty thousand men in all,
attended by the Prince of Wales and by several of the chief nobles.
He landed at La Hogue in Normandy ; and, burning and destroying
as he went, according to custom, advanced up the left bank of the
River Seine, and fired the small towns even close to Paris ; but,
being watched from the right bank of the river by the French King
and all his army, it came to this at last, that Edward found himself,
on Saturday the twenty-sixth of August, one thousand three hundred
and forty-six, on a rising ground behind the little French village of
Crecy, face to face with the French King's force. And, although
the French King had an enormous army — in number more than
eight times his — he there resolved to beat him or be beaten.
The young Prince, assisted by the Earl of Oxford and the Earl
of Warwick, led the first division of the English army ; two other
great Earls led the second ; and the King, the third. When the
morning dawned, the King received the sacrament, and heard
prayers, and then, mounted on horseback with a white wand in his
hand, rode from company to company, and rank to rank, cheering
and encouraging both officers and men. Then the whole army
breakfasted, each man sitting on the ground where he had stood ;
and then they remained quietly on the ground with their weapons
ready.
Up came the French King with all his great force. It was dark
and angry weather ; there was an eclipse of the sun ; there was a
thunder-storm, accompanied with tremendous rain ; the frightened
birds flew screaming above the soldiers' heads. A certain captain
in the French army advised the French King, who was by no means
cheerful, not to begin the batde until the morrow. The King,
taking this advice, gave the word to halt. But, those behind not
understanding it, or desiring to be foremost with the rest, came
pressing on. The roads for a great distance were covered with this
immense army, and with the common people from the villages, who
were flourishing their rude weapons, and making a great noise.
Owing to these circumstances, the French army advanced in the
greatest confusion ; every French lord doing what he liked with
his own men, and putting out the men of every other French
lord.
Now, their King relied strongly upon a great body of cross-bow-
men from Genoa ; and these he ordered to the front to begin the
battle, on finding that he could not stop it. They shouted once,
they shouted twice, they shouted three times, to alarm the English
archers; but, the English would have heard them shout three
128 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
t'liOLisand times and would have never moved. At last the cross-
bowmen went forward a little, and began to discharge their bolts ;
upon which, the English let fly such a hail of arrows, that the
Genoese speedily made off — for their cross-bows, besides being
heavy to carry, required to be wound up with a handle, and conse-
quently took time to re-load; the English, on the other hand, could
discharge their arrows almost as fast as the arrows could fly.
When the French King saw the Genoese turning, he cried out to
his men to kill those scoundrels, who were doing harm instead of
service. This increased the confusion. Meanwhile the English
archers, continuing to shoot as fast as ever, shot down great numbers
of the French soldiers and knights ; whom certain sly Cornish-men
and Welshmen, from the English army, creeping along the ground,
despatched with great knives.
The Prince and his division were at this time so hard-pressed,
that the Earl of Warwick sent a message to the King, who was
overlooking the battle from a windmill, beseeching him to send
more aid.
' Is my son killed ? ' said the King.
' No, sire, please God,' returned the messenger.
' Is he wounded ? ' said the King.
' No, sire.'
' Is he thrown to the ground ? ' said the King.
* No, sire, not so ; but, he is very hard-pressed.'
' Then,' said the King, ' go back to those who sent you, and tell
them I shall send no aid ; because I set my heart upon my son
proving himself this day a brave knight, and because I am
resolved, please God, that the honour of a great victory shall
be his ! '
These bold words, being reported to the Prince and his division,
so raised their spirits, that they fought better than ever. The King
of France charged gallantly with his men many times ; but it was of
no use. Night closing in, his horse was killed under him by an
English arrow, and the knights and nobles who had clustered thick
about him early in the day, were now completely scattered. At
last, some of his few remaining followers led him off the field by
force, since he would not retire of himself, and they journeyed away
to Amiens. The victorious English, lighting their watch-fires, made
merry on the field, and the King, riding to meet his gallant son,
took him in his arms, kissed him, and told him that he had acted
nobly, and proved himself worthy of the day and of the crown.
While it was yet night. King Edward was hardly aware of the great
victory he had gained ; but, next day, it was discovered that eleven
princes, twelve hundred knights, and thirty thousand common men
lay dead upon the French side. Among these was the King of
Bohemia, an old blind man ; who, having been told that his son
EDWARD THE THIRD 129
was wounded in the battle, and that no force could stand against
the Black Prince, called to him two knights, put himself on horse-
back between them, fastened the three bridles together, and dashed
in among the English, where he was presently slain. He bore as
his crest three white ostrich feathers, with the motto Ich diai, signi-
fying in English ' I serve,' This crest and motto were taken by
the Prince of Wales in remembrance of that famous day, and have
been borne by the Prince of Wales ever since.
Five days after this great batde, the King laid siege to Calais.
This siege — ever afterwards memorable — lasted nearly a year. In
order to starve the inhabitants out, King Edward built so many
wooden houses for the lodgings of his troops, that it is said their
quarters looked like a second Calais suddenly sprung around the
first. Early in the siege, the governor of the town drove out what
he called the useless mouths, to the number of seventeen hundred
persons, men and women, young and old. King Edward allowed
them to pass through his lines, and even fed them, arid dismissed
them with money ; but, later in the siege, he was not so merciful —
five hundred more, who were afterwards driven out, dying of starva-
tion and misery. The garrison were so hard-pressed at last, that
they sent a letter to King Philip, telling him that they had eaten all
the horses, all the dogs, and all the rats and mice that could be
found in the place ; and, that if he did not relieve them, they must
either surrender to. the English, or eat one another. Philip made
one effort to give them relief ; but they were so hemmed in by the
English power, that he could not succeed, and was fain to leave the
place. Upon this they hoisted the English flag, and surrendered
to King Edward. ' Tell your general,' said he to the humble
messengers who came out of the town, ' that I require to have sent
here, six of the most distinguished citizens, bare-legged, and in their
shirts, with ropes about their necks ; and let those six men bring
with them the keys of the castle and the town.'
When the Governor of Calais related this to the people in the
Market-place, there was great weeping and distress ; in the midst
of which, one Avorthy citizen, named Eustace de Saint Pierre, rose
up and said, that if the six men required were not sacrificed, the
whole population would be ; therefore, he offered himself as the
first. Encouraged by this bright example, five other worthy citizens
rose up one after another, and offered themselves to save the rest.
The Governor, who was too badly wounded to be able to walk,
mounted a poor old horse that had not been eaten, and conducted
these good men to the gate, while all the people cried and
mourned.
Edward received them wrathfuUy, and ordered the heads of the
Avhole six to be struck off. However, the good Queen fell upon her
knees, and besought the King to give them up to her. The King
K
I30 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
replied, ' I wish you had been somewhere else ; but I cannot refuse
you.' So she had them properly dressed, made a feast for them,
and sent them back with a handsome present, to the great rejoicing
of the whole camp. I hope the people of Calais loved the daughter
to whom she gave birth soon afterwards, for her gentle mother's
sake.
Now came that terrible disease, the Plague, into Europe, hurrying
from the heart of China ; and killed the wretched people — especially
the poor — in such enormous numbers, that one-half of the in-
habitants of England are related to have died of it. It killed the
cattle, in great numbers, too ; and so few working men remained
alive, that there were not enough left to till the ground.
After eight years of differing and quarrelling, the Prince of Wales
again invaded France with an army of sixty thousand men. He
went through the south of the country, burning and plundering
wheresoever he went ; v/hile his father, who had still the Scottish
war upon his hands, did the like in Scotland, but was harassed and
worried in his retreat from that country by the Scottish men, who
repaid his cruelties with interest.
The French King, Philip, was now dead, and was succeeded by
his son John. The Black Prince, called by that name from the
colour of the armour he wore to set off his fair complexion, con-
tinuing to burn and destroy in France, roused John into determined
opposition ; and so cruel had the Black Prince been in his cam-
paign, and so severely had the French peasants suffered, that he
could not find one who, for love, or money, or the fear of death,
would tell him what the French King was doing, or where he was.
Thus it happened that he came upon the French King's forces, all
of a sudden, near the town of Poitiers, and found that the whole
neighbouring country was occupied by a vast French army. ' God
help us ! ' said the Black Prince, ' we must make the best of it.'
So, on a Sunday morning, the eighteenth of September, the
Prince — whose army was now reduced to ten thousand men in all —
])repared to give battle to the French King, who had sixty thousand
horse alone. While he was so engaged, there came riding from the
French camp, a Cardinal, who had persuaded John to let him offer
terms, and try to save the shedding of Christian blood. ' Save my
honour,' said the Prince to this good priest, ' and save the honour
of my army, and I will make any reasonable terms.' He offered to
give up all the towns, castles, and prisoners, he had taken, and to
swear to make no war in France for seven years ; but, as John
would hear of notlung but his surrender, with a hundred of his chief
knights, the treaty was broken off, and the Prince said quietly—
' God defend the right ; we shall fight to-morrow.'
Therefore, on the Monday morning, at break of day, the two
armies prepared for battle. The English were posted in a strong
mee^^i
'lerfpfia /<?<? ine
EDWARD THE THIRD 131
place, which could only be approached by one narrow lane, skirted
by hedges on both sides. The French attacked them by this lane ;
but were so galled and slain by English arrows from behind the
hedges, that they were forced to retreat. Then went six hundred
English bowmen round about, and, coming upon the rear of the
French army, rained arrows on them thick and fast. The French
kniglits, thrown into confusion, quitted their banners and dispersed
in all directions. Said Sir John Chandos to the Prince, ' Ride
forward, noble Prince, and the day is yours. The King of France
is so valiant a gentleman, that I know he will never fly, and may be
taken prisoner.' Said the Prince to this, ' Advance, English banners,
in the name of God and St. George ! ' and on they pressed until
they came up with the French King, fighting fiercely with his
battle-axe, and, when all his nobles had forsaken him, attended
faithfully to the last by his youngest son Philip, only sixteen years
of age. Father and son fought well, and the King had already two
wounds in his face, and had been beaten down, when he at last
delivered himself to a banished French knight, and gave him his
right-hand glove in token that he had done so.
The Black Prince was generous as well as brave, and he invited
his royal prisoner to supper in his tent, and waited upon him at
table, and, when they afterwards rode into London in a gorgeous
procession, mounted the French King on a fine cream-coloured
horse, and rode at his side on a little pony. This was all very kind,
but I think it was, perhaps, a little theatrical too, and has been
made more meritorious than it deserved to be ; especially as I am
inclined to think that the greatest kindness to the King of France
would have been not to have shown him to the people at all.
However, it must be said, for these acts of politeness, that, in course
of time, they did much to soften the horrors of war and the passions
of conquerors. It was a long, long time before the common
soldiers began to have the benefit of such courtly deeds ; but they
did at last ; and thus it is possible that a poor soldier who asked for
quarter at the battle of Waterloo, or any other such great fight,
may have owed his life indirectly to Edward the Black Prince.
At this time there stood in the Strand, in London, a palace called
the Savoy, which was given up to the captive King of France and
his son for their residence. As the King of Scotland had now been
King Edward's captive for eleven years too, his success was, at this
time, tolerably complete. The Scottish business was settled by the
prisoner being released under the title of Sir David, King of
Scotland, and by his engaging to pay a large ransom. The state
of France encouraged England to propose harder terms to that
country, where the people rose against the unspeakable cruelty and
barbarity of its nobles ; where the nobles rose in turn against the
people; where the most frightful outrages were committed on all
hides; .'ijj'l wlicre the insurrection of l\t<: j^cusants, culled iIk: inr,ijr-
rection of th'; Jacqiieri';, from J.-uqiiefi, a comtnon Christian riarne
among Uie country pcoj^le of J'Van";, awakcrjed terror; and hatreds
that luive Kcar';ely y<tt parsed away. A treaty r;;j,lled the Great
]'ea<;<r, was at bfit signed, under whieh King JvJward agreed to give
ijj) tlie greater part of his ^ onqneiits, and King John lo j^iy, wiiliid
six years, a rajisoni of three niilliof» cnjwns of gold, lie wa;> ;/>
beset l>y his own nobles and rourtiers for having yielded U) these
ronditiojis though they couM help him to no Ijetler -that he
came hack of his own will to hi', oM j/.dace-jjrison of the S.ivoy,
and there <lied.
There was a Sovereign of Castile at. th.it time, e;ill':'l i'i.j;i'o iiik
(U'Ui.L, who deserved the name remarkahly well : having com-
mitted, among father cruellies, a variety oi murders. 'J'his amiahle
monarch heiiig driven from hir; throne for his crimes, went to the
jyrovince <»i l<or'l<:;uix, wliere the iJlack I'rince now married to his
<;ousin Joan, a pretty wi<low w;ei re;,iding, an(| he;>ought his help.
'J'he I'rinee, who took to hitn much more kindly ih.in a priiiee of
Huch fame ought to have taken to sueh ;i (uKi.io, i<:.i'lily li ,t' n- 'I to
his fair promises, an<l agreeing to help turn, ;,';iit ;-eei(;l ouU.r., u>
some troublesome disbanded soldiers of his and his father's, who
c;illi'l tliemselves llir J'Vee Compiinioti:;, an'! who li;i/l he<-n a pest
\ii th': Ircn'l) peojd':, for '.om'; tun'-, to ;ii'l llii', i'l'ho. The
I'Mn* '•, hunself, going into Spain to hea,d th'; ;i.rniy ni c li'(, :,<;')ii
het j'edro on his throne ag;i,in where he no ;,oon'-r f'^nn'l Jnin:,' If,
lh;in, of course, he beliaved like the vill.'iin he w;e>, hrok<; his word
with'Mit th'; least shame, and ahandomrd all the promises he had
ma'li; to th'; l'il;iek I'rince.
Now, it lia'l eost th<; I'tince a ;'/jO'I <I':.iI 'A moii'-y l'» p;iy
Koldiers to support this murderous King; au'l (in'lin!', Iiim ,' 1(, wh' n
he cauK; h;M;k rlisgusted to I5'>rde;iux, not ')iily in l^.i'l h';iltli, l/iil
deeply in d' ht, he heg.ni t'> t.ix hi;, I't'ik h subjects to j^.iy his
■< reditoi;,. Tli'-y ;ipp<-;il' 'I t'l th'- I'l'ii'h King, CnAi'i.i,',; w;ir
again hroh- out; ;in'l th'- I'I'ihIi t'nvn ol Kimogrs, wIjI' li the
I'ritxe li;i(| g)';illy Ic ii'lil'-'l, wnt over to lh<; I'rench Kin,". Ii'p'iti
this he ravage] iIm piovin'' of whie.h it was thecapii.il ; Idimi, :iii'l
pliiii(ler'-'l, ;in'l kill' 'I in tic ()\<\ '.i' h-iiing w;iy ; ;ni'l i' In,' -I in' i' y
I'* tli(; pii;;oii<i',, ni' ii, wdu'ii, ;in'l ' liil'hcn t;il<'ii in lli'- <iii< ndini',
t'>wii, though he wa,;i .so ill ;ni'l ■/) nni' li in ik ' 'I i>\ \i\\y luiir,' II li';iii
ll(;i,V';n, lii;il he was <;iiii''l in .1 lill'i. li' liv'l to < oni': li'iinc
and iii.d:'- liiiir,<-ll po|)iil;ir with th'- ji' opl' ;]n'l I';mIi,iiii( nl, .iii'l lie
di<;d on Tiiinty !-)iiiid;iy, tin; eij'lilli <A |iin' , on' tli')ii:„ind three
hundred and ,s<;v<i)ty six, at forty six ye;ir;) oM
'I'he whole n.'ition mourned for him as oik ol th'' nn/,! m nowii'-d
an<I hrloved priiKc, it h.i'l <■v^■.r had; ;in(i Ik- w.t, hiiii'd vvilli i-ri ;it
];iiii'ni;itions in Canlei Inn y Cathedral. Near to the tomh ol l',dvvaid
KICIlAkl) 'I Hi'', S1'.('()N[)
133
t!ie Confessor, liis inomimciit, willi liis (imiif, ( ;ii\iil in stoiic, and
r('[)rcS('nh'<l in tlic old bhck aiiiioiii, l\iiig on ih. |i;i< L, iiiiy he seen
at tliis day, with an aiu iciil coat ol mail, a inlnicl, anrl a pair of
[!;aiinllcts hanj^ing lioni a licani ahovc il, uIik ii most |)co|ilf like to
|u-lic\r vvcrt! once woin by llic lilack Prince.
Kinj^ lulward did not outlive his tcnouned son, lon^. lie \van
old, and one Alice; I'crreis, a lieaiililiil lad\, had contrived to niak(;
him so fond of her in his old a|^<', thai he conld reliise lui nolhiii)'.,
and made hinisell' ridiculous. She lillU; deserved his lo\c, 01
wlial I dare say slie valued a great deal more llie icwel:, ol ihc lile
(,) lice 1 1, which he gav(' her anion).'; other 1 i( h picseiils. She look llie
very ling Iroiii Ins lin)'ii on ihc moiiiin)', of the day win n lie ched,
and lel'l him lo he iHllaj'cd hy Ins lailhless seivanls. ( )i:ly one j'ood
])riest was line lo hiiii, ami alliiided him lo ihe lasl.
IJesidcs heiiig laiiioiis loi llie pieal vKloiies I lia\c nlaleil, llie
reign ol Kill)', I'.dwaid Ihe I'IiikI was icikK led iiieinoiaMe 111 heller
ways, II) ihe )',iowlli oi ai( luh cliiie and llu- cie( lion ol Windsor
Casile. Ill hi'llcr wa)'s slill, hy Ihe lisiii)-, u|i oi \\ n ki iri r, oii/^in-
ally a jioor parish priest : who devoled Inmsell lo ex|)osing, willi
woiiderlul power and success, the amhilion and corruption of th(j
I'ope, and ol the whole chinch ol wIik h he was the head.
Some ol those I'leinings were induced lo come |o I'.iigland in llns
leij'.n too, and to sellle in Noilolk, wlieie lln-y iiiaile hellei woollen
< lotlis than Ihe l'',n)',lish had ever had heloie. 'j'he ( )idei oj |he
( iai lei (a \ ii y line lliiii]; in lis ua\', hiil ha idly so impoi lani as ).',oo([
< lollies ioi Ihe nalioii) also dale;, jiiiiii tins |i<iiod. The Km).; i.'i
:.aid lo lia\'e pK ked up a lady's jsiilei at a hall, and lo ha\e:,aid,
Jloiii st>it i/iii iihi! \ f'liisr in iMighsh, ' I'A'il he lo Inm who e\il
thinks ol il.' 'Ihe ( ourliers were usually glad lo iimlale what Ihe
Kin[{ sai<l 01 did, and hence Irom a slight iiK idenl the ( )idi 1 of
tli<: darter was mslituli-il, and liec.ime a )',ieal di)Miil)'. So Ihe
story goes.
('IIAI'I 1,1; Xl.\'
KNCI.ANO HNItM' I'll IIAI'K llll': M'lCoND
i'KiiAI'i), son ol llie r.lii k riiiMc, a hoy eleven years ol a)',e,
Micceeded lo the ('lown under Ihe lille oj King Kicliaid the
Sf'cond. 'I he whole I'jiglish nation weie leady to admiic him lor
the sake of his brave lalhei. As to iIk lords and ladicH ahont
the Court, IJH-y (Ie<lared him lo he the most heaiililiil, the wisest,
and Ihe ix-st even of jirinces whom the htrds and ladies ahont
the Court, generally (Uclare t(j he the most l)eautiful, the wisist. and
134 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
the best of mankind. To flatter a poor boy in this base manner was
not a very hkely way to develop whatever good was in him ; and it
brought him to anything but a good or happy end.
The Duke of Lancaster, the young King's uncle — commonly
called John of Gaunt, from having been born at Ghent, which the
common people so pronounced — was supposed to have some
thoughts of the throne himself; but, as he was not popular, and the
memory of the Black Prince was, he submitted to his nephew.
The war with France being still unsettled, the Government of
England wanted money to provide for the expenses that might
arise out of it ; accordingly a certain tax, called the Poll-tax, which
had originated in the last reign, was ordered to be levied on the
people. This was a tax on every person in the kingdom, male and
female, above the age of fourteen, of three groats (or three four-
penny pieces) a year; clergymen were charged more, and only
beggars were exempt.
I have no need to repeat that the common people of England
had long been suffering under great oppression. They were still
the mere slaves of the lords of the land on which they lived, and
were on most occasions harshly and unjustly treated. But, they
had begun by this time to think very seriously of not bearing quite
so much ; and, probably, were emboldened by that French insur-
rection I mentioned in the last chapter.
The people of Essex rose against the Poll-tax, and being severely
handled by the government officers, killed some of them. At this
very time one of the tax-collectors, going his rounds from house to
house, at Dartford in Kent came to the cottage of one Wat, a tiler
by trade, and claimed the tax upon his daughter. Her mother, who
was at home, declared that she was under the age of fourteen ; upon
that, the collector (as other collectors had already done in difterent
parts of England) behaved in a savage way, and brutally insulted
Wat Tyler's daughter. The daughter screamed, the mother screamed.
Wat the Tiler, who was at work not far off, ran to the spot, and did
what any honest father under such provocation might have done —
struck the collector dead at a blow.
Instantly the people of that town uprose as one man. They
made Wat Tyler their leader ; they joined with the people of Essex,
who were in arms under a priest called Jack Straw; they took
out of prison another priest named John Ball ; and gathering in
numbers as they went along, advanced, in a great confused army
of poor men, to Blackheath. It is said that they wanted to abolish
all property, and to declare all men equal. I do not think this very
likely ; because they stopped the travellers on the roads and made
them swear to be true to King Richard and the people. Nor were
they at all disposed to injure those who had done them no harm,
merely because they were of high station ; for, the King's mother,
RICHARD THE SECOND 135
who had to pass through their camp at Blackheath, on her way to
her young son, lying for safety in the Tower of London, liad merely
to kiss a few dirty-faced rough-hearded men who were noisily fond
of royalty, and so got away in perfect safety. Next day the whole
mass marched on to London Bridge.
There was a drawbridge in the middle, which "\^'ILLIAM "Walworth
the Mayor caused to be raised to prevent their coming into the
city ; but they soon terrified the citizens into lowering it again, and
spread themselves, with great uproar, over the streets. They broke
open the prisons ; they burned the papers in Lambeth Palace ; they
destroyed the Duke of Lancaster's Palace, the Savoy, in the
Strand, said to be the most beautiful and splendid in England ; they
set fire to the books and documents in the Temple ; and made a
great riot. INIany of these outrages were committed in drunken-
ness ; since those citizens, who had well-filled cellars, were only too
glad to throw them open to save the rest of their property ; but
even the drunken rioters were very careful to steal nothing. They
were so angry with one man, who was seen to take a silver cup at
the Savoy Palace, and put it in his breast, that they drowned him
in the river, cup and all.
The young King had been taken out to treat with them before
they committed these excesses ; but, he and the people about him
were so frightened by the riotous shouts, that they got back to the
Tower in the best way they could. This made the insurgents
bolder; so they went on rioting away, striking off the heads of
those who did not, at a moment's notice, declare for King Richard
and the people; and killing as many of the unpopular persons
whom they supposed to be their enemies as they could by any
means lay hold of. In this manner they passed one very violent
day, and then proclamation was made that the King would meet
them at Mile-end, and grant their requests.
The rioters went to Mile-end to the number of sixty thousand,
and the King met them there, and to the King the rioters peaceably
proposed four conditions. First, that neither they, nor their chil-
dren, nor any coming after them, should be made slaves any more.
Secondly, that the rent of land should be fixed at a certain price
in money, instead of being paid in service. Thirdly, that they
should have liberty to buy and sell in all markets and public places,
like other free men. Fourthly, that they should be pardoned for
past offences. Heaven knows, there was nothing very unreason-
able in these proposals ! The young King deceitfully pretended to
think so, and kept thirty clerks up, all night, writing out a charter
accordingly.
Now, ^Vat Tyler himself wanted more than this. He wanted the
entire abolition of the forest laws. He was not at Mile-end with
the rest, but, while that meeting was being held, broke into the
135 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Tower of London and slew the archbishop and the treasurer, for
whose heads the people had cried out loudly the day before. He
and his men even thrust their swords into the bed of the Princess
of Wales while the Princess was in it, to make certain that none of
their enemies were concealed there.
So, Wat and his men still continued armed, and rode about the
city. Next morning, the King with a small train of some sixty
gentlemen — among whom was Walworth the IMayor — rode into
Smithfield, and saw Wat and his people at a little distance. Says
Wat to his men, ' There is the King. I will go speak with him,
and tell him what we want.'
Straightway Wat rode up to him, and began to talk. ' King,' says
Wat, ' dost thou see all my men there ? '
' Ah,' says the King. ' Why ? '
' Because,' says Wat, ' they are all at my command, and have
sworn to do whatever I bid them.'
Some declared afterwards that as Wat said this, he laid his hand
on the King's bridle. Others declared that he was seen to play
with his own dagger. I think, myself, that he just spoke to the
King like a rough, angry man as he was, and did nothing more.
At any rate he was expecting no attack, and preparing for no
resistance, when Walworth the Mayor did the not very valiant deed
of drawing a short sword and stabbing him in the throat. He
dropped from his horse, and one of the King's people speedily
finished him. So fell Wat Tyler. Fawners and flatterers made a
mighty triumph of it, and set up a cry which will occasionally find
an echo to this day. But Wat was a hard-working man, who had
suffered much, and had been foully outraged; and it is probable
that he was a man of a much higher nature and a much braver
spirit than any of the parasites who exulted then, or have exulted
since, over his defeat.
Seeing Wat down, his men immediately bent their bows to avenge
his fall. If the young King had not had presence of mind at that
dangerous moment, both he and the Mayor to boot, might have
followed Tyler pretty fast. But the King riding up to the crowd,
cried out that Tyler was a traitor, and that he would be their
leader. They were so taken by surprise, that they set up a great
shouting, and followed the boy until he was met at Islington by a
large body of soldiers.
The end of this rising was the then usual end. As soon as the
King found himself safe, he unsaid all he had said, and undid all
he had done ; some fifteen hundred of the rioters were tried
(mostly in Essex) with great rigour, and executed with great cruelty.
Many of them were hanged on gibbets, and left there as a terror
to the country people ; and, because their miserable friends took
some of the bodies down to bury, the King ordered the rest to be
RICHARD THE SECOND 137
chained up — which was the beginning of the barbarous custom
of hanging in chains. The King's falsehood in this business makes
such a pitiful figure, that I think Wat Tyler appears in history
as beyond comparison the truer and more respectable man of the
two.
Richard was now sixteen years of age, and married Anne of
Bohemia, an excellent princess, who was called ' the good Queen
Anne.' She deserved a better husband ; for the King had been
fawned and flattered into a treacherous, wasteful, dissolute, bad
young man.
There were two Popes at this time (as if one were not enough !),
and their quarrels involved Europe in a great deal of trouble.
Scotland was still troublesome too ; and at home there was much
jealousy and distrust, and plotting and counter-plotting, because the
King feared the ambition of his relations, and particularly of his
uncle, the Duke of Lancaster, and the duke had his party against
the King, and the King had his party against the duke. Nor were
these home troubles lessened when the duke went to Castile to
urge his claim to the crown of that kingdom ; for then the Duke
of Gloucester, another of Richard's uncles, opposed him, and in-
fluenced the Parliament to demand the dismissal of the King's
favourite ministers. The King said in reply, that he would not
for such men dismiss the meanest servant in his kitchen. But, it
had begun to signify little what a King said when a Parliament
was determined ; so Richard was at last obliged to give way, and
to agree to another Government of the kingdom, under a com-
mission of fourteen nobles, for a year. His uncle of Gloucester
was at the head of this commission, and, in fact, appointed every-
body composing it.
Having done all this, the King declared as soon as he saw an
opportunity that he had never meant to do it, and that it was all
illegal ; and he got the judges secretly to sign a declaration to that
effect. The secret oozed out directly, and was carried to the Duke
of Gloucester. The Duke of Gloucester, at the head of forty
thousand men, met the King on his entering into London to
enforce his authority ; the King was helpless against him ; his
favourites and ministers were impeached and were mercilessly
executed. Among them were two men whom the people regarded
with very different feelings ; one, Robert Tresilian, Chief Justice,
who was hated for having made what was called * the bloody
circuit ' to try the rioters ; the other. Sir Simon Burley, an honour-
able knight, who had been the dear friend of the Black Prince,
and the governor and guardian of the King. For this gentleman's
life the good Queen even begged of Gloucester on her knees; but
Gloucester (with or without reason) feared and hated him, and
replied, that if she valued her husband's crown, she had better
138 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
beg no more. All this was done under what was called by some
the wonderful — and by others, with better reason, the merciless — ■
Parliament.
But Gloucester's power was not to last for ever. He held it for
only a year longer; in which year the famous battle of Otterbourne,
sung in the old ballad of Chevy Chase, was fought. When the
year was out, the King, turning suddenly to Gloucester, in the
midst of a great council said, ' Uncle, how old am I ? ' ' Your
highness,' returned the Duke, ' is in your twenty-second year.' ' Am
I so much ? ' said the King ; ' then I will manage my own affairs !
I am much obliged to you, my good lords, for your past services,
but I need them no more.' He followed this up, by appointing a
new Chancellor and a new Treasurer, and announced to the people
that he had resumed the Government. He held it for eight years
without opposition. Through all that time, he kept his determi-
nation to revenge himself some day upon his uncle Gloucester, in
his own breast.
At last the good Queen died, and then the King, desiring to
take a second wife, proposed to his council that he should marry
Isabella, of France, the daughter of Charles the Sixth : who, the
French courtiers said (as the English courtiers had said of Richard),
was a marvel of beauty and wit, and quite a phenomenon — of
seven years old. The council were divided about this marriage,
but it took place. It secured peace between England and France
for a quarter of a century ; but it was strongly opposed to the
prejudices of the English people. The Duke of Gloucester, who
was anxious to take the occasion of making himself popular, de-
claimed against it loudly, and this at length decided the King to
execute the vengeance he had been nursing so long.
He went with a gay company to the Duke of Gloucester's house,
Pleshey Castle, in Essex, where the Duke, suspecting nothing, came
out into the court-yard to receive his royal visitor. "While the
King conversed in a friendly manner with the Duchess, the Duke
was quietly seized, hurried away, shipped for Calais, and lodged in
the castle there. His friends, the Earls of Arundel and Warwick,
were taken in the same treacherous manner, and confined to their
castles. A few days after, at Nottingham, they were impeached of
high treason. The Earl of Arundel was condemned and beheaded,
and the Earl of W^arwick was banished. Then, a writ was sent by
a messenger to the Governor of Calais, requiring him to send the
Duke of Gloucester over to be tried. In three days he returned
an answer that he could not do that, because the Duke of
Gloucester had died in prison. The Duke was declared a traitor,
his property was confiscated to the King, a real or pretended con-
fession he had made in prison to one of the Justices of the Common
Pleas was produced against him, and there was an end of the
RICHARD THE SECOND 139
matter. How the unfortunate duke died, very few cared to know.
Whether he really died naturally; whether he killed himself j
whether, by the King's order, he was strangled, or smothered
between two beds (as a serving-man of the Governor's named Hall,
did afterwards declare), cannot be discovered. There is not mucJi
doubt that he was killed, somehow or other, by his nephew's orders.
Among the most active nobles in these proceedings were the King's
cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, whom the King had made Duke of
Hereford to smooth down the old family quarrels, and some others :
who had in the family-plotting times done just such acts them-
selves as they now condemned in the duke. They seem to have
been a corrupt set of men ; but such men were easily found about
the court in such days.
The people murmured at all this, and were still very sore about
the French marriage. The nobles saw how little the King cared
for law, and how crafty he was, and began to be somewhat afraid
for themselves. The King's life was a life of continued feasting
and excess ; his retinue, down to the meanest servants, were dressed
in the most costly manner, and caroused at his tables, it is related,
to the number of ten thousand persons every day. He himself,
surrounded by a body of ten thousand archers, and enriched by a
duty on wool which the Commons had granted him for life, saw no
danger of ever being otherwise than powerful and absolute, and was
as fierce and haughty as a King could be.
He had two of his old enemies left, in the persons of the Dukes
of Hereford and Norfolk. Sparing these no more than the others,
he tampered with the Duke of Hereford until he got him to declare
before the Council that the Duke of Norfolk had lately held some
treasonable talk with him, as he was riding near Brentford; and
that he had told him, among other things, that he could not believe
the King's oath — which nobody could, I should think. For this
treachery he obtained a pardon, and the Duke of Norfolk was
summoned to appear and defend himself. As he denied the charge
and said his accuser was a liar and a traitor, both noblemen, accord-
ing to the manner of those times, were held in custody, and the
truth was ordered to be decided by wager of battle at Coventr}-.
This wager of battle meant that whosoever won the combat was to
be considered in the right ; which nonsense meant in effect, that
no strong man could ever be wrong. A great holiday was made ;
a great crowd assembled, with much parade and show; and the
two combatants were about to rush at each other with their lances,
when the King, sitting in a pavilion to see fair, threw down the
truncheon he carried in his hand, and forbade the battle. The
Duke of Hereford was to be banished for ten years, and the Duke
of Norfolk was to be banished for life. So said the King. The
Duke of Hereford went to France, and went no farther. The Duke
I40 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
of Norfolk made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and afterwards
died at Venice of a broken heart.
Faster and fiercer, after this, the King went on in his career.
The Duke of Lancaster, who was the father of the Duke of Here-
ford, died soon after the departure of his son ; and, the King,
although he had solemnly granted to that son leave to inherit his
father's property, if it should come to him during his banishment,
immediately seized it all, like a robber. The judges were so afraid
of him, that they disgraced themselves by declaring this theft to
be just and lawful. His avarice knew no bounds. He outlawed
seventeen counties at once, on a frivolous pretence, merely to raise
money by way of fines for misconduct. In short, he did as many
dishonest things as he could ; and cared so little for the discontent
of his subjects — though even the spaniel favourites began to whisper
to him that there was such a thing as discontent afloat — that he
took that time, of all others, for leaving England and making an
expedition against the Irish.
He was scarcely gone, leaving the Duke of York. Regent in
his absence, when his cousin, Henry of Hereford, came over from
France to claim the rights of which he had been so monstrously
deprived. He was immediately joined by the two great Earls of
Northumberland and Westmoreland ; and his uncle, the Regent,
finding the King's cause unpopular, and the disinelination of the
army to act against Henry, very strong, withdrew with the Royal
forces towards Bristol. Henry, at the head of an army, came from
Yorkshire (where he had landed) to London and followed him.
They joined their forces — how they brought that about, is not
distinctly understood — and proceeded to Bristol Castle, whither
three noblemen had taken the young Queen. The castle surrender-
ing, they presently put those three noblemen to death. The Regent
then remained there, and Henry went on to Chester.
All this time, the boisterous weather had prevented the King
from receiving intelligence of what had occurred. At length it
was conveyed to him in Ireland, and he sent over the Earl of
Salisbury, who, landing at Conway, rallied the Welshmen, and
waited for the King a whole fortnight ; at the end of that time the
"W^elshmen, who were perhaps not very warm for him in the be-
ginning, quite cooled down and went home. When the King did
land on the coast at last, he came with a pretty good power, but
his men cared nothing for him, and quickly deserted. Supposing
the Welshmen to be still at Conway, he disguised himself as a
priest, and made for that place in company with his two brothers
and some few of their adherents. But, there were no Welshmen
left — only Salisbury and a hundred soldiers. In this distress, the
King's two brothers, Exeter and Surrey, offered to go to Henry
to learn what his intentions were. Surrey, who was true to
RICHARD THE SECOND 141
Richard, was put into prison. Exeter, who was false, took the
royal badge, which was a hart, off his shield, and assumed the rose,
the badge of Henry. After this, it was pretty plain to the King
what Henry's intentions were, without sending any more messengers
to ask.
The fallen King, thus deserted — hemmed in on all sides, and
pressed with hunger^rode here and rode there, and went to this
castle, and went to that castle, endeavouring to obtain some i)ro-
visions, but could find none. He rode wretchedly back to Conway,
and there surrendered himself to the Earl of Northumberland, who
came from Henry, in reality to take him prisoner, but in appearance
to offer terms ; and whose men were hidden not far off. By this
earl he was conducted to the castle of Flint, where his cousin
Henry met him, and dropped on his knee as if he were still
respectful to his sovereign.
' Fair cousin of Lancaster,' said the King, ' you are very welcome '
(very welcome, no doubt ; but he would have been more so, in
chains or without a head).
' My lord,' replied Henry, ' I am come a little before my time ;
but, with your good pleasure, I will show you the reason. Your
people complain with some bitterness, that you have ruled them
rigorously for two-and-twenty years. Now, if it please God, I w ill
help you to govern them better in future.'
' Fair cousin,' replied the abject King, ' since it pleaseth you, it
pleaseth me mightily.'
After this, the trumpets sounded, and the King was stuck on a
wretched horse, and carried prisoner to Chester, where he was
made to issue a proclamation, calling a Parliament. From Chester
he was taken on towards London. At Lichfield he tried to escape
by getting out of a window and letting himself down into a garden ;
it was all in vain, however, and he was carried on and shut up in
the Tower, where no one pitied him, and where the whole people,
whose patience he had quite tired out, reproached him without
mercy. Before he got there, it is related, that his very dog left
him and departed from his side to lick the hand of Henry.
The day before the Parliament met, a deputation went to this
wrecked King, and told him that he had promised the Earl of
Northumberland at Conway Castle to resign the crown. He said
he was quite ready to do it, and signed a paper in which he
renounced his authority and absolved his people from their allegiance
to him. He had so little spirit left that he gave his royal ring to
his triumphant cousin Henry with his own hand, and said, that if
he could have had leave to appoint a successor, that same Henry-
was the man of all others whom he would have named. Next day,
the Parliament assembled in Westminster Hall, where Henry sat
at the side of the throne, which was empty and covered with a
142 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
cloth of gold. The paper just signed by the King was read to
the multitude amid shouts of joy, which were echoed through all
the streets ; when some of the noise had died away, the King was
formally deposed. Then Henry arose, and, making the sign of the
cross on his forehead and breast, challenged the realm of England
as his right ; the archbishops of Canterbury and York seated him
on the throne.
The multitude shouted again, and the shouts re-echoed through-
out all the streets. No one remembered, now, that Richard the
Second had ever been the most beautiful, the wisest, and the best
of princes ; and he now made living (to my thinking) a far more
sorry spectacle in the Tower of London, than Wat Tyler had made,
lying dead, among the hoofs of the royal horses in Smithfield.
The Poll-tax died with Wat. The Smiths to the King and
Royal Family, could make no chains in which the King could
hang the people's recollection of him ; so the Poll-tax was never
collected.
CHAPTER XX
ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FOURTH, CALLED BOLINGBROKE
During the last reign, the preaching of Wickliffe against the pride
and cunning of the Pope and all his men, had made a great noise in
England. Whether the new King wished to be in favour with the
priests, or whether he hoped, by pretending to be very religious, to
cheat Heaven itself into the belief that he was not a usurper, I don't
know. Both suppositions are likely enough. It is certain that he
began his reign by making a strong show against the followers of
^Vickliffe, who were called Lollards, or heretics — although his
father, John of Gaunt, had been of that way of thinking, as he
liimself had been more than suspected of being. It is no less
certain that he first established in England the detestable and
atrocious custom, brought from abroad, of burning those people as
a punishment for their opinions. It was the importation into
England of one of the practices of what was called the Holy
Inquisition : which was the most ?/;/holy and the most infamous
tribunal that ever disgraced mankind, and made men more like
demons than followers of Our Saviour.
No real right to the crown, as you know, was in this King.
Edward Mortimer, the young Earl of March — who was only eight
or nine years old, and who was descended from the Duke of
Clarence, the elder brother of Henry's father — was, by succession,
the real heir to the throne. However, the King got his son declared
HENRY THE FOURTH 143
Prince of Wales; and, obtaining possession of the young Earl
of March and his litde brother, kept them in confinement (but not
severely) in Windsor Castle. He then required the Parliament to
decide what was to be done with the deposed King, who was t[uiet
enough, and who only said that he hoped his cousin Henry would
be ' a good lord ' to him. The Parliament replied that they would
recommend his being kept in some secret place where the people
could not resort, and where his friends could not be admitted to see
him, Henry accordingly passed this sentence upon him, and it now
began to be pretty clear to the nation that Richard the Second
would not live very long.
It was a noisy Parliament, as it was an unprincipled one, and the
Lords quarrelled so violently among themselves as to which of them
had been loyal and which disloyal, and which consistent and which
inconsistent, that forty gauntlets are said to have been thrown upon
the floor at one time as challenges to as many battles ; the truth
being that they were all false and base together, and had been, at
one time with the old King, and at another time with the new one,
and seldom true for any length of time to any one. They soon
began to plot again. A conspiracy was formed to invite the King
to a tournament at Oxford, and then to take him by surprise and
kill him. This murderous enterprise, which was agreed upon at
secret meetings in the house of the Abbot of Westminster, was
betrayed by the Earl of Rutland — one of the conspirators. The
King, instead of going to the tournament or staying at Windsor
(where the conspirators suddenly went, on finding themselves dis-
covered, with the hope of seizing him), retired to London, proclaimed
them all traitors, and advanced upon them with a great force. They
retired into the west of England, proclaiming Richard King ; but,
the people rose against them, and they were all slain. Their treason
hastened the death of the deposed monarch. Whether he was
killed by hired assassins, or whether he was starved to death, or
whether he refused food on hearing of his brothers being killed (who
were in that plot), is very doubtful. He met his death somehow ;
and his body was publicly shown at St. Paul's Cathedral with only
the lower part of the face uncovered. I can scarcely doubt that he
was killed by the King's orders.
The French wife of the miserable Richard was now only ten
years old ; and, when her father, Charles of France, heard of her
misfortunes and of her lonely condition in England, he went mad :
as he had several times done before, during the last five or six years.
The French Dukes of Burgundy and Bourbon took up the poor
girl's cause, without caring much about it, but on the chance of
getting something out of England. The people of Bordeaux, who
had a sort of superstitious attachment to the memory of Richard,
because he was born there, swore by the Lord that he had been the
T44 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
best man in all his kingdom — which was going rather far — and
promised to do great things against the English. Nevertheless,
when they came to consider that they, and the whole people of
France, were ruined by their own nobles, and that the English rule
was much the better of the two, they cooled down again ; and the
two dukes, although they were very great men, could do nothing
without them. Then, began negotiations between France and
England for the sending home to Paris of the poor little Queen with
all her jewels and her fortune of two hundred thousand francs in
gold. The King was quite willing to restore the young lady, and
even the jewels ; but he said he really could not part with the
money. So, at last she was safely deposited at Paris without her
fortune, and then the Duke of Burgundy (who was cousin to the
French King) began to quarrel with the Duke of Orleans (who was
brother to the French King) about the whole matter ; and those two
dukes made France even more wretched than ever.
As the idea of conquering Scotkmd was still popular at home, the
King marched to the river Tyne and demanded homage of the
King of that country. This being refused, he advanced to Edin-
burgh, but did little there ; for, his army being in want of provisions,
and the Scotch being very careful to hold him in check without
giving battle, he was obliged to retire. It is to his immortal honour
that in this sally he burnt no villages and slaughtered no people,
but was particularly careful that his army should be merciful and
harmless. It was a great example in those ruthless times.
A war among the border people of England and Scotland went
on for twelve months, and then the Earl of Northumberland, the
nobleman who had helped Henry to the crown, began to rebel
against him — probably because nothing that Henry could do for
him would satisfy his extravagant expectations. There was a
certain Welsh gentleman, named Owen Glendower, who had been
a student in one of the Inns of Court, and had afterwards been in
the service of the late King, whose Welsh property was taken from
him by a powerful lord related to the present King, who was his
neighbour. Appealing for redress, and getting none, he took up
arms, was made an outlaw, and declared himself sovereign of Wales.
He pretended to be a magician ; and not only were the Welsh
people stupid enough to believe him, but, even Henry believed him
too ; for, making three expeditions into Wales, and being three
times driven back by the wildness of the country, the bad weather,
and the skill of Glendower, he thought he was defeated by the
AVelshman's magic arts. However, he took Lord Grey and Sir
Edmund Mortimer, prisoners, and allowed the relatives of Lord
(jrey to ransom him, but would not extend such favour to Sir
Edmund Mortimer. Now, Henry Percy, called Hotspur, son of
the Earl of Northumberland, who was married to Mortimer's sister,
HENRY THE FOURTPI 145
is supposed to have taken offence at this ; and, therefore, in con-
junction with his father and some others, to have joined Owen
Glendower, and risen against Henry. It is by no means clear that
this was the real cause of the conspiracy ; but perhaps it was made
the pretext. It was formed, and was very powerful ; including
Scroop, Archbishop of York, and the Earl of Douglas, a powerful
and brave Scottish nobleman. The King was prompt and active,
and the two armies met at Shrewsbury.
There were about fourteen thousand men in each. The old Earl
of Northumberland being sick, the rebel forces were led by his son.
The King wore plain armour to deceive the enemy; and four
noblemen, with the same object, wore the royal arms. The rebel
charge was so furious, that every one of those gentlemen was killed,
the royal standard was beaten down, and the young Prince of Wales
was severely wounded in the face. But he was one of the bravest
and best soldiers that ever lived, and he fought so well, and the
King's troops were so encouraged by his bold example, that they
rallied immediately, and cut the enemy's forces all to pieces.
Hotspur was killed by an arrow in the brain, and the rout was so
complete that the whole rebellion was struck down by this one
blow. The Earl of Northumberland surrendered himself soon after
hearing of the death of his son, and received a pardon for all his
offences.
There were some lingerings of rebellion yet : Owen Glendower
being retired to Wales, and a preposterous story being spread
among the ignorant people that King Richard was still alive. How
they could have believed such nonsense it is difficult to imagine ;
but they certainly did suppose that the Court fool of the late King,
who was something like him, was he, himself; so that it seemed as
if, after giving so much trouble to the country in his life, he was
still to trouble it after his death. This was not the worst. The
young Earl of March and his brother were stolen out of Windsor
Castle. Being retaken, and being found to have been spirited-away
by one Lady Spencer, she accused her own brother, that Earl of
Rutland who was in the former conspiracy and was now Duke of
York, of being in the plot. For this he was ruined in fortune,
though not put to death ; and then another plot arose among the
old Earl of Northumberland, some other lords, and that same
Scroop, Archbishop of York, who was with the rebels before.
These conspirators caused a writing to be posted on the church
doors, accusing the King of a variety of crimes ; but, the King
being eager and vigilant to oppose them, they were all taken, and
the Archbishoj) was executed. This was the first time that a great
churchman had been slain by the law in England ; but the King
was resolved that it should be done, and done it was.
The next most remarkable event of this time was the seizure, by
146 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Henry, of the heir to the Scottish throne — James, a boy of nine
years old. He had been put aboard-ship by his father, the Scottish
King Robert, to save him from the designs of his uncle, when, on
his way to France, he was accidentally taken by some English
cruisers. He remained a prisoner in England for nineteen years,
and became in his prison a student and a famous poet.
With the exception of occasional troubles with the ^^^elsh and
with the French, the rest of King Henry's reign was quiet enough.
But, the King was far from happy, and probably was troubled in
his conscience by knowing that he had usurped the crown, and had
occasioned the death of his miserable cousin. The Prince of
Wales, though brave and generous, is said to have been wild and
dissipated, and even to have drawn his sword on Gascoigne, the
Chief Justice of the King's Bench, because be Mas firm in dealing
impartially with one of his dissolute companions. Upon this the
Chief Justice is said to have ordered him immediately to prison ;
the Prince of Wales is said to have submitted with a good grace ;
and the King is said to have exclaimed, ' Happy is the monarch
who has so just a judge, and a son so willing to obey the laws.'
This is all very doubtful, and so is another story (of which Shake-
speare has made beautiful use), that the Prince once took the
crown out of his father's chamber as he was sleeping, and tried it
on his own head.
The King's health sank more and more, and he became subject
to violent eruptions on the face and to bad epileptic fits, and his
spirits sank every day. At last, as he was praying before the shrine
of St. Edward at Westminster Abbey, he was seized with a terrible
fit, and was carried into the Abbot's chamber, where he presently
died. It had been foretold that he would die at Jerusalem, which
certainly is not, and never was, Westminster. But, as the Abbot's
room had long been called the Jerusalem chamber, people said it
was all the same thing, and were quite satisfied with the prediction.
The King died on the 20th of March, 1413, in the forty-seventh
year of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign. He was buried in
Canterbury Cathedral. He had been twice married, and had, by
his first wife, a family of four sons and two daughters. Considering
his duplicity before he came to the throne, his unjust seizure of it,
and above all, his making that monstrous law for the burning of
what the priests called heretics, he was a reasonably good king, as
kings went.
HENRY THE FIFTH 147
CHAPTER XXI
england under henry the fifth
First Part
The Prince of Wales began his reign like a generous and honest
man. He set the young Earl of March free ; he restored their
estates and their honours to the Percy family, ^vho had lost them
by their rebellion against his father ; he ordered the imbecile and
unfortunate Richard to be honourably buried among the Kings of
England ; and he dismissed all his wild companions, with assurances
that they should not want, if they would resolve to be steady,
faithful, and true.
It is much easier to bum men than to burn their opinions ; and
those of the Lollards were spreading every day. The Lollards
were represented by the priests — probably falsely for the most part
^to entertain treasonable designs against the new King ; and
Henry, suffering himself to be worked upon by these representations,
sacrificed his friend Sir John Oldcastle, the Lord Cobham, to
them, after trying in vain to convert him by arguments. He was
declared guilty, as the head of the sect, and sentenced to the
flames ; but he escaped from the Tower before the day of execution
(postponed for fifty days by the King himself), and summoned the
Lollards to meet him near London on a certain day. So the priests
told the King, at least. I doubt whether there was any conspiracy
beyond such as was got up by their agents. On the day appointed,
instead of five-and-twenty thousand men, under the command of
Sir John Oldcastle, in the meadows of St. Giles, the King found
only eighty men, and no Sir John at all. There was, in another
place, an addle-headed brewer, who had gold trappings to his
horses, and a pair of gilt spurs in his breast — expecting to be made
a knight next day by Sir John, and so to gain the right to wear
them — but there was no Sir John, nor did anybody give informa-
tion respecting him, though the King offered great rewards for such
intelligence. Thirty of these unfortunate Lollards were hanged
and drawn immediately, and were then burnt, gallows and all ; and
the various prisons in and around London were crammed full of
others. Some of these unfortunate men made Vvarious confessions
of treasonable designs ; but, such confessions were easily got, under
torture and the fear of fire, and are very little to be trusted. To
finish the sad story of Sir John Oldcastle at once, I may mention
that he escaped into ^^'alcs^ and remained there safely, for four
148 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
years. When discovered by Lord Powis, it is very doubtful if he
would have been taken alive — so great was the old soldier's
bravery — if a miserable old woman had not come behind him and
broken his legs with a stool. He was carried to London in a
horse-litter, was fastened by an iron chain to a gibbet, and so
roasted to death.
To make the state of France as plain as I can in a few words, I
should tell you that the Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of Bur-
gundy, commonly called ' John without fear,' had had a grand
reconciliation of their quarrel in the last reign, and had appeared
to be quite in a heavenly state of mind. Immediately after which,
on a Sunday, in the public streets of Paris, the Duke of Orleans
was murdered by a party of twenty men, set on by the Duke of
Burgundy — according to his own deliberate confession. The
widow of King Richard had been married in France to the eldest
son of the Duke of Orleans, The poor mad King was quite
powerless to help her, and the Duke of Burgundy became the real
master of France. Isabella dying, her husband (Duke of Orleans
since the death of his father) married the daughter of the Count of
Armagnac, who, being a much abler man than his young son-in-
law, headed his party ; thence called after him Armagnacs. Thus,
France was now in this terrible condition, that it had in it the party
of the King's son, the Dauphin Louis ; the party of the Duke of
Burgundy, who was the father of the Dauphin's ill-used wife ; and
the party of the Armagnacs ; all hating each other ; all fighting
together ; all composed of the most depraved nobles that the earth
has ever known ; and all tearing unhappy France to i)ieces.
The late King had watched these dissensions from England,
sensible (like the French people) that no enemy of France could
injure her more than her own nobility. The present King now
advanced a claim to the French throne. His demand being, of
course, refused, he reduced his proposal to a certain large amount of
French territory, and to demanding the French princess, Catherine,
in marriage, with a fortune of two millions of golden crowns. He
was offered less territory and fewer crowns, and no princess ; but
he called his ambassadors home and prepared for war. Then, he
proposed to take the princess with one million of crowns. The
French Court replied that he should have the princess with two
hundred thousand crowns less ; he said this would not do (he had
never seen the princess in his life), and assembled his army at
Southampton, There was a short plot at home just at that time,
for deposing ,him, and making the Earl of March king ; but the
conspirators were all speedily condemned and executed, and the
King embarked for France.
It is dreadful to observe how long a bad example will be fol-
Icv/ed ; but, it is encouraging to know that a good example is never
HENRY THE FIFTH 149
thrown away. The King's first act on disembarking at the mouth
of the river Seine, three miles from Harfleur, was to imitate his
father, and to proclaim his solemn orders that the lives and property
of the peaceable inhabitants should be respected on pain of death.
It is agreed by French writers, to his lasting renown, that even while
his soldiers were suffering the greatest distress from want of food,
these commands were rigidly obeyed.
With an army in all of thirty thousand men, he besieged the
town of Harfleur both by sea and land for five weeks ; at the end
of which time the town surrendered, and the inhabitants were
allowed to depart with only fivepence each, and a part of their
clothes. All the rest of their possessions was divided amongst the
English army. But, that army suffered so much, in spite of its
successes, from disease and privation, that it was already reduced
one half. Still, the King was determined not to retire until he had
struck a greater blow. Therefore, against the advice of all his
counsellors, he moved on with his little force towards Calais. When
he came up to the river Somme he was unable to cross, in conse-
quence of the fort being fortified ; and, as the English moved up
the left bank of the river looking for a crossing, the French, who
had broken all the bridges, moved up the right bank, watching
them, and waiting to attack them when they should try to pass it.
At last the English found a crossing and got safely over. The
French held a council of war at Rouen, resolved to give the English
battle, and sent heralds to King Henry to know by which road he
was going. ' By the road that will take me straight to Calais ! '
said the King, and sent them away with a present of a hundred
crowns.
The English moved on, until they beheld the French, and then
the King gave orders to form in line of battle. The French not
coming on, the army broke up after remaining in battle array till
night, and got good rest and refreshment at a neighbouring village.
The French were now all lying in another village, through which
they knew the English must pass. They were resolved that the
English should begin the battle. The English had no means of
retreat, if their King had any such intention ; and so the two armies
passed the night, close together.
To understand these armies well, you must bear in mind that the
immense French army had, among its notable persons, almost the
whole of that wicked nobility, whose debauchery had made France
a desert ; and so besotted were they by pride, and by contempt for
the common people, that they had scarcely any bowmen (if indeed
they had any at all) in their whole enormous number : which,
compared with the English army, was at least as six to one. For
these proud fools had said that the bow was not a fit weapon for
knightly hands, and that France must be defended by gentlemen
t5o A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
only. We shall see, presently, what hand the gentlemen made
of it.
Now, on the English side, among the little force, there was a
good proportion of men who were not gentlemen by any means,
but who were good stout archers for all that. Among them, in the
morning— having slept little at night, while the French were
carousing and making sure of victory— the King rode, on a grey
horse ; wearing on his head a helmet of shining steel, surmounted
by a crown of gold, sparkling with precious stones ; and bearing
over his armour, embroidered together, the arms of England and
the arms of France. The archers looked at the shining helmet and
the crown of gold and the sparkling jewels, and admired them all ;
but, what they admired most was the King's cheerful face, and his
bright blue eye, as he told thern that, for himself, he had made up
his mind to conquer there or to die there, and that England should
never have a ransom to pay for ///w. There was one brave knight
who chanced to say that he wished some of the many gallant gentle-
men and good soldiers, who were then idle at home in England,
were there to increase their numbers. But the King told him that,
for his part, he did not wish for one more man. ' The fewer we
have,' said he, ' the greater will be the honour we shall win ! ' His
men, being now all in good heart, were refreshed with bread and
wine, and heard prayers, and waited quietly for the French. The
King waited for the French, because they were drawn up thirty
deep (the little English force was only three deep), on very difficult
and heavy ground ; and he knew that when they moved, there must
be confusion among them.
As they did not move, he sent oflf two parties : — one to lie
concealed in a wood on the left of the French : the other, to set
fire to some houses behind the French after the battle should be
begun. This was scarcely done, when three of the proud French
gentlemen, who were to defend their country without any help from
the base peasants, came riding out, calling upon the English to
surrender. The King warned those gentlemen himself to retire
with all speed if they cared for their lives, and ordered the English
banners to advance. Upon that, Sir Thomas Erpingham, a great
English general, who commanded the archers, threw his truncheon
into the air, joyfully, and all the English men, kneeling down upon
the ground and biting it as if they took possession of the country,
rose up with a great shout and fell upon the French.
Every archer was furnished with a great stake tipped with iron ;
and his orders were, to thrust this stake into the ground, to discharge
his arrow, and then to fall back, when the French horsemen came
on. As the haughty French gentlemen, who were to break the
English archers and utterly destroy them with their knightly lances,
came riding up, they were received with such a blinding storm of
HENRY THE FIFTH 151
arrows, that they broke and turned. Horses and men rolled over
one another, and the confusion was terrific. Those who rallied
and charged the archers got among the stakes on slippery and
boggy ground, and were so bewildered that the English archers —
who wore no armour, and even took off their leathern coats to be
more active — cut them to pieces, root and branch. Only three
French horsemen got within the stakes, and those were instantly
despatched. All this time the dense French army, being in armour,
were sinking knee-deep into the mire; while the light English
archers, half-naked, were as fresh and active as if they were fighting
on a marble floor.
But now, the second division of the French coming to the relief
of the first, closed up in a firm mass ; the English, headed by the
King, attacked them ; and the deadliest part of the battle began.
The King's brother, the Duke of Clarence, was struck down, and
numbers of the French surrounded him ; but, King Henry, standing
over the body, fought like a lion until they were beaten off.
Presently, came up a band of eighteen French knights, bearing
the banner of a certain French lord, who had sworn to kill or take
the English King. One of them struck him such a blow with a
battle-axe that he reeled and fell upon his knees ; but, his faithful
men, immediately closing round him, killed every one of those
eighteen knights, and so that French lord never kept his oath.
The French Duke of Alen^on, seeing this, made a desperate
charge, and cut his way close up to the Royal Standard of England.
Fie beat down the Duke of York, who was standing near it ; and,
when the King came to his rescue, struck off a piece of the crown
he wore. But, he never struck another blow in this world ; for,
even as he was in the act of saying who he was, and that he
surrendered to the King ; and even as the King stretched out his
hand to give him a safe and honourable acceptance of the offer ;
he fell dead, pierced by innumerable wounds.
The death of this nobleman decided the battle. The third
division of the French army, which had never struck a blow yet,
and which was, in itself, more than double the whole English
power, broke and fled. At this time of the fight, the English, who
as yet had made no prisoners, began to take them in immense
numbers, and were still occupied in doing so, or in killing those
who would not surrender, when a great noise arose in the rear of
the French— their flying banners were seen to stop — and King
Henry, supposing a great reinforcement to have arrived, gave orders
that all the prisoners should be put to death. As soon, however, as
it was found that the noise was only occasioned by a body of
plundering peasants, the terrible massacre was stopped.
Then King Henry called to him the French herald, and asked him
to whom the victory belonged.
152 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
The herald repHed, ' To the King of England.'
' JVe have not made this havoc and slaughter,' said the King.
' It is the wrath of Heaven on the sins of France. ^Vhat is the
name of that castle yonder ? '
The herald answered him, ' My lord, it is the castle of Azincourt.'
Said the King, ' From henceforth this battle shall be known to
posterity, by the name of the battle of Azincourt.'
Our English historians have made' it Agincourt ; but, under that
name, it will ever be famous in English annals.
The loss upon the French side was enormous. Three Dukes
were killed, two more were taken prisoners, seven Counts were
killed, three more were taken prisoners, and ten thousand knights
and gentlemen were slain upon the field. The English loss amounted
to sixteen hundred men, among whom were the Duke of York and
the Earl of Suftolk.
War is a dreadful thing ; and it is appalling to know how the
English were obliged, next morning, to kill those prisoners mortally
wounded, who yet writhed in agony upon the ground ; how the
dead upon the French side were stripped by their own countrymen
and countrywomen, and afterwards buried in great pits ; how the
dead upon the English side were piled up in a great barn, and how
their bodies and the barn were all burned together. It is in such
things, and in many more much too horrible to relate, that the real
desolation and wickedness of war consist. Nothing can make war
otherwise than horrible. But the dark side of it was little thought
of and soon forgotten ; and it cast no shade of trouble on the
English people, except on those who had lost friends or relations
in the fight. They welcomed their King home with shouts of
rejoicing, and plunged into the water to bear him ashore on their
shoulders, and flocked out in crowds to welcome him in every town
through which he passed, and hung rich carpets and tapestries out
of the windows, and strewed the streets with flowers, and made the
fountains run with wine, as the great field of Agincourt had run
with blood.
Second Part
That proud and wicked French nobility who dragged their country
to destruction, and who were every day and every year regarded
with deeper hatred and detestation in the hearts of the French
people, learnt nothing, even from the defeat of Agincourt. So far
from uniting against the common enemy, they became, among
themselves, more violent, more bloody, and more false — if that
were possible — than they had been before. The Count of Armagnac
persuaded the French king to plunder of her treasures Queen
Isabella of Bavaria, and to make her a prisoner. She, who had
HENRY THE FIFTH 153
hitherto Ijcen tlie bitter enemy of the Duke of Burgundy, proposed
to join him, in revenge. He carried her off to Troyes, where she
proclaimed herself Regent of France, and made him her lieutenant.
The Armagnac party were at that time possessed of I'aris; but, one
of the gates of the city being secretly opened on a certain night to a
party of the duke's men, they got into Paris, threw into the prisons
all the Armagnacs upon whom they could lay their hands, and, a
few nights afterwards, with the aid of a furious mob of sixty thousand
people, broke the prisons open, and killed them all. Tlie former
Dauphin was now dead, and the King's third son bore the title.
Him, in the height of this murderous scene, a French knight hurried
out of bed, wrapped in a sheet, and bore away to Poitiers. So,
when the revengeful Isabella and the Duke of Burgundy entered
Paris in triumph after the slaughter of their enemies, the Dauphin
was proclaimed at Poitiers as the real Regent.
King Henry had not been idle since his victory of Agincourt,
but had repulsed a brave attempt of the French to recover Harfleur;
had gradually conquered a great part of Normandy; and, at this
crisis of affairs, took the important town of Rouen, after a siege of
half a year. This great loss so alarmed the French, that the Duke of
Burgundy proposed that a meeting to treat of peace should be held
between the French and the English kings in a plain by the river
Seine. On the appointed day. King Henry appeared there, with his
two brothers, Clarence and Gloucester, and a thousand men. The
unfortunate French King, being more mad than usual that day, could
not come ; but the Queen came, and with her the Princess Catherine :
who was a very lovely creature, and who made a real impression on
King Henry, now that he saw her for the first time. This was the
most important circumstance that arose out of the meeting.
As if it were impossible for a French nobleman of that time to
be true to his word of honour in anything, Henry discovered that
the Duke of Burgundy was, at that very moment, in secret treaty
with the Dauphin ; and he therefore abandoned the negotiation.
■ The Duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin, each of whom with
the best reason distrusted the other as a noble rufifian surrounded
by a party of noble rufifians, were rather at a loss how to proceed
after this ; but, at length they agreed to meet, on a bridge over the
river Yonne, where it was arranged that there should be two strong
gates put up, with an empty space between them ; and that the
Duke of Burgundy should come into that space by one gate, with
ten men only ; and that the Dauphin should come into that space
by the other gate, also with ten men, and no more.
So far the Dauphin kept his word, but no farther. When the
Duke of Burgundy was on his knee before him in the act of speak-
ing, one of the Dauphin's noble ruffians cut the said duke down
with a small axe, and others speedily finished him.
154 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
It was in vain for the Dauphin to pretend that this base murder
was not done with his consent ; it was too bad, even for France,
and caused a general horror. The duke's heir hastened to make
a treaty with King Henry, and the French Queen engaged that her
husband should consent to it, whatever it was. Henry made peace,
on condition of receiving the Princess Catherine in marriage, and
being made Regent of France during the rest of the King's lifetime,
and succeeding to the French crown at his death. He was soon
married to the beautiful Princess, and took her proudly home to
England, where she was crowned with great honour and glory.
This peace was called the Perpetual Peace ; we shall soon see
how long it lasted. It gave great satisfaction to the French people,
although they were so poor and miserable, that, at the time of the
celebration of the Royal marriage, numbers of them were dying
with starvation, on the dunghills in the streets of Paris. There
was some resistance on the part of the Dauphin in some few parts
of France, but King Henry beat it all down.
And now, with his great possessions in France secured, and his
beautiful wife to cheer him, and a son born to give him greater
happiness, all appeared bright before him. But, in the fulness of
his triumph and the height of his power, Death came upon him,
and his day was done. When he fell ill at Vincennes, and found
that he could not recover, he was very calm and quiet, and spoke
serenely to those who wept around his bed. His wife and child,
he said, he left to the loving care of his brother the Duke of
Bedford, and his other faithful nobles. Fie gave them his advice
that England should establish a friendship with the new Duke of
Burgundy, and offer him the regency of France ; that it should not
set free the royal princes who had been taken at Agincourt; and
that, whatever quarrel might arise with France, England should
never make peace without holding Normandy. Then, he laid down
his head, and asked the attendant priests to chant the penitential
psalms. Amid which solemn sounds, on the thirty-first of August,
one thousand four hundred and twenty-two, in only the thirty-fourth
year of his age and the tenth of his reign. King Henry the Fifth
passed away.
Slowly and mournfully they carried his embalmed body in a
procession of great state to Paris, and thence to Rouen where his
Queen was : from whom the sad intelligence of his death was
concealed until he had been dead some days. Thence, lying on
a bed of crimson and gold, with a golden crown upon the head,
and a golden ball and sceptre lying in the nerveless hands, they
carried it to Calais, with such a great retinue as seemed to dye the
road black. The King of Scotland acted as chief mourner, all the
Royal Household followed, the knights wore black armour and
black plumes of feathers, crowds of men bore torches, making the
HENRY THE SIXTH 155
night as light as day ; and the A\ido\vcd Princess followed last of
all. At Calais there was a fleet of ships to bring the funeral host
to Dover. And so, by way of London Bridge, where the service
for the dead was chanted as it passed along, they brought the body
to Westminster Abbey, and there buried it with great respect.
CHAPTER XXH
england under henry the sixth
Part the First
It had been the wish of the late King, that while his infant son
King Henry the Sixth, at this time only nine months old, was
under age, the Duke of Gloucester should be appointed Regent.
The English Parliament, however, preferred to appoint a Council of
Regency, with the Duke of Bedford at its head : to be represented,
in his absence only, by the Duke of Gloucester. The Parliament
would seem to have been wise in this, for Gloucester soon showed
himself to be ambitious and troublesome, and, in the gratification
of his own personal schemes, gave dangerous offence to the Duke
of Burgundy, which was with difficulty adjusted.
As that duke declined the Regency of France, it was bestowed
by the poor French King upon the Duke of Bedford. But, the
French King dying within two months, the Dauphin instantly
asserted his claim to the French throne, and was actually crowned
under the title of Charles the Seventh. The Duke of Bedford,
to be a match for him, entered into a friendly league with the
Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, and gave them his two sisters
in marriage. War with France was immediately renewed, and the
Perpetual Peace came to an untimely end.
In the first campaign, the English, aided by this alliance, were
speedily successful. As Scotland, however, had sent the French
five thousand men, and might send more, or attack the North of
England while England was busy with France, it was considered
that it would be a good thing to offer the Scottish King, James,
who had been so long imprisoned, his liberty, on his paying forty
thousand pounds for his board and lodging during nineteen years,
and engaging to forbid his subjects from serving under the flag of
France. It is pleasant to know, not only that the amiable captive
at last regained his freedom upon these terms, but, that he married
a noble English lady, with whom he had been long in love, and
became an excellent King. I am afraid we have met with some
156 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Kings in this history, and shall meet with some more, who would
have been very much the better, and would have left the M'orld
much happier, if they had been imprisoned nineteen years too.
In the second campaign, the English gained a considerable
victory at Verneuil, in a battle which was chiefly remarkable, other-
wise, for their resorting to the odd expedient of tying their baggage-
horses together by the heads and tails, and jumbling them up with
the baggage, so as to convert them into a sort of live fortification — ■
which was found useful to the troops, but which I should think was
not agreeable to the horses. For three years afterwards very little
was done, owing to both sides being too poor for war, which is a
very expensive entertainment ; but, a council was then held in Paris,
in which it was decided to lay siege to the town of Orleans, which
was a place of great importance to the Dauphin's cause. An English
army of ten thousand men was despatched on this service, under
the command of the Earl of Salisbury, a general of fame. He being
unfortunately killed early in the siege, the Earl of Sufifolk took his
place ; under whom (reinforced by Sir John Falstaff, who brought
up four hundred waggons laden with salt herrings and other pro-
visions for the troops, and, beating off the French who tried to
intercept him, came victorious out of a hot skirmish, which was
afterwards called in jest the Battle of the Herrings) the town of
Orleans was so completely hemmed in, that the besieged proposed
to yield it up to their countryman the Duke of Burgundy. The
English general, however, replied that his English men had won it,
so .far, by their blood and valour, and that his English men must
have it. There seemed to be no hope for the town, or for the
Dauphin, who was so dismayed that he even thought of flying to
Scotland or to Spain — when a peasant girl rose up and changed the
whole state of affairs.
The story of this peasant girl I have now to tell.
Part the Second
the story of joan of arc
In a remote village among some wild hills in the province of
Lorraine, there lived a countryman whose name was Jacques
d'Arc. He had a daughter, Joan of Arc, who was at this time in
her twentieth year. She had been a solitary girl from her childhood ;
she had often tended sheep and cattle for whole days where no
human figure was seen or human voice heard ; and she had often
knelt, for hours together, in the gloomy, empty, little village chapel,
looking up at the altar and at the dim lamp burning before it, until
she fancied that she saw shadowy figures standing there, and even
HENRY THE SIXTH 157
that she heard them speak to her. The people in that part of
France were very ignorant and superstitious, and they had many
ghostly tales to tell about what they had dreamed, and what they saw
among the lonely hills when the clouds and the mists were resting
on them. So, they easily believed that Joan saw strange sights, and
they whispered among themselves that angels and spirits talked to her.
At last, Joan told her father that she had one day been surprised
by a great unearthly light, and had afterwards heard a solemn voice,
which said it was Saint Michael's voice, telling her that she was to
go and help the Dauphin. Soon after this (she said), Saint Catherine
and Saint Margaret had appeared to her with sparkling crowns upon
their heads, and had encouraged her to be virtuous and resolute.
These visions had returned sometimes ; but the Voices very often ;
and the voices always said, ' Joan, thou art appointed by Heaven
to go and help the Dauphin ! ' She almost always heard them while
the chapel bells were ringing.
There is no doubt, now, that Joan believed she saw and heard
these things. It is very well known that such delusions are a disease
which is not by any means uncommon. It is probable enough that
there were figures of Saint Michael, and Saint Catherine, and Saint
Margaret, in the little chapel (where they would be very likely to
have shining crowns upon their heads), and that they first gave Joan
the idea of those three personages. She had long been a moping,
fanciful girl, and, though she was a very good girl, I dare say she
was a little vain, and wishful for notoriety.
Her father, something wiser than his neighbours, said, * I tell thee,
Joan, it is thy fancy. Thou hadst better have a kind husband to take
care of thee, girl, and work to employ thy mind ! ' But Joan told
him in reply, that she had taken a vow never to have a husband,
and that she must go as Heaven directed her, to help the Dauphin.
It happened, unfortunately for her father's persuasions, and most
unfortunately for the poor girl, too, that a party of the Dauphin's
enemies found their way into the village while Joan's disorder was
at this point, and burnt the chapel, and drove out the inhabitants.
The cruelties she saw committed, touched Joan's heart and made
her worse. She said that the voices and the figures were now con-
tinually with her ; that they told her she was the girl who, according
to an old prophecy, was to deliver France ; and she must go and
help the Dauphin, and must remain with him until he should be
crowned at Rheims : and that she must travel a long way to a
certain lord named Baudricourt, who could and would, bring her
into the Dauphin's presence.
As her father still said, ' I tell thee, Joan, it is thy fancy,' she set
off to find out this lord, accompanied by an uncle, a poor village
wheelwright and cart-maker, who believed in the reality of her
visions. They travelled a long way and went on and on, over a
158 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
rough country, full of the Duke of Burgundy's men, and of all kinds
of robbers and marauders, until they came to where this lord was.
When his servants told him that there was a poor peasant girl
named Joan of Arc, accompanied by nobody but an old village
wheelwright and cart-inaker, who wished to see him because she
was commanded to help the Dauphin and save France, Baudricourt
burst out a-laughing, and bade them send the girl away. But, he
soon heard so much about her lingering in the town, and praying
in the churches, and seeing visions, and doing harm to no one, that
he sent for her, and questioned her. As she said the same things
after she had been well sprinkled with holy water as she had said
before the sprinkling, Baudricourt began to think there might be
something in it. At all events, he thought it worth while to send
her on to the town of Chinon, where the Dauphin was. So, he
bought her a horse, and a sword, and gave her two squires to
conduct her. As the Voices had told Joan that she was to wear
a man's dress, now, she put one on, and girded her sword to her
side, and bound spurs to her heels, and mounted her horse aiid rode
away with her two squires. As to her uncle the wheelwright, he
stood staring at his niece in wonder until she was out of sight — as
well he might — and then went home again. The best place, too.
Joan and her two squires rode on and on, until they came to
Chinon, where she w-as, after some doubt, admitted into the
Dauphin's presence. Picking him out immediately from all his
court, she told him that she came commanded by Heaven to subdue
his enemies and conduct him to his coronation at Rheims. She
also told him (or he pretended so afterwards, to make the greater
impression upon his soldiers) a number of his secrets known only
to himself, and, furthermore, she said there was an old, old sword
in the cathedral of Saint Catherine at Fierbois, marked with five
old crosses on the blade, which Saint Catherine had ordered her
to wear.
Now, nobody knew anything about this old, old sword, but when
the cathedral came to be examined — which was immediately done —
there, sure enough, the sword was found ! The Dauphin then
required a number of grave priests and bishops to give him their
opinion whether the girl derived her power from good spirits or
from evil spirits, which they held prodigiously long debates about,
in the course of which several learned men fell fast asleep and
snored loudly. At last, when one gruff old gentleman had said to
Joan, ' ^^'hat language do your Voices speak ? ' and when Joan had
replied to the gruff old gentleman, ' A pleasanter language than
yours,' they agreed that it was all correct, and that Joan of Arc was
inspired from Heaven. This wonderful circumstance put new heart
into the Dauphin's soldiers when they heard of it, and dispirited the
English army, who took Joan for a witch.
^€kzn o/ rWic ^euc/cjia Aei ^^/oc/
HENRY THE SIXTH 159
So Joan mounted horse again, and again rode on and on, until
she came to Orleans. But she rode now, as never peasant girl had
ridden yet. She rode upon a white war-horse, in a suit of glittering
armour; Avith the old, old sword from the cathedral, newly bur-
nished, in her belt ; with a white flag carried before her, upon
which were a picture of God, and the words Jesus Maria. In this
splendid state, at the head of a great body of troops escorting
provisions of all kinds for the starving inhabitants of Orleans, she
ai)peared before that beleaguered city.
When the people on the walls beheld her, they cried out ' The
Maid is come ! The Maid of the Prophecy is come to deliver us !'
And this, and the sight of the Maid lighting at the head of their
men, made the French so bold, and made the English so fearful,
that the English line of forts was soon broken, the troops and
provisions were got into the town, and Orleans was saved.
Joan, henceforth called The Maid of Orleans, remained within
the walls for a few days, and caused letters to be thrown over,
ordering Lord Suffolk and his Englishmen to depart from before
the town according to the will of Heaven. As the English general
very positively declined to believe that Joan knew anything about
the will of Heaven (which did not mend the matter with his
soldiers, for they stupidly said if she were not inspired she was a
witch, and it was of no use to fight against a witch), she mounted
her white war-horse again, and ordered her white banner to
advance.
The besiegers held the bridge, and some strong towers upon the
bridge ; and here the Maid of Orleans attacked them. - The fight
was fourteen hours long. She planted a scaling ladder with her
own hands, and mounted a tower wall, but was struck by an
English arrow in the neck, and fell into the trench. She was
carried away and the arrow was taken out, during which operation
she screamed and cried with the pain, as any other girl might have
done ; but presently she said that the Voices were speaking to her
and soothing her to rest. After a while, she got up, and was again
foremost in the fight. When the English who had seen her faW and
supposed her dead, saw this, they were troubled with the strang(;st
fears, and some of them cried out that they beheld Saint Michael on
a white horse (probably Joan herself) fighting for the French. They
lost the bridge, and lost the towers, and next day set their chain of
forts on fire, and left the place.
But as Lord Suffolk himself retired no farther than the town of
Jargeau, which was only a few miles off, the Maid of Orleans
besieged him there, and he was taken prisoner. As the white
banner scaled the wall, she was struck upon the head with a stone,
and was again tumbled down into the ditch ; but, she only cried all
the more, as she lay there, ' On, on, my countrymen ! And fear
i6o A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
nothing, for the Lord hath deUvered them into our hands ! ' After
this new success of the Maid's, several other fortresses and places
which had previously held out against the Dauphin were delivered
up without a battle ; and at Patay she defeated the remainder of the
English army, and set up her victorious white banner on a field
where twelve hundred Englishmen lay dead.
She now urged the Dauphin (who always kept out of the way
when there was any fighting) to proceed to Rheims, as the first part
of her mission was accomplished : and to complete the whole by
being crowned there. The Dauphin was in no particular hurry to
do this, as Rheims was a long way off, and the English and the
Duke of Burgundy were still strong in the country through which
the road lay. However, they set forth, with ten thousand men, and
again the Maid of Orleans rode on and on, upon her white war-
horse, and in her shining armour. Whenever they came to a town
which yielded readily, the soldiers believed in her ; but, whenever
they came to a town which gave them any trouble, they began to
murmur that she was an impostor. The latter was particularly the
case at Troyes, which finally yielded, however, through the per-
suasion of one Richard, a friar of the place. Friar Richard was in
the old doubt about the Maid of Orleans, until he had sprinkled her
well with holy water, and had also well sprinkled the threshold of
the gate by which she came into the city. Finding that it made no
change in her or the gate, he said, as the other grave old gentlemen
had said, that it was all right, and became her great ally.
So, at last, by dint of riding on and on, the Maid of Orleans, and
the Dauphin, and the ten thousand sometimes believing and some-
times unbelieving men, came to Rheims. And in the great
cathedral of Rheims, the Dauphin actually was crowned Charles
the Seventh in a great assembly of the people. Then, the Maid,
who with her white banner stood beside the King in that hour of
his triumph, kneeled down upon the pavement at his feet, and said,
with tears, that what she had been inspired to do, was done, and
that the only recompense she asked for, was, that she should now
have leave to go back to her distant home, and her sturdily incre-
dulous father, and her first simple escort the village wheelwright
and cart-maker. But the King said ' No ! ' and made her and her
family as noble as a King could, and settled upon her the income
of a Count.
Ah ! happy had it been for the Maid of Orleans, if she had
resumed her rustic dress that day, and had gone home to the little
chapel and the wild hills, and had forgotten all these things, and had
been a good man's wife, and had heard no stranger voices than the
voices of little children !
It was not to be, and she continued helping the King (she did a
world for him,, in alliance with Friar Richard), and trying to improve
HENRY THE SIXTH i6i
the lives of the coarse soldiers, and leading a religious, an unselfish,
and a modest life, herself, beyond any doubt. Still, many times
she prayed the King to let her go home ; and once she even took off
her bright armour and hung it up in a church, meaning never to wear
it more. But, the King always won her back again — while she was
of any use to him — and so she went on and on and on, to her doom.
When the Duke of Bedford, who was a very able man, began to
be active for England, and, by bringing the war back into France
and by holding the Duke of Burgundy to his faith, to distress and
disturb Charles very much, Charles sometimes asked the Maid of
Orleans what the Voices said about it ? But, the Voices had
become (very like ordinary voices in perplexed times) contradictory
and confused, so that now they said one thing, and now said another,
and the INIaid lost credit every day. Charles marched on Paris,
which was opposed to him, and attacked the suburb of Saint
Honor(f. In this fight, being again struck down into the ditch,
she was abandoned by the whole army. She lay unaided among
a heap of dead, and crawled out how she could. Then, some of
her believers went over to an opposition Maid, Catherine of La
Rochelle, who said she was inspired to tell where there were treasures
of buried money — though she never did — and then Joan acci-
dentally broke the old, old sword, and others said that her power
was broken with it. Finally, at the siege of Compiegne, held by the
Duke of Burgundy, where she did valiant service, she was basely
left alone in a retreat, though facing about and fighting to the last ;
and an archer pulled her off her horse.
0 the uproar that was made, and the thanksgivings that were
sung, about the capture of this one poor country-girl ! O the way
in which she was demanded to be tried for sorcery and heresy, and
anything else you like, by the Inquisitor-General of France, and by
this great man, and by that great man, until it is wearisome to think
of! She was bought at last by the Bishop of Beauvais for ten
thousand francs, and was shut up in her narrow prison : plain Joan
of Arc again, and Maid of Orleans no more.
1 should never have done if I were to tell you how they had Joan
out to examine her, and cross-examine her, and re-examine her, and
worry her into saying anything and everything ; and how all sorts
of scholars and doctors bestowed their utmost tediousness upon her.
Sixteen times she was brought out and shut up again, and worried,
and entrapped, and argued with, until she was heart-sick of the
dreary business. On the last occasion of this kind she was brought
into a burial-place at Rouen, dismally decorated with a scaffold,
and a stake and faggots, and the executioner, and a pulpit with a
friar therein, and an awful sermon ready. It is very affecting to
know that even at that pass the poor girl honoured the mean vermin
of a King, who had so used her for his purposes and so abandoned
M
1 62 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
htr ; and, that while she had been regardless of reproaches heaped
upon herself, she spoke out courageously for him.
It was natural in one so young to hold to life. To save her life,
she signed a declaration prepared for her — signed it with a cross,
for she couldn't write — that all her visions and Voices had come
from the Devil. Upon her recanting the past, and protesting that
she would never wear a man's dress in future, she was condemned
to imprisonment for life, ' on the bread of sorrow and the water of
affliction.'
But, on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction, the
visions and the Voices soon returned. It was quite natural that
they should do so, for that kind of disease is much aggravated by
fasting, loneliness, and anxiety of mind. It was not only got out
of Joan that she considered herself inspired again, but, she was
taken in a man's dress, which had been left — to entrap her- — in her
prison, and which she put on, in her solitude ; perhaps, in remem-
brance of her past glories, perhaps, because the imaginary Voices
told her. For this relapse into the sorcery and heresy and anything
else you like, she was sentenced to be burnt to death. And, in the
market-place of Rouen, in the hideous dress which the monks had
invented for such spectacles ; with priests and bishops sitting in a
gallery looking on, though some had the Christian grace to go
away, unable to endure the infamous scene ; this shrieking girl — •
last seen amidst the smoke and fire, holding a crucifix between her
hands ; last heard, calling upon Christ — was burnt to ashes. They
threw her ashes into the river Seine ; but they will rise againsJt her
murderers on the last day.
From the moment of her capture, neither the French King nor
one single man in all his court raised a finger to save her. It is no
defence of them that they may have never really believed in her,
or that they may have won her victories by their skill and bravery.
The more they pretended to believe in her, the more they had
caused her to believe in herself; and she had ever been true to
them, ever brave, ever nobly devoted. But, it is no wonder, that
they, who were in all things false to themselves, false to one another,
false to their country, false to Heaven, false to Earth, should be
monsters of ingratitude and treachery to a helpless peasant girl.
In the picturesque old town of Rouen, where weeds and grass
grow high on the cathedral towers, and the venerable Norman
streets are still warm in the blessed sunlight though the monkish
fires that once gleamed horribly upon them have long grown cold,
there is a statue of Joan of Arc, in the scene of her last agony, the
square to which she has given its present name. I know some
statues of modern times^even in the World's metropolis, I think — •
which commemorate less constancy, less earnestness, smaller claims
upon the world's attention, and much greater impostors.
HENRY THE SIXTH 163
Part the Third
Bad deeds seldom prosper, hai)pily for mankind; and the English
cause gained no advantage from the cruel death of Joan of Arc,
For a long time, the war went heavily on. The Duke of Bedford
died ; the alliance with the Duke of Burgundy was hroken ; and
Lord Talbot became a great general on the English side in France.
But, two of the consequences of wars are, Famine — because the
people cannot peacefully cultivate the ground — and Pestilence,
which comes of want, misery, and suftering. Both these horrors
broke out in both countries, and lasted for two wretched years.
Then, the war went on again, and came by slow degrees to be so
badly conducted by the English government, that, within twenty years
from the execution of the Maid of Orleans, of all the great French
conquests, the town of Calais alone remained in English hands.
While these victories and defeats were taking place in the course
of time, many strange things happened at home. The young King,
as he grew up, proved to be very unlike his great father, and
showed himself a miserable puny creature. There was no harm
in him — he had a great aversion to shedding blood : which was
something — but, he was a weak, silly, helpless young man, and a
mere shuttlecock to the great lordly battledores about the Court.
Of these battledores. Cardinal Beaufort, a relation of the King,
and the Duke of Gloucester, were at first the most powerful. The
Duke of Gloucester had a wife, who was nonsensically accused of
practising witchcraft to cause the King's death and lead to her
husband's coming to the throne, he being the next heir. She was
charged with having, by the help of a ridiculous old woman named
ISIargery (who was called a witch), made a little waxen doll in the
King's likeness, and put it before a slow fire that it might gradually
melt away. It was supposed, in such cases, that the death of the
person whom the doll was made to represent, was sure to happen.
AVhethcr the duchess was as ignorant as the rest of them, and really
did make such a doll with such an intention, I don't know ; but,
you and I know very well that she might have made a thousand
dolls, if she had been stupid enough, and might have melted them
all, without hurting the King or anybody else. However, she was
tried for it, and so was old Margery, and so was one of the duke's
chaplains, who was charged with having assisted them. Both he
and Margery were put to death, and the duchess, after being taken
on foot and bearing a lighted candle, three times round the City, as
a penance, was imprisoned for life. The duke, himself, took all this
pretty quietly, and made as little stir about the matter as if he were
rather glad to be rid of the duchess.
But, he was not destined to keep himself out of trouble long.
1 64 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
The royal shuttlecock being three-and-twenty, the battledores were
very anxious to get him married. The Duke of Gloucester wanted
him to marry a daughter of the Count of Armagnac ; but, the
Cardinal and the Earl of Suffolk were all for Margaret, the
daughter of the King of Sicily, who they knew was a resolute,
ambitious woman and would govern the King as she chose. To
make friends with this lady, the Earl of Suffolk, who went over to
arrange the match, consented to accept her for the King's wife
without any fortune, and even to give up the two most valuable
possessions England then had in France. So, the marriage was
arranged, on terms very advantageous to the lady ; and Lord Suffolk
brought her to England, and she was married at Westminster.
On what pretence this queen and her party charged the Duke of
Gloucester with high treason within a couple of years, it is im-
possible to make out, the matter is so confused ; but, they pretended
that the King's life was in danger, and they took the duke prisoner.
A fortnight afterwards, he was found dead in bed (they said), and
his body was shown to the people, and Lord Suffolk came in for the
best part of his estates. You know by this time how strangely liable
state prisoners were to sudden death.
If Cardinal Beaufort had any hand in this matter, it did him no
good, for he died within six weeks; thinking it very hard and
curious — at eighty years old ! — that he could not live to be Pope.
This was the time when England had completed her loss of all
her great French conquests. The people charged the loss princi-
pally upon the Earl of Suffolk, now a duke, who had made those
easy terms about the Royal Marriage, and who, they believed, had
even been bought by France. So he was impeached as a traitor,
on a great number of charges, but chiefly on accusations of having
aided the French King, and of designing to make his own son
King of England. The Commons and the people being violent
against him, the King was made (by his friends) to interpose to
save him, by banishing him for five years, and proroguing the Par-
liament. The duke had much ado to escape from a London mob,
two thousand strong, who lay in wait for him in St. Giles's fields ;
but, he got down to his own estates in Suffolk, and sailed away
from Ipswich. Sailing across the Channel, he sent into Calais to
know if he might land there ; but, they kept his boat and men in
the harbour, until an English ship, carrying a hundred and fifty
men and called the Nicholas of the Tower, came alongside his
little vessel, and ordered him on board. ' Welcome, traitor, as
men say,' was the captain's grim and not very respectful salutation.
He was kept on board, a prisoner, for eight-and-forty hours, and
then a small boat appeared rowing toward the ship. As this boat
came nearer, it was seen to have in it a block, a rusty sword, and
an executioner in a black mask. The duke was handed down into
HENRY THE SIXTH 165
it, and there his head was cut off with six strokes of the rusty
sword. Then, the httle boat rowed away to Dover beach, where
the body was cast out, and left until the duchess claimed it. By
whom, high in authority, this murder was committed, has never
appeared. No one was ever punished for it.
There now arose in Kent an Irishman, who gave himself the
name of Mortimer, but whose real name was Jack Cade. Jack,
in imitation of ^^'at Tyler, though he was a very different and in-
ferior sort of man, addressed the Kentish men upon their wrongs,
occasioned by the bad government of England, among so many
battledores and such a poor shuttlecock ; and the Kentish men
rose up to the number of twenty thousand. Their place of
assembly was Blackheath, where, headed by Jack, they put forth
two papers, which they called ' The Complaint of the Commons of
Kent,' and ' The Requests of the Captain of the Great Assembly
in Kent.' They then retired to Sevenoaks. The royal army
coming up with them here, they beat it and killed their general.
Then, Jack dressed himself in the dead general's armour, and led
his men to London,
Jack passed into the City from Southwark, over the bridge, and
entered it in triumph, giving the strictest orders to his men not to
plunder. Having made a show of his forces there, while the
citizens looked on quietly, he went back into Southwark in good
order, and passed the night. Next day, he came back again,
having got hold in the meantime of Lord Say, an unpopular noble-
man. Says Jack to the Lord Mayor and judges : ' Will you be so
good as to make a tribunal in Guildhall, and try me this nobleman ? '
The court being hastily made, he was found guilty, and Jack and
his men cut his head off on Cornhill, They also cut off the head
of his son-in-law, and then went back in good order to Southwark
again.
But, although tlie citizens could bear the beheading of an un-
popular lord, they could not bear to have their houses pillaged.
And it did so happen that Jack, after dinner — perhaps he "had
drunk a little too much — began to plunder the house where he
lodged ; upon which, of course, his men began to imitate him.
Wherefore, the Londoners took counsel with Lord Scales, who had
a thousand soldiers in the Tower ; and defended London Bridge,
and kept Jack and his people out. This advantage gained, it was
resolved by divers great men to divide Jack's army in the old way,
by making a great many promises on behalf of the state, that were
never intended to be performed. This did divide them ; some of
Jack's men saying that they ought to take the conditions which
were offered, and others saying that they ought not, for they were
only a snare ; some going home at once ; others staying where they
were; and all doubting and quarrelling among themselves.
i65 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Jack, who was in two minds about fighting or accepting a pardon,
and who indeed did both, saw at last that there was nothing to
expect from his men, and that it was very hkely some of them
would deliver him up and get a reward of a thousand marks, which
was offered for his apprehension. So, after they had travelled and
quarrelled all the way from Southwark to Blackheath, and from
Blackheath to Rochester, he mounted a good horse and galloped
away into Sussex. But, there galloped after him, on a better horse,
one Alexander Iden, who came up with him, had a hard fight with
him, and killed him. Jack's head was set aloft on London Bridge,
with the face looking towards Blackheath, where he had raised his
flag ; and Alexander Iden got the thousand marks.
It is supposed by some, that the Duke of York, who had been
removed from a high post abroad through the Queen's influence,
and sent out of the way, to govern Ireland, was at the bottom of
this rising of Jack and his men, because he wanted to trouble the
government. He claimed (though not yet publicly) to have a
better right to the throne than Henry of Lancaster, as one of the
family of the Earl of March, whom Henry the Fourth had set
aside. Touching this claim, which, being through female relation-
ship, was not according to the usual descent, it is enough to say
that Henry the Fourth was the free choice of the people and the
Parliament, and that his family had now reigned undisputed for
sixty years. The memory of Henry the Fifth was so famous, and
the English people loved it so much, that the Duke of York's
claim would, perhaps, never have been thought of (it would have
been so hopeless) but for the unfortunate circumstance of the
present King's being by this time quite an idiot, and the country
very ill governed. These two circumstances gave the Duke of
York a power he could not otherwise have had.
Whether the Duke knew anything of Jack Cade, or not, he came
over from Ireland while Jack's head was on London Bridge ; being
secretly advised that the Queen was setting up his enemy, the Duke
of Somerset, against him. He went to ^Vestminster, at the head of
four thousand men, and on his knees before the King, represented
to him the bad state of the country, and petitioned him to summon
a Parliament to consider it. This the King promised. When the
Parliament was summoned, the Duke of York accused the Duke of
Somerset, and the Duke of Somerset accused the Duke of York ;
and, both in and out of Parliament, the followers of each party
were full of violence and hatred towards the other. At length the
Duke of York put himself at the head of a large force of his
tenants, and, in arms, demanded the reformation of the Govern-
ment. Being shut out of London, he encamped at Dartford, and
the royal army encamped at Blackheath. According as either side
triumphed, the Duke of York was arrested, or the Duke of Somerset
HENRY THE SIXTH 167
was arrested. The trouble ended, for the moment, in the Duke of
York renewing his oath of allegiance, and going in peace to one of
his own castles.
Half a year afterwards the Queen gave birth to a son, who was
very ill received by the people, and not believed to be the son of
the King. It shows the Duke of York to have been a moderate
man, unwilling to involve England in new troubles, that he did not
take advantage of the general discontent at this time, but really
acted for the public good. He was made a member of the cabinet,
and the King being now so much worse that he could not be
carried about and shown to the people with any decency, the duke
was made Lord Protector of the kingdom, until the King should
recover, or the Prince should come of age. At the same time the
Duke of Somerset was committed to the Tower. So, now the
Duke of Somerset was down, and the Duke of York was up. P)y
the end of the year, however, the King recovered his memory and
some spark of sense ; upon which the Queen used her power —
which recovered with him — to get the Protector disgraced, and her
fiivourite released. So now the Duke of York was down, and the-
Duke of Somerset was up.
These ducal ups and downs gradually separated the whole nation
into the two parties of York and Lancaster, and led to those terrible
civil wars long known as the Wars of the Red and White Roses,
because the red rose was the badge of the House of Lancaster,
and the white rose was the badge of the House of York.
The Duke of York, joined by some other powerful noblemen of
the White Rose party, and leading a small army, met the King with
another small army at St. Alban's, and demanded that the Duke of
Somerset should be given up. The poor King, being made to say
in answer that he would sooner die, was instantly attacked. The
Duke of Somerset was killed, and the King himself was wounded in
the neck, and took refuge in the house of a poor tanner. Where-
upon, the Duke of York went to him, led him with great submission
to the Abbey, and said he was very sorry for what had happened.
Having now the King in his possession, he got a Parliament
summoned and himself once more made Protector, but, only for a
few months ; for, on the King getting a little better again, the Queen
and her party got him into their possession, and disgraced the Duke
once more. So, now the Duke of York was down again.
Some of the best men in power, seeing the danger of these
constant changes, tried even then to prevent the Red and the White
Rose Wars. They brought about a great council in London between
the two parties. The White Roses assembled in Blackfriars, the
Red Roses in \\'hitefriars ; and some good priests communicated
between them, and made the proceedings known at evening to the
King and the judges. They ended in a peaceful agreement that
1 68 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
there should be no more quarreUing ; and there was a great royal
procession to St. Paul's, in which the Queen walked arm-in-arm
with her old enemy, the Duke of York, to show the people how
comfortable they all were. This state of peace lasted half a year,
when a dispute between the Earl of ■\\"arwick (one of the Duke's
powerful friends) and some of the King's servants at Court, led to
an attack upon that Earl — who was a White Rose — and to a sudden
breaking out of all old animosities. So, here were greater upsand
downs than ever.
! There were even greater ups and downs than these, soon after.
After various battles, the Duke of York fled to Ireland, and his
son the Earl of March to Calais, with their friends the Earls of
Salisbury and Warwick ; and a Parliament was held declaring them
all traitors. Little the worse for this, the Earl of Warwick presently
came back, landed in Kent, was joined by the Archbishop of
Canterbury and other powerful noblemen and gentlemen, engaged
the King's forces at Northampton, signally defeated them, and took
the King himself prisoner, who was found in his tent. Warwick
would have been glad, I dare say, to have taken the Queen and
Prince too, but they escaped into Wales and thence into Scotland.
■ The King was carried by the victorious force straight to London,
and made to call a new Parliament, which immediately declared
that the Duke of York and those other noblemen were not traitors,
but excellent subjects. Then, back comes the Duke from Ireland
at the head of five hundred horsemen, rides from London to
Westminster, and enters the House of Lords. There, he laid his
hand upon the cloth of gold which covered the empty throne, as if
he had half a mind to sit down in it — but he did not. On the
Archbishop of Canterbury asking him if he would visit the King,
who was in his palace close by, he replied, ' I know no one in this
country, my lord, who ought not to visit me! None of the lords
present spoke a single word ; so, the duke went out as he had come
in, established himself royally in the King's palace, and, six days
afterwards, sent in to the Lords a formal statement of his claim to
the throne. The lords went to the King on this momentous
subject, and after a great deal of discussion, in which the judges
and the other law officers were afraid to give an opinion on either
side, the question was compromised. It was agreed that the present
King should retain the crown for his life, and that it should then
pass to the Duke of York and his heirs.
But, the resolute Queen, determined on asserting her son's right,
would hear of no such thing. She came from Scotland to the north
of England, where several powerful lords armed in her cause. The
Duke of York, for his part, set off with some five thousand men,
a little time before Christmas Day, one thousand four hundred
and sixty, to give her battle. He lodged at Sandal Castle, neajr
HENRY THE SIXTH 169
Wakefield, and the Red Roses defied him to come out on Wakefield
Green, and fight them then and there. His generals said, he had
best wait until his gallant son, the Earl of March, came up with his
power ; but, he was determined to accept the challenge. He did
so, in an evil hour. He was hotly pressed on all sides, two thousand
of his men lay dead on Wakefield Green, and he himself was taken
prisoner. They set him down in mock state on an ant-hill, and
twisted grass about his head, and pretended to pay court to him on
their knees, saying, ' O King, without a kingdom, and Prince without
a people, we hope your gracious Majesty is very well and happy !'
They did worse than this ; they cut his head off, and handed it on
a pole to the Queen, who laughed with delight when she saw it (you
recollect their walking so religiously and comfortably to St. Paul's !),
and had it fixed, with a paper crown upon its head, on the walls of
York. The Earl of Salisbury lost his head, too ; and the Duke of
York's second son, a handsome boy who was flying with his tutor
over Wakefield Bridge, was stabbed in the heart by a murderous
lord — Lord Cliff'ord by name — whose father had been killed by the
White Roses in the fight at St. Alban's. There was awful sacrifice
of life in this battle, for no quarter was given, and the Queen was
wild for revenge. When men unnaturally fight against their own
countrymen, they are always observed to be more unnaturally cruel
and filled with rage than they are against any other enemy.
But, Lord Clifford had stabbed the second son of the Duke of
York — not the first. The eldest son, Edward Earl of March, was
at Gloucester ; and, vowing vengeance for the death of his father,
his brother, and their faithful friends, he began to march against the
Queen. He had to turn and fight a great body of Welsh and Irish
first, who worried his advance. These he defeated in a great fight
at Mortimer's Cross, near Hereford, where he beheaded a number
of the Red Roses taken in battle, in retaliation for the beheading
of the White Roses at Wakefield. The Queen had the next turn of
beheading. Having moved towards London, and falling in, between
St. Alban's and Barnet, with the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of
Norfolk, White Roses both, who were there with an army to oppose
her, and had got the King with them ; she defeated them with great
loss, and struck off the heads of two prisoners of note, who were in
the King's tent with him, and to whom the King had promised his
protection. Her triumph, however, was very short. She had no
treasure, and her army subsisted by plunder. This caused them to
be hated and dreaded by the people, and particularly by the London
people, who were wealthy. As soon as the Londoners heard that
Edward, Earl of March, united with the Earl of Warwick, was
advancing towards the city, they refused to send the Queen supplies,
and made a great rejoicing.
The Queen and her men retreated with all speed, and Edward
170 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
and Warwick came on, greeted with loud acclamations on every
side. The courage, beauty, and virtues of young Edward could not
be sufficiently praised by the whole people. He rode into London
like a conqueror, and met with an enthusiastic welcome. A few
days afterwards, Lord Falconbridge and the Bishop of Exeter
assembled the citizens in St, John's Field, Clerkenwell, and asked
them if they would have Henry of Lancaster for their King? To
this they all roared, ' No, no, no ! ' and ' King Edward ! King
Edward ! ' Then, said those noblemen, would they love and serve
young Edward ? To this they all cried, ' Yes, yes ! ' and threw up
their caps and clapped their hands, and cheered tremendously.
Therefore, it was declared that by joining the Queen and not
protecting those two prisoners of note, Henry of Lancaster had
forfeited the crown ; and Edward of York was proclaimed King,
He made a great speech to the applauding people at Westminster,
and sat down as sovereign of England on that throne, on the golden
covering of which his father — worthy of a better fate than the
bloody axe which cut the thread of so many lives in England,
through so many years — had laid his hand.
CHAPTER XXIII
ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FOURTH
King Edward the Fourth was not quite twenty-one years of age
when he took that unquiet seat upon the throne of England. The
Lancaster party, the Red Roses, were then assembling in great
numbers near York, and it was necessary to give them battle
instantly. But, the stout Earl of Warwick leading for the young
King, and the young King himself closely following him, and the
English people crowding round the Royal standard, the White and
the Red Roses met, on a wild March day when the snow was falling
heavily, at Towton ; and there such a furious battle raged between
them, that the total loss amounted to forty thousand men — all
P^nglishmen, fighting, upon English ground, against one another.
The young King gained the day, took down the heads of his father
and brother from the walls of York, and put up the heads of some
of the most famous noblemen engaged in the battle on the other
side. Then, he went to London and was crowned with great
splendour.
A new Parliament met. No fewer than one hundred and fifty
of the principal noblemen and gentlemen on the Lancaster side
v/ere declared traitors, and the King — who had very little humanity,
.^SueiS'fz t^yM,<Z'i<7,ciie^ anc/ Me (^ho-Me-id.
EDWARD THE FOURTH 171
though he was handsome in person and agreeable in manners — •
resolved to do all he could, to pluck up the Red Rose root and
branch.
Queen Margaret, however, was still active for her young son.
She obtained help from Scotland and from Normandy, and took
several important English castles. But, Warwick soon retook them ;
the Queen lost all her treasure on board ship in a great storm ; and
both she and her son suffered great misfortunes. Once, in the
winter weather, as they were riding through a forest, they were
attacked and plundered by a party of robbers ; and, when they had
escaped from these men and were passing alone and on foot
through a thick dark part of the wood, they came, all at once, upon
another robber. So the Queen, with a stout heart, took the little
Prince by the hand, and going straight up to that robber, said to
him, ' My friend, this is the young son of your lawful King ! I
confide him to your care.' The robber was surprised, but took
the boy in his arms, and faithfully restored him and his mother to
their friends. In the end, the Queen's soldiers being beaten and
dispersed, she went abroad again, and kept quiet for the present.
Now, all this time, the deposed King Henry was concealed by a
Welsh knight, who kept him close in his castle. But, next year, the
Lancaster party recovering their spirits, raised a large body of men,
and called him out of his retirement, to put him at their head.
They were joined by some powerful noblemen who had sworn
fidelity to the new King, but who were ready, as usual, to break
their oaths, whenever they thought there was anything to be got by
it. One of the worst things in the history of the war of the Red
and White Roses, is the ease with which these noblemen, who
should have set an example of honour to the people, left either side
as they took slight offence, or were disappointed in their greedy
expectations, and joined the other. Well ! Warwick's brother
soon beat the Lancastrians, and the false noblemen, being taken,
were beheaded without a moment's loss of time. The deposed
King had a narrow escape ; three of his servants were taken, and
one of them bore his cap of estate, which was set with pearls and
embroidered with two golden crowns. However, the head to which
the cap belonged, got safely into Lancashire, and lay pretty quietly
there (the people in the secret being very true) for more than a
year. At length, an old monk gave such intelligence as led to
Henry's being taken while he was sitting at dinner in a place called
Waddington Hall. He was immediately sent to London, and met
at Islington by the Earl of Warwick, by whose directions he was
put upon a horse, with his legs tied under it, and paraded three
times round the pillory. Then, he was carried oft' to the Tower,
where they treated him well enough.
The White Rose being so triumphant, the young King abandoned
172 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
himself entirely to pleasure, and led a jovial life. But, thorns were
springing up under his bed of roses, as he soon found out. For,
having been privately married to Elizabeth AVoodville, a young
widow lady, very beautiful and very captivating ; and at last
resolving to make his secret known, and to declare her his Queen ;
he gave some offence to the Earl of Warwick, who was usually
called the King-Maker, because of his power and influence, and
because of his having lent such great help to placing Edward on the
throne. This offence was not lessened by the jealousy with which
the Nevil family (the Earl of ^Varwick's) regarded the promotion of
the Woodville family. For, the young Queen was so bent on pro-
viding for her relations, that she made her father an earl and a great
officer of state ; married her five sisters to young noblemen of the
highest rank ; and provided for her younger brother, a young man
of twenty, by marrying him to an immensely rich old duchess of
eighty. The Earl of Warwick took all this pretty graciously for a
man of his proud temper, until the question arose to whom the
King's sister, Margaret, should be married. The Earl of Warwick
said, ' To one of the French King's sons,' and was allowed to go
over to the French King to make friendly proposals for that
purpose, and to hold all manner of friendly interviews with him.
But, while he was so engaged, the Woodville party married the
young lady to the Duke of Burgundy ! Upon this he came back in
great rage and scorn, and shut himself up discontented, in his Castle
of Middleham.
A reconciliation, though not a very sincere one, was patched up
between the Earl of AVarwick and the King, and lasted until the
Earl married his daughter, against the King's wishes, to the Duke
of Clarence, AVhile the marriage was being celebrated at Calais,
the people in the north of England, where the influence of the
Nevil family was strongest, broke out into rebellion ; their complaint
was, that England was oppressed and plundered by the Woodville
family, whom they demanded to have removed from power. As
they were joined by great numbers of people, and as they openly
declared that they were supported by the Earl of Warwick, the
King did not know what to do. At last, as he wrote to the earl
beseeching his aid, he and his new son-in-law came over to
England, and began to arrange the business by shutting the King
up in Middleham Castle in the safe keeping of the Archbishop
of York ; so England was not only in the strange position of
having two kings at once, but they were both prisoners at the same
time.
Even as yet, however, the King-Maker was so far true to the
King, that he dispersed a new rising of the Lancastrians, took their
leader prisoner, and brought him to the King, who ordered him to
be immediately executed. He presently allowed the King to return
EDWARD THE FOURTH 173
to London, and there innumerable pledges of forgiveness and
friendship were exchanged between them, and between the Nevils
and the Woodvilles ; the King's eldest daughter was promised in
marriage to the heir of the Nevil family ; and more friendly oaths
were sworn, and more friendly promises made, than this book
would hold.
They lasted about three months. At the end of that time, the
Archbishop of York made a feast for the King, the Earl of Warwick,
and the Duke of Clarence, at his house, the Moor, in Hertfordshire.
The King was washing his hands before supper, when some one
whispered him that a body of a hundred men were lying in ambush
outside the house, ^^'hether this were true or untrue, the King
took fright, mounted his horse, and rode through the dark night to
Windsor Castle. Another reconciliation was patched up between
him and the King-Maker, but it was a short one, and it was the
last. A new rising took place in Lincolnshire, and the King
marched to repress it. Having done so, he proclaimed that both
the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence were traitors, who
had secretly assisted it, and who had been prepared publicly to join
it on the following day. In these dangerous circumstances they
both took ship and sailed away to the French court.
And here a meeting took place between the Earl of AA'arwick and
his old enemy, the Dowager Queen Margaret, through whom his
father had had his head struck off, and to whom he had been a
bitter foe. But, now, when he said that he had done with the
ungrateful and perfidious Edward of York, and that henceforth he
devoted himself to the restoration of the House of Lancaster, either
in the person of her husband or of her little son, she embraced him
as if he had ever been her dearest friend. She did more than that ;
she married her son to his second daughter, the Lady Anne. How-
ever agreeable this marriage was to the new friends, it was very
disagreeable to the Duke of Clarence, who perceived that his father-
in-law, the King-Maker, would never make ///;// King, now. So,
being but a weak-minded young traitor, possessed of very little
worth or sense, he readily listened to an artful court lady sent over
for the purpose, and promised to turn traitor once more, and go
over to his brother. King Edward, when a fitting ojjportunity should
come.
The Earl of Warwick, knowing nothing of this, soon redeemed
his promise to the Dowager Queen Margaret, by invading England
and landing at Plymouth, where he instantly proclaimed King
Henry, and summoned all Englishmen between the ages of sixteen
and sixty, to join his banner. Then, with his army increasing as
he marched along, he went northward, and came so near King
Edward, who was in that part of the country, that Edward had to
ride hard for it to the coast of Norfolk, and thence to get away in
174 A CFIILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
such ships as he could find, to Holland. Thereupon, the triumphant
King Maker and his false son-in-law, the Duke of Clarence, went to
London, took the old King out of the Tower, and walked him in a
great procession to Saint I'aul's Cathedral with the crown upon his
head. This did not improve the temper of the Duke of Clarence,
who saw hiniself farther off from being King than ever; but he
kept his secret, and said nothing. The Nevil family were restored
to all their honours and glories, and the Woodvilles and the rest
were disgraced. The King-Maker, less sanguinary than the King,
shed no blood except that of the Earl of Worcester, who had been
so cruel to the people as to have gained the title of the Butcher.
Him they caught hidden in a tree, and him they, tried and executed.
No other death stained the King-Maker's triumph.
To dispute this triumph, back came King Edward again, next
year, landing at Ravenspur, coming on to York, causing all his men
to cry ' Long live King Henry ! ' and swearing on the altar, without
a blush, that he came to lay no claim to the crown. Now was the
time for the Duke of Clarence, who ordered his men to assume
the White Rose, and declare for his brother. The Marquis of
Montague, though the Earl of Warwick's brother, also declining to
fight against King Edward, he went on successfully to London,
where the Archbishop of York let him into the City, and where the
people made great demonstrations in his favour. For this they had
four reasons. Firstly, there were great numbers of the King's
adherents hiding in the City and ready to break out ; secondly, the
King owed them a great deal of money, which they could never
hope to get if he were unsuccessful ; thirdly, there was a young
prince to inherit the crown ; and fourthly, the King was gay and
handsome, and more popular than a better man might have been
with the City ladies. After a stay of only two days with these
worthy supporters, the King marched out to Barnet Common, to
give the Earl of Warwick battle. And now it was to be seen, for the
last time, whether the King or the King-Maker was to carry the day.
While the battle was yet pending, the faint-hearted Duke of
Clarence began to repent, and sent over secret messages to his
father-in-law, offering his services in mediation with the King. But,
the Earl of Warwick disdainfully rejected them, and replied that
Clarence was false and perjured, and that he would settle the quarrel
by the sword. The battle began at four o'clock in the morning
and lasted until ten, and during the greater part of the time it was
fought in a thick mist — absurdly supposed to be raised by a
magician. The loss of life was very great, for the hatred was
strong on both sides. The King-Maker was defeated, and the
King triumphed. Both the Earl of Warwick and his brother were
slain, and their bodies lay in St. Paul's, for some days, as a spectacle
to the people.
EDWARD THE FOURTH 175
Margaret's spirit was not broken even by this great blow. Within
five days she was in arms again, and raised her standard in Bath,
whence she set off with her army, to try and join Lord Pembroke,
who had a force in Wales. But, the King, coming up with her
outside the town of Tewkesbury, and ordering his brother, the
Duke of Gloucester, who was a brave soldier, to attack her men,
she sustained an entire defeat, and was taken prisoner, together
with her son, now only eighteen years of age. The conduct of the
King to this poor youth was worthy of his cruel character. He
ordered him to be led into his tent. ' And what,' said he, ' brought
you to England ? ' 'I came to England,' replied the prisoner, with
a spirit which a man of spirit might have admired in a captive, ' to
recover my father's kingdom, ^Yhich descended to him as his right,
and from him descends to me, as mine.' The King, drawing off
his iron gauntlet, struck him with it in the face ; and the Duke of
Clarence and some other lords, who were there, drew their noble
swords, and killed him..
His mother survived him, a prisoner, for five years ; after her
ransom by the King of France, she survived for six years more.
Within three weeks of this murder, Henry died one of those con-
venient sudden deaths which were so common in the Tower ; in
plainer words, he was murdered by the King's order.
Having no particular excitement on his hands after this great
defeat of the Lancaster party, and being perhaps desirous to get rid
of some of his fat (for he was now getting too corpulent to be hand-
some), the King thought of making war on France. As he wanted
more money for this purpose than the Parliament could give him,
though they were usually ready enough for war, he invented a new-
way of raising it, by sending for the principal citizens of London,
and telling them, with a grave face, that he was very much in want
of cash, and Avould take it very kind in them if they would lend
him some. It being impossible for them safely to refuse, they
complied, and the moneys thus forced from them were called — no
doubt to the great amusement of the King and the Court — as if
they were free gifts, ' Benevolences.' What \Yith grants from Par-
liament, and what with Benevolences, the King raised an army and
passed over to Calais. As nobody wanted war, however, the
French King made proposals of peace, which were accepted, and a
truce was concluded for seven long years. The proceedings between
the Kings of France and England on this occasion, were very
friendly, very splendid, and very distrustful. They finished with a
meeting between the two Kings, on a temporary bridge over the
river Somme, where they embraced through two holes in a strong
wooden grating like a lion's cage, and made several bows and fine
speeches to one another.
It was time, now, that the Duke of Clarence should be punished
176 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
for his treacheries ; and Fate had his punishment in store. He
was, probably, not trusted by the King — for who could trust him
who knew him ! — and he had certainly a powerful opponent in his
brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who, being avaricious and
ambitious, wanted to marry that widowed daughter of the Earl of
Warwick's who had been espoused to the deceased young Prince,
at Calais, Clarence, who wanted all the family wealth for himself,
secreted this lady, whom Richard found disguised as a servant in
the City of London, and whom he married ; arbitrators appointed
by the King, then divided the property between the brothers. This
led to ill-will and mistrust between them, Clarence's wife dying,
and he wishing to make another marriage, which was obnoxious to
the King, his ruin was hurried by that means, too. At first, the
Court struck at his retainers and dependents, and accused some of
them of magic and witchcraft, and similar nonsense. Successful
against this small game, it then mounted to the Duke himself, who
was impeached by his brother the King, in person, on a variety of
such charges. He was found guilty, and sentenced to be publicly
executed. He never was publicly executed, but he met his death
somehow, in the Tower, and, no doubt, through some agency of
the King or his brother Gloucester, or both. It was supposed at
the time that he was told to choose the manner of his death, and
that he chose to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. I hope
the story may be true, for it would have been a becoming death for
such a miserable creature.
The King survived him some five years. He died in the forty-
second year of his life, and the twenty-third of his reign. He had
a very good capacity and some good points, but he was selfish,
careless, sensual, and cruel. He was a favourite with the people
for his showy manners ; and the people were a good example to
him in the constancy of their attachment. He was penitent on his
death-bed for his ' benevolences,' and other extortions, and ordered
restitution to be made to the people who had suffered from them.
He also called about his bed the enriched members of the Wood-
ville family, and the proud lords whose honours were of older date,
and endeavoured to reconcile them, for the sake of the peaceful
succession of his son and the tranquillity of England.
EDWARD THE FIFTH 177
CHAPTER XXIV
ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FirXH
The late King's eldest son, the Prince of "Wales, called Edward
after him, was only thirteen years of age at his father's death. He
was at Ludlow Castle with his uncle, the Earl of Rivers. The
X)rince's brother, the Duke of York, only eleven years of age, was
in London with his mother. The boldest, most crafty, and most
dreaded nobleman in England at that time was their uncle
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and everybody wondered how the
two poor boys would fare with such an uncle for a friend or a foe.
The Queen, their mother, being exceedingly uneasy about this,
was anxious that instructions should be sent to Lord Rivers to
raise an army to escort the young King safely to London. But,
Lord Hastings, who was of the Court party opposed to the ^Vood-
villes, and who disliked the thought of giving them that power,
argued against the proposal, and obliged the Queen to be satisfied
with an escort of two thousand horse. The Duke of Gloucester
did nothing, at first, to justify suspicion. He came from Scotland
(where he was commanding an army) to York, and was there the
first to swear allegiance to his nephew. He then wrote a condoling
letter to the Queen-Mother, and set off to be present at the
coronation in London.
Now, the young King, journeying towards London too, with
Lord Rivers and Lord Gray, came to Stony Stratford, as his uncle
came to Northampton, about ten miles distant; and when those
two lords heard that the Duke of Gloucester was so near, they
proposed to the young King that they should go back and greet
hir.i in his name. The boy being very willing that they should do
so, they rode off and were received with great friendliness, and
asked by the Duke of Gloucester to stay and dine with him. In
the evening, while they were merry together, up came the Duke of
Buckingham with three hundred horsemen ; and next morning the
two lords and the two dukes, and the three hundred horsemen,
rode away together to rejoin the King. Just as they were entering
Stony Stratford, the Duke of Gloucester, checking his horse, turned
suddenly on the two lords, charged them with alienating from him
the affections of his sweet nephew, and caused them to be arrested
by the three liundred horsemen and taken back. Then, he and
the Duke of Buckingham went straight to the King (whom they
had now in their power), to whom they made a show of kneeling
down, and offering great love and submission; and then they
N
178 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
ordered his attendants to disperse, and took him, alone with them,
to Northampton.
A few days afterwards they conducted him to London, and
lodged him in the Bishop's Palace. But, he did not remain there
long ; for, the Duke of Buckingham with a tender face made a
speech expressing how anxious he was for the Royal boy's safety,
and how much safer he would be in the Tower until his coronation,
than he could be anywhere else. So, to the Tower he was taken,
very carefully, and the Duke of Gloucester was named Protector
of the State.
Although Gloucester had proceeded thus far with a very smooth
countenance — and although he was a clever man, fair of speech,
and not ill-looking, in spite of one of his shoulders being something
higher than the other — and although he had come into the City
riding bare-headed at the King's side, and looking very fond of
him — he had made the King's mother more uneasy yet ; and when
the Royal boy was taken to the Tower, she became so alarmed
that she took sanctuary in Westminster with her five daughters.
Nor did she do this without reason, for, the Duke of Gloucester,
finding that the lords who were opposed to the Woodville family
were faithful to the young King nevertheless, quickly resolved to
strike a blow for himself. Accordingly, while those lords met in
council at the Tower, he and those who were in his interest met
in separate council at his own residence, Crosby Palace, in Bishops-
gate Street. Being at last quite prepared, he one day appeared
unexpectedly at the council in the Tower, and appeared to be very
jocular and merry. He was particularly gay with the Bishop of
Ely : praising the strawberries that grew in his garden on Holborn
Hill, and asking him to have some gathered that he might eat
them at dinner. The Bishop, quite proud of ths honour, sent one
of his men to fetch some ; and the Duke, still very jocular and
gay, went out ; and the council all said what a very agreeable duke
he was ! In a little time, however, he came back quite altered —
not at all jocular — frowning and fierce — and suddenly said, —
' What do those persons deserve who have compassed my destmc-
tion; I being the King's lawful, as well as natural, protector?'
To this strange question. Lord Hastings replied, that they
deserved death, whosoever they were.
' Then,' said the Duke, ' I tell you that they are that sorceress
my brother's wife ; ' meaning the Queen : ' and that other sorceress,
Jane Shore. Who, by witchcraft, have withered my body, and
caused my arm to shrink as I now show you.'
He then pulled up his sleeve and showed them his arm, which
was shrunken, it is true, but which had been so, as they all very
well knew, from the hour of his birth.
Jane Shore, being then the lover of Lord Hastings, as she had
EDWARD THE FIFTH 179
formerly been of the late King, that lord knew that he himself was
attacked. So, he said, in some confusion, ' Certainly, my Lord, if
they have done this, they be worthy of punishment.'
'If?' said the Duke of Gloucester; 'do you talk to me of ifs?
I tell you that they have so done, and I will make it good upon
thy body, thou traitor ! '
With that, he struck the table a great blow with his fist. This
Avas a signal to some of his people outside to cry ' Treason ! '
They immediately did so, and there was a rush into the chamber
of so many armed men that it was filled in a moment.
' First,' said the Duke of Gloucester to Lord Hastings, ' I arrest
thee, traitor ! And let him,' he added to the armed men who took
him, ' have a priest at once, for by St. Paul I will not dine until I
have seen his head off ! '
Lord Hastings was hurried to the green by the Tower chapel,
and there beheaded on a log of wood that happened to be lying
on the ground. Then, the Duke dined with a good appetite, and
after dinner summoning the principal citizens to attend him, told
them that Lord Hastings and the rest had designed to murder both
himself and the Duke of Buckingham, who stood by his side, if he
had not providentially discovered their design. He requested them
to be so obliging as to inform their fellow-citizens of the truth of
what he said, and issued a proclamation (prepared and neatly
copied out beforehand) to the same effect.
On the same day that the Duke did these things in the Tower,
Sir Richard RatclifTe, the boldest and most undaunted of his men,
went down to Pontefract; arrested Lord Rivers, Lord Gray, and
two other gentlemen ; and publicly executed them on the scaffold,
without any trial, for having intended the Duke's death. Three
days afterwards the Duke, not to lose time, went down the river
to Westminster in his barge, attended by divers bishops, lords, and
soldiers, and demanded that the Queen should deliver her second
son, the Duke of York, into his safe keeping. The Queen, being
obliged to comply, resigned the child after she had wept over him ;
and Richard of Gloucester placed him with his brother in the
Tower. Then, he seized Jane Shore, and, because she had been
the lover of the late King, confiscated her property, and got her
sentenced to do public penance in the streets by walking in a
scanty dress, with bare feet, and carrying a lighted candle, to St.
Paul's Cathedral, through the most crowded part of the City.
Having now all things ready for his own advancement, he caused
a friar to preach a sermon at the cross which stood in front of
St. Paul's Cathedral, in which he dwelt upon the profligate manners
of the late King, and upon the late shame of Jane Shore, and
hinted that the princes were not his children. ' Whereas, good
people,' said the friar, whose name was Shaw^, 'my Lord the
i8o A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Protector, the noble Duke of Gloucester, that sweet prince, the
pattern of all the noblest virtues, is the perfect image and express
likeness of his father.' There had been a little plot bet\Yeen the
Duke and the friar, that the Duke should appear in the crowd at
this moment, when it was expected that the people would cry
* Long live King Richard ! ' But, either through the friar saying
the words too soon, or through the Duke's coming too late, the
Duke and the words did not come together, and the people only
laughed, and the friar sneaked off ashamed.
The Duke of Buckingham was a better hand at such business
than the friar, so he went to the Guildhall the next day, and
addressed the citizens in the Lord Protector's behalf. A few dirty
men, who had been hired and stationed there for the purpose,
crying when he had done, ' God save King Richard ! ' he made
them a great bow, and thanked them with all his heart. Next day,
to make an end of it, he went with the mayor and some lords and
citizens to Bayard Castle, by the river, where Richard then was,
and read an address, humbly entreating him to accept the Crown
of England. Richard, who looked down upon them out of a
window and pretended to be in great uneasiness and alarm, assured
them there was nothing he desired less, and that his deep affection
for his nephews forbade him to think of it. To this the Duke of
Buckingham replied, with pretended warmth, that the free people of
England would never submit to his nephew's rule, and that if
Richard, who was the lawful heir, refused the Crown, why then
they must find some one else to wear it. The Duke of Gloucester
returned, that since he used that strong language, it became his
painful duty to think no more of himself, and to accept the Crown.
Upon that, the people cheered and dispersed ; and the Duke of
Gloucester and the Duke of Buckingham passed a pleasant evening,
talking over the play they had just acted with so much success, and
every word of which they had prepared together.
CHAPTER XXV
ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE THIRD
King Richard the Third was up betimes in the morning, and
went to Westminster Hall. In the Hall was a marble seat, upon
which he sat himself down between two great noblemen, and told
the people that he began the new reign in that place, because the
first duty of a sovereign was to administer the laws equally to all,
and to maintain justice. He then mounted his horse and rode
RICHARD THE THIRD i8i
back to the City, where he was received by the clergy and the
crowd as if he really had a right to the throne, and really were a
just man. The clergy and the crowd must have been rather
ashamed of themselves in secret, I think, for. being such poor-
spirited knaves.
The new King and his Queen were soon crowned with a great
deal of show and noise, which the people liked very much ; and
then the King set forth on a royal progress through his dominions.
He was crowned a second time at York, in order that the people
might have show and noise enough ; and wherever he went was
received with shouts of rejoicing — from a good many people of
strong lungs, who were paid to strain their throats in crying, ' God
save King Richard ! ' The plan was so successful that I am told it
has been imitated since, by other usurpers, in other progresses
through other dominions.
While he was on this journey. King Richard stayed a week at
Warwick. And from Warwick he sent instructions home for one of
the wickedest murders that ever was done — the murder of the two
young princes, his nephews, who were shut up in the Tower of
London.
Sir Robert Brackenbury was at that time Governor of the Tower.
To him, by the hands of a messenger named John Green, did
King Richard send a letter, ordering him by some means to put the
two young princes to death. But Sir Robert — I hope because he
had children of his own, and loved them — sent John Green back
again, riding and spurring along the dusty roads, with the answer
that he could not do so horrible a piece of work. The King,
having frowningly considered a little, called to him Sir James
Tyrrel, his master of the horse, and to him gave authority to take
command of the Tower, whenever he would, for twenty-four hours,
and to keep all the keys of the Tower during that space of time.
Tyrrel, well knowing what was wanted, looked about him for two
hardened ruffians, and chose John Dighton, one of his own
grooms, and Miles Forest, who was a murderer by trade. Having
secured these two assistants, he went, upon a day in August, to the
Tower, showed his authority from the King, took the command for
four-and-twenty hours, and obtained possession of the keys. And
when the black night came, he went creeping, creeping, like a guilty
villain as he was, up the dark, stone winding stairs, and along the
dark stone passages, until he came to the door of the room where
the two young princes, having said their prayers, lay fast asleep,
clasped in each other's arms. And while he watched and listened
at the door, he sent in those evil demons, John Dighton and Miles
Forest, who smothered the two princes with the bed and pillows,
and carried their bodies down the stairs, and buried them under a
great heap of stones at the staircase foot. And when the day came,
182
A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
he gave up the command of the Tower, and restored the keys, and
hurried away without once looking behind him; and Sir Robert
Brackenbury went with fear and sadness to the princes' room, and
found the princes gone for ever.
You know, through all this history, how true it is that traitors are
never true, and you will not be surprised to learn that the Duke of
Buckingham soon turned against King Richard, and joined a great
conspiracy that was formed to dethrone him, and to place the crown
upon its rightful owner's head. Richard had meant to keep the
murder secret ; but when he heard through his spies that this
conspiracy existed, and that many lords and gentlemen drank in
secret to the healths of the two young princes in the Tower, he
made it known that they were dead. The conspirators, though
thwarted for a moment, soon resolved to set up for the crown
against the murderous Richard, Henrv Earl of Richmond, grandson
of Catherine : that widow of Henry the Fifth who married Owen
Tudor. And as Henry was of the house of Lancaster, they
proposed that he should marry the Princess Elizabeth, the eldest
daughter of the late King, now the heiress of the house of York,
and thus by uniting the rival families put an end to the fatal wars of
the Red and White Roses. All being settled, a time was appointed
for Henry to come over from Brittany, and for a great rising against
Richard to take place in several parts of England at the same hour.
On a certain day, therefore, in October, the revolt took place ; but
unsuccessfully. Richard was prepared, Henry was driven back at
sea by a storm, his followers in England were dispersed, and the
Duke of Buckingham was taken, and at once beheaded in the
market-place at Salisbury.
The time of his success was a good time, Richard thought, for
summoning a Parliament and getting some money. So, a Parlia-
ment was called, and it flattered and fawned upon him as much as
he could possibly desire, and declared him to be the rightful King
of England, and his only son Edward, then eleven years of age, the
next heir to the throne.
Richard knew full well that, let the Parliament say v.hat it would,
the Princess Elizabeth was remembered by people as the heiress of
the house of York ; and having accurate information besides, of its
being designed by the conspirators to marry her to Henry of
Richmond, he felt that it would much strengthen him and weaken
them, to be beforehand with them, and marry her to his son. With
this view he went to the Sanctuary at A\'estminster, where the late
King's ividow and liter daughter still were, and besought them to
come to Court : where (he swore by anything and everything) they
should be safely and honourably entertained. They came, accord-
ingly, but had scarcely been at Court a month when his son died
suddenly — or was poisoned^and his plan was crushed to pieces.
RICHARD THE THIRD 183
In this extremity, King Richard, always active, thought, ' I must
make another plan.' And he made the plan of marrying the
Princess Elizaheth himself, although she was his niece. There was
one difficulty in the way : his wife, the Queen Anne, was alive.
But, he knew (rememhering his nephews) how to remove that
obstacle, and he made love to the Princess Elizabeth, telling her he
felt perfectly confident that the Queen would die in February. The
Princess was not a very scrupulous young lady, for, instead of
rejecting the murderer of her brothers with scorn and hatred, she
openly declared she loved him dearly ; and, when February came
and the Queen did not die, she expressed her impatient opinion
that she was too long about it. However, King Richard was not
so far out in his prediction, but that she died in March- — he took
good care of that — and then this precious pair hoped to be married.
But they were disappointed, for the idea of such a marriage was so
unpopular in the country, that the King's chief counsellors, Ratcliffe
and Catesby, would by no means undertake to propose it, and the
King was even obliged to declare in public that he had never thought
of such a thing.
He was, by this time, dreaded and hated by all classes of his
subjects. His nobles deserted every day to Henry's side ; he dared
not call another Parliament, lest his crimes should be denounced
there ; and for want of money, he was obliged to get Benevolences
from the citizens, which exasperated them all against him. It was
said too, that, being stricken by his conscience, he dreamed frightful
dreams, and started up in the night-time, wild with terror and
remorse. Active to the last, through all this, he issued vigorous
proclamations against Henry of Richmond and all his followers,
when he heard that they were coming against him with a Fleet from
France ; and took the field as fierce and savage as a wild boar — the
animal represented on his shield.
Henry of Richmond landed with six thousand men at Milford
Haven, and came on against King Richard, then encamped at
Leicester with an army twice as great, through North Wales. On
Bosworth Field the two armies met; and Richard, looking along
Henry's ranks, and seeing them crowded with the English nobles
who had abandoned him, turned pale -when he beheld the powerful
Lord Stanley and his son (whom he had tried hard to retain) among
them. But, he was as brave as he was wicked, and plunged into
the thickest of the fight. He was riding hither and thither, laying
about him in all directions, when he observed the Earl of North-
umberland— one of his few great allies — to stand inactive, and the
main body of his troops to hesitate. At the same moment, his
desperate glance caught Henry of Richmond among a little group
of his knights. Riding hard at him, and crying ' Treason ! ' he
killed his standard-bearer, fiercely unhorsed another gentleman, and
i84 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
aimed a powerful stroke at Henry himself, to cut him down. But,
Sir William Stanley parried it as it fell, and before Richard
could raise his arm again, he Avas borne down in a press of
numbers, unhorsed, and killed. Lord Stanley picked up the crown,
all bruised and trampled, and stained with blood, and put it upon
Richmond's head, amid loud and rejoicing cries of ' Long live
King Henry I '
That night, a horse was led up to the church of the Grey Friars
at Leicester ; across whose back was tied, like some worthless sack,
a naked body brought there for burial. It was the body of the last
of the Plantagenet line. King Richard the Third, usurper and
murderer, slain at the battle of Bosworth Field in the thirty-second
year of his age, after a reign of two years.
CHAPTER XXVI
ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SEVENTH
King Henry the Seventh did not turn out to be as fine a fellow
as the nobility and people hoped, in the first joy of their deliver-
ance from Richard the Third. He was very cold, crafty, and cal-
culating, and would do almost anything for money. He possessed
considerable ability, but his chief merit appears to have been that
he was not cruel when there was nothing to be got by it.
The new King had promised the nobles who had espoused his
cause that he w^ould marry the Princess Elizabeth. The first thing
he did, was, to direct her to be removed from the castle of Sheriff"
Hutton in Yorkshire, where Richard had placed her, and restored
to the care of her mother in London. The young Earl of Warwick,
Edward Plantagenet, son and heir of the late Duke of Clarence,
had been kept a prisoner in the same old Yorkshire Castle with
her. This boy, who was now fifteen, the new King placed in the
Tower for safety. Then he came to London in great state, and
gratified the people with a fine procession ; on which kind of show
he often very much relied for keeping them in good humour. The
sports and feasts which took place were followed by a terrible fever,
called the Sweating Sickness ; of which great numbers of people
died. Lord Mayors and Aldermen are thought to have suffered
most from it ; whether, because they were in the habit of over-
eating themselves, or because they were very jealous of preserving
filth and nuisances in the City (as they have been since), I don't
know.
The King's coronation was postponed on account of the general
HENRY THE SEVENTH 185
ill-health, and he afterwards deferred his niarriage, as if he were
not very anxious that it should take place : and, even after that,
deferred the Queen's coronation so long that he gave offence to the
York party. However, he set these things right in the end, by
hanging some men and seizing on the rich possessions of others : by
granting more popular pardons to the followers of the late King
than could, at first, be got from him ; and, by employing about his
Court, some very scrupulous persons who had been employed in
the previous reign.
As this reign was principally remarkable for two very curious im-
postures which have become famous in history, we will make those
two stories its principal feature.
There was a priest at Oxford of the name of Simons, who had
for a pupil a handsome boy named Lambert Simnel, the son of a
baker. Partly to gratify his own ambitious ends, and partly to
carry out the designs of a secret party formed against the King,
this priest declared that his pupil, the boy, was no other than the
young Earl of ^^'arwick ; who (as everybody might have known)
was safely locked up in the Tower of London, The priest and
the boy went over to Ireland ; and, at Dublin, enlisted in their
cause all ranks of the people : who seem to have been generous
enough, but exceedingly irrational. The Earl of Kildare, the
governor of Ireland, declared that he believed the boy to be what
the priest represented ; and the boy, who had been well tutored by
the priest, told them such things of his childhood, and gave them
so many descriptions of the Royal Family, that they were per-
petually shouting and hurrahing, and drinking his health, and
making all kinds of noisy and thirsty demonstrations, to express
their belief in him. Nor was this feeling confined to Ireland alone,
for the Earl of Lincoln — whom the late usurper had named as his
successor — went over to the young Pretender; and, after holding
a secret correspondence with the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy — ■
the sister of Edward the Fourth, who detested the present King
and all his race — sailed to Dublin with two thousand German
soldiers of her providing. In this promising state of the boy's
fortunes, he was crowned there, with a crown taken oft' the head of
a statue of the Virgin Mary ; and was then, according to the Irish
custom of those days, carried home on the shoulders of a big
chieftain possessing a great deal more strength than sense. Father
Simons, you may be sure, was mighty busy at the coronation.
Ten days afterwards, the Germans, and the Irish, and the priest,
and the boy, and the Earl of Lincoln, all landed in Lancashire to
invade England, The King, who had good intelligence of their
movements, set up his standard at Nottingham, where vast numbers
resorted to him every day ; while the Earl of Lincoln could gain
but very few. With his small force he tried to make for the town
i86 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
of Newark ; but the King's army getting between him and that
place, he had no choice but to risk a battle at Stoke. It soon
ended in the complete destruction of the Pretender's forces, one
half of whom were killed ; among them, the Earl himself. The
priest and the baker's boy were taken prisoners. The priest, after
confessing the trick, was shut up in prison, where he afterwards died
— suddenly perhaps. The boy was taken into the King's kitchen
and made a turnspit. He was afterwards raised to the station of
one of the King's falconers ; and so ended this strange imposition.
There seems reason to suspect that the Dowager Queen — always
a restless and busy woman — had had some share in tutoring the
baker's son. The King was very angry with her, whether or no.
He seized upon her property, and shut her up in a convent at
Bermondsey.
One might suppose that the end of this story would have put the
Irish people on their guard ; but they were quite ready to receive
a second impostor, as they had received the first, and that same
troublesome Duchess of Burgundy soon gave them the opportunity.
All of a sudden there appeared at Cork, in a vessel arriving from
Portugal, a young man of excellent abilities, of very handsome
appearance and most winning manners, who declared himself to be
Richard, Duke of York, the second son of King Edward the
Fourth. ' O,' said some, even of those ready Irish believers, ' but
surely that young Prince was murdered by his uncle in the Tower ! '
— ' It is supposed so,' said the engaging young man ; ' and my
brother was killed in that gloomy prison ; but I escaped — it don't
matter how, at present — and have been wandering about the world
for seven long years.' This explanation being quite satisfactory to
numbers of the Irish people, they began again to shout and to hurrah,
and to drink his health, and to make the noisy and thirsty demon-
strations all over again. And the big chieftain in Dublin began to
look out for another coronation, and another young King to be
carried home on his back.
Now, King Henry being then on bad terms with France, the
French King, Charles the Eighth, saw that, by pretending to believe
in the handsome young man, he could trouble his enemy sorely.
So, he invited him over to the French Court, and appointed him a
body-guard, and treated him in all respects as if he really were the
Duke of York. Peace, however, being soon concluded between
the two Kings, the pretended Duke was turned adrift, and wandered
for protection to the Duchess of Burgundy. She, after feigning to
inquire into the reality of his claims, declared him to be the very
picture of her dear departed brother ; gave him a body-guard at
her Court, of thirty halberdiers ; and called him by the sounding
name of the ^^'hite Rose of England.
The leading members of the White Rose party in England sent
HENRY THE SEVENTH 187
over an agent, named Sir Robert Clifford, to ascertain whether the
White Rose's claims were good : the King also sent over his agents
to inquire into the Rose's history. The White Roses declared the
young man to be really the Uuke of York ; the King declared him
to be Perkin Warbeck, the son of a merchant of the city of
Tournay, who had acquired his knowledge of England, its language
and manners, from the English merchants who traded in Flanders ;
it was also stated by the Royal agents that he had been in the
service of Lady Brompton, the wife of an exiled English noble-
man, and that the Duchess of Burgundy had caused him to be
trained and taught, expressly for this deception. The King then
required the Archduke Philip — who was the sovereign of Burgundy
— to banish this new Pretender, or to deliver him up ; but, as the
Archduke replied that he could not control the Duchess in her
own land, the King, in revenge, took the market of English cloth
away from Antwerp, and prevented all commercial intercourse
between the two countries.
He also, by arts and bribes, prevailed on Sir Robert Clifford to
betray his employers ; and he denouncing several famous English
noblemen as being secretly the friends of Perkin Warbeck, the King
had three of the foremost executed at once. Whether he pardoned
the remainder because they were poor, I do not know ; but it is
only too probable that he refused to pardon one famous nobleman
against whom the same Clifford soon afterwards informed separately,
because he was rich. This was no other than Sir A\'illiam Stanley,
who had saved the King's life at the battle of Bosworth Field. It
is very doubtful whether his treason amounted to much more than
his having said, that if he were sure the young man was the Duke
of York, he would not take arms against him, A\'hatever he had
done he admitted, like an honourable spirit ; and he lost his head
for it, and the covetous King gained all his wealth.
Perkin Warbeck kept quiet for three years ; but, as the Flemings
began to complain heavily of the loss of their trade by the stoppage
of the Antwerp market on his account, and as it was not unlikely
that they might even go so far as to take his life, or give him up,
he found it necessary to do something. Accordingly he made a
desperate sally, and landed, with only a few hundred men, on the
coast of Deal, But he was soon glad to get back to the place from
whence he came ; for the country people rose against his followers,
killed a great many, and took a hundred and fifty prisoners : who
were all driven to London, tied together with ropes, like a team
of catt'e. Every one of them was hanged on some part or other
of the sea-shore ; in order, that if any more men should come over
with Perkin ^^'arbeck, they might see the bodies as a warning before
they landed.
Then the wary King, by making a treaty of commerce with the
i88 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Flemings, drove Perkin Warbeck out of that country ; and, by
completely gaining over the Irish to his side, deprived him of that
asylum too. He wandered away to Scotland, and told his story at
that Court. King James the Fourth of Scotland, who was no friend
to King Henry, and had no reason to be (for King Henry had
bribed his Scotch lords to betray him more than once ; but had
never succeeded in his plots), gave him a great reception, called
him his cousin, and gave him in marriage the Lady Catherine
Gordon, a beautiful and charming creature related to the royal
house of Stuart.
Alarmed by this successful reappearance of the Pretender, the
King still undermined, and bought, and bribed, and kept his doings
and Perkin Warbeck's story in the dark, when he might, one would
imagine, have rendered the matter clear to all England. But, for
all this bribing of the Scotch lords at the Scotch King's Court, he
could not procure the Pretender to be delivered up to him. James,
though not very particular in many respects, would not betray him ;
and the ever-busy Duchess of Burgundy so provided him with arms,
and good soldiers, and with money besides, that he had soon a
little army of fifteen hundred men of various nations. With these,
and aided by the Scottish King in person, he crossed the border
into England, and made a proclamation to the people, in which
he called the King ' Henry Tudor ; ' offered large rewards to any
who should take or distress him ; and announced himself as King
Richard the Fourth come to receive the homage of his faithful
subjects. His faithful subjects, however, cared nothing for him,
and hated his faithful troops : who, being of different nations,
quarrelled also among themselves. Worse than this, if worse were
possible, they began to plunder the country ; upon which the White
Rose said, that he would rather lose his rights, than gain them
through the miseries of the English people. The Scottish King
made a jest of his scruples ; but they and their whole force went
back again without fighting a battle.
The worst consequence of this attempt was, that a rising took
place among the people of Cornwall, who considered themselves
too heavily taxed to meet the charges of the expected war. Stimu-
lated by Flammock, a lawyer, and Joseph, a blacksmith, and joined
by Lord Audley and some other country gentlemen, they marched
on all the way to Deptford Bridge, where they fought a battle with
the King's army. They were defeated— though the Cornish men
fought with great bravery — and the lord was beheaded, and the
lawyer and the blacksmith were hanged, drawn, and quartered.
The rest were pardoned. The King, who believed every man to
be as avaricious as himself, and thought that money could setde
anything, allowed them to make bargains for their liberty with the
soldiers who had taken them.
HENRY THE SEVENTH 189
Perkin Warbeck, doomed to wander up and down, and never to
find rest anywhere — a sad fate : almost a sufficient punishment for
an imposture, which he seems in time to have half believed himself
— lost his Scottish refuge through a truce being made between the
two Kings J and found himself, once more, without a country before
him in which he could lay his head. But James (always honourable
and true to him, alike when he melted down his plate, and even the
great gold chain he had been used to wear, to pay soldiers in his
cause ; and now, when that cause was lost and hopeless) did not
conclude the treaty, until he had safely departed out of the Scottish
dominions. He, aixi his beautiful wife, who was faithful to him
under all reverses, and left her state and home to follow his poor
fortunes, were put aboard ship with everything necessary for their
comfort and protection, and sailed for Ireland.
But, the Irish people had had enough of counterfeit Earls of
Warwick and Dukes of York, for one while ; and would give the
White Rose no aid. So, the White Rose — encircled by thorns
indeed — resolved to go with his beautiful wife to Cornwall as a
forlorn resource, and see what might be made of the Cornish men,
who had risen so valiantly a little while before, and who had fought
so bravely at Deptford Bridge.
To ^^■hitsand Bay, in Cornwall, accordingly, came Perkin Warbeck
and his wife ; and the lovely lady he shut up for safety in the Castle
of St, Michael's Mount, and then marched into Devonshire at the
head of three thousand Cornishmen. These were increased to six
thousand by the time of his arrival in Exeter ; but, there the people
made a stout resistance, and he went on to Taunton, where he came
in sight of the King's army. The stout Cornish men, although they
were few in number, and badly armed, were so bold, that they
never thought of retreating ; but bravely looked forward to a battle
on the morrow. Unhappily for them, the man Avho was possessed
of so many engaging qualities, and who attracted so many people
to his side when he had nothing else with which to tempt them,
was not as brave as they. In the night, when the two armies lay
opposite to each other, he mounted a swift horse and fled. When
morning dawned, the poor confiding Cornish men, discovering
that they had no leader, surrendered to the King's power. Some
of them were hanged, and the rest were pardoned and went
miserably home.
Before the King pursued Perkin Warbeck to the sanctuary of
Beaulieu in the New Forest, where it was soon known that he had
taken refuge, he sent a body of horsemen to St. Michael's Mount,
to seize his wife. She was soon taken and brought as a captive
before the King. But she was so beautiful, and so good, and so
devoted to the man in whom she believed, that the King regarded
her with compassion, treated her with great respect, and placed her
T90 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
at Court, near the Queen's person. And many years after Perkin
Warbeck was no more, and when his strange story had become Uke
a nursery tale, she was called the White Rose, by the people, in
remembrance of her beauty.
The sanctuary at Beaulieu was soon surrounded by the King's
men ; and the King, pursuing his usual dark, artful ways, sent pre-
tended friends to Perkin Warbeck to persuade him to come out and
surrender himself. This he soon did; the King having taken a
good look at the man of whom he had heard so much — from behind
a screen — directed him to be well mounted, and to ride behind him
at a little distance, guarded, but not bound in any way. So they
entered London with the King's favourite show — a procession ; and
some of the people hooted as the Pretender rode slowly through
the streets to the Tower ; but the greater part were quiet, and very
curious to see him. From the Tower, he was taken to the Palace
at Westminster, and there lodged like a gentleman, though closely
watched. He was examined every now and then as to his impos-
ture ; but the King was so secret in all he did, that even then he
gave it a consequence, which it cannot be supposed to have in
itself deserved.
At last Perkin Warbeck ran away, and took refuge in another
sanctuary near Richmond in Surrey. From this he was again per-
suaded to deliver himself up ; and, being conveyed to London, he
stood in the stocks for a whole day, outside Westminster Hall, and
there read a paper purporting to be his full confession, and relating
his history as the King's agents had originally described it. He
was then shut up in the Tower again, in the company of the Earl
of Warwick, who had now been there for fourteen years : ever
since his removal out of Yorkshire, except when the King had had
him at Court, and had shown him to the people, to prove the
imposture of the Baker's boy. It is but too probable, when we
consider the crafty character of Henry the Seventh, that these two
were brought together for a cruel purpose. A plot was soon dis-
covered between them and the keepers, to murder the Governor,
get possession of the keys, and proclaim Perkin Warbeck as King
kichard the Fourth. That there was some such plot, is likely;
that they were tempted into it, is at least as likely ; that the unfor-
tunate Earl of AVarwick — last male of the Plantagenet line—was
too unused to the world, and too ignorant and simple to know
much about it, whatever it was, is perfectly certain ; and that it
was the King's interest to get rid of him, is no less so. He was
beheaded on Tower Hill, and Perkin Warbeck was hanged at
Tyburn.
Such was the end of the pretended Duke of York, whose shadowy
history was made more shadowy — and ever will be — by the mys-
tery and craft of the King. If he had turned his great natural
HENRY THE SEVENTH 191
advantages to a more honest account, he might have hved a happy
and respected Hfe, even in those days. But he died upon a gallows
at Tyburn, leaving the Scottish lady, Avho had loved him so well,
kindly protected at the Queen's Court. After some time she forgot
her old loves and troubles, as many j)eople do with Time's merciful
assistance, and married a Welsh gentleman. Her second husband.
Sir Matthew Cradoc, more honest and more happy than her first,
lies beside her in a tomb in the old church of Swansea.
The ill-blood between France and England in this reign, arose
out of the continued plotting of the Duchess of Burgundy, and
disputes respecting the affairs of Brittany. The King feigned to be
very patriotic, indignant, and warlike ; but he always contrived so
as never to make war in reality, and always to make money. His
taxation of the people, on pretence of war with France, involved,
at one time, a very dangerous insurrection, headed by Sir John
Egremont, and a common man called John h Chambre. But it
was subdued by the royal forces, under the command of the Earl of
Surrey. The knighted John escaped to the Duchess of Burgundy,
who was ever ready to receive any one who gave the King trouble ;
and the plain John was hanged at York, in the midst of a number
of his men, but on a much higher gibbet, as being a greater traitor.
Hung high or hung low, however, hanging is much the same to the
person hung.
Within a year after her marriage, the Queen had given birth to
a son, who was called Prince Arthur, in remembrance of the old
British prince of romance and story ; and who, when all these
events had happened, being then in his fifteenth year, was married
to Catherine, the daughter of the Spanish monarch, with great
rejoicings and bright prospects; but in a very few months he
sickened and died. As soon as the King had recovered from his
grief, he thought it a pity that the fortune of the Spanish Princess,
amounting to two hundred thousand crowns, should go out of the
family ; and therefore arranged that the young widow should marry
his second son Henry, then twelve years of age, when he too
should be fifteen. There were objections to this marriage on the
part of the clergy ; but, as the infallible Pope was gained over, and,
as he W7«/ be right, that settled the business for the time. The
King's eldest daughter was provided for, and a long course of dis-
turbance was considered to be set at rest, by her being married to
the Scottish King.
And now the Queen died. When the King had got over that
grief too, his mind once more reverted to his darling money for
consolation, and he thought of marrying the Dowager Queen of
Naples, who was immensely rich : but, as it turned out not to be
practicable to gain the money however practicable it might have
been to gain the lady, he gave up the idea. He was not so fond
192 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
of her but that he soon proposed to marry the Dowager Duchess of
Savoy ; and, soon afterwards, the widow of the King of Castile,
who was raving mad. But he made a money-bargain instead, and
married neither.
The Duchess of Burgundy, among the other discontented people
to whom she had given refuge, had sheltered Edmund de la Pole
(younger brother of that Earl of Lincoln who was killed at Stoke),
now Earl of Suffolk. The King had prevailed upon him to return
to the marriage of Prince Arthur ; but, he soon afterwards went
away again ; and then the King, suspecting a conspiracy, resorted
to his favourite plan of sending him some treacherous friends, and
buying of those scoundrels the secrets they disclosed or invented.
Some arrests and executions took place in consequence. In the
end, the King, on a promise of not taking his life, obtained posses-
sion of the person of Edmund de la Pole, and shut him up in the
Tower.
This was his last enemy. If he had lived much longer he would
have made many more among the people, by the grinding exaction
to which he constantly exposed them, and by the tyrannical acts of
his two jjrime favourites in all money-raising matters, Edmund
Dudley and Richard Empson. But Death — the enemy who is
not to be bought off or deceived, and on whom no money, and no
treachery has any effect — presented himself at this juncture, and
ended the King's reign. He died of the gout, on the twenty-second
of April, one thousand five hundred and nine, and in the fifty-third
year of his age, after reigning twenty-four years ; he was buried in
the beautiful Chapel of Westminster Abbey, which he had himself
founded, and which still bears his name.
It was in this reign that the great Christopher Columbus, on
behalf of Spain, discovered what was then called The New ^^'orld.
Great wonder, interest, and hope of wealth being awakened in
England thereby, the King and the merchants of London and
Bristol fitted out an English expedition for further discoveries
in the New World, and entrusted it to Sebastian Cabot, of
Bristol, the son of a Venetian pilot there. He was very successful
in his voyage, and gained high reputation, both for himself and
England.
HENRY THE EIGHTH 193
CHAPTER XXVH
england under henry the eighth, called bluff king hal
and burly king harry
Part the First
We now come to King Henry the Eighth, whom it has been too
much the fashion to call ' Bluff King Hal,' and ' Burly King Harry,'
and other fine names ; but whom I shall take the liberty to call,
plainly, one of the most detestable villains that ever drew breath.
You will be able to judge, long before we come to the end of his
life, whether he deserves the character.
He was just eighteen years of age when he came to the throne.
People said he was handsome then ; but I don't believe it. He
was a big, burly, noisy, small-eyed, large-faced, double-chinned,
swinish-looking fellow in later life (as we know from the likenesses
of him, painted by the famous Hans Holbein), and it is not easy
to believe that so bad a character can ever have been veiled under
a prepossessing appearance.
He was anxious to make himself popular; and the people, who
had long disliked the late King, were very willing to believe that
he deserved to be so. He was extremely fond of show and display,
and so were they. Therefore there was great rejoicing when he
married the Princess Catherine, and when they were both crowned.
And the King fought at tournaments and always came off victorious
- — for the courtiers took care of that— and there was a general out-
cry that he was a wonderful man. Empson, Dudley, and their
supporters were accused of a variety of crimes they had never com-
mitted, instead of the offences of which they really had been guilty ;
and they were pilloried, and set upon horses with their faces to the
tails, and knocked about and beheaded, to the satisfaction of the
people, and the enrichment of the King.
The Pope, so indefatigable in getting the world into trouble, had
mixed himself up in a war on the continent of Europe, occasioned
by the reigning Princes of little quarrelling states in Italy having
at various times married into other Royal families, and so led to
tlieir claiming a share in those petty Governments. The King,
who discovered that he was very fond of the Pope, sent a herald
to the King of France, to say that he must not make war upon that
holy personage, because he was the father of all Christians. As the
French King did not mind this relationship in the least, and also
refused to admit a claim King Henry made to certain lands in
o
194 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
France, war was declared between the two countries. Not to per-
plex this story with an account of the tricks and designs of all the
sovereigns who were engaged in it, it is enough to say that England
made a blundering alliance with Spain, and got stupidly taken in by
that country ; which made its own terms with France when it could,
and left England in the lurch. Sir Edward How^ard, a bold
admiral, son of the Earl of Surrey, distinguished himself by his
bravery against the French in this business ; but, unfortimately, he
was more brave than wise, for, skimming into the French harbour
of Brest with only a few row-boats, he attempted (in revenge for
the defeat and death of Sir Thomas Knyvett, another bold English
admiral) to take some strong French ships, well defended with
batteries of cannon. The upshot was, that he was left on board of
one of them (in consequence of its shooting away from his own boat),
with not more than about a dozen men, and was thrown into the
sea and drowned : though not until he had taken from his breast
his gold chain and gold whistle, which were the signs of his ofifice,
and had cast them into the sea to prevent their being made a boast
of by the enemy. After this defeat — which was a great one, for Sir
Edward Howard was a man of valour and fame — the King took it
into his - head to invade France in person ; first executing that
dangerous Earl of Suffolk whom his father had left in the Tower,
and appointing Queen Catherine to the charge of his kingdom in
his absence. He sailed to Calais, where he was joined by Maxi-
milian, Emperor of Germany, who pretended to be his soldier,
and who took pay in his service : with a good deal of nonsense of
that sort, flattering enough to the vanity of a vain blusterer. The
King might be successful enough in sham fights ; but his idea of
real battles chiefly consisted in pitching silken tents of bright colours
that were ignominiously blown down by the wind, and in making
a vast display of gaudy flags and golden curtains. Fortune, how-
ever, favoured him better than he deserved ; for, after much waste
of time in tent pitching, flag flying, gold curtaining, and other such
masquerading, he gave the French battle at a place called Guine-
gate : where they took such an unaccountable panic, and fled with
such swiftness, that it was ever afterwards called by the English the
Battle of Spurs. Instead of following up his advantage, the King,
finding that he had had enough of real fighting, came home again.
The Scottish King, though nearly related to Henry by marriage,
had taken part against him in this war. The Earl of Surrey, as the
English general, advanced to meet him when he came out of his
own dominions and crossed the river Tweed. The two armies
came up with one another when the Scottish King had also crossed
the river Till, and was encamped upon the last of the Cheviot Hills,
called the Hill of Flodden. Along the plain below it, the English,
when the hour of battle came, advanced. The Scottish army, which
HENRY THE EIGHTH 195
had been drawn up in five great bodies, then came steadily down
in perfect silence. So they, in their turn, advanced to meet the
English army, which came on in one long line ; and they attacked
it with a body of spearmen, under Lord Home. At first they had
the best of it; but the English recovered themselves so bravely,
and fought with such valour, that, when the Scottish King had
almost made his way up to the Royal standard, he was slain, and
the whole Scottish power routed. Ten thousand Scottish men lay
dead that day on Flodden Field ; and among them, numbers of
the nobility and gentry. For a long time afterwards, the Scottish
peasantry used to believe that their King had not been really killed
in this battle, because no Englishman had found an iron belt he
wore about his body as a penance for having been an unnatural
and undutiful son. But, whatever became of his belt, the English
had his sword and dagger, and the ring from his finger, and his
body too, covered with wounds. There is no doubt of it ; for it
Avas seen and recognised by English gentlemen who had known the
Scottish King well.
AVhen King Henry was making ready to renew the war in France,
the French King was contemplating peace. His queen, dying at
this time, he proposed, though he was upwards of fifty years old,
to marry King Henry's sister, the Princess Mary, who, besides
being only sixteen, was betrothed to the Duke of Suffolk. As the
inclinations of young Princesses were not much considered in such
matters, the marriage was concluded, and the poor girl was escorted
to France, where she was immediately left as the French King's
bride, with only one of all her English attendants. That one was
a pretty young girl named Anne Boleyn, niece of the Earl of
Surrey, who had been made Duke of Norfolk, after the victory of'
Flodden Field. Anne Boleyn's is a name to be remembered, as
you will presently find.
And now the French King, who was very proud of his young
wife, was preparing for many years of happiness, and she was looking
forward, I dare say, to many years of misery, when he died within
three months, and left her a young widow. The new French
monarch, Francis the First, seeing how important it was to his
interests that she should take for her second husband no one but
an Englishman, advised her first lover, the Duke of Suffolk, when
King Henry sent him over to France to fetch her home, to marry
her. The Princess being herself so fond of that Duke, as to tell
him that he must either do so then, or for ever lose her, they were
wedded ; and Henry afterwards forgave them. In making interest
with the King, the Duke of Suffolk had addressed his most powerful
favourite and adviser, Thomas Wolsey — a name very famous in
history for its rise and downfall.
Wolsey was the son of a respectable butcher at Ipswich, in Suffolk,
196 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
and received so excellent an education that he became a tutor to
the family of the Marquis of Dorset, who afterwards got him
appointed one of the late King's chaplains. On the accession of
Henry the Eighth, he was promoted and taken into great favour.
He was now Archbishop of York; the Pope had made him a
Cardinal besides ; and whoever wanted influence in England or
favour with the King — whether he were a foreign monarch or
an English nobleman — was obliged to make a friend of the great
Cardinal Wolsey.
He w'as a gay man, who could dance and jest, and sing and
drink ; and those were the roads to so much, or rather so little, of
a heart as King Henry had. He was wonderfully fond of pomp
and glitter, and so was the King. He knew a good deal of the
Church learning of that time ; much of which consisted in finding
artful excuses and pretences for almost any wrong thing, and in
arguing that black was white, or any other colour. This kind of
learning pleased the King too. For many such reasons, the
Cardinal was high in estimation with the King ; and, being a man
of far greater ability, knew as well how to manage him, as a clever
keeper may know how to manage a wolf or a tiger, or any other
cruel and uncertain beast, that may turn upon him and tear him any
day. Never had there been seen in England such state as my
Lord Cardinal kept. His wealth was enormous ; equal, it was
reckoned, to the riches of the Crown. His palaces were as splendid
as the King's, and his retinue was eight hundred strong. He held
his Court, dressed out from top to toe in flaming scarlet ; and his
very shoes were golden, set with precious stones. His followers
rode on blood horses ; while he, with a wonderful affectation of
humility in the midst of his great splendour, ambled on a mule with
a red velvet saddle and bridle and golden stirrups.
Through the influence of this stately priest, a grand meeting was
arranged to take place between the French and English Kings in
France ; but on ground belonging to England. A prodigious show
of friendship and rejoicing was to be made on the occasion; and
heralds were sent to proclaim with brazen trumpets through all the
principal cities of Europe, that, on a certain day, the Kings of
France and England, as companions and brothers in arms, each
attended by eighteen followers, would hold a tournament against all
knights who might choose to come.
Charles, the new Emperor of Germany (the old one being
dead), wanted to prevent too cordial an alliance between these
sovereigns, and came over to England before the King could repair
to the place of meeting; and, besides making an agreeable im-
pression upon him, secured Wolsey's interest by promising that his
influence should make him Pope when the next vacancy occurred.
On the day when the Emperor left England, the King and all the
HENRY THE EIGHTH I97
Court went over to Calais, and thence to the place of meeting,
between Ardres and Guisnes, commonly called the Field of the
Cloth of Gold. Here, all manner of expense and prodigality was
lavished on the decorations of the show; many of the knights and
gentlemen being so superbly dressed that it was said they carried
their whole estates upon their shoulders.
There were sham castles, temporary chapels, fountains running
wine, great cellars full of wine free as water to all comers, silk tents,
gold lace and foil, gilt lions, and such things without end ; and, in
the. midst of all, the rich Cardinal out-shone and out-glittered all
the noblemen and gentlemen assembled. After a treaty made
between the two Kings with as much solemnity as if they had
intended to keep it, the lists — nine hundred feet long, and three
hundred and twenty broad — were opened for the tournament ; the
Queens of France and England looking on with great array of
lords and ladies. Then, for ten days, the two sovereigns fought
fife combats every day, and always beat their polite adversaries ;
though they do write that the King of England, being thrown in a
Avrestle one day by the King of France, lost his kingly temper with
his brother-in-arms, and wanted to make a quarrel of it. Then,
there is a great story belonging to this Field of the Cloth of Gold,
showing how the English were distrustful of the French, and the
French of the English, until Francis rode alone one morning to
Henry's tent ; and, going in before he was out of bed, told him in
joke that he was his prisoner ; and how Henry jumped out of bed
and embraced Francis; and how Francis helped Henry to dress,
and warmed his linen for him; and how Henry gave Francis a
splendid jewelled collar, and how Francis gave Henry, in return, a
costly bracelet. All this and a great deal more was so written
about, and sung about, and talked about at that time (and, indeed,
since that time too), that the world has had good cause to be sick
of it, for ever.
■ Of course, nothing came of all these fine doings but a speedy
renewal of the war between England and France, in which the two
Royal companions and brothers in arms longed very earnestly to
damage one another. But, before it broke out again, the Duke of
Buckingham was shamefully executed on Tower Hill, on the evi-
dence of a discharged servant — really for nothing, except the folly
of having believed in a friar of the name of Hopkins, who had
pretended to be a prophet, and who had mumbled and jumbled out
some nonsense about the Duke's son being destined to be very
great in the land. It was believed that the unfortunate Duke had
given offence to the great Cardinal by expressing his mind freely
about the expense and absurdity of the whole business of the Field
of the Cloth of Gold. At any rate, he was beheaded, as I have
said, for nothing. And the people who saw it done were very
198 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
angry, and cried out that it was the work of ' the butcher's
son ! '
The new war was a short one, though the Earl of Surrey invaded
France again, and did some injury to that country. It ended in
another treaty of peace between the two kingdoms, and in the dis-
covery that the Emperor of Germany was not such a good friend to
England in reality, as he pretended to be. Neither did he keep
his promise to Wolsey to make him Pope, though the King urged
him. Two Popes died in pretty quick succession ; but the foreign
priests were too much for the Cardinal, and kept him out of the
post. So the Cardinal and King together found out that the
Emperor of Germany was not a man to keep faith with ; broke off
a projected marriage between the King's daughter Mary, Princess
of Wales, and that sovereign ; and began to consider whether it
might not be well to marry the young lady, either to Francis himself,
or to his eldest son.
There now arose at Wittemberg, in Germany, the great leader of
the mighty change in England which is called The Reformation,
and which set the people free from their slavery to the priests.
This was a learned Doctor, named Martin Luther, who knew
all about them, for he had been a priest, and even a monk,
himself The preaching and writing of Wicklifife had set a number
of men thinking on this subject ; and Luther, finding one day to his
great surprise, that there really was a book called the New Testa-
ment which the priests did not allow to be read, and which contained
truths that they suppressed, began to be very vigorous against the
whole body, from the Pope downward. It happened, while he was
yet only beginning his vast work of awakening the nation, that an
impudent fellow named Tetzel, a friar of very bad character, came
into his neighbourhood selling what were called Indulgences, by
wholesale, to raise money for beautifying the great Cathedral of
St. Peter's, at Rome. Whoever bought an Indulgence of the Pope
was supposed to buy himself off from the punishment of Heaven for
his offences. Luther told the people that these Indulgences were
worthless bits of paper, before God, and that Tetzel and his
masters were a crew of impostors in selling them.
The King and the Cardinal were mightily indignant at this pre-
sumption ; and the King (with the help of Sir Thomas More, a
wise man, whom he afterwards repaid by striking off his head) even
wrote a book about it, with which the Pope was so well pleased
that he gave the King the title of Defender of the Faith. The
King and the Cardinal also issued flaming warnings to the people
not to read Luther's books, on pain of excommunication. But
they did read them for all that; and the rumour of what was in
them spread far and wide.
When this great change was thus going on, the King began to
HENRY THE EIGHTH 199
show himself in his truest and worst colours. Anne Boleyn, the
pretty little girl who had gone abroad to France with his sister,
was by this time grown up to be very beautiful, and was one of the
ladies in attendance on Queen Catherine. Now, Queen Catherine
was no longer young or handsome, and it is likely that she was not
particularly good-tempered ; having been always rather melancholy,
and having been made more so by the deaths of four of her
children when they were very young. So, the King fell in love
with the fair Anne Boleyn, and said to himself, ' How can I be
best rid of my own troublesome wife whom I am tired of, and
marry Anne ? '
You recollect that Queen Catherine had been the wife of Henry's
brother. What docs the King do, after thinking it over, but calls
his favourite priests about him, and says, O ! his mind is in such a
dreadful state, and he is so frightfully uneasy, because he is afraid
it was not lawful for him to marry the Queen ! Not one of those
priests had the courage to hint that it was rather curious he had
never thought of that before, and that his mind seemed to have
been in a tolerably jolly condition during a great many years, in
which he certainly had not fretted himself thin ; but, they all said.
Ah ! that was very true, and it was a serious business ; and perhaps
the best way to make it right, would be for his Majesty to be
divorced 1 The King replied. Yes, he thought that would be the
best way, certainly ; so they all went to work.
If I were to relate to you the intrigues and plots that took place
in the endeavour to get this divorce, you would think the History
of England the most tiresome book in the world. So I shall say
no more, than that after a vast deal of negotiation and evasion,
the Pope issued a commission to Cardinal Wolsey and Cardinal
Campeggio (whom he sent over from Italy for the purpose), to try
the whole case in England. It is supposed — and I think with
reason— that Wolsey was the Queen's enemy, because she had
reproved him for his proud and gorgeous manner of life. But, he
did not at first know that the King wanted to marry Anne Boleyn ;
and when he did know it, he even went down on his knees, in the
endeavour to dissuade him.
The Cardinals opened their court in the Convent of the Black
Friars, near to where the bridge of that name in London now
stands ; and the King and Queen, that they might be near it, took
up their lodgings at the adjoining palace of Bridewell, of which
nothing now remains but a bad prison. On the opening of the
court, when the King and Queen were called on to appear, that
poor ill-used lady, with a dignity and firmness and yet with a
womanly affection worthy to be always admired, went and kneeled
at the King's feet, and said that she had come, a stranger, to his
dominions; that she had been a good and true wife to him for
200 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
twenty years ; and that she could acknowledge no power in those
Cardinals to try whether she should be considered his wife after all
that time, or should be put away. With that, she got up and left
the court, and would never afterwards come back to it.
The King pretended to be very much overcome, and said, O !
my lords and gentlemen, what a good woman she was to be sure,
and how delighted he would be to live with her unto death, but for
that terrible uneasiness in his mind which was quite wearing him
away ! So, the case went on, and there was nothing but talk for
two months. Then Cardinal Campeggio, who, on behalf of the
Pope, wanted nothing so much as delay, adjourned it for two more
months; and before that time was elapsed, the Pope himself
adjourned it indefinitely, by requiring the King and Queen to
come to Rome and have it tried there. But by good luck for the
King, word was brought to him by some of his people, that they
had happened to meet at supper, Thomas Cranmer, a learned
Doctor of Cambridge, who had proposed to urge the Pope on, by
referring the case to all the learned doctors and bishops, here and
there and everywhere, and getting their opinions that the King's
marriage was unlawful. The King, who was now in a hurry to
marry Anne Boleyn, thought this such a good idea, that he sent for
Cranmer, post haste, and said to Lord Rochfort, Anne Boleyn's
father, ' Take this learned Doctor down to your country-house, and
there let him have a good room for a study, and no end of books
out of which to prove that I may marry your daughter.' Lord
Rochfort, not at all reluctant, made the learned Doctor as comfort-
able as he could : and the learned Doctor went to work to prove
his case. All this time, the King and Anne Boleyn were writing
letters to one another almost daily, full of impatience to have the
case settled; and Anne Boleyn was showing herself (as I think)
very worthy of the fate which afterwards befel her.
It was bad for Cardinal Wolsey that he had left Cranmer to
render this help. It was worse for him that he had tried to dissuade
the King from marrying Anne Boleyn. Such a servant as he, to
such a master as Henry, would probably have fallen in any case ;
but, between the hatred of the party of the Queen that was, and
the hatred of the party of the Queen that was to be, he fell suddenly
and heavily. Going down one day to the Court of Chancery, where
he now presided, he was waited upon by the Dukes of Norfolk and
Suffolk, who told him that they brought an order to him to resign
that office, and to withdraw quietly to a house he had at Esher, in
Surrey. The Cardinal refusing, they rode off to the King ; and
next day came back with a letter from him, on reading which, the
Cardinal submitted. An inventory was made out of all the riches
in liis palace at York Place (now Whitehall), and he went sorrow-
fully up the river, in his barge, to Putney. An abject man he was,
HENRY THE EIGHTH 201
in spite of his pride ; for being overtaken, riding out of that place
towards Esher, by one of the King's chamberlains who brought him
a kind message and a ring, he alighted from his mule, took off his
cap, and kneeled down in the dirt. His poor Fool, whom in his
prosperous days he had always kept in his palace to entertain him,
cut a far better figure than he ; for, when the Cardinal said to the
chamberlain that he had nothing to send to his lord the King as a
present, but that jester who was a most excellent one, it took six
strong yeomen to remove the faithful fool from his master.
The once proud Cardinal was soon further disgraced, and wrote
the most abject letters to his vile sovereign ; who humbled him one
day and encouraged him the next, according to his humour, until
he was at last ordered to go and reside in his diocese of York.
He said he was too poor ; but I don't know how he made that out,
for he took a hundred and sixty servants with him, and seventy-two
cart-loads of furniture, food, and wine. He remained in that part
of the country for the best part of a year, and showed himself so
improved by his misfortunes, and was so mild and so conciliating,
that he won all hearts. And indeed, even in his proud days, he
had done some magnificent things for learning and education. At
last, he was arrested for high treason ; and, coming slowly on his
journey towards London, got as far as Leicester. Arriving at
Leicester Abbey after dark, and very ill, he said — when the monks
came out at the gate with lighted torches to receive him — that he
had come to lay his bones among them. He had indeed ; for he
was taken to a bed, from which he never rose again. His last
words were, ' Had I but served God as diligently as I have served
the King, He would not have given me over, in my grey hairs,
Howbeit, this is my just reward for my pains and diligence, not
regarding my service to God, but only my duty to my prince.'
The news of his death was quickly carried to the King, who was
amusing himself with archery in the garden of the magnificent
Palace at Hampton Court, which that very Wolsey had presented
to him. The greatest emotion his royal mind displayed at the loss
of a servant so faithful and so ruined, was a particular desire to lay
hold of fifteen hundred pounds which the Cardinal was reported
to have hidden somewhere.
The opinions concerning the divorce, of the learned doctors and
bishops and others, being at last collected, and being generally in
the King's favour, were forwarded to the Pope, with an entreaty
that he would now grant it. The unfortunate Pope, who was a
timid man, was half distracted between his fear of his authority
being set aside in England if he did not do as he was asked, and
his dread of offending the Emperor of Germany, who was Queen
Catherine's nephew. In this state of mind he still evaded and did
nothing. Then, Tho.mas Cromw^ll, who had been one of
202 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Wolsey's faithful attendants, and had remained so even in his
dedine, advised the King to take the matter into his own hands,
and make himself the head of the whole Church. This, the King
by various artful means, began to do ; but he recompensed the
clergy by allowing them to burn as many people as they pleased,
for holding Luther's opinions. You must understand that Sir
Thomas More, the wise man who had helped the King with his
book, had been made Chancellor in Wolsey's place. But, as he
was truly attached to the Church as it was even in its abuses, he, in
this state of things, resigned.
Being now quite resolved to get rid of Queen Catherine, and to
marry Anne Boleyn without more ado, the King made Cranmer
Archbishop of Canterbury, and directed Queen Catherine to leave
the Court. She obeyed ; but replied that wherever she went, she
was Queen of England still, and would remain so, to the last. The
King then married Anne Boleyn privately ; and the new Archbishop
of Canterbury, within half a year, declared his marriage with Queen
Catherine void, and crowned Anne Boleyn Queen.
She might have known that no good could ever come from such
■wrong, and that the corpulent brute who had been so faithless and
so cruel to his first wife, could be more faithless and more cruel to
his second. She might have known that, even when he was in love
with her, he had been a mean and selfisla coward, running away,
like a frightened cur, from her society and her house, when a
dangerous sickness broke out in it, and when she might easily have
taken it and died, as several of the household did. But, Anne
Boleyn arrived at all this knowledge too late, and bought it at a
dear price. Her bad marriage with a worse man came to its natural
end. Its natural end was not, as we shall too soon see, a natural
death for her.
CHAPTER XXVIII
england under henry the eighth
Part the Second
The Pope was thrown into a very angry state of mind when he
heard of the King's marriage, and fumed exceedingly. Many of
the English monks and friars, seeing that their order was in danger,
did the same ; some even declaimed against the King in church
before his face, and were not to be stopped until he himself roared
out ' Silence ! ' The King, not much the worse for this, took it
pretty quietly ; and was very glad when his Queen gave birth to a
HENRY THE EIGHTH 203
daughter, who was christened Elizabeth, and declared Princess of
Wales as her sister Mary had already been.
One of the most atrocious features of this reign was that Henry
the Eighth was always trimming between the reformed religion and
the unreformed one ; so that the more he quarrelled with the Pope,
the more of his own subjects he roasted alive for not holding the
Pope's opinions. Thus, an unfortunate student named John Frith,
and a ])oor simple tailor named Andrew Hewet who loved him very
much, and said that whatever John Frith believed he believed, were
burnt in Smilhficld — to show what a capital Christian the King was.
But, these were speedily followed by two much greater victims.
Sir Thomas More, and John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester. The
latter, who was a good and amiable old man, had committed no
greater offence than believing in Elizabeth Barton, called the Maid
of Kent — another of those ridiculous women who pretended to be
inspired, and to make all sorts of heavenly revelations, though they
indeed uttered nothing but evil nonsense. For this offence — as it
was pretended, but really for denying the King to be the supreme
Head of the Church — he got into trouble, and was put in prison ;
but, even then, he might have been suffered to die naturally (short
work having been made of executing the Kentish Maid and her
principal followers), but that the Pope, to spite the King, resolved
to make him a cardinal. Upon that the King made a ferocious
joke to the effect that the Pope might send Fisher a red hat — which
is the way they make a cardinal^ — but he should have no head on
which to wear it ; and he was tried with all unfairness and injustice,
and sentenced to death. He died like a noble and virtuous old
man, and left a worthy name behind him. The King supposed, I
dare say, that Sir Thomas More would be frightened by this
example ; but, as he was not to be easily terrified, and, thoroughly
believing in the Pope, had made up his mind that the King was not
the rightful Head of the Church, he positively refused to say that
he was. For this crime he too was tried and sentenced, after
having been in prison a whole year. When he was doomed to
death, and came away from his trial with the edge of the execu-
tioner's axe turned towards him — as was always done in those times
when a state prisoner came to that hopeless pass — he bore it quite
serenely, and gave his blessing to his son, who pressed through the
crowd in Westminster Hall and kneeled down to receive it. But,
when he got to the Tower \Vharf on his way back to his prison, and
his favourite daughter, Margaret Roper, a very good woman,
rushed through the guards again and again, to kiss him and to
weep upon his neck, he was overcome at last. He soon recovered,
and never more showed any feeling but cheerfulness and courage.
When he was going up the steps of the scaffold to his death, he said
jokingly to the Lieutenant of the Tower, observing that they were
204 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
weak and shook beneath his tread, ' I pray you, master Lieutenant,
see me safe up ; and, for my coming down, I can shift for myself.'
Also he said to the executioner, after he had laid his head upon the
block, ' Let me put my beard out of the way ; for that, at least, has
never committed any treason,' Then his head was struck off at a
blow. These two executions were worthy of King Henry the
Eighth. Sir Thomas More was one of the most virtuous men in
his dominions, and the Bishop was one of his oldest and truest
friends. But to be a friend of that fellow was almost as dangerous
as to be his wife.
When the news of these two murders got to Rome, the Pope
raged against the murderer more than ever Pope raged since the
world began, and prepared a Bull, ordering his subjects to take
arms against him and dethrone him. The King took all possible
precautions to keep that document out of his dominions, and set to
work in return to suppress a great number of the English monasteries
and abbeys.
This destruction was begun by a body of commissioners, of
whom Cromwell (whom the King had taken into great favour) was
the head ; and was carried on through some few years to its entire
completion. There is no doubt that many of these religious estab-
lishments were religious in nothing but in name, and were crammed
with lazy, indolent, and sensual monks. There is no doubt that
they imposed upon the people in every possible way ; that they had
images moved by wires, which they pretended were miraculously
moved by Heaven ; that they had among them a whole tun measure
full of teeth, all purporting to have come out of the head of one
saint, who must indeed have been a very extraordinary person with
that enormous allowance of grinders ; that they had bits of coal
which they said had fried Saint Lawrence, and bits of toe-nails
which they said belonged to other famous saints ; penknives, and
boots, and girdles, which they said belonged to others ; and that all
these bits of rubbish were called Relics, and adored by the ignorant
people. But, on the other hand, there is no doubt either, that the
King's officers and men punished the good monks with the bad ;
did great injustice ; demolished many beautiful things and many
valuable libraries; destroyed numbers of paintings, stained glass
windows, fine pavements, and carvings ; and that the whole court
were ravenously greedy and rapacious for the division of this great
spoil among them. The King seems to have grown almost mad in
the ardour of this pursuit; for he declared Thomas a Becket a
traitor, though he had been dead so many years, and had his body
dug up out of his grave. He must have been as miraculous as the
monks pretended, if they had told the truth, for he was found with
one head on his shoulders, and they had shown another as his
undoubted and genuine head ever since his death ; it had brought
HENRY THE EIGHTH 205
them vast sums of money, too. The gold and jewels on his shrine
filled two great chests, and eight men tottered as they carried them
away. How rich the monasteries were you may infer from the
fact that, when they were all suppressed, one hundred and thirty
thousand pounds a year — in those days an immense sum — came to
the Crown.
These things were not done without causing great discontent
among the people. The monks had been good landlords and
hospitable entertainers of all travellers, and had been accustomed
to give away a great deal of corn, and fruit, and meat, and other
things. In those days it was difficult to change goods into money,
in consequence of the roads being very few and very bad, and the
carts and waggons of the worst description ; and they must either
have given away some of the good things they possessed in
enormous quantities, or have suffered them to spoil and moulder.
So, many of the people missed what it was more agreeable to get
idly than to work for ; and the monks who were driven out of their
homes and wandered about encouraged their discontent ; and there
were, consequently, great risings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.
These were put down by terrific executions, from which the monks
themselves did not escape, and the King went on grunting and
growling in his own fat way, like a Royal pig.
I have told all this story of the religious houses at one time, to
make it plainer, and to get back to the King's domestic affairs.
The unfortunate Queen Catherine was by this time dead; and
the King was by this time as tired of his second Queen as he had
been of his first. As he had fallen in love with Anne when she
was in the service of Catherine, so he now fell in love with another
lady in the service of Anne. See how wicked deeds are punished,
and how bitterly and self-reproachfully the Queen must now have
thought of her own rise to the throne ! The new fancy was a Lady
Jane Seymour ; and the King no sooner set his mind on her, than
he resolved to have Anne Boleyn's head. So, he brought a number
of charges against Anne, accusing her of dreadful crimes which she
had never committed, and implicating in them her own brother and
certain gentlemen in her service : among whom one Norris, and
Mark Smeaton a musician, are best remembered. As the lords
and councillors were as afraid of the King and as subservient to
him as the meanest peasant in England was, they brought in Anne
Boleyn guilty, and the other unfortunate persons accused with her,
guilty too. Those gentlemen died like men, with the exception of
Smeaton, who had been tempted by the King into teUing lies, which
he called confessions, and who had expected to be pardoned ; but
who, I am very glad to say, was not. There was then only the
Queen to dispose of. She had been surrounded in the Tower with
women spies; had been monstrously persecuted and foully slandered;
2o6 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
and had received no justice. But her spirit rose with her afflictions ;
and, after having in vain tried to soften the King by writing an
affecting letter to him which still exists, ' from her doleful prison
in the Tower,' she resigned herself to death. She said to those
about her, very cheerfully, that she had heard say the executioner
was a good one, and that she had a little neck (she laughed and
clasped it with her hands as she said that), and would soon be out
of her pain. And she 7cias soon out of her pain, poor creature, on
the Green inside the Tower, and her body was flung into an old
box and put away in the ground under the chapel.
There is a story that the King sat in his palace listening very
anxiously for the sound of the cannon which Avas to announce this
new murder ; and that, when he heard it come booming on the air,
he rose up in great spirits and ordered out his dogs to go a-hunting.
He was bad enough to do it ; but whether he did it or not, it is
certain that he married Jane Seymour the very next day.
I have not much pleasure in recording that she lived just long
enough to give birth to a son who was christened Edward, and
then to die of a fever : for, I cannot but think that any woman who
married such a ruffian, and knew what innocent blood was on his
hands, deserved the axe that would assuredly have fallen on the
neck of Jane Seymour, if she had lived much longer.
Cranmer had done what he could to save some of the Church
property for purposes of religion and education; but, the great
families had been so hungry to get hold of it, that very little could
be rescued for such objects. Even Miles Coverdale, who did the
people the inestimable service of translating the Bible into English
(which the unreformed- religion never permitted to be done), was
left in poverty while the great families clutched the Church lands
and money. The people had been told that when the Crown came
into possession of these funds, it would not be necessary to tax
them; but they were taxed afresh directly afterwards. It was
fortunate for them, indeed, that so many nobles were so greedy for
this wealth ; since, if it had remained with the Crown, there might
have been no end to tyranny for hundreds of years. One of the
most active writers on the Church's side against the King was a
member of his own family — a sort of distant cousin, Reginald
Pole by name — who attacked him in the most violent manner
(though he received a pension from him all the time), and fought
for the Church with his pen, day and night. As he was beyond the
King's reach— being in Italy — the King politely invited him over to
discuss the subject ; but he, knowing better than to come, and wisely
staying where he was, the King's rage fell upon his brother Lord
Montague, the Marquis of Exeter, and some other gentlemen : who
were tried for high treason in corresponding with him and aiding
him— which they probably did— and were all executed. The Pope
HENRY THE EIGHTH 207
made Reginald Pole a cardinal ; but, so much against his will, that
it is thought he even aspired in his OAvn mind to the vacant throne
of England, and had hopes of marrying the Princess Mary. His
being made a high priest, however, put an end to all that. His
mother, the venerable Countess of Salisbury — who was, unfortunately
for herself, within the tyrant's reach — was the last of his relatives on
whom his wrath fell. When she was told to lay her grey head upon
the block, she ansv/ered the executioner, ' No ! My head never
committed treason, and if you want it, you shall seize it.' So, she
ran round and round the scaffold with the executioner striking at
her, and her grey hair bedabbled with blood ; and even when they
held her down upon the block she moved her head about to the
last, resolved to be no party to her own barbarous murder. All this
the people bore, as they had borne everything else.
Indeed they bore much more ; for the slow fires of Smithfield
were continually burning, and people were constantly being roasted
to death — still to show what a good Christian the King was. He
defied the Pope and his Bull, which was now issued, and had come
into England ; but he burned innumerable people whose only
oftence was that they differed from the Pope's religious opinions.
There was a wretched man named Lambert, among others, who
was tried for this before the King, and with whom six bishops
argued one after another, ^^'hen he was quite exhausted (as well
he might be, after six bishops), he threw himself on the King's
mercy ; but the King blustered out that he had no mercy for
heretics. So, he too fed the fire.
All this the people bore, and more than all this yet. The
national spirit seems to have been banished from the kingdom at
this time. The very people who were executed for treason, the
very wives and friends of the ' bluff ' King, spoke of him on the
scaffold as a good prince, and a gentle prince — just as serfs in
similar circumstances have been known to do, under the Sultan and
Bashaws of the East, or under the fierce old tyrants of Russia, who
poured boiling and freezing water on them alternately, until they
died. The Parliament were as bad as the rest, and gave the King
whatever he wanted ; among other vile accommodations, they gave
him new powers of murdering, at his will and pleasure, any one
whom he might choose to call a traitor. But the worst measure
they passed was an Act of Six Articles, commonly called at the
time ' the whip with six strings ; ' which punished offences against
the Pope's opinions, without mercy, and enforced the very worst
parts of the monkish religion. Cranmer would have modified it,
if he could ; but, being overborne by the Romish party, had not
the power. As one of the articles declared that priests should not
marry, and as he was married himself, he sent his wife and children
into Germany, and began to tremble at his danger ; none the less
2o8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
because he was, and had long been, the King's friend. This whip
of six strings was made under the King's own eye. It should never
be forgotten of him how cruelly he supported the worst of the
Popish doctrines when there was nothing to be got by opposing
them.
This amiable monarch now thought of taking another wife. He
proposed to the French King to have some of the ladies of the
French Court exhibited before him, that he might make his Royal
choice ; but the French King answered that he would rather not
have his ladies trotted out to be shown like horses at a fair. He
proposed to the Dowager Duchess of Milan, who replied that she
might have thought of such a match if she had had two heads ; but,
that only owning one, she must beg to keep it safe. At last
Cromwell represented that there was a Protestant Princess in
Germany — those who held the reformed religion were called
Protestants, because their leaders had Protested against the abuses
and impositions of the unreformed Church — named Anne of
Cleves, who was beautiful, and would answer the purpose admirably.
The King said was she a large woman, because he must have a fat
wife ? ' O yes,' said Cromwell ; ' she was very large, just the thing.'
On hearing this the King sent over his famous painter, Hans
Holbein, to take her portrait. Hans made her out to be so good-
looking that the King was satisfied, and the marriage was arranged.
But, whether anybody had paid Hans to touch up the picture ; or
whether Hans, like one or two other painters, flattered a princess in
the ordinary way of business, I cannot say : all I know is, that
when Anne came over and the King went to Rochester to meet
her, and first saw her without her seeing him, he swore she was ' a
great Flanders mare,' and said he would never marry her. Being
obliged to do it now matters had gone so far, he would not give her
the presents he had prepared, and would never notice her. He
never forgave Cromwell his part in the affair. His downfall dates
from that time.
It was quickened by his enemies, in the interests of the unreformed
religion, putting in the King's way, at a state dinner, a niece of the
Duke of Norfolk, Catherine Howard, a young lady of fascinating
manners, though small in stature and not particularly beautiful.
Falling in love with her on the spot, the King soon divorced Anne
of Cleves after making her the subject of much brutal talk, on
pretence that she had been previously betrothed to some one else
— which would never do for one of his dignity — and married
Catherine. It is probable that on his wedding day, of all days in
the year, he sent his faithful Cromwell to the scaffold, and had his
head struck off. He further celebrated the occasion by burning at
one time, and causing to be drawn to the fire on the same hurdles,
some Protestant prisoners for denying the Pope's doctrines, and
HENRY THE EIGHTH 209
some Roman Catholic prisoners for denying his own supremacy.
Still the people bore it, and not a gentleman in England raised
his hand.
But, by a just retribution, it soon came out that Catherine Howard,
before her marriage, had been really guilty of such crimes as the
King had falsely attributed to his second wife Anne Boleyn ; so,
again the dreadful axe made the King a widower, and this Queen
passed away as so many in that reign had passed away before her.
As an appropriate pursuit under the circumstances, Henry then
applied himself to superintending the composition of a religious
book called 'A necessary doctrine for any Christian Man.' He
must have been a little confused in his mind, I think, at about this
period ; for he was so false to himself as to be true to some one :
that some one being Cranmer, whom the Duke of Norfolk and
others of his enemies tried to ruin; but to whom the King was
steadfast, and to whom he one night gave his ring, charging him
when he should find himself, next day, accused of treason, to show
it to the council board. This Cranmer did to the confusion of his
enemies. I suppose the King thought he might want him a little
longer.
He married yet once more. Yes, strange to say, he found in
England another woman who would become his wife, and she was
Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer. She leaned towards
the reformed religion ; and it is some comfort to know, that she
tormented the King considerably by arguing a variety of doctrinal
points with him on all possible occasions. She had very nearly
done this to her own destruction. After one of these conversations
the King in a very black mood actually instructed Gardiner, one
of his Bishops who favoured the Popish opinions, to draw a bill of
accusation against her, which would have inevitably brought her to
the scaffold where her predecessors had died, but that one of her
friends picked up the paper of instructions which had been dropped
in the palace, and gave her timely notice. She fell ill with terror ;
but managed the King so well when he came to entrap her into
further statements — by saying that she had only spoken on such
points to divert his mind and to get some information from his
extraordinary wisdom — that he gave her a kiss and called her his
sweetheart. And, when the Chancellor came next day actually to
take her to the Tower, the King sent him about his business, and
honoured him with the epithets of a beast, a knave, and a fool. So
near was Catherine Parr to the block, and so narrow was her
escape !
There was war with Scotland in this reign, and a short clumsy
war with France for favouring Scotland ; but, the events at home
were so dreadful, and leave such an enduring stain on the country,
that I need say no more of what happened abroad.
J'
2IO A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
A few more horrors, and this reign is over. There was a lady,
Anne Askew, in Lincolnshire, who inclined to the Protestant
opinions, and whose husband being a fierce Catholic, turned her
out of his house. She came to London, and was considered as
offending against the six articles, and was taken to the Tower, and
put upon the rack — ^probably because it was hoped that she might,
in her agony, criminate some obnoxious persons ; if falsely, so
much the better. She was tortured without uttering a cry, until
the Lieutenant of the Tower would suffer his men to torture her
no more ; and then two priests who Avere present actually pulled
off their robes, and turned the wheels of the rack with their own
hands, so rending and twisting and breaking her that she was
afterwards carried to the fire in a chair. She was burned with
three others, a gentleman, a clergyman, and a tailor; and so the
world went on.
Either the King became afraid of the power of the Duke of
Norfolk, and his son the Earl of Surrey, or they gave him some
offence, but he resolved to pull them down, to follow all the rest
who were gone. The son was tried first — of course for nothing
■ — and defended himself bravely ; but of course he was found guilty,
and of course he was executed. Then his father was laid hold of,
and left for death too.
But the King himself was left for death by a Greater King, and
the earth was to be rid of him at last. He was now a swollen,
hideous spectacle, with a great hole in his leg, and so odious to
every sense that it was dreadful to approach him. When he was
found to be dying, Cranmer was sent for from his palace at Croydon,
and came with all speed, but found him speechless. Happily, in
that hour he perished. He was in the fifty-sixth year of his age,
and the thirty-eighth of his reign.
Henry the Eighth has been favoured by some Protestant writers,
because the Reformation was achieved in his time. But the mighty
merit of it lies with other men and not with him ; and it can be
rendered none the worse by this monster's crimes, and none the
better by any defence of them. The plain truth is, that he was a
most intolerable ruflSan, a disgrace to human nature, and a blot of
blood and grease upon the History of England,
EDWARD THE SIXTH 211
CHAPTER XXIX
ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SIXTH
Henry the Eighth had made a will, appointing a council of
sixteen to govern the kingdom for his son while he was under age
(he was now only ten years old), and another council 0/ twelve to
help them. The most powerful of the first council was the Earl
OF Hertford, the young King's uncle, who lost no time in bringing
his nephew with great state up to Enfield, and thence to the Tower.
It was considered at the time a striking proof of virtue in the young
King that he was sorry for his father's death; but, as common
subjects have that virtue too, sometimes, we will say no more
about it.
There was a curious part of the late King's will, requiring his
executors to fulfil whatever promises he had made. Some of the
court wondering what these might be, the Earl of Hertford and
the other noblemen interested, said that they were promises to
advance and enrich iJmn. So, the Earl of Hertford made himself
Duke of Somerset, and made his brother Edward Seymour a
baron ; and there were various similar promotions, all very agreeable
to the parties concerned, and very dutiful, no doubt, to the late
King's memory. To be more dutiful still, they made themselves
rich out of the Church lands, and were very comfortable. The
new Duke of Somerset caused himself to be declared Protector
of the kingdom, and was, indeed, the King.
As young Edward the Sixth had been brought up in the principles
of the Protestant religion, everybody knew that they would be
maintained. But Cranmer, to whom they were chiefly entrusted,
advanced them steadily and temperately. Many superstitious and
ridiculous practices were stopped ; but practices which were harmless
were not interfered with.
The Duke of Somerset, the Protector, was anxious to have the
young King engaged in marriage to the young Queen of Scotland,
in order to prevent that princess from making an alliance with any
foreign power ; but, as a large party in Scotland were unfavourable
to this plan, he invaded that country. His excuse for doing so
was, that the Border men — that is, the Scotch who lived in that
part of the country where England and Scotland joined — troubled
the English very much. But there were two sides to this question ;
for the English Border men troubled the Scotch too ; and, through
many long years, there were perpetual border quarrels which gave
rise to numbers of old tales and songs. However, the Protector
212 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
invaded Scotland ; and Arran, the Scottish Regent, with an army
twice as large as his, advanced to meet him. They encountered
on the banks of the river Esk, within a few miles of Edinburgh ;
and there, after a little skirmish, the Protector made such moderate
proposals, in offering to retire if the Scotch would only engage not
to marry their princess to any foreign prince, that the Regent
thought the English were afraid. But in this he made a horrible
mistake ; for the Enghsh soldiers on land, and the English sailors
on the water, so set upon the Scotch, that they broke and fled, and
more than ten thousand of them were killed. It was a dreadful
battle, for the fugitives were slain without mercy. The ground for
four miles, all the way to Edinburgh, was stre^^^l with dead men,
and with arms, and legs, and heads. Some hid themselves in
streams and were drowned; some threw away their armour and
were killed running, almost naked ; but in this battle of Pinkey the
English lost only two or three hundred men. They were much
better clothed than the Scotch ; at the poverty of whose appearance
and country they were exceedingly astonished.
A Parliament w^as called when Somerset came back, and it
repealed the whip with six strings, and did one or two other good
things ; though it unhappily retained the punishment of burning for
those people who did not make believe to believe, in all religious
matters, what the Government had declared that they must and
should believe. It also made a foolish law (meant to put down
beggars), that any man who lived idly and loitered about for three
days together, should be burned with a hot iron, made a slave, and
wear an iron fetter. But this savage absurdity soon came to an
end, and went the way of a great many other foolish laws.
The Protector was now so proud that he sat in Parliament before
all the nobles, on the right hand of the throne. Many other noble-
men, who only wanted to be as proud if they could get a chance,
became his enemies of course ; aj^d it is supposed that he came
back suddenly from Scotland because he had received news that
his brother. Lord Sfa'mour, was becoming dangerous to him.
This lord was now High Admiral of England ; a very handsome
man, and a great favourite with the Court ladies — even with the
young Princess Elizabeth, who romped with him a little more than
young princesses in these times do with any one. He had married
Catherine Parr, the late King's widow, who was now dead; and,
to strengthen his power, he secretly supplied the young King with
money. He may even have engaged with some of his brother's
enemies in a plot to carry the boy off. On these and other
accusations, at any rate, he was confined in the Tower, impeached,
and found guilty ; his own brother's name being — unnatural and
sad to tell — the first signed to the warrant of his execution. He
was executed on Tower Hill, and died denying his treason. One
EDWARD THE SIXTH 213
of his last proceedings in this world was to write two letters, one
to the Princess Elizabeth, and one to the Princess Mary, which a
servant of his took charge of, and concealed in his shoe. These
letters are supposed to have urged them against his brother, and
to revenge his death. ^Vhat they truly contained is not known ;
but there is no doubt that he had, at one time, obtained great
influence over the Princess Elizabeth,
All this while, the Protestant religion was making progress.
The images which the people had gradually come to worship, were
removed from the churches ; the people were informed that they
need not confess themselves to priests unless they chose ; a common
prayer-book was drawn up in the English language, which all could
understand ; and many other improvements were made ; still
moderately. For Cranmer was a very moderate man, and even
restrained the Protestant clergy from violently abusing the unre-
formed religion — as they very often did, and which was not a good
example. But the people were at this time in great distress. The
rapacious nobility who had come into possession of the Church
lands, were very bad landlords. They enclosed great quantities
of ground for the feeding of sheep, which was then more profitable
than the growing of crops ; and this increased the general distress.
So the people, who still understood little of what was going on
about them, and still readily believed what the homeless monks
told them— many of whom had been their good friends in their
better days — took it into their heads that all this was owing to the
reformed religion, and therefore rose in many parts of the country.
The most powerful risings were in Devonshire and Norfolk.
In Devonshire, the rebellion was so strong that ten thousand men
united within a few days, and even laid siege to Exeter. But Lord
Russell, coming to the assistance of the citizens who defended
that town, defeated the rebels ; and, not only hanged the Mayor
of one place, but hanged the vicar of another from his own church
steeple. What with hanging and killing by the sword, four thousand
of the rebels are supposed to have fallen in that one county. In
Norfolk (where the rising was more against the enclosure of open
lands than against the reformed religion), the popular leader was
a man named Robert Ket, a tanner of Wymondham. The mob
were, in the first instance, excited against the tanner by one John
Flowerdew, a gentleman who owed him a grudge : but the tanner
was more than a match for the gentleman, since he soon got the
people on his side, and established himself near Norwich with
quite an army. There was a large oak-tree in that place, on a
spot called Moushold Hill, which Ket named the Tree of Reforma
tion ; and under its green boughs, he and his men sat, in the
midsummer weather, holding courts of justice, and debating aftairs
of state. They were even impartial enough to allow some rather
214 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
tiresome public speakers to get up into this Tree of Reformation,
and point out their errors to them, in long discourses, while they
lay listening (not always without some grumbling and growling) in
the shade below. At last, one sunny July day, a herald appeared
below the tree, and proclaimed Ket and all his men traitors, unless
from that moment they dispersed and went home : in which case
they were to receive a pardon. But, Ket and his men made light
of the herald and became stronger than ever, until the Earl of
Warwick went after them with a sufficient force, and cut them all
to pieces. A few were hanged, drawn, and quartered, as traitors,
and their limbs were sent into various country places to be a terror
to the people. Nine of them were hanged upon nine green branches
of the Oak of Reformation ; and so, for the time, that tree may be
said to have withered away.
The Protector, though a haughty man, had compassion for the
real distresses of the common people, and a sincere desire to help
them. But he was too proud and too high in degree to hold even
their favour steadily; and many of the nobles always envied and
hated him, because they were as proud and not as high as he. He
was at this time building a great Palace in the Strand : to get the
stone for which he blew up church steeples with gunpowder, and
pulled down bishops' houses : thus making himself still more dis-
liked. At length, his principal enemy, the Earl of Warwick — Dudley
by name, and the son of that Dudley who had made himself so
odious with Empson, in the reign of Henry the Seventh — joined
with seven other members of the Council against him, formed a
separate Council ; and, becoming stronger in a few days, sent him
to the Tower under twenty-nine articles of accusation. After being
sentenced by the Council to the forfeiture of all his offices and
lands, he was liberated and pardoned, on making a very humble
submission. He was even taken back into the Council again, after
having suffered this fall, and married his daughter, Lady Anne
Seymour, to Warwick's eldest son. But such a reconciliation was
little likely to last, and did not outlive a year. Warwick, having
got himself made Duke of Northumberland, and having advanced
the more important of his friends, then finished the history by
causing the Duke of Somerset and his friend Lord Grey, and
others, to be arrested for treason, in having conspired to seize and
dethrone the King. They were also accused of having intended
to seize the new Duke of Northumberland, with his friends Lord
Northampton and Lord Pembroke; to murder them if they
found need ; and to raise the City to revolt. All this the fallen
Protector positively denied; except that he confessed to having
spoken of the murder of those three noblemen, but having never
designed it. He was acquitted of the charge of treason, and found
guilty of the other charges ; so when the people — who remembered
EDWARD THE SIXTH 215
his having heen their friend, now that he was disgraced and in
danger, saw him come out from his trial with the axe turned from
him — they thought he was altogether acquitted, and sent up a loud
shout of joy.
But the Duke of Somerset was ordered to be beheaded on Tower
Hill, at eight o'clock in the morning, and proclamations were issued
bidding the citizens keep at home until after ten. They filled the
streets, however, and crowded the place of execution as soon as it
was light; and, with sad faces and sad hearts, saw the once
powerful Protector ascend the scaffold to lay his head upon the
dreadful block. While he was yet saying his last words to them
with manly courage, and telling them, in particular, how it com-
forted him, at that pass, to have assisted in reforming the national
religion, a member of the Council was seen riding up on horseback.
They again thought that the Duke was saved by his bringing a
reprieve, and again shouted for joy. But the Duke himself told
them they were mistaken, and laid down his head and had it struck
off at a blow.
Many of the bystanders rushed forward and steeped their hand-
kerchiefs in his blood, as a mark of their affection. He had,
indeed, been capable of many good acts, and one of them was
discovered after he was no more. The Bishop of Durham, a very
good man, had been informed against to the Council, when the
Duke was in power, as having answered a treacherous letter pro-
posing a rebellion against the reformed religion. As the answer
could not be found, he could not be declared guilty ; but it was
now discovered, hidden by the Duke himself among some private
papers, in his regard for that good man. The Bishop lost his office,
and was deprived of his possessions.
It is not very pleasant to know that while his uncle lay in prison
under sentence of death, the young King was being vastly enter-
tained by plays, and dances, and sham fights : but there is no
doubt of it, for he kept a journal himself. It is pleasanter to know
that not a single Roman Catholic was burnt in this reign for
holding that religion ; though two wretched victims suffered for
heresy. One, a woman named Joan Bocher, for professing some
opinions that even she could only explain in unintelligible jargon.
The other, a Dutchman, named Von Paris, who practised as a
surgeon in London. Edward was, to his credit, exceedingly un-
willing to sign the warrant for the woman's execution : shedding
tears before he did so, and telling Cranmer, who urged him to do
it (though Cranmer really would have spared the woman at first,
but for her own determined obstinacy), that the guilt was not his,
but that of the man who so strongly urged the dreadful act. We
shall see, too soon, whether the time ever came when Cranmer is
likely to have remembered this with sorrow and remorse.
2i6 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Cranmer and Ridley (at first Bishop of Rochester, and after-
wards Bishop of London) were the most powerful of the clergy of
this reign. Others were imprisoned and deprived of their property
for still adhering to the unreformed religion ; the most important
among whom were Gardiner Bishop of Winchester, Heath Bishop
of Worcester, Day Bishop of Chichester, and Bonner that Bishop
of London who was superseded by Ridley. The Princess Mary,
who inherited her mother's gloomy temper, and hated the reformed
religion as connected with her mother's wrongs and sorrows— she
knew nothing else about it, always refusing to read a single book
in which it was truly described — held by the unreformed religion
too, and was the only person in the kingdom for whom the old
Mass was allowed to be performed ; nor would the young King
have made that exception even in her favour, but for the strong
persuasions of Cranmer and Ridley. He always viewed it with
horror ; and when he fell into a sickly condition, after having been
very ill, first of the measles and then of the small-pox, he was
greatly troubled in mind to think that if he died, and she, the next
heir to the throne, succeeded, the Roman Catholic religion would
be set up again.
This uneasiness, the Duke of Northumberland was not slow to
encourage : for, if the Princess Mary came to the throne, he, who
had taken part with the Protestants, was sure to be disgraced.
Now, the Duchess of Suffolk was descended from King Henry the
Seventh ; and, if she resigned what little or no right she had, in
f:xvour of her daughter Lady Jane Grey, that would be the suc-
cession to promote the Duke's greatness ; because Lord Guilford
Dudley, one of his sons, was, at this very time, newly married to
her. So, he worked upon the King's fears, and persuaded him to
set aside both the Princess Mary and the Princess Elizabeth, and
assert his right to appoint his successor. Accordingly the young
King handed to the Crown lawyers a writing signed half a dozen
times over by himself, appointing Lady Jane Grey to succeed to the
Crown, and requiring them to have his will made out according to
law. They were much against it at first, and told the King so ;
but the Duke of Northumberland — being so violent about it that
the lawyers even expected him to beat them, and hotly declaring
that, stripped to his shirt, he would fight any man in such a quarrel
— they yielded. Cranmer, also, at first hesitated ; pleading that he
had sworn to maintain the succession of the Crown to the Princess
Mary ; but, he was a weak man in his resolutions, and afterwards
signed the document with the rest of the council.
It was completed none too soon ; for Edward was now sinking
in a rapid decline ; and, by way of making him better, they handed
him over to a woman-doctor who pretended to be able to cure it.
He speedily got worse. On the sixth of July, in the year one
MARY 51 7
thousand five hundred and fifty-three, he died, very peaceably and
piously, praying God, with his last breath, to protect the reformed
religion.
This King died in the sixteenth year of his age, and in the
seventh of his reign. It is difficult to judge what the character of
one so young might afterwards have become among so many bad,
ambitious, quarrelling nobles. But, he was an amiable boy, of very
good abilities, and had nothing coarse or cruel or brutal in his dis-
position— which in the son of such a father is rather surprising.
CHAPTER XXX
ENGLAND UNDER MARY
The Duke of Northumberland was very anxious to keep the young
King's death a secret, in order that he might get the two Princesses
into his power. But, the Princess Mary, being informed of that
event as she was on her way to London to see her sick brother,
turned her horse's head, and rode away into Norfolk. The Earl
of Arundel was her friend, and it was he who sent her warning of
what had happened.
As the secret could not be kept, the Duke of Northumberland
and the council sent for the Lord Mayor of London and some of
the aldermen, and made a merit of telling it to them. Then, they
made it known to the people, and set off to inform Lady Jane Grey
that she was to be Queen.
She was a pretty girl of only sixteen, and was amiable, learned,
and clever. When the lords who came to her, fell on their knees
before her, and told her what tidings they brought, she was so
astonished that she fainted. On recovering, she expressed her
sorrow for the young King's death, and said that she knew she was
unfit to govern the kingdom ; but that if she must be Queen, she
prayed God to direct her. She was then at Sion House, near
Brentford ; and the lords took her down the river in state to the
Tower, that she might remain there (as the custom was) until she
was crowned. But the people were not at all favourable to Lady
Jane, considering that the right to be Queen was Mary's, and greatly
disliking the Duke of Northumberland. They were not put into
a better humour by the Duke's causing a vintner's servant, one
Gabriel Pot, to be taken up for expressing his dissatisfaction among
the crowd, and to have his ears nailed to the pillory, and cut off.
Some powerful men among the nobility declared on Mary's side.
They raised troops to support her cause, had her proclaimed
2i8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Queen at Norwich, and gathered around her at the castle of
Framhngham, which belonged to the Duke of Norfolk. For, she
was not considered so safe as yet, but that it was best to keep her
in a castle on the sea-coast, from whence she might be sent abroad,
if necessary.
The Council would have despatched Lady Jane's father, the
Duke of Suffolk, as the general of the army against this force ; but,
as Lady Jane implored that her father might remain with her, and
as he was known to be but a weak man, they told the Duke of
Northumberland that he must take the command himself. He was
not very ready to do so, as he mistrusted the Council much ; but
there was no help for it, and he set forth with a heavy heart,
observing to a lord who rode beside him through Shoreditch at the
head of the troops, that, although the people pressed in great
numbers to look at them, they were terribly silent.
And his fears for himself turned out to be well founded. While
he was waiting at Cambridge for further help from the Council,
the Council took it into their heads to turn their backs on Lady
Jane's cause, and to take up the Princess Mary's. This was chiefly
owing to the before -mentioned Earl of Arundel, who represented
to the Lord Mayor and aldermen, in a second interview with those
sagacious persons, that, as for himself, he did not perceive the
Reformed religion to be in much danger — which Lord Pembroke
backed by flourishing his sword as another kind of persuasion.
The Lord Mayor and aldermen, thus enlightened, said there could
be no doubt that the Princess Mary ought to be Queen. So, she
was proclaimed at the Cross by St. Paul's, and barrels of wine
were given to the people, and they got very drunk, and danced
round blazing bonfires — little thinking, poor wretches, what other
bonfires would soon be blazing in Queen Mary's name.
After a ten days' dream of royalty, Lady Jane Grey resigned the
Crown with great willingness, saying that she had only accepted it
in obedience to her father and mother ; and went gladly back to
her pleasant house by the river, and her books. Mary then came
on towards London ; and at Wanstead in Essex, was joined by her
half-sister, the Princess Elizabeth. They passed through the streets
of London to the Tower, and there the new Queen met some
eminent prisoners then confined in it, kissed them, and gave them
their liberty. Among these was that Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester,
who had been imprisoned in the last reign for holding to the unre-
formed religion. Him she soon made chancellor.
The Duke of Northumberland had been taken prisoner, and,
together with his son and five others, was quickly brought before
the Council. He, not unnaturally, asked that Council, in his
defence, whether it was treason to obey orders that had been issued
under the great seal ; and, if it were, whether they, who had obeyed
MARY 219
them too, ought to be his judges ? But they made light of these
points ; and, being resolved to have him out of the way, soon
sentenced him to death. He had risen into power upon the death
of another man, and made but a poor show (as might be expected)
when he himself lay low. He entreated Gardiner to let him live,
if it were only in a mouse's hole; and, when he ascended the
scaffold to be beheaded on Tower Hill, addressed the people in a
miserable way, saying that he had been incited by others, and ex-
horting them to return to the unrcformcd religion, which he told
them was his faith. There seems reason to suppose tliat he expected
a pardon even then, in return for this confession; but it matters
little whether he did or not. His head was struck off.
Mary was now crowned Queen. She was thirty-seven years of
age, short and thin, wrinkled in the face, and very unhealthy. But
she had a great liking for show and for bright colours, and all the
ladies of her Court were magnificently dressed. She had a great
liking too for old customs, without much sense in them ; and she
was oiled in the oldest way, and blessed in the oldest way, and
done all manner of things to in the oldest way, at her coronation.
I hope they did her good.
She soon began to show her desire to put down the Reformed
religion, and put up the unreformed one : though it was dangerous
work as yet, the people being something wiser than they used to be.
They even cast a shower of stones — and among them a dagger — at
one of the royal chaplains who attacked the Reformed religion in a
public sermon. But the Queen and her priests went steadily on.
Ridley, the powerful bishop of the last reign, was seized and sent
to the Tower. Latimer, also celebrated among the Clergy of the
last reign, was likewise sent to the Tower, and Cranmer speedily
followed. Latimer was an aged man ; and, as his guards took him
through Smithfield, he looked round it, and said, ' This is a place
that hath long groaned for me.' For he knew well, what kind of
bonfires would soon be burning. Nor was the knowledge confined
to him. The prisons were fast filled with the chief Protestants,
who were there left rotting in darkness, hunger, dirt, and separation
from their friends ; many, who had time left them for escape, fled
from the kingdom ; and the dullest of the people began, now, to
see what was coming.
It came on fast. A Parliament was got together ; not without
strong suspicion of unfairness ; and they annulled the divorce,
formerly pronounced by Cranmer between the Queen's mother and
King Henry the Eighth, and unmade all the laws on the subject of
religion that had been made in the last King Edward's reign. They
began their proceedings, in violation of the law, by having the old
mass said before them in Latin, and by turning out a bishop who
would not kneel down. They also declared guilty of treason, Lady
2 20 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Jane Grey for aspiring to the Crown ; her husband, for being her
husband ; and Cranmer, for not beUeving in the mass aforesaid.
They then prayed the Queen graciously to choose a husband for
herself, as soon as might be.
Now, the question who should be the Queen's husband had given
rise to a great deal of discussion, and to several contending parties.
Some said Cardinal Pole was the man — but the Queen was of
opinion that he was 7wt the man, he being too old and too much of
a student. Others said that the gallant young Courtenav, whom
the Queen had made Earl of Devonshire, was the man — and the
Queen thought so too, for a while ; but she changed her mind. At
last it appeared that Philip, Prince of Spain, was certainly the
man — though certainly not the people's man ; for they detested the
idea of such a marriage from the beginning to the end, and mur-
mured that the Spaniard would establish in England, by the aid of
foreign soldiers, the worst abuses of the Popish religion, and even
the terrible Inquisition itself.
These discontents gave rise to a conspiracy for marrying young
Courtenay to the Princess Elizabeth, and setting them up, with
popular tumults all over the kingdom, against the Queen. This
was discovered in time by Gardiner ; but in Kent, the old bold
county, the people rose in their old bold way. Sir Thomas Wyat,
a man of great daring, was their leader. He raised his standard at
Maidstone, marched on to Rochester, established himself in the old
castle there, and prepared to hold out against the Duke of Norfolk,
who came against him with a party of the Queen's guards, and a
body of five hundred London men. The London men, however,
were all for Elizabeth, and not at all for Mary. They declared,
under the castle walls, for Wyat ; the Duke retreated ; and Wyat
came on to Deptford, at the head of fifteen thousand men.
But these, in their turn, fell away. When he came to Southwark,
there were only two thousand left. Not dismayed by finding the
London citizens in arms, and the guns at the Tower ready to
oppose his crossing the river there, Wyat led them off to Kingston-
upon-Thames, intending to cross the bridge that he knew to be in
that place, and so to work his way round to Ludgate, one of the old
gates of the City. He found the bridge broken down, but mended
it, came across, and bravely fought his way up Fleet Street to
Ludgate Hill. Finding the gate closed against him, he fought his
way back again, sword in hand, to Temple Bar. Here, being over-
powered, he surrendered himself, and three or four hundred of his
men were taken, besides a hundred killed. Wyat, in a moment ot
weakness (and perhaps of torture) was afterwards made to accuse
the Princess Elizabeth as his accomplice to some very small extent.
But his manhood soon returned to him, and he refused to save his
life by making any more false confessions. He was quartered and
ane Xf^€^^ deecna dio/?i ^^e /fMzaO'K/ ^/le c/heaM
<?/ /^ei (j/jkiii^/'^c^u.
MARY 221
distributed in the usual brutal way, and from fifty to a hundred of
his followers were hanged. The rest were led out, with -halters
round their necks, to be pardoned, and to make a parade of crying
out, ' God save Queen Mary ! '
In the danger of this rebellion, the Queen showed herself to be
a woman of courage and spirit. She disdained to retreat to any
place of safety, and went down to the Guildhall, sceptre in hand,
and made a gallant speech to the Lord Mayor and citizens. But
on the day after ^Vyat's defeat, she did the most cruel act, even of
her cruel reign, in signing the warrant for the execution of Lady
Jane Grey.
They tried to persuade Lady Jane to accept the unreformed
religion ; but she steadily refused. On the morning when she was
to die, she saw from her window the bleeding and headless body
of her husband brought back in a cart from the scaffold on Tower
Hill where he had laid down his life. But, as she had declined to
see him before his execution, lest she should be overpowered and
not make a good end, so, she even now showed a constancy and
calmness that will never be forgotten. She came up to the scaffold
with a firm step and a quiet face, and addressed the bystanders in a
steady voice. They Avere not numerous ; for she was too young,
too innocent and fair, to be murdered before the people on Tower
Hill, as her husband had just been ; so, the place of her execution
was within the Tower itself. She said that she had done an un-
lawful act in taking what was Queen Mary's right ; but that she had
done so with no bad intent, and that she died a humble Christian.
She begged the executioner to despatch her quickly, and she asked
him, ' Will you take my head off before I lay me down ? ' He
answered, ' No, Madam,' and then she was very quiet while they
bandaged her eyes. Being blinded, and unable to see the block on
which she was to lay her young head, she was seen to feel about for
it with her hands, and was heard to say, confused, ' O what shall I
do ! Where is it ? ' Then they guided her to the right j)lace, and
the executioner struck ofiT her head. You know too well, now, what
dreadful deeds the executioner did in England, through many, many
years, and how his axe descended on the hateful block through the
necks of some of the bravest, wisest, and best in the land. But it
never strack so cniel and so vile a blow as this.
The father of Lady Jane soon followed, but was little pitied.
Queen Mary's next object was to lay hold of Elizabeth, and this
was pursued with great eagerness. Five hundred men were sent to
her retired house at Ashridge, by Berkhampstead, with orders to
bring her up, alive or dead. They got there at ten at night, when
she was sick in bed. But, their leaders followed her lady into her
bedchamber, whence she was brought out betimes next morning, and
put into a litter to be conveyed to London. She was so weak and
222 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
ill, that she was five days on the road ; still, she was so resolved to
be seen by the people that she had the curtains of the litter opened ;
and so, very pale and sickly, passed through the streets. She wrote
to her sister, saying she was innocent of any crime, and asking why
she was made a prisoner ; but she got no answer, and was ordered
to the Tower. They took her in by the Traitor's Gate, to which
she objected, but in vain. One of the lords who conveyed her
offered to cover her with his cloak, as it was raining, but she put it
away from her, proudly and scornfully, and passed into the Tower,
and sat down in a court-yard on a stone. They besought her to
come in out of the wet ; but she answered that it was better sitting
there, than in a worse place. At length she went to her apartment,
where she was kept a prisoner, though not so close a prisoner as at
Woodstock, whither she was afterwards removed, and where she is
said to have one day envied a milkmaid whom she heard singing in
the sunshine as she went through the green fields. Gardiner, than
whom there were not many worse men among the fierce and sullen
priests, cared little to keep secret his stern desire for her death :
being used to say that it was of little service to shake off the leaves,
and lop the branches of the tree of heresy, if its root, the hope of
heretics, were left. He failed, however, in his benevolent design.
Elizabeth was, at length, released; and Hatfield House was
assigned to her as a residence, under the care of one Sir Thomas
Pope.
It yould seem that Philip, the Prince of Spain, was a main cause
of this change in Elizabeth's fortunes. He was not an amiable
man, being, on the contrary, proud, overbearing, and gloomy ; but
he and the Spanish lords who came over with him, assuredly did
discountenance the idea of doing any violence to the Princess. It
may have been mere prudence, but we will hope it was manhood
and honour. The Queen had been expecting her husband with
great impatience, and at length he came, to her great joy, though
he never cared much for her. They were married by Gardiner, at
Winchester, and there was more holiday -making among the people ;
but they had their old distrust of this Spanish marriage, in which
even the Parliament shared. Though the members of that Parlia-
ment were far from honest, and were strongly suspected to have
been bought with Spanish money, they would pass no bill to enable
the Queen to set aside the Princess Elizabeth and appoint her own
successor.
Although Gardiner failed in this object, as well as in the darker
one of bringing the Princess to the scaffold, he went on at a great
pace in the revival of the unreformed religion. A new Parliament
was packed, in which there were no Protestants. Preparations
were made to receive Cardinal Pole in England as the Pope's
messenger, bringing his holy declaration that all the nobility who
MARY 223
had acquired Church property, should keep it — which was done to
enhst their selfish interest on the Pope's side. Then a great scene
was enacted, which was the triumph of the Queen's plans. Cardinal
Pole arrived in great splendour and dignity, and was received with
great pomp. The Parliament joined in a petition expressive of
their sorrow at the change in the national religion, and praying him
to receive the country again into the Popish Church, ^\'ith the
Queen sitting on her throne, and the King on one side of her, and
the Cardinal on the other, and the Parliament present, Gardiner
read the petition aloud. The Cardinal then made a great speech,
and was so obliging as to say that all was forgotten and forgiven,
and that the kingdom was solemnly made Roman Catholic again.
Everything was now ready for the lighting of the terrible bonfires.
The Queen having declared to the Council, in writing, that she
would wish none of her subjects to be burnt without some of the
Council being present, and that she would particularly wish there
to be good sermons at all burnings, the Council knew pretty well
what was to be done next. So, after the Cardinal had blessed all
the bishops as a preface to the burnings, the Chancellor Gardiner
opened a High Court at Saint Mary Overy, on the Southwark side
of London Bridge, for the trial of heretics. Here, two of the late
Protestant clergymen, Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, and Rogers,
a Prebendary of St. Paul's, were brought to be tried. Hooper was
tried first for being married, though a priest, and for not believing
in the mass. He admitted both of these accusations, and said that
the mass was a wicked imposition. Then they tried Rogers, who
said the same. Next morning the two were brought up to be
sentenced; and then Rogers said that his poor wife, being a
German woman and a stranger in the land, he hoped might be
allowed to come to speak to him before he died. To this the
inhuman Gardiner replied, that she was not his wife. ' Yea, but
she is, my lord,' said Rogers, ' and she hath been my wife these
eighteen years.' His request was still refused, and they were both
sent to Newgate ; all those who stood in the streets to sell things,
being ordered to put out their lights that the people might not see
them. But, the people stood at their doors with candles in their
hands, and prayed for them as they went by. Soon afterwards,
Rogers was taken out of jail to be burnt in Smithfield ; and, in the
crowd as he went along, he saw his poor wife and his ten children,
of whom the youngest was a little baby. And so he was burnt to
death.
The next day. Hooper, who was to be burnt at Gloucester, was
brought out to take his last journey, and was made to wear a hood
over ills face that he might not be known by the people. But, they
did know him for all that, down in his own part of the country ;
and, when he came near Gloucester, they lined the road, making
224 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
prayers and lamentations. His guards took him to a lodging, where
he slept soundly all night. At nine o'clock next morning, he was
brought forth leaning on a staff; for he had taken cold in prison,
and was infirm. The iron stake, and the iron chain which was to
bind him to it, were fixed up near a great elm-tree in a pleasant
open place before the cathedral, where, on peaceful Sundays, he had
been accustomed to preach and to pray, when he was bishop of
Gloucester. This tree, which had no leaves then, it being February,
was filled with people ; and the priests of Gloucester College were
looking complacently on from a window, and there was a great
concourse of spectators in every spot from which a glimpse of the
dreadful sight could be beheld. When the old man kneeled down
on the small platform at the foot of the stake, and prayed aloud,
the nearest people were observed to be so attentive to his prayers
that they were ordered to stand farther back ; for it did not suit the
Romish Church to have those Protestant words heard. His prayers
concluded, he went up to the stake and was stripped to his shirt,
and chained ready for the fire. One of his guards had such
compassion on him that, to shorten his agonies, he tied some
packets of gunpowder about him. Then they heaped up wood and
straw and reeds, and set them all alight. But, unhappily, the wood
was green and damp, and there was a wind blowing that blew what
flame there was, away. Thus, through three-quarters of an hour,
the good old man was scorched and roasted and smoked, as the
fire rose and sank ; and all that time they saw him, as he burned,
moving his lips in prayer, and beating his breast with one hand,
even after the other was burnt away and had fallen off.
Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, were taken to Oxford to dispute
with a commission of priests and doctors about the mass. They
were shamefully treated ; and it is recorded that the Oxford
scholars hissed and howled and groaned, and misconducted them-
selves in an anything but a scholarly way. The prisoners were
taken back to jail, and afterwards tried in St. Mary's Church. They
were all found guilty. On the sixteenth of the month of October,
Ridley and Latimer were brought out, to make another of the
dreadful bonfires.
The scene of the suffering of these two good Protestant men was
in the City ditch, near Baliol College. On coming to the dreadful
spot, they kissed the stakes, and then embraced each other. And
then a learned doctor got up into a pulpit which was placed there,
and preached a sermon from the text, ' Though I give my body to
be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.' When
you think of the charity of burning men alive, you may imagine that
this learned doctor had a rather brazen face. Ridley would have
answered his sermon when it came to an end, but was not allowed.
When Latimer was stripped, it appeared that he had dressed
MARY 225
himself under his other clothes, in a new shroud ; and, as he stood
in it before all the people, it was noted of him, and long remembered,
that, whereas he had been stooping and feeble but a few minutes
before, he now stood upright and handsome, in the knowledge that
he was dying for a just and a great cause. Ridley's brother-in-law
was there with bags of gunpowder; and when they were both
chained up, he tied them round their bodies. Then, a light was
thrown upon the pile to fire it. ' Be of good comfort. Master
Ridley,' said Latimer, at that awful moment, ' and play the man !
We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England,
as I trust shall never be put out.' And then he was seen to make
motions with his hands as if he were washing them in the flames,
and to stroke his aged face with them, and was heard to cry,
' Father of Heaven, receive my soul ! ' He died quickly, but the
fire, after having burned the legs of Ridley, sunk. There he
lingered, chained to the iron post, and crying, ' O ! I cannot burn !
O ! for Christ's sake let the fire come unto me ! ' And still, when
his brother-in-law had heaped on more wood, he was heard through
the blinding smoke, still dismally crying, ' O ! I cannot burn, I
cannot burn 1 ' At last, the gunpowder caught fire, and ended his
miseries.
Five days after this fearful scene, Gardiner went to his tremendous
account before God, for the cruelties he had so much assisted in
committing.
Cranmer remained still alive and in prison. He was brought
out again in Februar}', for more examining and trying, by Bonner,
Bishop of London : another man of blood, who had succeeded to
Gardiner's work, even in his lifetime, when Gardiner was tired of
it. Cranmer was now degraded as a priest, and left for death ; but,
if the Queen hated any one on earth, she hated him, and it was
resolved that he should be ruined and disgraced to the utmost.
There is no doubt that the Queen and her husband personally
urged on these deeds, because they wrote to the Council, urging
them to be active in the kindling of the fearful fires. As Cranmer
was known not to be a firm man, a plan was laid for surrounding
him with artful people, and inducing him to recant to the unreformed
religion. Deans and friars visited him, played at bowls with him,
showed him various attentions, talked persuasively with him, gave
him money for his prison comforts, and induced him to sign, I
fear, as many as six recantations. But when, after all, he was taken
out to be burnt, he was nobly true to his better self, and made a
glorious end.
After prayers and a sermon, Dr. Cole, the preacher of the day
(who had been one of the artful priests about Cranmer in prison),
required him to make a public confession of his faith before the
people. This, Cole did, expecting that he would declare himself a
Q
226 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Roman Catholic. ' I will make a profession of my faith,' said
Cranmer, ' and with a good will too.'
Then, he arose before them all, and took from the sleeve of his
robe a written prayer and read it aloud. That done, he kneeled
and said the Lord's Prayer, all the people joining ; and then he
arose again and told them that he believed in the Bible, and that in
what he had lately written, he had written what was not the truth,
and that, because his right hand had signed those papers, he would
burn his right hand first when he came to the fire. As for the
Pope, he did refuse him and denounce him as the enemy of Heaven.
Hereupon the pious Dr. Cole cried out to the guards to stop that
heretic's mouth and take him away.
So they took him away, and chained him to the stake, where he
hastily took off his own clothes to make ready for the flames. And
he stood before the people with a bald head and a white and
flowing beard. He was so firm now when the worst was come,
that he again declared against his recantation, and was so impressive
and so undismayed, that a certain lord, who was one of the directors
of the execution, called out to the men to make haste ! When the
fire was lighted, Cranmer, true to his latest word, stretched out his
right hand, and crying out, ' This hand hath ofl^ended ! ' held it
among the flames, until it blazed and burned away. His heart was
found entire among his ashes, and he left at last a memorable name
in English history. Cardinal Pole celebrated the day by saying his
first mass, and next day he was made Archbishop of Canterbury in
Cranmer's place.
The Queen's husband, who was now mostly abroad in his own
dominions, and generally made a coarse jest of her to his more
familiar courtiers, was at war with France, and came over to seek
the assistance of England. England was very unwilling to engage
in a French war for his sake; but it happened that the King of
France, at this very time, aided a descent upon the English coast.
Hence, war was declared, greatly to Philip's satisfaction ; and the
Queen raised a sum of money with which to carry it on, by every
unjustifiable means in her power. It met with no profitable return,
for the French Duke of Guise surprised Calais, and the English
sustained a complete defeat. The losses they met with in France
greatly mortified the national pride, and the Queen never recovered
the blow.
There was a bad fever raging in England at this time, and I am
glad to write that the Queen took it, and the hour of her death
came. ' When I am dead and my body is opened,' she said to
those around her, ' ye shall find Calais written on my heart.' I
should have thought, if anything were written on it, they would have
found the words — Jane Grey, Hooper, Rogers, Ridley, Latimer,
Cranmer, and three hundred people burnt alive within four
ELIZABETH 227
YEARS OF MY WICKED REIGN, INCLUDING SIXTY WOMEN AND FORTY
LITTLE CHILDREN. But it is enough that their deaths were written
in Heaven.
The Queen died on the seventeenth of November, fifteen hundred
and fifty-eight, after reigning not quite five years and a half, and in
the forty-fourth year of her age. Cardinal Pole died of the same
fever next day.
As Bloody Queen Mary, this woman has become famous, and
as Bloody Queen Mary, she will ever be justly remembered with
horror and detestation in Great Britain. Her memory has been
held in such abhorrence that some writers have arisen in later years
to take her part, and to show that she was, upon the whole, quite
an amiable and cheerful sovereign ! ' By their fruits ye shall know
them,' said Our Saviour. The stake and the fire were the fruits
of this reign, and you will judge this Queen by nothing else-
CHAPTER XXXI
ENGLAND UNDER ELIZABETH
There was great rejoicing all over the land when the Lords of the
Council went down to Hatfield, to hail the Princess Elizabeth as
the new Queen of England. Weary of the barbarities of Mary's
reign, the people looked with hope and gladness to the new Sovereign.
The nation seemed to wake from a horrible dream ; and Heaven,
so long hidden by the smoke of the fires that roasted men and
women to death, appeared to brighten once more.
Queen Elizabeth was five-and-twenty years of age when she rode
through the streets of London, from the Tower to Westminster
Abbey, to be crowned. Her countenance was strongly marked, but
on the whole, commanding and dignified ; her hair was red, and her
nose something too long and sharp for a woman's. She was not
the beautiful creature her courtiers made out; but she was well
enough, and no doubt looked all the better for coming after the
dark and gloomy Mary. She was well educated, but a roundabout
writer, and rather a hard swearer and coarse talker. She was
clever, but cunning and deceitful, and inherited much of her father's
violent temper. I mention this now, because she has been so over-
praised by one party, and so over-abused by another, that it is
hardly possible to understand the greater part of her reign without
first understanding what kind of woman she really was.
She began her reign with the great advantage of having a very wise
and careful Minister, Sir William Cecil, whom she afterwards
228 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
made Lord Burleigh. Altogether, the people had greater reason
for rejoicing than they usually had, when there were processions in
the streets ; and they were happy with some reason. All kinds of
shows and images were set up ; Gog and Magog were hoisted to
the top of Temple Bar ; and (which was more to the purpose) the
Corporation dutifully presented the young Queen with the sum of
a thousand marks in gold — so heavy a present, that she was obliged
to take it into her carriage with both hands. The coronation was
a great success ; and, on the next day, one of the courtiers presented
a petition to the new Queen, praying that as it was the custom to
release some prisoners on such occasions, she would have the good-
ness to release the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John, and also the Apostle Saint Paul, who had been for some time
shut up in a strange language so that the people could not get
at them.
To this, the Queen replied that it would be better first to inquire
of themselves whether they desired to be released or not ; and, as
a means of finding out, a great public discussion — a sort of religious
tournament— was appointed to take place between certain champions
of the two religions, in Westminster Abbey. You may suppose
that it was soon made pretty clear to common sense, that for people
to benefit by what they repeat or read, it is rather necessary they
should understand something about it. Accordingly, a Church
Service in plain English was settled, and other laws and regulations
were made, completely establishing the great work of the Refor-
mation. The Romish bishops and champions were not harshly
dealt with, all things considered ; and the Queen's Ministers were
both prudent and merciful.
The one great trouble of this reign, and the unfortunate cause
of the greater part of such turmoil and bloodshed as occurred in it,
was Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. We will try to understand,
in as few words as possible, who Mary was, what she was, and how
she came to be a thorn in the royal pillow of Elizabeth.
She was the daughter of the Queen Regent of Scotland, Mary of
Guise. She had been married, when a mere child, to the Dauphin,
the son and heir of the King of- France. The Pope, who pretended
that no one could rightfully wear the crown of England without his
gracious permission, was strongly opposed to Elizabeth, who had
not asked for the said gracious permission. And as Mary Queen
of Scots would have inherited the English crown in right of her
birth, supposing the English Parliament not to have altered the
succession, the Pope himself, and most of the discontented who
were followers of his, maintained that Mary was the rightful Queen
of England, and Elizabeth the wrongful Queen. Mary being so
closely connected with France, and France being jealous of England,
there was far greater danger in this than there would have been if
ELIZABETH ^29
she had had no aUiance with that great power. And when her
young husband, on the death of his father, became Francis the
Second, King of France, the matter grew very serious. For, the
young couple styled themselves King and Queen of England, and
the Pope was disposed to help them by doing all the mischief he
could.
Now, the reformed religion, under the guidance of a stern and
powerful preacher, named John Knox, and other such men, had
been making fierce progress in Scotland. It was still a half savage
country, w'here there was a great deal of murdering and rioting
continually going on ; and the Reformers, instead of reforming
those evils as they should have done, went to work in the ferocious
old Scottish spirit, laying churches and chapels waste, pulling down
pictures and altars, and knocking about the Grey Friars, and the
Black Friars, and the White Friars, and the friars of all sorts of
colours, in all directions. This obdurate and harsh spirit of the
Scottish Reformers (the Scotch have always been rather a sullen
and frowning people in religious matters) put up the blood of the
Romish French court, and caused France to send troops over to
Scotland, with the hope of setting the friars of all sorts of colours
on their legs again ; of conquering that country first, and England
afterwards ; and so crushing the Reformation all to pieces. The
Scottish Reformers, who had formed a great league which they
called The Congregation of the Lord, secretly represented to
Elizabeth that, if the reformed religion got the worst of it with
them, it would be likely to get the worst of it in England too ; and
thus, Elizabeth, though she had a high notion of the rights of Kings
and Queens to do anything they liked, sent an army to Scotland to
support the Reformers, who were in arms against their sovereign.
All these proceedings led to a treaty of peace at Edinburgh, under
which the French consented to depart from the kingdom. By a
separate treaty, Mary and her young husband engaged to renounce
their assumed title of King and Queen of England. But this treaty
they never fulfilled.
It happened, soon after matters had got to this state, that the
young French King died, leaving Mary a young widow. She was
then invited by her Scottish subjects to return home and reign over
them ; and as she was not now happy where she was, she, after a
little time, complied.
Elizabeth had been Queen three years, when Mary Queen of
Scots embarked at Calais for her own rough, quarrelling country.
As she came out of the harbour, a vessel was lost before her eyes,
and she said, ' O ! good God ! what an omen this is for such a
voyage ! ' She was very fond of France, and sat on the deck,
looking back at it and weeping, until it was quite dark. When she
went to bed, she directed to be called at daybreak, if the French
230 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
coast were still visible, that she might behold it for the last time.
As it proved to be a clear morning, this was done, and she again
wept for the country she was leaving, and said many times, ' Fare-
well, France ! Farewell, France ! I shall never see thee again ! '
All this was long remembered afterwards, as sorrowful and
interesting in a fair young princess of nineteen. Indeed, I am
afraid it gradually came, together with her other distresses, to
surround her with greater sympathy than she deserved.
When she came to Scotland, and took up her abode at the palace
of Holyrood in Edinburgh, she found herself among uncouth
strangers and wild uncomfortable customs very different from her
experiences in the court of France. The very people who were
disposed to love her, made her head ache when she was tired out
by her voyage, with a serenade of discordant music — a fearful
concert of bagpipes, I suppose — and brought her and her train
home to her palace on miserable little Scotch horses that appeared
to be half starved. Among the people who were not disposed to
love her, she found the powerful leaders of the Reformed Church,
who were bitter upon her amusements, however innocent, and
denounced music and dancing as works of the devil. John Knox
himself often lectured her, violently and angrily, and did much to
make her life unhappy. All these reasons confirmed her old
attachment to the Romish religion, and caused her, there is no
doubt, most imprudently and dangerously both for herself and for
England too, to give a solemn pledge to the heads of the Romish
Church that if she ever succeeded to the English crown, she would
set up that religion again. In reading her unhappy history, you
must always remember this; and also that during her whole life
she was constantly put forward against the Queen, in some form or
other, by the Romish party.
That Elizabeth, on the other hand, was not inclined to like her,
is pretty certain. Elizabeth was very vain and jealous, and had
an extraordinary dislike to people being married. She treated
Lady Catherine Grey, sister of the beheaded Lady Jane, with such
shameful severity, for no other reason than her being secretly
married, that she died and her husband was ruined ; so, when a
second marriage for Mary began to be talked about, probably
Elizabeth disliked her more. Not that Elizabeth wanted suitors
of her own, for they started up from Spain, Austria, Sweden, and
England. Her English lover at this time, and one whom she much
favoured too, was Lord Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester — him-
self secretly married to Amy Robsart, the daughter of an English
gentleman, whom he was strongly suspected of causing to be
murdered, down at his country seat, Cumnor Hall in Berkshire,
that he might be free to marry the Queen. Upon this story, the
great writer, Sir Walter Scott, has founded one of his best
ELIZABETH 231
romances. But if Elizabeth knew how to lead her handsome
favourite on, for her own vanity and pleasure, she knew how to
stop him for her own pride ; and his love, and all the other pro-
posals, came to nothing. The Queen always declared in good set
speeches, that she would never be married at all, but would live
and die a Maiden Queen. It was a very pleasant and meritorious
declaration, I suppose ; but it has been puffed and trumpeted so
mu( h, that I am rather tired of it myself.
Divers princes proposed to marry Mary, but the English court
had reasons for being jealous of them all, and even proposed as a
matter of policy that she should marry that very Earl of Leicester
who had aspired to be the husband of Elizabeth. At last, Lord
Darnley, son of the Earl of Lennox, and himself descended from
the Royal Family of Scotland, went over with Elizabeth's consent
to try his fortune at Holyrood. He was a tall simpleton ; and
could dance and play the guitar ; but I know of nothing else he
could do, unless it were to get very drunk, and eat gluttonously,
and make a contemptible spectacle of himself in many mean and
vain ways. However, he gained Mary's heart, not disdaining in the
pursuit of his object to ally himself with one of her secretaries,
David Rizzio, who had great influence with her. He soon married
the Queen. This marriage does not say much for her, but what
followed will presently say less.
Mary's brother, the Earl of Murray, and head of the Protestant
party in Scotland, had opposed this marriage, partly on religious
grounds, and partly perhaps from personal dislike of the very con-
temptible bridegroom. "When it had taken place, through Mary's
gaining over to it the more powerful of the lords about her, she
banished Murray for his pains; and, when he and some other
nobles rose in arms to support the reformed religion, she herself,
within a month of her wedding day, rode against them in armour
with loaded pistols in her saddle. Driven out of Scotland, they
presented themselves before Elizabeth — who called them traitors in
public, and assisted them in private, according to her crafty nature.
Mary had been married but a little while, when she began to hate
her husband, who, in his turn, began to hate that David Rizzio,
with whom he had leagued to gain her favour, and whom he now
believed to be her lover. He hated Rizzio to that extent, that he
made a compact with Lord Ruthven and three other lords to get
rid of him by murder. This wicked agreement they made in solemn
secrecy upon the first of March, fifteen hundred and sixty-six, and
on the night of Saturday the ninth, the conspirators were brought
by Darnley up a private staircase, dark and steep, into a range of
rooms where they knew that ALary was sitting at supper with her
sister. Lady Argyle, and this doomed man, AVhen they went into
the room, Darnley took the Queen round the waist, and Lord
232 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Ruthven, who had risen from a bed of sickness to do this murder,
came in, gaunt and ghastly, leaning on two men. Rizzio ran
behind the Queen for shelter and protection. ' Let him come out
of the room,' said Ruthven. ' He shall not leave the room,' replied
the Queen ; ' I read his danger in your face, and it is my will that
he remain here.' They then set upon him, struggled with him,
overturned the table, dragged him out, and killed him with fifty-six
stabs. When the Queen heard that he was dead, she said, ' No
more tears. I will think now of revenge ! '
Within a day or two, she gained her husband over, and prevailed
on the tall idiot to abandon the conspirators and fly with her to
Dunbar. There, he issued a proclamation, audaciously and falsely
denying that he had any knowledge of the late bloody business ;
and there they were joined by the Earl Bothwell and some other
nobles. With their help, they raised eight thousand men, returned
to Edinburgh, and drove the assassins into England. Mary soon
afterwards gave birth to a son — still thinking of revenge.
That she should have had a greater scorn for her husband after
his late cowardice and treachery than she had had before, was
natural enough. There is little doubt that she now began to love
Bothwell instead, and to plan with him means of getting rid of
Darnley. Bothwell had such power over her that he induced her
even to pardon the assassins of Rizzio. The arrangements for the
christening of the young Prince were entrusted to him, and he was
one of the most important people at the ceremony, where the child
was named James : Elizabeth being his godmother, though not
present on the occasion. A week afterwards, Darnley, who had
left Mary and gone to his father's house at Glasgow, being taken
ill with the small-pox, she sent her own physician to attend him.
But there is reason to apprehend that this was merely a show and a
pretence, and that she knew what was doing, when Bothwell within
another month proposed to one of the late conspirators against
Rizzio, to murder Darnley, ' for that it was the Queen's mind that
he should be taken away.' It is certain that on that very day she
wrote to her ambassador in France, complaining of him, and yet
went immediately to Glasgow, feigning to be very anxious about
him, and to love him very much. If she wanted to get him in her
power, she succeeded to her heart's content ; for she induced him
to go back with her to Edinburgh, and to occupy, instead of the
palace, a lone house outside the city called the Kirk of Field.
Here, he lived for about a week. One Sunday night, she remained
with him until ten o'clock, and then left him, to go to Holyrood to
be present at an entertainment given in celebration of the marriage
of one of her favourite servants. At two o'clock in the morning the
city was shaken by a great explosion, and the Kirk of Field was
blown to atoms.
ELIZABETH 233
Darnley's body was found next day lying under a tree at some
distance. How it came there, undisfigured and unscorched by
gunpowder, and how this crime came to be so clumsily and
strangely committed, it is impossible to discover. The deceitful
character of Mary, and the deceitful character of Elizabeth, have
rendered almost every part of their joint history uncertain and
obscure. But, I fear that Mary was unquestionably a party to her
husband's murder, and that this was the revenge she had threatened.
The Scotch people universally believed it. Voices cried out in the
streets of Edinburgh in the dead of the night, for justice on the
murderess. Placards were posted by unknown hands in the public
places denouncing Bothwell as the murderer, and the Queen as his
accomplice ; and, when he afterwards married her (though himself
already married), previously making a show of taking her prisoner
by force, the indignation of the people knew no bounds. The
women particularly are described as having been quite frantic
against the Queen, and to have hooted and cried after her in the
streets with terrific vehemence.
Such guilty unions seldom prosper. This husband and wife had
lived together but a month, when they were separated for ever by
the successes of a band of Scotch nobles who associated against
them for the protection of the young Prince : whom Bothwell had
vainly endeavoured to lay hold of, and whom he would certainly
have murdered, if the Earl of ]\Iar, in whose hands the boy was,
had not been firmly and honourably faithful to his trust. Before
this angry power, Bothwell fled abroad, where he died, a prisoner
and mad, nine miserable years afterwards. Mary being found by
the associated lords to deceive them at every turn, was sent a
prisoner to Lochleven Castle ; which, as it stood in the midst of a
lake, could only be approached by boat. Here, one Lord Lindsay,
who was so much of a brute that the nobles would have done better
if they had chosen a mere gentleman for their messenger, made
her sign her abdication, and appoint Murray, Regent of Scotland.
Here, too, Murray saw her in a sorrowing and humbled state.
She had better have remained in the castle of Lochleven, dull
prison as it was, with the rippling of the lake against it, and the
moving shadows of the water on the room walls ; but she could not
rest there, and more than once tried to escape. The first time she
had nearly succeeded, dressed in the clothes of her own washer-
woman, but, putting up her hand to prevent one of the boatmen
from lifting her veil, the men suspected her, seeing how white it was,
and rowed her back again. A short time afterwards, her fascinating
manners enlisted in her cause a boy in the Castle, called the little
Douglas, who, while the family were at supper, stole the keys of
the great gate, went softly out with the Queen, locked the gate on
the outside, and rowed her away across the lake, sinking the keys
234 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
as they went along. On the opposite shore she was met by another
Douglas, and some few lords ; and, so accompanied, rode away on
horseback to Hamilton, where they raised three thousand men.
Here, she issued a proclamation declaring that the abdication she
had signed in her prison was illegal, and requiring the Regent to
yield to his lawful Queen. Being a steady soldier, and in no way
discomposed although he was without an army, Murray pretended
to treat with her, until he had collected a force about half equal to
her own, and then he gave her battle. In one quarter of an hour
he cut down all her hopes. She had another weary ride on horse-
back of sixty long Scotch miles, and took shelter at Dundrennan
Abbey, whence she fled for safety to Elizabeth's dominions.
Mary Queen of Scots came to England — to her own ruin, the
trouble of the kingdom, and the misery and death of many — in the
year one thousand five hundred and sixty-eight. How she left it
and the world, nineteen years afterwards, we have now to see.
Second Part
When Mary Queen of Scots arrived in England, without money
and even without any other clothes than those she wore, she wrote
to Elizabeth, representing herself as an innocent and injured piece
of Royalty, and entreating her assistance to oblige her Scottish
subjects to take her back again and obey her. But, as her character
was already known in England to be a very difterent one from what
she made it out to be, she was told in answer that she must first
clear herself. Made uneasy by this condition, Mary, rather than
stay in England, would have gone to Spain, or to France, or would
even have gone back to Scotland. But, as her doing either would
have been likely to trouble England afresh, it vv-as decided that she
should be detained here. She first came to Carlisle, and, after
that, was moved about from castle to castle, as was considered
necessary ; but England she never left again.
After trying very hard to get rid of the necessity of clearing her-
self, Mary, advised by Lord Hkrries, her best friend in England,
agreed to answer the charges against her, if the Scottish noblemen
who made them would attend to maintain them before such English
noblemen as Elizabeth might appoint for that purpose. Accordingly,
such an assembly, under the name of a conference, met, first at
York, and afterwards at Hampton Court. In its presence Lord Len-
nox, Darnley's father, openly charged Mary with the murder of his
son ; and whatever Mary's friends may now say or write in her behalf,
there is no doubt that, when her brother Murray produced against
her a casket containing certain guilty letters and verses which
he stated to have passed between her and Bothwell, she withdrew
ELIZABETH 235
from the inquiry. Consequently, it is to be supposed that she
was then considered guiUy by those who had the best opportunities
of judging of the truth, and that the feeling which afterwards arose
in her behalf was a very generous but not a very reasonable one.
However, the Duke of Norfolk, an honourable but rather weak
nobleman, partly because Mary was captivating, partly because he
was ambitious, partly because he was over-persuaded by artful
plotters against Elizabeth, conceived a strong idea that he would
like to marry the Queen of Scots— though he was a little frightened,
too, by the letters in the casket. This idea being secretly encouraged
by some of the noblemen of Elizabeth's court, and even by the
favourite Earl of Leicester (because it was objected to by other
favourites who were his rivals), Mary expressed her approval of it,
and the King of France and the King of Spain are supposed to
have done the same. It was not so quietly planned, though, but
that it came to Elizabeth's ears, who warned the Duke ' to be careful
what sort of pillow he was going to lay his head upon.' He made
a humble reply at the time; but turned sulky soon afterwards,
and, being considered dangerous, was sent to the Tower.
Thus, from the moment of Mary's coming to England she began
to be the centre of plots and miseries.
A rise of the Catholics in the north was the next of these, and
it was only checked by many executions and much bloodshed. It
was followed by a great conspiracy of the Pope and some of the
Catholic sovereigns of Europe to depose Elizabeth, place Mary
on the throne, and restore the unreformed religion. It is almost
impossible to doubt that Mary knew and approved of this ; and the
Pope himself was so hot in the matter that he issued a bull, in
which he openly called Elizabeth the ' pretended Queen ' of England,
excommunicated her, and excommunicated all her subjects who
should continue to obey her. A copy of this miserable paper got
into London, and was found one morning publicly posted on the
Bishop of London's gate. A great hue and cry being raised,
another copy was found in the chamber of a student of Lincoln's
Inn, who confessed, being put upon the rack, that he had received
it from one John Felton, a rich gentleman who lived across the
Thames, near Southwark. This John Felton, being put upon the
rack too, confessed that he had posted the placard on the Bishop's
gate. For this offence he was, within four days, taken to St. Paul's
Churchyard, and there hanged and quartered. As to the Pope's
bull, the people by the reformation having thrown off the Pope, did
not care much, you may suppose, for the Pope's throwing off them.
It was a mere dirty piece of paper, and not half so powerful as a
street ballad.
On the very day when Felton was brought to his trial, the poor
Duke of Norfolk was released. It would have been well for him
236 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
if he had kept away from the Tower evermore, and from the snares
that had taken him there. But, even while he was in that dismal
place he corresponded with Mary, and as soon as he was out of it,
he began to plot again. Being discovered in correspondence with
the Pope, with a view to a rising in England which should force
Elizabeth to consent to his marriage with Mary and to repeal the
laws against the Catholics, he was re-committed to the Tower and
brought to trial. He was found guilty by the unanimous verdict of
the Lords who tried him, and was sentenced to the block.
It is very difficult to make out, at this distance of time, and
between opposite accounts, whether Elizabeth really was a humane
woman, or desired to appear so, or was fearful of shedding the blood
of people of great name who were popular in the country. Twice
she commanded and countermanded the execution of this Duke,
and it did not take place until five months after his trial. The
scaffold was erected on Tower Hill, and there he died like a brave
man. He refused to have his eyes bandaged, saying that he was
not at all afraid of death ; and he admitted the justice of his
sentence, and was much regretted by the people.
Although Mary had shrunk at the most important time from dis-
proving her guilt, she was very careful never to do anything that
would admit it. All such proposals as were made to her by
Elizabeth for her release, required that admission in some form or
other, and therefore came to nothing. Moreover, both women being
artful and treacherous, and neither ever trusting the other, it was
not likely that they could ever make an agreement. So, the
Parliament, aggravated by what the Pope had done, made new
and strong laws against the spreading of the Catholic religion in
England, and declared it treason in any one to say that the Queen
and her successors were not the lawful sovereigns of England. It
would have done more than this, but for Elizabeth's moderation.
Since the Reformation, there had come to be three great sects
of religious people — or people who called themselves so — in England;
that is to say, those who belonged to the Reformed Church, those
who belonged to the Unreformed Church, and those who were
called the Puritans, because they said that they wanted to have
everything very pure and plain in all the Church service. These
last were for the most part an uncomfortable people, who thought
it highly meritorious to dress in a hideous manner, talk through
their noses, and oppose all harmless enjoyments. But they were
powerful too, and very much in earnest, and they were one and all
the determined enemies of the Queen of Scots. The Protestant
feeling in England was further strengthened by the tremendous
cruelties to which Protestants were exposed in France and in the
Netherlands. Scores of thousands of them were put to death in
those countries with every cruelty that can be imagined, and at last,
ELIZABETH 237
in the autumn of the year one thousand five hundred and seventy-
two, one of the greatest harbarities ever committed in the world
took place at Paris.
It is called in history, The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew,
because it took place on Saint Bartholomew's Eve. The day fell
on Saturday the twenty-third of August. On that day all the great
leaders of the Protestants (who were there called Huguenots) were
assembled together, for the purpose, as was represented to them,
of doing honour to the marriage of their chief, the young King of
Navarre, with the sister of Charles the Ninth : a miserable young
King who then occupied the French throne. This dull creature
was made to believe by his mother and other fierce Catholics about
him that the Huguenots meant to take his life ; and he was per-
suaded to give secret orders that, on the tolling of a great bell, they
should be fallen upon by an overpowering force of armed men, and
slaughtered wherever they could be found. When the appointed
hour was close at hand, the stupid wretch, trembling from head to
foot, was taken into a balcony by his mother to see the atrocious
work begun. The moment the bell tolled, the murderers broke forth.
During all that night and the two next days, they broke into the houses,
fired the houses, shot and stabbed the Protestants, men, women, and
children, and flung their bodies into the streets. They were shot
at in the streets as they passed along, and their blood ran down the
gutters. Upwards of ten thousand Protestants were killed in Paris
alone ; in all France four or five times that number. To return
thanks to Heaven for these diabolical murders, the Pope and his
train actually went in public procession at Rome, and as if this
were not shame enough for them, they had a medal struck to com-
memorate the event. But, however comfortable the wholesale
murders were to these high authorities, they had not that soothing
effect upon the doll- King. I am happy to state that he never knew
a moment's peace afterwards; that he was continually crying out
that he saw the Huguenots covered with blood and wounds falling
dead before him ; and that he died within a year, shrieking and
yelling and raving to that degree, that if all the Popes who had
ever lived had been rolled into one, they would not have afforded
His guilty Majesty the slightest consolation.
^Vhen the terrible news of the massacre arrived in England, it
made a powerful impression indeed upon the people. If they
began to run a little wild against the Catholics at about this time,
this fearful reason for it, coming so soon after the days of bloody
Queen Mary, must be remembered in their excuse. The Court
was not quite so honest as the people — but perhaps it sometimes is
not. It Received the French ambassador, with all the lords and
ladies dressed in deep mourning, and keeping a profound silence.
Nevertheless, a proposal of marriage which he had made to
238 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Elizabetli only two days before the eve of Saint Bartholomew, on
behalf of the Duke of Alengon, the French King's brother, a boy
of seventeen, still went on ; while on the other hand, in her usual
crafty way, the Queen secretly supplied the Huguenots with money
and weapons.
I must say that for a Queen who made all those fine speeches, of
which I have confessed myself to be rather tired, about living and
dying a Maiden Queen, Elizabeth was ' going ' to be married pretty
often. Besides always having some English favourite or other
whom she by turns encouraged and swore at and knocked about —
for the maiden Queen was very free with her fists — she held this
French Duke off and on through several years, ^^'hen he at last
came over to England, the marriage articles were actually drawn up,
and it was settled that the wedding should take place in six weeks.
The Queen was then so bent upon it, that she prosecuted a poor
Puritan named Stubbs, and a poor bookseller named Page, for
writing and publishing a pamphlet against it. Their right hands
were chopped off for this crime ; and poor Stubbs — more loyal than
I should have been myself under the circumstances — immediately
pulled off his hat with his left hand, and cried, ' God save the
Queen !' Stubbs was cruelly treated; for the marriage never took
place after all, though the Queen pledged herself to the Duke with
a ring from her own finger. He went away, no better than he
came, when the courtship had lasted some ten years altogether ;
and he died a couple of years afterwards, mourned by Elizabeth,
who appears to have been really fond of him. It is not much to
her credit, for he was a bad enough member of a bad family.
To return to the Catholics. There arose two orders of priests,
who were very busy in England, and who were much dreaded.
These were the Jesuits (who were everywhere in all sorts of
disguises), and the Seminary Priests. The people had a great
horror of the first, because they were known to have taught that
murder was lawful if it were done with an object of which they
approved ; and they had a great horror of the second, because they
came to teach the old religion, and to be the successors of ' Queen
Mary's priests,' as those yet lingering in England were called, when
they should die out. The severest laws were made against them,
and were most unmercifully executed. Those who sheltered them
in their houses often suffered heavily for what was an act of
humanity ; and the rack, that cruel torture which tore men's limbs
asunder, was constantly kept going. What these unhappy men
confessed, or what was ever confessed by any one under that agony,
must always be received with great doubt, as it is certain that people
have frequently owned to the most absurd and impossible crimes to
escape such dreadful suffering. But I cannot doubt it to have been
proved by papers, that there were many plots, both among the
ELIZABETH 239
Jesuits, and with France, and with Scotland, and with Spain, for the
destruction of Queen EHzabeth, for the placing of Mary on the
throne, and for the revival of the old religion.
If the English people were too ready to believe in plots, there
were, as I have said, good reasons for it. When the massacre of
Saint Bartholomew was yet fresh in their recollection, a great
Protestant Dutch hero, the Prince of Orange, was shot by an
assassin, who confessed that he had been kept and trained for the
purpose in a college of Jesuits. The Dutch, in this surprise and
distress, offered to make Elizabeth their sovereign, but she declined
the honour, and sent them a small army instead, under the command
of the Earl of Leicester, who, although a capital Court favourite,
was not much of a general. He did so little in Holland, that his
campaign there would probably have been forgotten, but for its
occasioning the death of one of the best writers, the best knights,
and the best gentlemen, of that or any age. This was Sir Philip
Sidney, who was wounded by a musket ball in the thigh as he
mounted a fresh horse, after having had his own killed under him.
He had to ride back wounded, a long distance, and was very faint
with fatigue and loss of blood, when some water, for which he had
eagerly asked, was handed to him. But he was so good and gentle
even then, that seeing a poor badly wounded common soldier lying
on the ground, looking at the water with longing eyes, he said,
' Thy necessity is greater than mine,' and gave it up to him. This
touching action of a noble heart is perhaps as well known as any
incident in history — is as famous far and wide as the blood-stained
Tower of London, with its axe, and block, and murders out of
number. So delightful is an act of true humanity, and so glad are
mankind to remember it.
At home, intelligence of plots began to thicken every day. I
suppose the people never did live under such continual terrors as
those by which they were possessed now, of Catholic risings, and
burnings, and poisonings, and I don't know what. Still, we must
always remember that they lived near and close to awful realities of
that kind, and that with their experience it was not difficult to
believe in any enormity. The government had the same fear, and
did not take the best means of discovering the truth — for, besides
torturing the suspected, it employed paid spies, who will always lie
for their own profit. It even made some of the conspiracies it
brought to light, by sending false letters to disaffected people,
inviting them to join in pretended plots, which they too readily did.
But, one great real plot was at length discovered, and it ended
the career of Mary, Queen of Scots. A seminary priest named
Ballard, and a Spanish soldier named Savage, set on and
encouraged by certain French priests, imparted a design to one
Antony Babington — a gentleman of fortune in Derbyshire, who
240 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
had been for some time a secret agent of Mary's — for murdering
the Queen. Babington then confided the scheme to some other
CathoUc gentlemen who were his friends, and they joined in it
heartily. They were vain, weak-headed young men, ridiculously
confident, and preposterously proud of their plan ; for they got a
gimcrack painting made, of the six choice spirits who were to
murder Elizabeth, with Babington in an attitude for the centre
figure. Two of their number, however, one of whom was a priest,
kept Elizabeth's wisest minister, Sir Francis Walsingham,
acquainted with the whole project from the first. The conspirators
were completely deceived to the final point, when Babington gave
Savage, because he was shabby, a ring from his finger, and some
money from his purse, wherewith to buy himself new clothes in
which to kill the Queen. Walsingham, having then full evidence
against the whole band, and two letters of Mary's besides, resolved
to seize them. Suspecting something wrong, they stole out of the
city, one by one, and hid themselves in St. John's Wood, and other
places which really were hiding places then ; but they were all
taken, and all executed. When they were seized, a gentleman was
sent from Court to inform Mary of the fact, and of her being
involved in the discovery. Her friends have complained that
she was kept in very hard and severe custody. It does not
appear very likely, for she was going out a hunting that very
morning.
Queen Elizabeth had been warned long ago, by one in France
who had good information of what was secretly doing, that in
holding Mary alive, she held 'the wolf who would devour her.'
The Bishop of London had, more lately, given the Queen's favourite
minister the advice in writing, * forthwith to cut off the Scottish
Queen's head.' The question now was, what to do with her?
The Earl of Leicester Avrote a little note home from Holland,
recommending that she should be quietly poisoned; that noble
favourite having accustomed his mind, it is possible, to remedies of
that nature. His black advice, however, was disregarded, and she
was brought to trial at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire,
before a tribunal of forty, composed of both religions. There, and
in the Star Chamber at Westminster, the trial lasted a fortnight.
She defended herself with great ability, but could only deny the
confessions that had been made by Babington and others ; could
only call her own letters, produced against her by her own secretaries,
forgeries ; and, in short, could only deny everything. She was
found guilty, and declared to have incurred the penalty of death.
The Parliament met, approved the sentence, and prayed the Queen
to have it executed. The Queen replied that she requested them
to consider whether no means could be found of saving Mary's life
without endangering her o^\^l. The Parliament rejoined, No ; and
ELIZABETH 241
the citizens illuminated their houses and lighted bonfires, in token
of their joy that all these plots and troubles were to be ended by the
death of the Queen of Scots.
She, feeling sure that her time was now come, wrote a letter to
the Queen of England, making three entreaties ; first, that she might
be buried in France ; secondly, that she might not be executed in
secret, but before her servants and some others ; thirdly, that after
her death, her servants should not be molested, but should be
suffered to go home with the legacies she left them. It was an
affecting letter, and Elizabeth shed tears over it, but sent no answer.
Then came a special ambassador from France, and another from
Scotland, to intercede for Mary's life ; and then the nation began to
clamour, more and more, for her death.
What the real feelings or intentions of Elizabeth were, can never
be known now ; but I strongly suspect her of only wishing one
thing more than Mary's death, and that was to keep free of the
blame of it. On the first of February, one thousand five hundred
and eighty-seven. Lord Burleigh having drawn out the warrant for
the execution, the Queen sent to the secretary Davison to bring it
to her, that she might sign it : which she did. Next day, when
Davison told her it was sealed, she angrily asked him why such
haste was necessary ? Next day but one, she joked about it, and
swore a litde. Again, next day but one, she seemed to complain
that it was not yet done, but still she would not be plain with those
about her. So, on the seventh, the Earls of Kent and Shrewsbury,
with the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, came with the warrant to
Fotheringay, to tell the Queen of Scots to prepare for death.
When those messengers of ill omen were gone, Mary made a
frugal supper, drank to her servants, read over her will, went to bed,
sltpt for some hours, and then arose and passed the remainder of
the night saying prayers. In the morning she dressed herself in
her best clothes ; and, at eight o'clock when the sheriff came for
her to her chapel, took leave of her servants who were there
assembled praying with her, and went down-stairs, carrying a Bible
in one hand and a crucifix in the other. Two of her women and
four of her men were allowed to be present in the hall ; where a
low scaffold, only two feet from the ground, was erected and covered
with black ; and where the executioner from the Tower, and his
assistant, stood, dressed in black velvet. The hall was full of
people. While the sentence w^as being read she sat upon a stool ;
and, when it was finished, she again denied her guilt, as she had
done before. The Earl of Kent and the Dean of Peterborough, in
their Protestant zeal, made some very unnecessary speeches to her ;
to which she rei)lied that she died in the Catholic religion, and they
need not trouble themselves about that matter. When her head
and neck were uncovered by the executioners, she said that she had
R
242 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
not been used to be undressed by such hands, or before so much
company. Finally, one of her women fastened a cloth over her
face, and she laid her neck upon the block, and repeated more than
once in Latin, ' Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit ! '
Some say her head was struck off in two blows, some say in three.
However that be, when it was held up, streaming with blood, the
real hair beneath the false hair she had long worn was seen to be
as grey as that of a woman of seventy, though she was at that time
only in her forty-sixth year. All her beauty was gone.
But she was beautiful enough to her little dog, who cowered
under her dress, frightened, when she went upon the scaffold, and
who lay down beside her headless body when all her earthly sorrows
were over.
Third Part
On its being formally made known to Elizabeth that the sentence
had been executed on the Queen of Scots, she showed the utmost
grief and rage, drove her favourites from her with violent indignation,
and sent Davison to the Tower; from which place he was only
released in the end by paying an immense fine which completely
ruined him. Elizabeth not only over-acted her part in making
these pretences, but most basely reduced to poverty one of her
faithful servants for no other fault than obeying her commands.
James, King of Scotland, Mary's son, made a show likewise of
being very angry on the occasion; but he was a pensioner of
England to the amount of five thousand pounds a year, and he had
known very little of his mother, and he possibly regarded her as the
murderer of his father, and he soon took it quietly.
Philip, King of Spain, however, threatened to do greater things
than ever had been done yet, to set up the Catholic religion and
punish Protestant England. Elizabeth, hearing that he and the
Prince of Parma were making great preparations for this purpose,
in order to be beforehand with them sent out Admiral Drake (a
famous navigator, who had sailed about the world, and had already
brought great plunder from Spain) to the port of Cadiz, where he
burnt a hundred vessels full of stores. This great loss obliged the
Spaniards to put off the invasion for a year ; but it was none the
less formidable for that, amounting to one hundred and thirty ships,
nineteen thousand soldiers, eight thousand sailors, two thousand
slaves, and between two and three thousand great guns. England
was not idle in making ready to resist this great force. All the
men between sixteen years old and sixty, were trained and drilled ;
the national fleet of ships (in number only thirty-four at first) was
enlarged by public contributions and by private ships, fitted out by
noblemen ; the city of London, of its own accord, furnished double
ELIZABETH 243
the number of shii)s and men that it was required to provide ; and,
if ever the national spirit was up in England, it was up all through
the country to resist the Spaniards. Some of the Queen's advisers
were for seizing the principal English Catholics, and putting them
to death ; but the Queen — who, to her honour, used to say, that
she would never believe any ill of her subjects, which a parent
would not believe of her own children — rejected the advice, and
only confined a few of those who were the most suspected, in the
fens in Lincolnshire. The great body of Catholics deserved this
confidence ; for they behaved most loyally, nobly, and bravely.
So, with all England firing up like one strong, angry man, and
with both sides of the Thames fortified, and with the soldiers under
arms, and with the sailors in their ships, the country waited for
the coming of the proud Spanish fleet, which was called The In-
MNCiBLE Armada. The Queen herself, riding in armour on a
white horse, and the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Leicester
holding her bridal rein, made a brave speech to the troops at Tilbury
Fort opposite Gravesend, which was received with such enthusiasm
as is seldom known. Then came the Spanish Armada into the
English Channel, sailing along in the form of a half moon, of such
great size that it was seven miles broad. But the English were
quickly upon it, and woe then to all the Spanish ships that dropped
a little out of the half moon, for the English took them instantly !
And it soon appeared that the great Armada was anything but in-
vincible, for on a summer night, bold Drake sent eight blazing
fire-ships right into the midst of it. In terrible consternation the
Spaniards tried to get out to sea, and so became dispersed ; the
English pursued them at a great advantage ; a storm came on, and
drove the Spaniards among rocks and shoals ; and the swift end of
the Invincible fleet was, that it lost thirty great ships and ten
thousand men, and, defeated and disgraced, sailed home again.
Being afraid to go by the English Channel, it sailed all round
Scotland and Ireland ; some of the ships getting cast away on the
latter coast in bad weather, the Irish, who were a kind of savages,
plundered those vessels and killed their crews. So ended this
great attempt to invade and conquer England. And I think it
will be a long time before any other invincible fleet coming to
England with the same object, will fare much better than the
Spanish Armada.
Though the Spanish king had had this bitter taste of English
bravery, he was so little the wiser for it, as still to entertain his old
designs, and even to conceive the absurd idea of placing his
daughter on the English throne. But the Earl of Essex, Sir
Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas Howard, and some other dis-
tinguished leaders, put to sea from Plymouth, entered the port of
Cadiz once more, obtained a complete victory over the shipping
244 A CHILD'S HISTORY Or ENGLAND
assembled there, and got possession of the town. In obedience to
the Queen's express instructions, they behaved with great humanity ;
and the principal loss of the Spaniards was a vast sum of money
which they had to pay for ransom. This was one of many gallant
achievements on the sea, effected in this reign. Sir Walter Raleigh
himself, after marrying a maid of honour and giving offence to the
Maiden Queen thereby, had already sailed to South America in
search of gold.
The Earl of Leicester was now dead, and so was Sir Thomas
■\Valsingham, whom Lord Burleigh was soon to follow. The prin-
cipal favourite was the Earl of Essex, a spirited and handsome
man, a favourite with the people too as well as with the Queen,
and possessed of many admirable qualities. It was much debated
at Court whether there should be peace with Spain or no, and he
was very urgent for war. He also tried hard to have his owai way .
in the appointment of a deputy to govern in Ireland. One day,
while this question was in dispute, he hastily took offence, and
turned his back upon the Queen ; as a gentle reminder of which
impropriety, the Queen gave him a tremendous box on the ear, and
told him to go to the devil. He went home instead, and did not
reappear at Court for half a year or so, when he and the Queen
were reconciled, though never (as some suppose) thoroughly.
From this time the fate of the Earl of Essex and that of the
Queen seemed to be blended together. The Irish were still per-
petually quarrelling and fighting among themselves, and he went
over to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, to the great joy of his enemies
(Sir Walter Raleigh among the rest), who were glad to have so
dangerous a rival far off. Not being by any means successful
there, and knowing that his enemies would take advantage of that
circumstance to injure him with the Queen, he came home again,
though against her orders. The Queen being taken by surprise
when he appeared before her, gave him her hand to kiss, and he
was overjoyed — though it was not a very lovely hand by this time —
but in the course of the same day she ordered him to confine him-
self to his room, and two or three days afterwards had him taken
into custody. With the same sort of caprice — and as capricious
an old woman she now was, as ever wore a crown or a head either — •
she sent him broth from her own table on his falling ill from
anxiety, and cried about him.
He was a man who could find comfort and occupation in his
books, and he did so for a time ; not the least happy time, I dare
say, of his life. But it happened unfortunately for him, that he
held a monopoly in sweet wines : which means that nobody could
sell them without purchasing his permission. This right, which
was only for a term, expiring, he applied to have it renewed. The
Queen refused, with the rather strong observation — but she did
ELIZABETH 245
make strong observations — that an unruly beast must be stinted in
his food. Upon this, the angry Earl, who had been already de-
prived of many offices, thought himself in danger of complete ruin,
and turned against the Queen, whom he called a vain old woman
who had grown as crooked in her mind as she had in her figure.
These uncomplimentary expressions the ladies of the Court im-
mediately snapped up and carried to the Queen, whom they did
not put in a better temper, you may believe. The same Court
ladies, when they had beautiful dark hair of their own, used to wear
false red hair, to be like the Queen. So they were not very high-
spirited ladies, however high in rank.
The worst object of the Earl of Essex, and some friends of his
who used to meet at Lord Southampton's house, was to obtain
possession of the Queen, and oblige her by force to dismiss her
ministers and change her favourites. On Saturday the seventh of
February, one thousand six hundred and one, the council suspecting
this, summoned the Earl to come before them. He, pretending to
be ill, declined ; it was then settled among his friends, that as the
next day would be Sunday, when many of the citizens usually
assembled at the Cross by St. Paul's Cathedral, he should make one
bold effort to induce them to rise and follow him to the Palace.
So, on the Sunday morning, he and a small body of adherents
started out of his house — Essex House by the Strand, with steps to
the river — having first shut up in it, as prisoners, some members of
the council who came to examine him — and hurried into the
City with the Earl at their head, crying out ' For the Queen ! For
the Queen ! A plot is laid for my life ! ' No one heeded them,
however, and when they came to St. Paul's there were no citizens
there. In the meantime the prisoners at Essex House had been
released by one of the Earl's own friends ; he had been promptly
proclaimed a traitor in the City itself; and the streets were barri-
caded with carts and guarded by soldiers. The Earl got back to
his house by water, with difficulty, and after an attempt to defend
his house against the troops and cannon by which it was soon sur-
rounded, gave himself up that night. He was brought to trial on
the nineteenth, and found guilty ; on the twenty-fifth, he was exe-
cuted on Tower Hill, where he died, at thirty-four years old, both
courageously and penitently. His step-father suffered with him.
His enemy. Sir Walter Raleigh, stood near the scaffold all the time
— but not so near it as we shall see him stand, before we finish his
history.
In this case, as in the cases of the Duke of Norfolk and Mary
Queen of Scots, the Queen had commanded, and countermanded,
and again commanded, the execution. It is probable that the
death of her young and gallant favourite in the prime of his good
qualities, was never off her mind afterwards, but she held out, the
246 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
same vain, obstinate and capricious woman, for another year.
Then she danced before her Court on a state occasion— and cut,
I should think, a mighty ridiculous figure, doing so in an immense
ruff, stomacher and wig, at seventy years old. For another year
still, she held out, but, without any more dancing, and as a moody,
sorrowful, broken creature. At last, on the tenth of March, one
thousand six hundred and three, having been ill of a very bad cold,
and made worse by the death of the Countess of Nottingham who
was her intimate friend, she fell into a stupor and was supposed to
be dead. She recovered her consciousness, however, and then
nothing would induce her to go to bed ; for she said that she knew
that if she did, she should never get up again. There she lay for
ten days, on cushions on the floor, without any food, until the Lord
Admiral got her into bed at last, partly by persuasions and partly
by main force. When they asked her who should succeed her, she
replied that her seat had been the seat of Kings, and that she
would have for her successor, 'No rascal's son, but a King's,'
Upon this, the lords present stared at one another, and took the
liberty of asking whom she meant ; to which she replied, ' Whom
should I mean, but our cousin of Scotland!' This was on the
twenty-third of March. They asked her once again that day, after
she was speechless, whether she was still in the same mind ? She
struggled up in bed, and joined her hands over her head in the form
of a crown, as the only reply she could make. At three o'clock
next morning, she very quietly died, in the forty-fifth year of her
reign.
That reign had been a glorious one, and is made for ever
memorable by the distinguished men who flourished in it. Apart
from the great voyagers, statesmen, and scholars, whom it pro-
duced, the names of Bacon, Spenser, and Shakespeare, will
always be remembered with pride and veneration by the civilised
world, and will always impart (though with no great reason,
perhaps) some portion of their lustre to the name of Elizabeth
herself. It was a great reign for discovery, for commerce, and for
English enterprise and spirit in general. It was a great reign for
the Protestant religion and for the Reformation which made
England free. The Queen was very popular, and in her progresses,
or journeys about her dominions, was ever>'where received with the
liveliest joy. I think the truth is, that she was not half so good as
she has been made out, and not half so bad as she has been made
out. She had her fine qualities, but she was coarse, capricious, and
treacherous, and had all the faults of an excessively vain young
woman long after she was an old one. On the whole, she had a
great deal too much of her father in her, to please me.
Many improvements and luxuries were introduced in the course
of these five-and-forty years in the general manner of living ; but
JAMES THE FIRST 247
cock-fighting, bull-baiting, and bear-baiting, were still the national
amusements; and a coach was so rarely seen, and was such an
ugly and cumbersome affair when it was seen, that even the Queen
herself, on many high occasions, rode on horseback on a pillion
behind the Lord Chancellor.
CHAPTER XXXH
ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST
' Our cousin of Scotland ' was ugly, awkward, and shuffling both in
mind and person. His tongue was much too large for his mouth,
his legs were much too weak for his body, and his dull goggle-eyes
stared and rolled like an idiot's. He was cunning, covetous, waste-
ful, idle, drunken, greedy, dirty, cowardly, a great swearer, and the
most conceited man on earth. His figure— what is commonly
called rickety from his birth — presented a most ridiculous appear-
ance, dressed in thick padded clothes, as a safeguard against being
stabbed (of which he lived in continual fear), of a grass-green
colour from head to foot, with a hunting-horn dangling at his side
instead of a sword, and his hat and feather sticking over one eye, or
hanging on the back of his head, as he happened to toss it on. He
used to loll on the necks of his favourite courtiers, and slobber their
faces, and kiss and pinch their cheeks ; and the greatest favourite
he ever had, used to sign himself in his letters to his royal master,
His Majesty's ' dog and slave,' and used to address his majesty as
•his Sowship.' His majesty was the worst rider ever seen, and
thought himself the best. He was one of the most impertinent
talkers (in the broadest Scotch) ever heard, and boasted of being
unanswerable in all manner of argument. He wrote some of tl:e
most wearisome treatises ever read— among others, a book upon
witchcraft, in which he was a devout believer — and thought himself
a prodigy of authorship. He thought, and wrote, and said, that a
king had a right to make and unmake what laws he pleased, and
ought to be accountable to nobody on earth. This is the plain,
true character of the personage whom the greatest men about the
court praised and flattered to that degree, that I doubt if there be
anything much more shameful in the annals of human nature.
He came to the English throne with great ease. The miseries
of a disputed succession had been felt so long, and so dreadfully,
that he was proclaimed within a few hours of Elizabeth's death, and
was accepted by the nation, even without being asked to give any
pledge that he would govern well, or that he would redress crying
248 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
grievances. He took a month to come from Edinburgh to London ;
and, by way of exercising his new power, hanged a pickpocket on
the journey without any trial, and knighted everybody he could lay
hold of. He made two hundred knights before he got to his palace
in London, and seven hundred before he had been in it three
months. He also shovelled sixty-two new peers into the House of
Lords — and there was a pretty large sprinkling of Scotchmen among
them, you may believe.
His Sov.ship's prime Minister, Cecil (for I cannot do better than
call his majesty what his favourite called him), was the enemy of Sir
Walter Raleigh, and also of Sir Walter's political friend, Lord
CoBHAM ; and his Sowship's first trouble was a plot originated by
these two, and entered into by some others, with the old object of
seizing the King and keeping him in imprisonment until he should
change his ministers. There were Catholic priests in the plot, and
there were Puritan noblemen too ; for, although the Catholics and
Puritans were strongly opposed to each other, they united at this
time against his Sowship, because they knew that he had a design
against both, after pretending to be friendly to each ; this design
being to have only one high and convenient form of the Protestant
religion, which everybody should be bound to belong to, whether
they liked it or not. This plot was mixed up with another, which
may or may not have had some reference to placing on the throne,
at some time, the Lady Arabella Stuart; whose misfortune it
was, to be the daughter of the younger brother of his Sowship's
father, but who was quite innocent of any part in the scheme. Sir
Walter Raleigh was accused on the confession of Lord Cobham — a
miserable creature, who said one thing at one time, and another
thing at another time, and could be relied upon in nothing. The
trial of Sir Walter Raleigh lasted from eight in the morning until
nearly midnight ; he defended himself with such eloquence, genius,
and spirit against all accusations, and against the insults of Coke,
the Attorney-General — who, according to the custom of the time,
foully abused him — that those who went there detesting the prisoner,
came away admiring him, and declaring that anything so wonderful
and so captivating was never heard. He was found guilty, never-
theless, and sentenced to death. Execution was deferred, and he
was taken to the Tower. The two Catholic priests, less fortunate,
were executed with the usual atrocity ; and Lord Cobham and two
others were pardoned on the scaffold. His Sowship thought it
wonderfully knowing in him to surprise the people by pardoning
these three at the very block; but, blundering, and bungling, as
usual, he had very nearly overreached himself. For, the messenger
on horseback who brought the pardon, came so bte, that he was
pushed to the outside of the crowd, and was obliged to shout and
roar out wliat he came for. The miserable Cobham did not gain
JAMES THE FIRST 249
much by being spared that day. He Uved, both as a prisoner and
a beggar, utterly despised, and miserably poor, for thirteen years,
and then died in an old outhouse belonging to one of his former
servants. 1
This plot got rid of, and Sir ^^'alter Raleigh safely shut up in the
Tower, his Sowship held a great dispute with the Puritans on their
presenting a petition to him, and had it all his own way — not so
very wonderful, as he would talk continually, and would not hear
anybody else — and filled the Bishops with admiration. It was
comfortably settled that there was to be only one form of religion,
and that all men were to think exactly alike. But, although this
was arranged two centuries and a half ago, and although the arrange-
ment was supported by much fining and imprisonment, I do not
find that it is quite successful, even yet.
His Sowship, having that uncommonly high opinion of himself
as a king, had a very low opinion of Parliament as a power that
audaciously wanted to control him. When he called his first Par-
liament after he had been king a year, he accordingly thought he
would take pretty high ground with them, and told them that he
commanded them ' as an absolute king.' The Parliament thought
those strong words, and saw the necessity of upholding their
authority. His Sowship had three children : Prince Henry, Prince
Charles, and the Princess Elizabeth. It would have been well for
one of these, and we shall too soon see which, if he had learnt a
little wisdom concerning Parliaments from his father's obstinacy.
Now, the people still labouring under their old dread of the
Catholic religion, this Parliament revived and strengthened the
severe laws against it. And this so angered Robert Catesby, a
restless Catholic gentleman of an old family, that he formed one of
the most desperate and terrible designs ever conceived in the mind
of man ; no less a scheme than the Gunpowder Plot.
His object was, when the King, lords, and commons, should be
assembled at the next opening of Parliament, to blow them up, one
and all, with a great mine of gunpowder. The first person to whom
he confided this horrible idea was Thomas Winter, a Worcester-
shire gentleman who had served in the army abroad, and had been
secretly employed in Catholic projects. \\'hile Winter was yet
undecided, and when he had gone over to the Netherlands, to learn
from the Spanish Ambassador there whether there was any hope of
Catholics being relieved through the intercession of the King of
Spain with his Sowship, he found at Ostend a tall, dark, daring man,
whom he had known when they were both soldiers abroad, and
whose name was Guido — or Guy — Fawkes. Resolved to join the
plot, he proposed it to this man, knowing him to be the man for
any desperate deed, and they two came back to England together.
Here, they admitted two other conspirators : Thomas Percy, related
250 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
to the Earl of Northumberland, and John Wright, his brother-in-
law. All these met together in a solitary house in the open fields
which were then near Clement's Inn, now a closely blocked-up part
of London ; and when they had all taken a great oath of secrecy,
Catesby told the rest what his plan was. They then went up-stairs
into a garret, and received the Sacrament from Father Gerard, a
Jesuit, who is said not to have known actually of the Gunpowder
Plot, but who, I think, must have had his suspicions that there was
something desperate afoot.
Percy was a Gentleman Pensioner, and as he had occasional
duties to perform about the Court, then kept at Whitehall, there
would be nothing suspicious in his living at Westminster. So,
having looked well about him, and having found a house to let, the
back of which joined the Parliament House, he hired it of a person
named Ferris, for the purpose of undermining the wall. Having
got possession of this house, the conspirators hired another on the
Lambeth side of the Thames, which they used as a storehouse for
wood, gunpowder, and other combustible matters. These were to
be removed at night (and afterwards were removed), bit by bit, to
the house at Westminster ; and, that there might be some trusty
person to keep watch over the Lambeth stores, they admitted another
conspirator, by name Robert Kay, a very poor Catholic gentleman.
All these arrangements had been made some months, and it was
a dark, wintry, December night, when the conspirators, who had
been in the meantime dispersed to avoid observation, met in the
house at Westminster, and began to dig. They had laid in a good
stock of eatables, to avoid going in and out, and they dug and dug
with great ardour. But, the wall being tremendously thick, and the
work very severe, they took into their plot Christopher Wright,
a younger brother of John Wright, that they might have a new pair
of hands to help. And Christopher Wright fell to like a fresh man,
and they dug and dug by night and by day, and Fawkes stood
sentinel all the time. And if any man's heart seemed to fail him
at all, Fawkes said, ' Gentlemen, we have abundance of powder
and shot here, and there is no fear of our being taken alive, even if
discovered.' The same Fawkes, who, in the capacity of sentinel,
was always prowling about, soon picked up the intelligence that
the King had prorogued the Parliament again, from the seventh of
February, the day first fixed upon, until the third of October.
When the conspirators knew this, they agreed to separate until after
the Christmas holidays, and to take no notice of each other in the
meanwhile, and never to write letters to one another on any account.
So, the house in Westminster was shut up again, and I suppose the
neighbours thought that those strange-looking men who lived there
so gloomily, and went out so seldom, were gone away to have a
merry Christmas somewhere.
JAMES THE FIRST 251
It was the beginning of February, sixteen hundred and five, when
Catesby met his fellow-conspirators again at this Westminster house.
He had now admitted three more ; John Grant, a Warwickshire
gentleman of a melancholy temper, who lived in a doleful house near
Stratford-upon-Avon, with a frowning wall all round it, and a deep
moat ; Robert Winter, eldest brother of Thomas ; and Catesby's
own servant, Thomas Bates, who, Catesby thought, had had some
suspicion of what his master was about. These tliree had all
suffered more or less for their religion in Elizabeth's time. And
now, they all began to dig again, and they dug and dug by night
and by day.
They found it dismal work alone there, underground, with such
a fearful secret on their minds, and so many murders before them.
They were filled with wild fancies. Sometimes, they thought they
heard a great bell tolling, deep down in the earth under the Par-
liament House; sometimes, they thought they heard low voices
muttering about the Gunpowder Plot ; once in the morning, they
really did hear a great rumbling noise over their heads, as they
dug and sweated in their mine. Every man stopped and looked
aghast at his neighbour, wondering what had happened, when that
bold prowler, Fawkes, who had been out to look, came in and told
them that it was only a dealer in coals who had occupied a cellar
under the Parliament House, removing his stock in trade to some
other place. Upon this, the conspirators, who with all their digging
and digging had not yet dug through the tremendously thick wall,
changed their plan ; hired that cellar, which was directly under the
House of Lords ; put six-and-thirty barrels of gunpowder in it, and
covered them over with fagots and coals. Then they all dispersed
again till September, when the following new conspirators were
admitted ; Sir Edward Baynham, of Gloucestershire ; Sir Everard
DiGBY, of Rutlandshire ; Ambrose Rookwood, of Suffolk ; Francis
Tresham, of Northamptonshire. Most of these were rich, and
were to assist the plot, some with money and some with horses on
which the conspirators were to ride through the country and rouse
the Catholics after the Parliament should be blown into air.
Parliament being again prorogued from the third of October to
the fifth of November, and the conspirators being uneasy lest their
design should have been found out, Thomas Winter said he would
go up into the House of Lords on the.day'of the prorogation, and see
how matters looked. Nothing could be better. The unconscious
Commissioners were walking about and talking to one another,
just over the six-and-thirty barrels of gunpowder. He came back
and told the rest so, and they went on with their preparations.
They hired a ship, and kept it ready in the Thames, in which
Fawkes was to sail for Flanders after firing with a slow match the
train that was to explode the powder. A number of Catholic
252 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
gentlemen not in the secret, were invited, on pretence of a hunting
party, to meet Sir Everard Digby at Dunchurch on the fatal day,
that they might be ready to act together. And now all was ready.
But, now, the great v.ickedness and danger which had been all
along at the bottom of this wicked plot, began to show itself. As
the fifth of November drew near, most of the conspirators, re-
membering that they had friends and relations who would be in
the House of Lords that day, felt some natural relenting, and a
wish to warn them to keep away. They were not much comforted
by Catesby's declaring that in such a cause he would blow up his
own son. Lord Mounteagle, Tresham's brother-in-law, was
certain to be in the house; and when Tresham found that he
could not prevail upon the rest to devise any means of sparing
their friends, he wrote a mysterious letter to this lord and left it at
his lodging in the dusk, urging him to keep away from the opening
of Parliament, ' since God and man had concurred to punish the
wickedness of the times.' It contained the words ' that the Parlia-
ment should receive a terrible blow, and yet should not see who
hurt them.' And it added, ' the danger is past, as soon as you
have burnt the letter.'
The ministers and courtiers made out that his Sowship, by a
direct miracle from Heaven, found out what this letter meant.
The truth is, that they were not long (as few men would be) in
finding out for themselves; and it was decided to let the con-
spirators alone, until the very day before the opening of Parliament.
That the conspirators had their fears, is certain ; for, Tresham him-
self said before them all, that they were every one dead men ; and,
although even he did not take flight, there is reason to suppose that
he had warned other persons besides Lord Mounteagle. However,
they were all firm ; and Fawkes, who was a man of iron, went down
every day and night to keep watch in the cellar as usual. He
was there about two in the afternoon of the fourth, when the Lord
Chamberlain and Lord Mounteagle threw open the door and looked
in. ' Who are you, friend ? ' said they. ' Why,' said Fawkes, ' I
am Mr. Percy's servant, and am looking after his store of fuel here.'
'Your master has laid in a pretty good store,' they returned, and
shut the door, and went away. Fawkes, upon this, posted off to
the other conspirators to tell them all was quiet, and went back
and shut himself up in the dark, black cellar again, where he heard
the bell go twelve o'clock and usher in the fifth of November.
About two hours afterwards, he slowly opened the door, and came
out to look about him, in his old prowling way. He was instantly
seized and bound, by a party of soldiers under Sir Thomas
Knevett. He had a watch upon him, some touchwood, some
tinder, some slow matches ; and there was a dark lantern with a
candle in it, lighted, behind the door. He had his boots and spurs
JAMES THE FIRST 253
on — to ride to the ship, I suppose — and it was well for the soldiers
that they took him so suddenly. If they had left him but a moment's
time to light a match, he certainly would have tossed it in among
the powder, and blown up himself and them.
They took him to the King's bed-chamber first of all, and there
the King (causing him to be held very tight, and keeping a good
way off), asked him how he could have the heart to intend to
destroy so many innocent people ? ' Because,' said Guy Fawkes,
' desperate diseases need desperate remedies.' To a little Scotch
favourite, with a face like a terrier, who asked him (with no par-
ticular wisdom) why he had collected so much gunpowder, he
replied, because he had meant to blow Scotchmen back to Scotland,
and it would take a deal of powder to do that. Next day he was
carried to the Tower, but would make no confession. Even after
being horribly tortured, he confessed nothing that the Government
did not already know ; though he must have been in a fearful state
— as his signature, still preserved, in contrast with his natural hand-
writing before he was put upon the dreadful rack, most frightfully
shows. Bates, a very different man, soon said the Jesuits had had
to do with the plot, and probably, under the torture, would as
readily have said anything. Tresham, taken and put in the Tower
too, made confessions and unmade them, and died of an illness
that was heavy upon him. Rookwood, who had stationed relays
of his own horses all the way to Dunchurch, did not mount to
escape until the middle of the day, when the news of the plot was
all over London. On the road, he came up with the two Wrights,
Catesby, and Percy; and they all galloped together into North-
amptonshire. Thence to Dunchurch, where they found the pro-
posed party assembled. Finding, however, that there had been a
plot, and that it had been discovered, the party disappeared in the
course of the night, and left them alone with Sir Everard Digby.
Away they all rode again, through ^Va^wickshire and Worcester-
shire, to a house called Holbeach, on the borders of Staffordshire.
They tried to raise the Catholics on their way, but were indignantly
driven off by them. All this time they were hotly pursued by the
sheriff of Worcester, and a fast increasing concourse of riders. At
last, resolving to defend themselves at Holbeach, they shut them-
selves up in the house, and put some wet powder before the fire
to dry. But it blew up, and Catesby was singed and blackened,
and almost killed, and some of the others were sadly hurt. Still,
knowing that they must die, they resolved to die there, and with
only their swords in their hands appeared at the windows to be
shot at by the sheriff and his assistants. Catesby said to Thomas
Winter, after Thomas had been hit in the right arm which dropped
powerless by his side, ' Stand by me, Tom, and we will die together ! '
— which they did, being shot through the body by two bullets from
254 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
one gun. John Wright, and Christopher Wright, and Percy, were
also shot. Rookwood and Digby were taken : the former with a
broken arm and a wound in his body too.
It was the fifteenth of January, before the trial of Guy Fawkes,
and such of the other conspirators as were left alive, came on.
They were all found guilty, all hanged, drawn, and quartered : some,
in St. Paul's Churchyard, on the top of Ludgate-hill ; some, before
the Parliament House. A Jesuit priest, named Henry Garnet,
to whom the dreadful design was said to have been communicated,
was taken and tried ; and two of his servants, as well as a poor
priest who was taken with him, were tortured without mercy. He
himself was not tortured, but was surrounded in the Tower by
tamperers and traitors, and so was made unfairly to convict himself
out of his own mouth. He said, upon his trial, that he had done
all he could to prevent the deed, and that he could not make public
what had been told him in confession — though I am afraid he knew
of the plot in other ways. He was found guilty and executed, after
a manful defence, and the Catholic Church made a saint of him ;
some rich and powerful persons, who had had nothing to do with
the project, were fined and imprisoned for it by the Star Chamber ;
the Catholics, in general, who had recoiled with horror from the
idea of the infernal contrivance, were unjustly put under more
severe laws than before ; and this was the end of the Gunpowder
Plot.
Second Part
His Sowship would pretty willingly, I think, have blown the House
of Commons into the air himself; for, his dread and jealousy of it
knew no bounds all through his reign. When he was hard pressed
for money he was obliged to order it to meet, as he could get no
money without it ; and when it asked him first to abolish some of
the monopolies in necessaries of life which were a great grievance
to the people, and to redress other public wrongs, he flew into a
rage and got rid of it again. At one time he wanted it to consent
to the Union of England with Scotland, and quarrelled about that.
At another time it wanted him to put down a most infamous Church
abuse, called the High Commission Court, and he quarrelled with it
about that. At another time it entreated him not to be quite so
fond of his archbishops and bishops who made speeches in his
praise too awful to be related, but to have some little consideration
for the poor Puritan clergy who were persecuted for preaching in
their own way, and not according to the archbishops and bishops ;
and they quarrelled about that. In short, what with hating the
House of Commons, and pretending not to hate it ; and what with
now sending some of its members who opposed him, to Newgate or
JAMES THE FIRST 255
to the Tower, and now telling the rest that they must not presume
to make speeches about the public affairs which could not possibly
concern them ; and what with cajoling, and bullying, and fighting,
and being frightened; the House of Commons was the plague of
his Sowship's existence. It was pretty firm, however, in maintaining
its rights, and insisting that the Parliament should make the laws,
and not the King by his own single proclamations (which he tried
hard to do) ; and his Sowship was so often distressed for money, in
consequence, that he sold every sort of title and public office as if
they were merchandise, and even invented a new dignity called a
Baronetcy, which anybody could buy for a thousand pounds.
These disputes with his Parliaments, and his hunting, and his
drinking, and his lying in bed — for he was a great sluggard — occu-
pied his Sowship pretty well. The rest of his time he chiefly passed
in hugging and slobbering his favourites. The first of these was
Sir Philip Herbert, who had no knowledge whatever, except of
dogs, and horses, and hunting, but whom he soon made Earl of
Montgomery. The next, and a much more famous one, was
Robert Carr, or Ker (for it is not certain which was his right
name), who came from the Border country, and whom he soon
made Viscount Rochester, and afterwards, Earl or Somerset.
The way in which his Sowship doted on this handsome young
man, is even more odious to think of, than the way in which the
really great men of England condescended to boAv down before
him. The favourite's great friend was a certain Sir Thomas
Overburv, who wrote his love-letters for him, and assisted him in
the duties of his many high places, which his own ignorance
prevented him from discharging. But this same Sir Thomas
having just manhood enough to dissuade the favourite from a
wicked marriage with the beautiful Countess of Essex, who was to
get a divorce from her husband for the purpose, the said Countess,
in her rage, got Sir Thomas put into the Tower, and there poisoned
him. Then the favourite and this bad woman were publicly
married by the King's pet bishop, with as much to-do and rejoicing,
as if he had been the best man, and she the best woman, upon the
face of the earth.
But, after a longer sunshine than might have been expected — of
seven years or so, that is to say — another handsome young man
started up and eclipsed the Earl of Somerset. This was George
Villiers, the youngest son of a Leicestershire gentleman : who
came to Court with all the Paris fashions on him, and could dance as
well as the best mountebank that ever was seen. He soon danced
himself into the good graces of his Sowship, and danced the other
favourite out of favour. Then, it was all at once discovered that
the Earl and Countess of Somerset had not deserved all those great
promotions and mighty rejoicings, and they were separately tried
256 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, and for other crimes.
But, the King was so afraid of his late favourite's publicly telling
some disgraceful things he knew of him — which he darkly threatened
to do — that he was even examined v.'ith two men standing, one on
either side of him, each with a cloak in his hand, ready to throw it
over his head and stop his mouth if he should break out with what
he had it in his power to tell. So, a very lame affair was purposely
made of the trial, and his punishment was an allowance of four
thousand pounds a year in retirement, while the Countess was
pardoned, and allowed to pass into retirement too. They hated one
another by this time, and lived to revile and torment each other
some years.
While these events were in progress, and while his Sowship was
making such an exhibition of himself, from day to day and from
year to year, as is not often seen in any sty, three remarkable deaths
took place in England. The first was that of the Minister, Robert
Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, who was past sixty, and had never been
strong, being deformed from his birth. He said at last that he had
no wish to live ; and no Minister need have had, with his experience
of the meanness and wickedness of those disgraceful times. The
second was that of the Lady Arabella Stuart, who alarmed his
Sowship mightily, by privately marrying William Seymour, son of
Lord Beauchamp, who was a descendant of King Henry the
Seventh, and who, his Sowship thought, might consequently increase
and strengthen any claim she might one day set up to the throne.
She was separated from her husband (who was put in the Tower)
and thrust into a boat to be confined at Durham. She escaped in
a man's dress to get away in a French ship from Gravesend to
France, but unhappily missed her husband, who had escaped too,
and was soon taken. She went raving mad in the miserable Tower,
and died there after four years. The last, and the most important
of these three deaths, was that of Prince Henry, the heir to the
throne, in the nineteenth year of his age. He was a promising
young prince, and greatly liked ; a quiet, well-conducted youth, of
whom two very good things are known : first, that his father was
jealous of him; secondly, that he was the friend of Sir Walter
Raleigh, languishing through all those years in the Tower, and often
said that no man but his father would keep such a bird in such a
cage. On the occasion of the preparations for the marriage of his
sister the Princess Elizabeth with a foreign prince (and an unhappy
marriage it turned out), he came from Richmond, where he had
been very ill, to greet his new brother-in-law, at the palace at
Whitehall. There he played a great game at tennis, in his shirt,
though it was very cold weather, and was seized with an alarming
illness, and died within a fortnight of a putrid fever. For this
young prince Sir Walter Raleigh wrote, in his prison in the Tower,
JAMES THE FIRST 257
the beginning of a History of the AA'orld : a wonderful instance how
httle his Sowship could do to confine a great man's mind, however
long he might imprison his body.
And this mention of Sir Walter Raleigh, who had many faults,
but who never showed so many merits as in trouble and adversity,
may bring me at once to the end of his sad story. After an
imprisonment in the Tower of twelve long years, he proposed to
resume those old sea voyages of his, and to go to South America in
search of gold. His Sowship, divided between his wish to be on
good terms with the Spaniards through whose territory Sir Walter
must pass (he had long had an idea of marrying Prince Henry to a
Spanish Princess), and his avaricious eagerness to get hold of the
gold, did not know what to do. But, in the end, he set Sir ^^'alter
free, taking securities for his return ; and Sir Walter fitted out an
expedition at his own cost, and, on the twenty-eighth of March, one
thousand six hundred and seventeen, sailed away in command of
one of its ships, which he ominously called the Destiny. The
expedition failed ; the common men, not finding the gold they had
expected, mutinied ; a quarrel broke out between Sir 'Walter and
the Spaniards, who hated him for old successes of his against them ;
and he took and burnt a little town called Saint Thomas. For
this he was denounced to his Sov.-ship by the Spanish Ambassador
as a pirate ; and returning almost broken-hearted, with his hopes
and fortunes shattered, his company of friends dispersed, and his
brave son (who had been one of them) killed, he was taken —
through the treachery of Sir Lewis Stukely, his near relation, a
scoundrel and a Vice-Admiral — and was once again immured in his
prison-home of so many years.
His Sowship being mightily disappointed in not getting any gold,
Sir \\'alter Raleigh was tried as unfairly, and with as many lies and
evasions as the judges and law officers and every other authority in
Church and State habitually practised under such a King. After a
great deal of prevarication on all parts but his own, it was declared
that he must die under his former sentence, now fifteen years old.
So, on the twenty-eighth of October, one thousand six hundred and
eighteen, he was shut up in the Gate House at Westminster to pass
his last night on earth, and there he took leave of his good and
faithful lady who was worthy to have lived in better days. At eight
o'clock next morning, after a cheerful breakfast, and a pipe, and a
cup of good wine, he was taken to Old Palace Yard in ^^'estminster,
where the scaffold was set up, and where so many people of high
degree were assembled to see him die, that it was a matter of some
difficulty to get him through the crowd. He behaved most nobly,
but if anything lay heavy on his mind, it was that Earl of Essex,
whose head he had seen roll off ; and he solemnly said that he had
had no hand in bringing him to the block, and that he had shed
s
258 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
tears for him when he died. As the morning was very cold, the
Sheriff said, would he come down to a fire for a little space, a:id
warm himself? But Sir Walter thanked him, and said no, he would
rather it were done at once, for he was ill of fever and ague, and in
another quarter of an hour his shaking fit would come upon him if
he were still alive, and his enemies might then suppose that he
trembled for fear. With that, he kneeled and made a very beau-
tiful and Christian prayer. Before he laid his head upon the block
he felt the edge of the axe, and said, with a smile upon his face,
that it was a sharp medicine, but would cure the worst disease.
^Vhen he \yas bent down ready for death, he said to the executioner,
finding that he hesitated, ' What dost thou fear ? Strike, man ! '
So, the axe came down and struck his head off, in the sixty-sixth
year of his age.
The new favourite got on fast. He was made a viscount, he was
made Duke of Buckingham, he was made a marquis, he was made
Master of the Horse, he was made Lord High Admiral — and the
Chief Commander of the gallant English forces that had dispersed
the Spanish Armada, was displaced to make room for him. He
had the whole kingdom at his disposal, and his mother sold all the
profits and honours of the State, as if she had kept a shop. He
blazed all over with diamonds and other precious stones, from his
hatband and his earrings to his shoes. Yet he was an ignorant
presumptuous, swaggering compound of knave and fool, with nothing
but his beauty and his dancing to recommend him. This is the gentle-
man who called himself his Majesty's dog and slave, and called his
Majesty Your Sowship. His Sowship called him Steenie; it is
supposed, because that was a nickname for Stephen, and because
St. Stephen was generally represented in pictures as a handsome
saint.
His Sowship was driven sometimes to his wits'-end by his trim-
ming between the general dislike of the Catholic religion at home,
and his desire to wheedle and flatter it abroad, as his only means
of getting a rich princess for his son's wife : a part of whose fortune
he might cram into his greasy pockets. Prince Charles — or as his
Sowship caUed him. Baby Charles — being now Prince of Wales,
the old project of a marriage with the Spanish King's daughter had
been revived for him ; and as she could not marry a Protestant
without leave from the Pope, his Sowship himself secretly and
meanly wrote to his Infallibility, asking for it. The negotiation
for this Spanish marriage takes up a larger space in great books,
than you can imagine, but the upshot of it all is, that when it had
been held off by the Spanish Court for a long time. Baby Charles
and Steenie set off in disguise as Mr. Thomas Smith and Mr. John
Smith, to see the Spanish Princess ; that Baby Charles pretended
to be desperately in love with her, and jumped off walls to look at
JAMES THE FIRST 259
her, and made a considerable fool of himself in a good many ways ;
that she was called Princess of Wales, and that the whole Spanish
Court believed Baby Charles to be all but dying for her sake, as
he expressly told them he was ; that Baby Charles and Steenie came
back to England, and were received with as much rapture as if they
had been a blessing to it ; that Baby Charles had actually fallen in
love with Henrietta Maria, the French King's sister, wliom he
had seen in Paris; that he thought it a wonderfully fine and
princely thing to have deceived the Spaniards, all through ; and
that he openly said, with a chuckle, as soon as he was safe
and sound at home again, that tlie Spaniards were great fools to
have believed him.
Like most dishonest men, the Prince and the favourite complained
that the people whom they had deluded were dishonest. They
made such misrepresentations of the treachery of the Spaniards in
this business of the Spanish match, that the English nation became
eager for a war with them. Although the gravest Spaniards laughed
at the idea of his Sowship in a warlike attitude, the Parliament
granted money for the beginning of hostilities, and the treaties with
Spain were publicly declared to be at an end. The Spanish am-
bassador in London — probably with the help of the fallen favourite,
the Earl of Somerset — being unable to obtain speech with his Sow-
ship, slipped a paper into his hand, declaring that he was a prisoner
in his own house, and was entirely governed by Buckingham and
his creatures. The first effect of this letter was that his Sowship
began to cry and whine, and took Baby Charles away from Steenie,
and went down to Windsor, gabbling all sorts of nonsense. The
end of it was that his Sowship hugged his dog and slave, and said
he was quite satisfied.
He had given the Prince and the favourite almost unlimited
power to settle anything with the Pope as to the Spanish marriage ;
and he now, with a view to the French one, signed a treaty that all
Roman Catholics in England should exercise their religion freely,
and should never be required to take any oath contrary thereto. In
return for this, and for other concessions much less to be defended,
Henrietta Maria was to become the Prince's wife, and was to bring
him a fortune of eight hundred thousand crowns.
His Sowship's eyes were getting red with eagerly looking for the
money, when the end of a gluttonous life came upon him ; and,
after a fortnight's illness, on Sunday the twenty-seventh of March,
one thousand six hundred and twenty-five, he died. He had
reigned twenty-two years, and was fifty-nine years old. I know of
nothing more abominable in history than the adulation that was
lavished on this King, and the vice and corruption that such a
barefaced habit of lying produced in his court. It is much to be
doubted wb. ether one man of honour, and not utterly self-disgraced,
26o A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
kept his place near James the First, Lord Bacon, that able and
wise philosopher, as the First Judge in the Kingdom in this reign,
became a public spectacle of dishonesty and corruption ; and in his
base flattery of his Sowship, and in his crawling servility to his dog
and slave, disgraced himself even more. But, a creature like his
Sowship set upon a throne is like the Plague, and everybody receives
infection from him.
CHAPTER XXXIII
ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST
Baby Charles became King Charles the First, in the twenty-
fifth year of his age. Unlike his father, he was usually amiable in
his private character, and grave and dignified in his bearing; but,
like his father, he had monstrously exaggerated notions of the
rights of a king, and was evasive, and not to be trusted. If his
word could have been relied upon, his history might have had a
different end.
His first care was to send over that insolent upstart, Buckingham,
to bring Henrietta Maria from Paris to be his Queen ; upon which
occasion Buckingham — with his usual audacity — made love to the
young Queen of Austria, and was very indignant indeed with
Cardinal Richelieu, the French Minister, for thwarting his in-
tentions. The English people were very well disposed to like their
new Queen, and to receive her with great favour when she came
among them as a stranger. But, she held the Protestant religion
in great dislike, and brought over a crowd of unpleasant priests,
who made her do some very ridiculous things, and forced them-
selves upon the public notice in many disagreeable ways. Hence,
the people soon came to dislike her, and she soon came to dislike
them ; and she did so much all through this reign in setting the King
(who was dotingly fond of her) against his subjects, that it would
have been better for him if she had never been born.
Now, you are to understand that King Charles the First — of his
own determination to be a high and mighty King not to be called
to account by anybody, and urged on by his Queen besides — de-
liberately set himself to put his Parliament down and to put himself
up. You are also to understand, that even in pursuit of this wrong
idea (enough in itself to have ruined any king) he never took a
straight course, but always took a crooked one.
He was bent upon war with Spain, though neither the House
of Commons nor the people were quite clear as to the justice of
CHARLES THE FIRST 261
that war, now that they began to think a little more about the story
of the Spanish match. But the King rushed into it hotly, raised
money by illegal means to meet its expenses, and encountered a
miserable failure at Cadiz, in the very first year of his reign. An
expedition to Cadiz had been made in the hope of jjlunder, but as
it was not successful, it was necessary to get a grant of money from
the Parliament ; and when they met, in no very complying humour,
the King told them, ' to make haste to let him have it, or it would
be the worse for themselves.' Not put in a more complying humour
by this, they impeached the King's favourite, the Duke of Bucking-
ham, as the cause (which he undoubtedly was) of many great public
grievances and wrongs. The King, to save him, dissolved the
Parliament without getting the money he wanted ; and when the
Lords implored him to consider and grant a little delay, he replied,
*No, not one minute.' He then began to raise money for himself
by the following means among others.
He levied certain duties called tonnage and poundage which had
not been granted by the Parliament, and could lawfully be levied by
no other power ; he called upon the seaport towns to furnish, and
to pay all the cost for three months of, a fleet of armed ships ; and
he required the people to unite in lending him large sums of money,
the repayment of which was very doubtful. If the poor people
refused, they were pressed as soldiers or sailors ; if the gentry
refused, they were sent to prison. Five gentlemen, named Sir
Thomas Darnel, John Corbet, Walter Earl, John Hevening-
HAM, and EvERARD Hampden, for refusing were taken up by a
warrant of the King's privy council, and were sent to prison without
any cause but the King's pleasure being stated for their imprison-
ment. Then the question came to be solemnly tried, whether this
was not a violation of IvLagna Charta, and an encroachment by the
King on the highest rights of the E^nglish people. His lawyers
contended No, because to encroach upon the rights of the English
people would be to do wrong, and the King could do no wrong.
The accommodating judges decided in favour of this wicked non-
sense ; and here was a fatal division between the King and the
people.
For all this, it became necessary to call another Parliament. The
people, sensible of the danger in which their liberties were, chose
for it those who were best known for their determined opposition
to the King ; but still the King, quite blinded by his determination
to carry everything before him, addressed them when they met, in
a contemptuous manner, and just told them in so many words that
he had only called them together because he wanted money. The
Parliament, strong enough and resolute enough to know that they
would lower his tone, cared little for what he said, and laid before
him one of the great documents of history, which is called the
262 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Petition of Right, requiring that the free men of England should
no longer be called upon to lend the King money, and should no
longer be pressed or imprisoned for refusing to do so ; further, that
the free men of England should no longer be seized by the King's
special mandate or warrant, it being contrary to their rights and
liberties and the laws of their country. At first the King returned
an answer to this petition, in which he tried to shirk it altogether;
but, the House of Commons then showing their determination to
go on with the impeachment of Buckingham, the King in alarm
returned an answer, giving his consent to all that was required of
him. He not only afterwards departed from his word and honour
on these points, over and over again, but, at this very time, he did
the mean and dissembling act of publishing his first answer and not
his second — merely that the people might suppose that the Parlia-
ment had not got the better of him.
That pestilent Buckingham, to gratify his own wounded vanity,
had by this time involved the country in war with France, as well
as with Spain. For such miserable causes and such miserable
creatures are wars sometimes made ! But he was destined to
do little more mischief in this world. One morning, as he was
going out of his house to his carriage, he turned to speak to a
certain Colonel Fryer who was with him ; and he was violently
stabbed with a knife, which the murderer left sticking in his heart.
This happened in his hall. He had had angry words up-stairs,
just before, with some French gentlemen, who were immediately
suspected by his servants, and had a close escape from being set
upon and killed. In the midst of the noise, the real murderer, who
had gone to the kitchen and might easily have got away, drew his
sword and cried out, ' I am the man ! ' His name was John Felton,
a Protestant and a retired officer in the army. He said he had had
no personal ill-will to the Duke, but had killed him as a curse to
the country. He had aimed his blow well, for Buckingham had
only had time to cry out, ' Villain ! ' and then he drew out the knife,
fell against a table, and died.
The council made a mighty business of examining John Felton
about this murder, though it was a plain case enough, one would
think. He had come seventy miles to do it, he told them, and he
did it for the reason he had declared ; if they put him upon the
rack, as that noble Marquis of Dorset whom he saw before him,
had the goodness to threaten, he gave that marquis warning, that
he would accuse ////// as his accomplice ! The King was unpleasantly
anxious to have him racked, nevertheless ; but as the judges now
found out that torture was contrary to the law of England — it is a
pity they did not make the discovery a little sooner — John Felton
was simply executed for the murder he had done. A murder it
undoubtedly was, and not in the least to be defended : though he
CHARLES THE FIRST 263
had freed England from one of the most profligate, contemptible,
and base court favourites to whom it has ever yielded.
A very different man now arose. This was Sir Thomas Went-
WORTH, a Yorkshire gentleman, who had sat in Parliament for a
long time, and who had favoured arbitrary and haughty principles,
but who had gone over to the people's side on receiving offence
from Euckinghfim. The King, much wanting such a man — for,
besides being naturally favourable to the King's cause, he had great
abilities — made him first a Baron, and then a Viscount, and gave
him high employment, and won him most completely.
A Parliament, however, was still in existence, and was 7wt to be
won. On the twentieth of January, one thousand six hundred and
twenty-nine. Sir John Eliot, a great man who had been active in
the Petition of Right, brought forward other strong resolutions against
the King's chief instruments, and called upon the Speaker to put
them to the vote. To this the Speaker answered, ' he was com-
manded otherwise by the King,' and got up to leave the chair —
which, according to the rules of the House of Commons would
have obliged it to adjourn without doing anything more — when two
members, named Mr. Hollis and Mr. Valentine, held him down.
A scene of great confusion arose among the members ; and while
many swords were drawn and flashing about, the King, who was
kept informed of all that was going on, told the captain of his guard
to go down to the House and force the doors. The resolutions
were by that time, however, voted, and the House adjourned. Sir
John Eliot and those two members who had held the Speaker down,
were quickly summoned before the council. As they claimed it to
be their privilege not to answer out of Parliament for anything they
had said in it, they were committed to the Tower. The King then
went down and dissolved the Parliament, in a speech wherein he
made mention of these gentlemen as ' Vipers '• — which did not do
him much good that ever I have heard of.
As they refused to gain their liberty by saying they were sorry
for w^hat they had done, the King, always remarkably unforgiving,
never overlooked their offence. When they demanded to be brought
up before the court of King's Bench, he even resorted to the mean-
ness of having them moved about from prison to prison, so that the
writs issued for that purpose should not legally find them. At last
they came before the court and were sentenced to heavy fines, and
to be imprisoned during the King's pleasure. When Sir John Eliot's
health had quite given way, and he so longed for change of air and
scene as to petition for his release, the King sent back the answer
(worthy of his Sowship himself) that the petition was not humble
enough. When he sent another petition by his young son, in which he
pathetically offered to go back to prison when his health was restored,
if he might be released for its recovery, the King still disregarded
264 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
it. When he died in the Tower, and his children petitioned to be
allowed to take his body down to Cornwall, there to lay it among
the ashes of his forefathers, the King returned for answer, ' Let
Sir John Eliot's body be buried in the church of that parish where
he died.' All this was like a very little King indeed, I think.
And now, for twelve long years, steadily pursuing his design of
setting himself up and putting the people down, the King called no
Parliament; but ruled without one. If twelve thousand volumes
were written in his praise (as a good many have been) it would still
remain a fact, impossible to be denied, that for twelve years King
Charles the First reigned in England unlawfully and despotically,
seized upon his subjects' goods and money at his pleasure, and
punished according to his unbridled will all who ventured to oppose
him. It is a fashion with some people to think that this King's
career was cut short ; but I must say myself that I think he ran a
pretty long one.
William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the King's right-
hand man in the religious part of the putting down of the people's
liberties. Laud, who was a sincere man, of large learning but small
sense — for the two things sometimes go together in very different
fjuantities — though a Protestant, held opinions so near those of
the Catholics, that the Pope wanted to make a Cardinal of him, if
he would have accepted that favour. He looked upon vows, robes,
lighted candles, images, and so forth, as amazingly important in
religious ceremonies ; and he brought in an immensity of bowing
and candle-snuffing. He also regarded archbishops and bishops
as a sort of miraculous persons, and was inveterate in the last
degree against any who thought otherwise. Accordingly, he offered
up thanks to Heaven, and was in a state of much pious pleasure,
when a Scotch clergyman, named Leighton, was pilloried, whipped,
branded in the cheek, and had one of his ears cut off and one of
his nostrils slit, for calling bishops trumpery and the inventions
of men. He originated on a Sunday morning the prosecution of
William Prynne, a barrister who was of similar opinions, and who
was fined a thousand pounds ; who was pilloried ; who had his
ears cut off on two occasions — one ear at a time — and who was
imprisoned for life. He highly approved of the punishment of
Doctor Bastwick, a physician ; who was also fined a thousand
pounds ; and who afterwards had his ears cut off, and was
imprisoned for life. These were gentle methods of persuasion,
some will tell you : I think, they were rather calculated to be
alarming to the people.
In the money part of the putting down of the people's liberties,
the King was equally gentle, as some will tell you : as I think,
equally alarming. He levied those duties of tonnage and poundage,
and increased them as he thought fit. He granted monopolies tQ
CPIARLES THE FIRST " ^65
compinies of merchants on their paying him for them, notwith-
standing the great complaints that had, for years and years, been
made on the subject of monopoUes. He fined the people for dis-
obeying proclamations issued by his Sowship in direct violation of
law. He revived the detested Forest laws, and took private property
to himself as his forest right. Above all, he determined to have
■what was called Ship Money ; that is to say, money for the support
of the fleet — not only from the seaports, but from all the counties
of England : having found out that, in some ancient time or other,
all the counties paid it. The grievance of this ship money being
somewhat too strong, John Chambers, a citizen of London, refused
to pay his part of it. For this the Lord Mayor ordered John
Chambers to prison, and for that John Chambers brought a suit
against the Lord Mayor. Lord Say, also, behaved like a real
nobleman, and declared he would not pay. But, the sturdiest and
best opponent of the ship money was John Hampden, a gentleman
of Buckinghamshire, who had sat among the ' vipers ' in the House
of Commons when there was such a thing, and who had been the
bosom friend of Sir John Eliot. This case was tried before the
twelve judges in the Court of Exchequer, and again the King's
lawyers said it was impossible that ship money could be wrong,
because the King could do no wrong, however hard he tried — and
he really did try very hard during these twelve years. Seven of the
judges said that was quite true, and Mr. Hampden was bound to
pay : five of the judges said that was quite false, and Mr. Hampden
was 'not bound to pay. So, the King triumphed (as he thought),
by making Hampden the most popular man in England ; where
matters were getting to that height now, that many honest English-
men could not endure their country, and sailed away across the
seas to found a colony in Massachusetts Bay in America. It is said
that Hampden himself and his relation Oliver Cromwell were
going with a company of such voyagers, and were actually on board
ship, when they were stopped by a proclamation, prohibiting sea
captains to carry out such passengers without the royal license.
But O ! it would have been well for the King if he had let them go !
This was the state of England. If Laud had been a madman
just broke loose, he could not have done more mischief than he did
in Scotland. In his endeavours (in which he was seconded by the
King, then in person in that part of his dominions) to force his own
ideas of bishops, and his own religious forms and ceremonies upon
the Scotch, he roused that nation to a perfect frenzy. They formed
a solemn league, which they called The Covenant, for the preserva-
tion of their own religious forms ; they rose in arms throughout the
whole country ; they summoned all their men to prayers and sermons
twice a day by beat of drum ; they sang psalms, in which they
compared their enemies to all the evil spirits that ever were heaicl
266 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
of; and they solemnly vowed to smite them with the sword. At
first the King tried force, then treaty, then a Scottish Parliament
which did not answer at all. Then he tried the Earl of Strafford,
formerly Sir Thomas Wentworth ; who, as Lord Wentworth, had
been governing Ireland. He, too, had carried it with a very high
hand there, though to the benefit and prosperity of that country.
Strafford and Laud were for conquering the Scottish people by
force of arms. Other lords who were taken into council, recom-
mended that a Parliament should at last be called ; to which the
King unwillingly consented. So, on the thirteenth of April, one
thousand six hundred and forty, that then straiige sight, a Parliament,
was seen at Westminster. It is called the Short Parliament, for it
lasted a very little while. While the members were all looking at
one another, doubtful who would dare to speak, Mr. Pym arose
and set forth all that the King had done unlawfully during the past
twelve years, and what was the position to which England was
reduced. This great example set, other members took courage and
spoke the truth freely, though with great patience and moderation.
The King, a little frightened, sent to say that if they would grant
him a certain sum on certain terms, no more ship money should be
raised. They debated the matter for two days ; and then, as they
would not give him all he asked without promise or inquiry, he
dissolved them.
But they knew very well that he must have a Parliament now ;
and he began to make that discovery too, though rather late in the
day. Wherefore, on the twenty-fourth of September, being then at
York with an army collected against the Scottish people, but his
own men sullen and discontented like the rest of the nation, the
King told the great council of the Lords, whom he had called to
meet him there, that he would summon another Parliament to
assemble on the third of November. The soldiers of the Covenant
had now forced their way into England and had taken possession
of the northern counties, where the coals are got. As it would
never do to be without coals, and as the King's troops could make
no head against the Covenanters so full of gloomy zeal, a truce was
made, and a treaty with Scotland was taken into consideration.
Meanwhile the northern counties paid the Covenanters to leave the
coals alone, and keep quiet.
We have now disposed of the Short Parliament. We have next
to see what memorable things were done by the Long one.
Second Part
The Long Parliament assembled on the third of November, one
thousand six hundred and forty-one. That day week the Earl of
Strafford arrived from York, very sensible that the spirited and
CHARLES THE FIRST 267
determined men who formed that ParHament were no friends towards
him, who had not only deserted the cause of the people, but who
had on all occasions opposed himself to their liberties. The King
told him, for his comfort, that the Parliament ' should not hurt one
hair of his head.' But, on the very next day Mr. Pym, in the
House of Commons, and with great solemnity, impeached the Earl
of Strafford as a traitor. He was immediately taken into custody
and fell from his proud height.
It was the twenty-second of March before he was brought to trial
in Westminster Hall ; where, although he was very ill and suftered
great pain, he defended himself with such ability and majesty, that
it was doubtful whether he would not get the best of it. But on
the thirteenth day of the trial, Pym produced in the House of
Commons a copy of some notes of a council, found by young Sir
Harry Vane in a red velvet cabinet belonging to his father
(Secretary Vane, who sat at the council-table with the Earl), in
which Strafford had distinctly told the King that he was free from
all rules and obligations of government, and might do with his
people whatever he liked ; and in which he had added — ' You have
an army in Ireland that you may employ to reduce this kingdom to
obedience.' It was not clear whether by the words ' this kingdom,'
he had really meant England or Scotland ; but the Parliament
contended that he meant England, and this was treason. At the
same sitting of the House of Commons it was resolved to bring in
a bill of attainder declaring the treason to have been committed :
in preference to proceeding with the trial by impeachment, which
would have required the treason to be proved.
So, a bill was brought in at once, was carried through the House
of Commons by a large majority, and was sent up to the House of
Lords. While it was still uncertain whether the House of Lords
would pass it and the King consent to it, Pym disclosed to the
House of Commons that the King and Queen had both been plot-
ting with the officers of the army to bring up the soldiers and
control the Parliament, and also to introduce two hundred soldiers
into the Tower of London to effect the Earl's escape. The plotting
with the army was revealed by one George Goring, the son of a
lord of that name: a bad fellow who was one of the original plotters,
and turned traitor. The King had actually given his warrant for
the admission of the two hundred men into the Tower, and they
would have got in too, but for the refusal of the governor — a sturdy
Scotchman of the name of Balfour — to admit them. These
matters being made public, great numbers of people began to riot
outside the Houses of Parliament, and to cry out for the execution
of the Earl of Strafford, as one of the King's chief instruments
against them. The bill passed the House of Lords while the people
were in this state of agitation, and was laid before the King for his
268 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
assent, together with another bill declaring that the Parliament then
assembled should not be dissolved or adjourned without their own
consent. The King — not unwilling to save a faithful servant, thougli
he had no great attachment for him — was in some doubt what to
do ; but he gave his consent to both bills, although he in his heart
believed that the bill against the Earl of Strafford was unlawful and
unjust. The Earl had written to him, telhng him that he was willing
to die for his sake. But he had not expected that his royal master
would take him at his word quite so readily ; for, when he heard
his doom, he laid his hand upon his heart, and said, ' Put not your
trust in Princes ! '
The King, who never could be straightforward and plain, through
one single day or through one single sheet of paper, v/rote a letter
to the Lords, and sent it by the young Prince of Wales, entreating
them to prevail with the Commons that ' that unfortunate man
should fulfil the natural course of his life in a close imprisonment.'
In a postscript to the very same letter, he added, * If he must die,
it were charity to reprieve him till Saturday.' If there had been
any doubt of his fate, this weakness and meanness would have
settled it. The very next day, which was the twelfth of May, he
was brought out to be beheaded on Tower Hill.
Archbishop Laud, who had been so fond of having people's ears
cropped off and their noses slit, was now confined in the Tower
too ; and when the Earl went by his window to his death, he was
there, at his request, to give him his blessing. They had been great
friends in the King's cause, and the Earl had written to him in the
days of their power that he thought it would be an admirable thing
to have Mr. Hampden publicly whipped for refusing to pay the ship
money. However, those high and mighty doings were over now,
and the Earl went his way to death Vvith dignity and heroism. The
governor wished him to get into a coach at the Tower gate, for fear
the people should tear him to pieces ; but he said it was all one to
him whether he died by the axe or by the people's hands. So, he
walked, with a firm tread and a stately look, and sometimes pulled
off his hat to them as he passed along. They were profoundly
quiet. He made a speech on the scaffold from some notes he had
])repared (the paper was found lying there after his head was struck
oft), and one blow of the axe killed him, in the forty-ninth year of
his age.
This bold and daring act, the Parliament accompanied by other
famous measures, all originating (as even this did) in the King's
having so grossly and so long abused his power. The name of
Delinquents was applied to all sheriffs and other officers who had
been concerned in raising the ship money, or any other money,
from the people, in an unlawful manner ; the Hampden judgment
was reversed; the judges who had decided against Hampden were
CHARLES THE FIRST 269
called upon to give large securities that they would take such con-
sequences as Parliament might impose upon them ; and one was
arrested as he sat in High Court, and carried off to prison. Laud
Avas impeached ; the unfortunate victims whose ears had been
croi)ped and whose noses had been slit, were brought out of prison
in triumph ; and a bill was passed declaring that a Parliament
should be called every third year, and that if the King and the
King's officers did not call it, the people should assemble of them-
selves and summon it, as of their own right and power. '' Creat
illuminations and rejoicings took place over all these things, and
the country was wildly excited. That the Parliament took advantage
of this excitement and stirred them up by every means, there is no
doubt; but you are always to remember those twelve long years,
during which the King had tried so hard whether he really could do
any wrong or not.
All this time there was a great religious outcry against the right
of the Bishops to sit in Parliament ; to which the Scottish people
particularly objected. The English were divided on this subject,
and, partly on this account and partly because they had had foolish
expectations that the Parliament would be able to take off nearly
all the taxes, numbers of them sometimes wavered and inclined
towards the King.
I believe myself, that if, at this or almost any other period of his
life, the King could have been trusted by any man not out of liis
senses, he might have saved himself and kept his throne. But, on
the English army being disbanded, he plotted with the officers
again, as he had done before, and established the fact beyond all
doubt by putting his signature of approval to a petition against the
Parliamentary leaders, which was drawn up by certain officers.
When the Scottish army was disbanded, he went to Edinburgh in
four days — which was going very fast at that time — to plot again,
and so darkly too, that it is difficult to decide what his whole object
was. Some suppose that he wanted to gain over the Scottish
Parliament, as he did in fact gain over, by presents and favours,
many Scottish lords and men of power. Some think that he went
to get proofs against the Parliamentary leaders in England of their
having treasonably invited the Scottish people to come and help
them. With whatever object he went to Scotland, he did little
good by going. At the instigation of the Earl of Montrose, a
desperate man who was then in prison for plotting, he tried to
kidnap three Scottish lords who escaped. A committee of the
Parliament at home, who had followed to watch him, writing an
account of this Incident, as it was called, to the Parliament, the
Parliament made a fresh stir al)out it ; were, or feigned to be, much
alarmed for themselves ; and wrote to the Earl of Essex, the
commander-in-chief, for a guard to protect them.
270 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
It is not absolutely proved that the King plotted in Ireland
besides, but it is very probable that he did, and that the Queen did,
and that he had some wild hope of gaining the Irish people over to
his side by favouring a rise among them. Whether or no, they did
rise in a most brutal and savage rebellion ; in which, encouraged by
their priests, they committed such atrocities upon numbers of the
English, of both sexes and of all ages, as nobody could believe, but
for their being related on oath by eye-witnesses. Whether one
hundred thousand or two hundred thousand Protestants were
murdered in this outbreak, is uncertain ; but, that it was as ruthless
and barbarous an outbreak as ever was known among any savage
people, is certain.
The King came home from Scotland, determined to make a great
struggle for his lost power. He believed that, through his presents
and favours, Scotland would take no part against him ; and the
Lord Mayor of London received him with such a magnificent
dinner that he thought he must have become popular again in
England, It would take a good many Lord Mayors, however, to
make a people, and the King soon found himself mistaken.
Not so soon, though, but that there was a great opposition in the
Parliament to a celebrated paper put forth by Pym and Hampden
and the rest, called ' The Remonstrance,' which set forth all the
illegal acts that the King had ever done, but politely laid the blame
of them on his bad advisers. Even when it was passed and presented
to him, the King still thought himself strong enough to discharge
Balfour from his command in the Tower, and to put in his place a
man of bad character ; to whom the Commons instantly objected,
and whom he was obliged to abandon. At this time, the old outcry
about the Bishops became louder than ever, and the old Archbishop
of York was so near being murdered as he went down to the House
of Lords — being laid hold of by the mob and violently knocked
about, in return for very foolishly scolding a shrill boy who was
yelping out ' No Bishops ! ' — that he sent for all the Bishops who
were in town, and proposed to them to sign a declaration that, as
they could no longer without danger to their lives attend their duty
in Parliament, they protested against the lawfulness of everything
done in their absence. This they asked the King to se:id to the
House of Lords, which he did. Then the House of Commons
impeached the whole party of Bishops and sent them off to the
Tower.
Taking no warning from this ; but encouraged by there being a
moderate party in the Parliament who objected to these strong
measures, the King, on the third of January, one thousand six
hundred and forty-two, took the rashest step that ever was taken by
mortal man.
Of his own accord and without advice, he sent the Attorney-
CHARLES THE FIRST 271
General to the House of Lords, to accuse of treason certain
members of Parliament who as popular leaders were the most
obnoxious to him; Lord Kimbolton, Sir Arthur Haselrig,
Denzil Hollis, John Pym (they used to call him King Pym, he
possessed such power and looked so big), John Hampden, and
William Strode. The houses of those members he caused to be
entered, and their papers to be sealed up. At the same time, he
sent a messenger to the House of Commons demanding to have the
five gentlemen who were uiembers of that House immediately
produced. To this the House replied that they should appear as
soon as there was any legal charge against them, and immediately
adjourned.
Next day, the House of Commons send into the City to let the
Lord Mayor know that their privileges are invaded by the King,
and that there is no safety for anybody or anything. Then, when
the five members are gone out of the way, down comes the King
himself, with all his guard and from two to three hundred gentlemen
and soldiers, of whom the greater part were armed. These he
leaves in the hall ; and then, with his nephew at his side, goes into
the House, takes off his hat, and walks up to the Speaker's chair.
The Speaker leaves it, the King stands in front of it, looks about
him steadily for a little while, and says he has come for those five
members. No one speaks, and then he calls John Pym by name.
No one speaks, and then he calls Denzil Hollis by name. No one
speaks, and then he asks the Speaker of the House where those five
members are ? The Speaker, answering on his knee, nobly replies
that he is the servant of that House, and that he has neither eyes to
see, nor tongue to speak, anything but what the House commands
him. Upon this, the King, beaten from that time evermore, replies
that he will seek them himself, for they have committed treason ;
and goes out, with his hat in his hand, amid some audible murmurs
from the members.
No words can describe the hurry that arose out of doors when
all this was known. The five members had gone for safety to a
house in Coleman-street, in the City, where they were guarded all
night ; and indeed the whole city watched in arms like an army.
At ten o'clock in the morning, the King, already frightened at what
he had done, came to the Guildhall, with only half a dozen lords,
and made a speech to the people, hoping they would not shelter
those whom he accused of treason. Next day, he issued a proclama-
tion for the apprehension of the five members ; but the Parliament
minded it so little that they made great arrangements for having
them brought down to ^^'estminster in great state, five days after-
wards. The King was so alarmed now at his own imprudence, if
not for his own safety, that he left his palace at Whitehall, and went
away with his Queen and children to Hampton Court.
272 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
It was tlie eleventh of May, when the five members were carried
in state and triumph to Westminster. They were taken by water.
The river could not be seen for the boats on it ; and the five
members were hemmed in by barges full of men and great guns,
ready to protect them, at any cost. Along the Strand a large body
of the train-bands of London, under their commander, Skippon,
marched to be ready to assist the little fleet. Beyond them, came
a crowd who choked the streets, roaring incessantly about the
Bishops and the Papists, and crying out contemptuously as they
passed Whitehall, ' What has become of the King ? ' With this
great noise outside the House of Commons, and with great silence
within, Mr. Pym rose and informed the House of the great kindness
with which they had been received in the City. Upon that, the
House called the sheriffs in and thanked them, and requested the
train-bands, under their commander Skippon, to guard the House
of Commons every day. Then, came four thousand men on horse-
back out of Buckinghamshire, offering their services as a guard too,
and bearing a petition to the King, complaining of the injury that
had been done to Mr. Hampden, who was their county man and
much beloved and honoured.
When the King set off for Hampton Court, the gentlemen and
soldiers who had been with him followed him out of town as far as
Kingston-upon-Thames ; next day. Lord Digby came to them from
the King at Hampton Court, in his coach and six, to inform them
that the King accepted their protection. This, the Parliament
said, was making war against the kingdom, and Lord Digby fled
abroad. The Parliament then immediately applied themselves to
getting hold of the military power of the country, well knowing
that the King was already trying hard to use it against them, and
that he had secretly sent the Earl of Newcastle to Hull, to secure a
valuable magazine of arms and gunpov.'der that was there. In
those times, every county had its own magazines of arms and
powder, for its own train-bands or militia ; so, the Parliament
brought in a bill claiming the right (which up to this time had
belonged to the King) of appointing the Lord Lieutenants of
counties, who commanded these train-bands; also, of having all the
forts, castles, and garrisons in the kingdom, put into the hands of
such governors as they, the Parliament, could confide in. It also
passed a law depriving the Bishops of their votes. The King gave
his assent to that bill, but would not abandon the right of appointing
the Lord Lieutenants, though he said he was willing to appoint
such as might be suggested to him by the Parliament. When the
Earl of Pembroke asked him whether he would not give way on
that question for a time, he said, ' By God ! not for one hour ! ' and
upon this he and the Parliament went to war.
His young daughter was betrothed to the Prince of Orange. On
CHARLES THE FIRST 273
pretence of taking her to the country of her future husband, the
Queen was already got safely away to Holland, there to pawn the
Crown jewels for money to raise an army on the King's side. The
Lord Admiral being sick, the House of Commons now named the
Earl of AVarwick to hold his place for a year. The King named
another gentleman ; the House of Commons took its own way, and
the Earl of A\'arwick became Lord Admiral without the King's
consent. The Parliament sent orders down to Hull to have that
magazine removed to London ; the King went down to LIuU to
take it himself. The citizens would not admit him into the town,
and the governor would not admit him into the castle. The Par-
liament resolved that whatever the two Houses passed, and the
King would not consent to, should be called an Ordinance, and
should be as much a law as if he did consent to it. The King pro-
tested against this, and gave notice that these ordinances were not
to be obeyed. The King, attended by the majority of the House
of Peers, and by many members of the House of Commons,
established himself at York. The Chancellor went to him with the
Great Seal, and the Parliament made a new Great Seal. The Queen
sent over a ship full of arms and anuuunition, and the King issued
letters to borrow money at high interest. The Parliament raised
twenty regiments of foot and seventy-five troops of horse ; and the
pcoi^le willingly aided them with their money, plate, jewellery, and
trinkets — the married women even with their wedding-rings. Every
member of Parliament who could raise a troop or a regiment in his
own part of the country, dressed it according to his taste and in
his own colours, and commanded it. Foremost among them all,
Oliver Cromwell raised a troop of horse — thoroughly in earnest
and thoroughly well armed — who were, perhaps, the best soldiers
that ever were seen.
In some of their proceedings, this famous Parliament passed
the bounds of previous law and custom, yielded to and favoured
riotous assemblages of the people, and acted tyrannically in im-
prisoning some who differed from the popular leaders. But
again, you are always to remember that the twelve years during
which the King had had his own wilful way, had gone before ;
and that nothing could make the times what they might, could,
would, or should have been, if those twelve years had never rolled
away.
Third Part
I SHALL not try to relate the particulars of the great civil war
between King Charles the First and the Long Parliament, which
lasted nearly four years, and a full account of which would fill
many large books. It was a sad thing that Englishmen should
274 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
once more be fighting against Englishmen on English ground;
but, it is some consolation to know that on both sides there was
great humanity, forbearance, and honour. The soldiers of the
Parliament were far more remarkable for these good qualities than
the soldiers of the King (many of whom fought for mere pay
without much caring for the cause) ; but those of the nobility
and gentry who were on the King's side were so brave, and so
faithful to him, that their conduct cannot but command our highest
admiration. Among them were great numbers of Catholics, who
took the royal side because the Queen was so strongly of their
persuasion.
The King might have distinguished some of these gallant spirits,
if he had been as generous a spirit himself, by giving them the
command of his army. Instead of that, however, true to his old
high notions of royalty, he entrusted it to his two nephews, Prince
Rupert and Prince Maurice, who were of royal blood and came
over from abroad to help him. It might have been better for him
if they had stayed away ; since Prince Rupert was an impetuous,
hot-headed fellow, whose only idea was to dash into battle at all
times and seasons, and lay about him.
The general-in-chief of the Parliamentary army was the Earl of
Essex, a gentleman of honour and an excellent soldier. A little
while before the war broke out, there had been some rioting at
Westminster between certain officious law students and noisy soldiers,
and the shopkeepers and their apprentices, and the general 'people
in the streets. At that time the King's friends called the crowd.
Roundheads, because the apprentices wore short hair ; the crowd,
in return, called their opponents Cavaliers, meaning that they
were a blustering set, who pretended to be very military. These
two words now began to be used to distinguish the two sides in
the civil war. The Royalists also called the Parliamentary men
Rebels and Rogues, while the Parliamentary men called them
Malignants, and spoke of themselves as the Godly, the Honest, and
so forth.
The war broke out at Portsmouth, where that double traitor
Goring had again gone over to the King and was besieged by the
Parliamentary troops. Upon this, the King proclaimed the Earl
of Essex and the officers serving under him, traitors, and called
upon his loyal subjects to meet him in arms at Nottingham on the
twenty-fifth of August. But his loyal subjects came about him in
scanty numbers, and it was a windy, gloomy day, and the Royal
Standard got blown down, and the whole affair was very melan-
choly. The chief engagements after this, took place in the vale
of the Red Horse near Banbury, at Brentford, at Devizes, at Chal-
grave Field (where Mr. Hampden was so sorely wounded while
fighting at the head of his men, that he died within a week), at
CHARLES THE FIRST 275
Newbury (in which battle Lord Falkland, one of the best noble-
men on the King's side, was killed), at Leicester, at Naseby, at
Winchester, at Warston Moor near York, at Newcastle, and in
many other parts of England and Scotland. These battles were
attended with various successes. At one time, the King was vic-
torious ; at another time, the Parliament. But almost all the great
and busy towns were against the King ; and when it was considered
necessary to fortify London, all ranks of people, from labouring
men and women, up to lords and ladies, worked hard together with
heartiness and good will. The most distinguished leaders on the
Parliamentary side were Hampden, Sir Thomas Fairfax, and,
above all, Oliver Cromwell, and his son-in-law Ireton.
During the whole of this war, the people, to whoin it was very
expensive and irksome, and to whom it was made the more dis-
tressing by almost every family being divided — some of its members
attaching themselves to one side and some to the other — were over
and over again most anxious for peace. So were some of the best
men in each cause. Accordingly, treaties of peace were discussed
between commissioners from the Parliament and the King ; at
York, at Oxford (where the King held a little Parliament of his
own), and at Uxbridge. But they came to nothing. In all these
negotiations, and in all his difficulties, the King showed himself at
his best. He was courageous, cool, self-possessed, and clever ;
but, the old taint of his character was always in him, and he was
never for one single moment to be trusted. Lord Clarendon, the
historian, one of his highest admirers, supposes that he had un-
happily promised the Queen never to make peace without her con-
sent, and that this must often be taken as his excuse. He never kept
his word from night to morning. He signed a cessation of hostili-
ties with the blood-stained Irish rebels for a sum of money, and
invited the Irish regiments over, to help him against the Parlia-
ment. In the battle of Naseby, his cabinet was seized and was
found to contain a correspondence with the Queen, in which he
expressly told her that he had deceived the Parliament — a mongrel
Parliament, he called it now, as an improvement on his old term
of vipers — in pretending to recognise it and to treat with it ; and
from which it further appeared that he had long been in secret
treaty with the Duke of Lorraine for a foreign army of ten thousand
men. Disappointed in this, he sent a most devoted friend of his,
the Earl of Glamorgan, to Ireland, to conclude a secret treaty
with the Catholic powers, to send him an Irish army of ten thousand
men ; in return for which he was to bestow great favours on the
Catholic religion. And, when this treaty was discovered in the
carriage of a fighting Irish Archbishop who was killed in one of
the many skirmishes of those days, he basely denied and deserted
his attached friend, the Earl, on his being charged with high
276 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
treason ; and^even worse than this — had left blanks in the secret
instructions he gave him with his own kingly hand, expressly that
he might thus save himself.
At last, on the twenty-seventh day of April, one thousand six
hundred and forty-six, the King found himself in the city of Oxford,
so surrounded by the Parliamentary army who were closing in upon
him on all sides that he felt that if he would escape he must delay
no longer. So, that night, having altered the cut of his hair and
beard, he was dressed up as a servant and put upon a horse with a
cloak strapped behind him, and rode out of the town behind one
of his own faithful followers, with a clergyman of that country who
knew the road well, for a guide. He rode towards London as far
as Harrow, and then altered his plans and resolved, it would seem,
to go to the Scottish camp. The Scottish men had been invited
over to help the Parliamentary army, and had a large force then in
England. The King was so desperately intriguing in everything
he did, that it is doubtful what he exactly meant by this step. He
took it, anyhow, and delivered himself up to the Earl of Leven,
the Scottish general-in-chief, who treated him as an honourable
prisoner. Negotiations between the Parliament on the one hand
and the Scottish authorities on the other, as to what should be done
with him, lasted until the following February. Then, when the
King had refused to the Parliament the concession of that old
militia point for twenty years, and had refused to Scodand the
recognition of its Solemn League and Covenant, Scotland got a
handsome sum for its army and its help, and the King into the
bargain. He was taken, by certain Parliamentary commissioners
appointed to receive him, to one of his own houses, called Holmby
House, near Althorpe, in Northamptonshire.
While the Civil War was still in progress, John Pym died, and
was buried with great honour in Westminster Abbey — not with
greater honour than he deserved, for the liberties of Englishmen
owe a mighty debt to Pym and Hampden. The war was but
newly over when the Earl of Essex died, of an illness brought on
by his having overheated himself in a stag hunt in Windsor Forest.
He, too, was buried in Westminster Abbey, with great state. I
wish it were not necessary to add that Archbishop Laud died upon
the scaffold when the war was not yet done. His trial lasted in all
nearly a year, and, it being doubtful even then whether the charges
brought against him amounted to treason, the odious old contrivance
of the worst kings was resorted to, and a bill of attainder was
brought in against him. He was a violently prejudiced and mis-
chievous person ; had had strong ear-cropping and nose-splitting
propensities, as you know ; and had done a world of harm. But
he died peaceably, and like a brave old man,
CHARLES THE FIRST 277
Fourth Part
When the Parliament had got the King into their hands, they
became very anxious to get rid of their army, in which Oliver
Cromwell had begun to acquire great power ; not only because of
his courage and high abilities, but because he professed to be very
sincere in the Scottish sort of Puritan religion that was then exceed-
ingly popular among the soldiers. They were as much opposed to the
Bishops as to the Pope himself; and the very privates, drummers,
and trumpeters, had such an inconvenient habit of starting up and
preaching long-winded discourses, that I would not have belonged
to that army on any account.
So, the Parliament, being far from sure but that the army might
begin to preach and fight against them now it had nothing else to
do, proposed to disband the greater part of it, to send another part
to serve in Ireland against the rebels, and to keep only a small
force in England. But, the army would not consent to be broken
up, except upon its own conditions ; and, when the Parliament
showed an intention of compelling it, it acted for itself in an unex-
pected manner. A certain cornet, of the name of Joice, arrived at
Holmby House one night, attended by four hundred horsemen,
went into the King's room with his hat in one hand and a pistol in
the other, and told the King that he had come to take him away.
The King was willing enough to go, and only stipulated that he
should be publicly required to do so next morning. Next morning,
accordingly, he appeared on the top of the steps of the house, and
asked Cornet Joice before his men and the guard set there by the
Parliament, what authority he had for taking him a«ay ? To this
Cornet Joice replied, ' The authority of the army.' ' Have you a
written commission?' said the King. Joice, pointing to his four
hundred men on horseback, replied, ' That is my commission.'
' Well,' said the King, smiling, as if he were pleased, ' I never
before read such a commission ; but it is written in fair and legible
characters. This is a company of as handsome proper gentlemen
as I have seen a long while.' He was asked where he would like
to live, and he said at Newmarket, So, to Newmarket he and
Cornet Joice and the four hundred horsemen rode ; the King re-
marking, in the same smiling way, that he could ride as far at a
spell as Cornet Joice, or any man there.
The King quite believed, I think, that the army were his friends.
He said as much to Fairfax when that general, Oliver Cromwell,
and Ireton, went to persuade him to return to the custody of the
Parliament. He preferred to remain as he was, and resolved to
remain as he was. And when the army moved nearer and nearer
'278 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
London to frighten the ParUament into yielding to their demands,
they took the King with them. It was a deplorable thing that
England should be at the mercy of a great body of soldiers with
arms in their hands ; but the King certainly favoured them at this
important time of his life, as compared with the more lawful power
that tried to control him. It must be added, however, that they
treated him, as yet, more respectfully and kindly than the Parlia-
ment had done. They allowed him to be attended by his own
servants, to be splendidly entertained at various houses, and to see
his children — at Cavesham House, near Reading — for two days.
Whereas, the Parliament had been rather hard with him, and had
only allowed him to ride out and play at bowls.
It is much to be believed that if the King could have been
trusted, even at this time, he might have been saved. Even Oliver
Cromwell expressly said that he did believe that no man could
enjoy his possessions in peace, unless the King had his rights.
He was not unfriendly towards the King; he had been present
when he received his children, and had been much affected by the
pitiable nature of the scene ; he saw the King often ; he frequently
walked and talked with him in the long galleries and pleasant
gardens of the Palace at Hampton Court, whither he was now
removed; and in all this risked something of his influence with
the army. But, the King was in secret hopes of help from the
Scottish people ; and the moment he was encouraged to join them
he began to be cool to his new friends, the army, and to tell the
officers that they could not possibly do without him. At the very
time, too, when he was promising to make Cromwell and Ireton
noblemen, if they would help him up to his old height, he was
writing to the Queen that he meant to hang them. They both
afterwards declared that they had been privately informed that
such a letter would be found, on a certain evening, sewed up in
a saddle which would be taken to the Blue Boar in Holborn to be
sent to Dover; and that they went there, disguised as common
soldiers, and sat drinking in the inn-yard until a man came with
the saddle, which they ripped up with their knives, and therein
found the letter, I see little reason to doubt the story. It is
certain that Oliver Cromwell told one of the King's most faithful
followers that the King could not be trusted, and that he would
not be answerable if anything amiss were to happen to him. Still,
even after that, he kept a promise he had made to the King, by
letting him know that there was a plot with a certain portion of the
army to seize him. I believe that, in fact, he sincerely wanted
the King to escape abroad, and so to be got rid of without more
trouble or danger. That Oliver himself had work enough with the
army is pretty plain; for some of the troops were so mutinous
against him, and against those who acted with him at this time,
CHARLES THE FIRST 279
that he found it necessary to have one man shot at the head of his
regiment to overawe the rest.
The King, when he received OHver's warning, made his escape
from Hampton Court ; after some indecision and uncertainty, he
went to Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight. At first, he was
pretty free there ; but, even there, he carried on a pretended treaty
with the Parliament, while he was really treating with commissioners
from Scotland to send an army into England to take his part.
When he broke off this treaty with the Parliament (having settled
with Scotland) and was treated as a prisoner, his treatment was not
changed too soon, for he had plotted to escape that very night to
a ship sent by the Queen, which was lying off the island.
He was doomed to be disappointed in his hopes from Scotland.
The agreement he had made with the Scottish Commissioners was
not favourable enough to the religion of that country to please the
Scottish clergy ; and they preached against it. The consequence
was, that the army raised in Scotland and sent over, was too small
to do much ; and that, although it was helped by a rising of the
Royalists in England and by good soldiers from Ireland, it could
make no head against the Parliamentary army under such men as
Cromwell and Fairfax. The King's eldest son, the Prince of
Wales, came over from Holland with nineteen ships (a part of the
English fleet having gone over to him) to help his father; but
nothing came of his voyage, and he was fain to return. The most
remarkable event of this second civil war was the cruel execution
by the Parliamentary General, of Sir Charles Lucas and Sir
George Lisle, two grand Royalist generals, who had bravely
defended Colchester under every disadvantage of famine and dis-
tress for nearly three months. A\'hen Sir Charles Lucas was shot,
Sir George Lisle kissed his body, and said to the soldiers who
were to shoot him, ' Come nearer, and make sure of me.' ' I
warrant you. Sir George,' said one of the soldiers, ' we shall hit
you.' ' Ay ? ' he returned with a smile, ' but I have been nearer to
you, my friends, many a time, and you have missed me.'
The Parliament, after being fearfully bullied by the army — who
demanded to have seven members whom they disliked given up to
them— had voted that they would have nothing more to do with
the King. On the conclusion, however, of this second civil war
(which did not last more than six months), they appointed commis-
sioners to treat with him. The King, then so far released again as
to be allowed to live in a private house at Newport in the Isle of
"W'ight, managed his own part of the negotiation with a sense that
was admired by all who saw him, and gave up, in the end, all that
was asked of him— even yielding (which he had steadily refused, so
far) to the temporary abolition of the bishops, and the transfer of
their church land to the Crown. Still, with his old fatal vice upon
28o A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
him, when his best friends joined the commissioners in beseeching
him to yield all those points as the only means of saving himself
from the army, he was plotting to escape from the island ; he was
holding correspondence with his friends and the Catholics in
Ireland, though declaring that he was not ; and he was writing,
with his own hand, that in what he yielded he meant nothing but
to get time to escape.
Matters were at this pass when the army, resolved to defy the
Parliament, marched up to London. The Parliament, not afraid
of them now, and boldly led by Hollis, voted that the King's con-
cessions were sufficient ground for settling the peace of the kingdom.
Upon that, Colonel Rich and Colonel Pride went down to the
House of Commons with a regiment of horse soldiers and a regiment
of foot ; and Colonel Pride, standing in the lobby with a list of the
members who were obnoxious to the army in his hand, had them
pointed out to him as they came through, and took them all into
custody. This proceeding was afterwards called by the people, for
a joke, Pride's Purge. Cromwell was in the North, at the head
of his men, at the time, but when he came home, approved of what
had been done.
What with imprisoning some members and causing others to
stay away, the army had now reduced the House of Commons to
some fifty or so. These soon voted that it was treason in a king
to make war against his parliament and his people, and sent an
ordinance up to the House of Lords for the King's being tried as
a traitor. The House of Lords, then sixteen in number, to a man
rejected it. Thereupon, the Commons made an ordinance of their
own, that they were the supreme government of the country, and
would bring the King to trial.
The King had been taken for security to a place called Hurst
Castle : a lonely house on a rock in the sea, connected with the
coast of Hampshire by a rough road two miles long at low water.
Thence, he was ordered to be removed to Windsor; thence, after
being but rudely used there, and having none but soldiers to wait
upon him at table, he was brought up to St. James's Palace in
London, and told that his trial was appointed for next day.
On Saturday, the twentieth of January, one thousand six hundred
and forty-nine, this memorable trial began. The House of Commons
had settled that one hundred and thirty-five persons should form
the Court, and these were taken from the House itself, from among
the officers of the army, and from among the lawyers and citizens.
John Bradshaw, serjeant-at-law, was appointed president. The
place was Westminster Hall. At the upper end, in a red velvet
chair, sat the president, with his hat (lined with plates of iron for
his protection) on his head. The rest of the Court sat on side
benches, also wearing their hats. The King's seat was covered
w/iai/e-s (lA ^a^^t'n^ /eave o/ nc'^^ d/uuMen..
CHARLES THE FIRST 281
with velvet, like that of the president, and was opposite to it. He
was brought from St. James's to ^\'hitehall, and from \Miitehall he
came by water to his trial.
\\'hen he came in, he looked round very steadily on the Court,
and on the great number of spectators, and then sat down : pre-
sently lie got up and looked round again. On the indictment
' against Charles Stuart, for high treason,' being read, he smiled
several times, and he denied the authority of the Court, saying
that there could be no parliament without a House of Lords, and
that he saw no House of Lords there. Also, that the King ought
to be there, and that he saw no King in the King's right place.
Bradshaw replied, that the Court was satisfied with its authority,
and tliat its authority was God's authority and the kingdom's. He
tlicn adjourned the Court to the following Monday. On that day,
the trial was resumed, and went on all the week. When the Saturday
came, as the King passed forward to his place in the Hall, some
soldiers and others cried for ' justice ! ' and execution on him.
That day, too, Bradshaw, like an angry Sultan, wore a red robe,
instead of the black robe he had worn before. The King Avas
sentenced to death that day. As he went out, one solitary soldier
said, ' God bless you. Sir ! ' For this, his officer struck him. The
King said he thought the punishment exceeded the offence. The
silver head of his walking-stick had fallen off while he leaned upon
it, at one time of the trial. The accident seemed to disturb him,
as if he thought it ominous of the falling of his own head ; and he
admitted as much, now it was all over.
Being taken back to Whitehall, he sent to the House of Commons,
saying that as the time of his execution might be nigh, he wished
he might be allowed to see his darling children. It was granted.
On the Monday he was taken back to St. James's ; and his two
children then in England, the Princess Elizabeth thirteen years
old, and the Duke of Gloucester nine years old, were brought
to take leave of him, from Sion House, near Brentford. It was a
sad and touching scene, when he kissed and fondled those poor
children, and made a little present of two diamond seals to the
Princess, and gave them tender messages to their mother (who
little deserved them, for she had a lover of her own whom she
married soon afterwards), and told them that he died ' for the laws
and liberties of the land,' I am bound to say that I don't think
he did, but I dare say he believed so.
There were ambassadors from Holland that day, to intercede for
the unhappy King, whom you and I both wish the Parliament had
spared ; but they got no answer. The Scottish Commissioners
interceded too ; so did the Prince of Wales, by a letter in which
he offered as the next heir to the throne, to accept any con-
ditions from the Parliament ; so did the Queen, by letter likewise.
282 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Notwithstanding all, the warrant for the execution was this day signed.
There is a story that as Oliver Cromwell went to the table with the
pen in his hand to put his signature to it, he drew his pen across
the face of one of the commissioners, who was standing near, and
marked it with ink. That commissioner had not signed his own
name yet, and the story adds that when he came to do it he marked
Cromwell's face with ink in the same way.
The King slept well, untroubled by the knowledge that it was
his last night on earth, and rose on the thirtieth of January, two
hours before day, and dressed himself carefully. He put on two
shirts lest he should tremble with the cold, and had his hair very
carefully combed. The warrant had been directed to three officers
of the army. Colonel Hacker, Colonel Hunks, and Colonel
Phayer. At ten o'clock, the first of these came to the door and
said it was time to go to Whitehall. The King, who had always
been a quick walker, walked at his usual speed through the Park,
and called out to the guard, with his accustomed voice of command,
' March on apace ! ' When he came to Whitehall, he was taken to
his own bedroom, where a breakfast was set forth. As he had
taken the Sacrament, he would eat nothing more ; but, at about
the time when the church bells struck twelve at noon (for he had
to wait, through the scaffold not being ready), he took the advice
of the good Bishop Juxon who was with him, and ate a little bread
and drank a glass of claret. Soon after he had taken this refresh-
ment, Colonel Hacker came to the chamber with the warrant in his
hand, and called for Charles Stuart.
And then, through the long gallery of Whitehall Palace, which
he had often seen light and gay and merry and crowded, in very
different times, the fallen King passed along, until he came to the
centre window of the Banqueting House, through which he emerged
upon the scaffold, which was hung with black. He looked at the
two executioners, who were dressed in black and masked ; he
looked at the troops of soldiers on horseback and on foot, and
all looked up at him in silence ; he looked at the vast array of
spectators, filling up the view beyond, and turning all their faces
upon him ; he looked at his old Palace of St. James's ; and he
looked at the block. He seemed a little troubled to find that it
was so low, and asked, ' if there were no place higher ? ' Then, to
those upon the scaffold, he said, ' that it was the Parliament who
had begun the war, and not he ; but he hoped they might be guilt-
less too, as ill instruments had gone between them. In one respect,'
he said, ' he suffered justly ; and that was because he had permitted
an unjust sentence to be executed on another.' In this he referred
to the Earl of Strafford,
He was not at all afraid to die ; but he was anxious to die easily.
When some one touched the axe while he was speaking, he broke
OLIVER CROMWELL 283
off and called out, ' Take heed of the axe ! take heed of the axe ! '
He also said to Colonel Hacker, ' Take care that they do not put
me to pain.' He told the executioner, ' I shall say but very short
prayers, and then thrust out my hands ' — as the sign to strike.
He put his hair up, under a white satin cap which the bishop
had carried, and said, ' I have a good cause and a gracious Cod
on my side.' The bishop told him tliat he had but one stage more
to travel in this weary world, and that, though it was a turbulent
and troublesome stage, it was a short one, and would carry him a
great way — all the way from earth to Heaven. The King's last
word, as he gave his cloak and the George — the decoration from
his breast— to the bishop, was, ' Remember ! ' He then kneeled
down, laid his head on the block, spread out his hands, and was
instantly killed. One universal groan broke from the crowd ; and
the soldiers, who had sat on their horses and stood in their ranks
immovable as statues, were of a sudden all in motion, clearing the
streets.
Thus, in the forty-ninth year of his age, falling at the same time
of his career as Strafford had fallen in his, perished Charles the
First. With all my sorrow for him, I cannot agree with him that
he died ' the martyr of the people ; ' for the people had been
martyrs to him, and to his ideas of a King's rights, long before.
Indeed, I am afraid that he was but a bad judge of martyrs ; for
he had called that infamous Duke of Buckingham ' the Martyr of
his Sovereign.'
CHAPTER XXXIV
ENGLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL
Before sunset on the memorable day on which King Charles the
First was executed, the House of Commons passed an act declaring
it treason in any one to proclaim the Prince of Wales — or anybody
else — King of England. Soon afterwards, it declared that the
House of Lords was useless and dangerous, and ought to be
abolished ; and directed that the late King's statue should be taken
down from the Royal Exchange in the City and other public places.
Having laid hold of some famous Royalists who had escaped from
prison, and having beheaded the Duke of Hamilton, Lord
Holland, and Lord Capel, in Palace Yard (all of whom died very
courageously), they then appointed a Council of State to govern the
country. It consisted of forty-one members, of whom five were
peers. Bradshaw was made president. The House of Commons
284 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
also re-admitted members who had opposed the King's death, and
made up its numbers to about a hundred and fifty.
But, it still had an army of more than forty thousand men to deal
with, and a very hard task it was to manage them. Before the
King's execution, the army had appointed some of its officers to
remonstrate between them and the Parliament; and now the common
soldiers began to take that office upon themselves. The regiments
under orders for Ireland mutinied ; one troop of horse in the city
of London seized their own flag, and refused to obey orders. For
this, the ringleader was shot : which did not mend the matter, for,
both his comrades and the people made a public funeral for him,
and accompanied the body to the grave with sound of trumpets and
with a gloomy procession of persons carrying bundles of rosemary
steeped in blood. Oliver was the only man to deal with such
difficulties as these, and he soon cut them short by bursting at
midnight into the town of Burford, near Salisbury, where the muti-
neers were sheltered, taking four hundred of them prisoners, and
shooting a number of them by sentence of court-martial. The
soldiers soon found, as all men did, that Oliver was not a man to
be trifled with. And there was an end of the mutiny.
The Scottish Parliament did not know Oliver yet ; so, on hearing
of the King's execution, it proclaimed the Prince of Wales King
Charles the Second, on condition of his respecting the Solemn
League and Covenant. Charles was abroad at that time, and so
was Montrose, from whose help he had hopes enough to keep him
holding on and off with commissioners from Scotland, just as his
father might have done. These hopes were soon at an end ; for,
Montrose, having raised a few hundred exiles in Germany, and
landed with them in Scotland, found that the people there, instead
of joining him, deserted the country at his approach. He was soon
taken prisoner and carried to Edinburgh. There he was received
with every possible insult, and carried to prison in a cart, his officers
going two and two before him. He was sentenced by the Parlia-
ment to be hanged on a gallows thirty feet high, to have his head
set on a spike in Edinburgh, and his limbs distributed in other
places, according to the old barbarous manner. He said he had
always acted under the Royal orders, and only wished he had limbs
enough to be distributed through Christendom, that it might be the
more widely known how loyal he had been. He Avent to the
scaffold in a bright and brilliant dress, and made a bold end at
thirty-eight years of age. The breath was scarcely out of his body
when Charles abandoned his memory, and denied that he had ever
given him orders to rise in his behalf. O the family faihng was
strong in that Charles then !
Oliver had been appointed by the Parliament to command the
army in Ireland, where he took a terrible vengeance for the
OLIVER CROMWELL 285
sanguinary rebellion, and made tremendous havoc, particularly in
the siege of Drogheda, where no quarter was given, and where he
found at least a thousand of the inhabitants shut up together in the
great church : every one of whom was killed by his soldiers, usually
known as Oliver's Ironsides. There were numbers of friars and
priests among them, and Oliver gruffly wrote home in his despatch
that these were ' knocked on the head ' like the rest.
Ikit, Charles having got over to Scotland where the men of the
Solemn League and Covenant led him a prodigiously dull life and
made him very weary with long sermons and grim Sundays, the
Parliament called the redoubtable Oliver home to knock the Scottish
men on the head for setting up that Prince. Oliver left his son-in-
law, Ireton, as general in Ireland in his stead (he died there after-
wards), and he imitated the example of his father-in-law with such
good will that he brought the country to subjection, and laid it at
the feet of the Parliament. In the end, they passed an act for the
settlement of Ireland, generally pardoning all the common people,
but exempting from this grace such of the wealthier sort as had
been concerned in the rebellion, or in any killing of Protestants, or
who refused to lay down their arms. Creat numbers of Irish were
got out of the country to serve under Catholic powers abroad, and
a quantity of land was declared to have been forfeited by past
offences, and was given to people who had lent money to the Parlia-
ment early in the war. These were sweeping measures ; but, if
Oliver Cromwell had had his own way fully, and had stayed in
Ireland, he would have done more yet.
However, as I have said, the Parliament wanted Oliver for Scot-
land ; so, home Oliver came, and was made Commander of all the
Forces of the Commonwealth of England, and in three days away
he went with sixteen thousand soldiers to fight the Scottish men.
Now, the Scottish men, being then— as you will generally find them
now — mighty cautious, reflected that the troops they had were not
used to war like the Ironsides, and would be beaten in an open
fight. Therefore they said, ' If we live quiet in our trenches in
Edinburgh here, and if all the farmers come into the town and
desert the country, the Ironsides will be driven out by iron hunger
and be forced to go away.' This was, no doubt, the wisest plan ;
but as the Scottish clergy would interfere with what they knew
nothing about, and would perpetually preach long sermons exhorting
the soldiers to come out and fight, the soldiers got it in their heads
that they absolutely must come out and fight. Accordingly, in an
evil hour for themselves, they came out of their safe position.
Oliver fell upon them instantly, and killed three thousand, and took
ten thousand prisoners.
To gratify the Scottish Parliament, and preserve their favour,
Charles had signed a declaration they laid before him, reproaching
286 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
the memory of his father and mother, and representing himself as
a most reUgious Prince, to whom the Solemn League and Covenant
was as dear as life. He meant no sort of truth in this, and soon
afterwards galloped away on horseback to join some tiresome
Highland friends, who were always flourishing dirks and broad-
swords. He was overtaken and induced to return ; but this attempt,
which was called ' The Start,' did him just so much service, that
they did not preach quite such long sermons at him afterwards as
they had done before.
On the first of January, one thousand six hundred and fifty-one,
the Scottish people crowned him at Scone. He immediately took
the chief command of an army of twenty thousand men, and
marched to Stirling. His hopes were heightened, I dare say, by
the redoubtable Oliver being ill of an ague ; but Oliver scrambled
out of bed in no time, and went to work with such energy that he
got behind the Royalist army and cut it off from all communication
with Scotland. There was nothing for it then, but to go on to
England ; so it went on as far as Worcester, where the mayor and
some of the gentry proclaimed King Charles the Second straightway.
His proclamation, however, was of little use to him, for very few
Royalists appeared ; and, on the very same day, two people were
publicly beheaded on Tower Hill for espousing his cause. Up
came Oliver to Worcester too, at double quick speed, and he and
his Ironsides so laid about them in the great battle which was
fought there, that they completely beat the Scottish men, and
destroyed the Royalist army ; though the Scottish men fought so
gallantly that it took five hours to do.
The escape of Charles after this battle of Worcester did him good
service long afterwards, for it induced many of the generous English
people to take a romantic interest in him, and to think much better
of him than he ever deserved. He fled in the night, with not more
than sixty followers, to the house of a Catholic lady in Staffordshire.
There, for his greater safety, the whole sixty left him. He cropped
his hair, stained his face and hands brown as if they were sunburnt,
put on the clothes of a labouring countryman, and went out in the
morning with his axe in his hand, accompanied by four wood-cutters
who were brothers, and another man who was their brother-in-law.
These good fellows made a bed for him under a tree, as the weather
was very bad ; and the wife of one of them brought him food to
eat; and the old mother of the four brothers came and fell down on
her knees before him in the wood, and thanked God that her sons
were engaged in saving his life. At night, he came out of the
forest and went on to another house which was near the river
Severn, with the intention of passing into Wales ; but the place
swarmed with soldiers, and the bridges were guarded, and all the
boats were made fast. So, after lying in a hayloft covered over
OLIVER CROMWELL 287
with hay, for some time, he came out of his place, attended by
Colonel Careless, a CathoUc gentleman who had met him there,
and with whom he lay hid, all next day, up in the shady branches
of a fine old oak. It was lucky for the King that it was September-
time, and that the leaves had not begun to fall, since he and the
Colonel, perched up in this tree, could catch glimpses of the soldiers
riding about below, and could hear the crash in the wood as they
went about beating the boughs.
After this, he walked and walked until his feet were all blistered ;
and, having been concealed all one day in a house which was
searched by the troopers while he was there, went with Lord
WiLMOT, another of his good friends, to a place called Bentley,
where one Miss Lane, a Protestant lady, had obtained a pass to
be allowed to ride through the guards to see a relation of hers near
Bristol. Disguised as a servant, he rode in the saddle before this
young lady to the house of Sir John Winter, while Lord Wilmot
rode there boldly, like a plain country gentleman, with dogs at his
heels. It happened that Sir John Winter's butler had been servant
in Richmond Palace, and knew Charles the moment he set eyes
upon him ; but, the butler was faithful and kept the secret. As no
ship could be found to carry him abroad, it was planned that he
should go — still travelling with Miss Lane as her servant — to another
house, at Trent near Sherborne in Dorsetshire ; and then Miss Lane
and her cousin, Mr. Lascelles, who had gone on horseback beside
her all the way, went home. I hope Miss Lane was going to
marry that cousin, for I am sure she must have been a brave,
kind girl. If I had been that cousin, I should certainly have loved
Miss Lane.
When Charles, lonely for the loss of Miss Lane, was safe at
Trent, a ship was hired at Lyme, the master of which engaged to
take two gentlemen to France. In the evening of the same day,
the King — now riding as servant before another young lady — set off
for a public-house at a place called Charmouth, where the captain
of the vessel was to take him on board. But, the captain's wife,
being afraid of her husband getting into trouble, locked him up and
would not let him sail. Then they went away to Bridport ; and,
coming to the inn there, found the stable-yard full of soldiers who
were on the look-out for Charles, and who talked about him while
they drank. He had such presence of mind, that he led the horses
of his party through the yard as any other servant might have done,
and said, ' Come out of the way, you soldiers ; let us have room to
pass here ! ' As he went along, he met a half-tipsy ostler, who
rubbed his eyes and said to him, ' Why, I was formerly servant to
ISlr. Potter at Exeter, and surely I have sometimes seen you there,
young man ? ' He certainly had, for Charles had lodged there.
His ready answer was, ' Ah, I did live with him once ; but I have
238 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
no time to talk now. We'll have a pot of beer together when I
come back.'
From this dangerous place he returned to Trent, and lay there
concealed several days. Then he escaped to Heale, near Salisbury ;
where, in the house of a widow lady, he was hidden five days, until
the master of a collier lying off Shoreham in Sussex, undertook to
convey a ' gentleman ' to France. On the night of the fifteenth of
October, accompanied by two colonels and a merchant, the King
rode to Brighton, then a little fishing village, to give the captain of
the ship a supper before going on board ; but, so many people
knew him, that this captain knew him too, and not only he, but the
landlord and landlady also. Before he went away, the landlord
came behind his chair, kissed his hand, and said he hoped to live
to be a lord and to see his wife a lady ; at which Charles laughed.
They had had a good supper by this time, and plenty of smoking
and drinking, at which the King was a first-rate hand ; so, the
captain assured him that he would stand by him, and he did. It
was agreed that the captain should pretend to sail to Deal, and that
Charles should address the sailors and say he was a gentleman in
debt who was running away from his creditors, and that he hoped
they would join him in persuading the captain to put him ashore in
France. As the King acted his part very well indeed, and gave
the sailors twenty shillings to drink, they begged the captain to do
what such a worthy gentleman asked. He pretended to yield to
their entreaties, and the King got safe to Normandy.
Ireland being now subdued, and Scotland kept quiet by plenty of
forts and soldiers put there by Oliver, the Parliament would have
gone on quietly enough, as far as fighting with any foreign enemy
went, but for getting into trouble with the Dutch, who in the spring
of the year one thousand six hundred and fifty-one sent a fleet into
the Downs under their Admiral Van Tromp, to call upon the
bold English Admiral Blake (who was there with half as many
ships as the Dutch) to strike his flag. Blake fired a raging broad-
side instead, and beat off Van Tromp ; who, in the autumn, came
back again with seventy ships, and challenged the bold Blake —
— who still was only half as strong— to fight him. Blake fought
him all day ; but, finding that the Dutch were too many for him,
got quietly off at night. \Miat does Van Tromp upon this, but
goes cruising and boasting about the Channel, between the North
Foreland and the Isle of ^\'ight, with a great Dutch broom tied to
his masthead, as a sign that he could and would sweep the English
off the sea ! Within three months, Blake lowered his tone though,
and his broom too ; for, he and two other bold commanders, Dean
and Monk, fought him three whole daj's, took twenty-three of his
ships, shivered his broom to pieces, and settled his business.
Things Avere no sooner quiet again, than the army began to
OLIVER CROMWELL 289
complain to the Parliament that they were not governing the nation
properly, and to hint that they thought they could do it better
themselves. Oliver, who had now made up his mind to be the
head of the state, or nothing at all, supported them in this, and
called a meeting of officers and his own Parliamentary friends, at
his lodgings in Whitehall, to consider the best way of getting rid of
the Parliament. It had now lasted just as many years as the King's
unbridled power had lasted, before it came into existence. The
end of the deliberation was, that Oliver went down to the House in
his usual plain black dress, with his usual grey worsted stockings,
but with an unusual party of soldiers behind him. These last he
left in the lobby, and then went in and sat down. Presently he got
up, made the Parliament a speech, told them that the Lord had
done with them, stamped his foot and said, ' You are no Parliament,
Bring them in ! Bring them in ! ' At this signal the door flew
open, and the soldiers appeared. ' This is not honest,' said Sir
Harry Vane, one of the members. ' Sir Harry Vane ! ' cried
Cromwell ; * O, Sir Harry Vane ! The Lord deliver me from Sir
Harry Vane ! ' Then he pointed out members one by one, and
said this man was a drunkard, and that man a dissipated fellow,
and that man a liar, and so on. Then he caused the Speaker to be
walked out of his chair, told the guard to clear the House, called
the mace upon the table — which is a sign that the House is sitting
• — ' a fool's bauble,' and said, ' here, carry it away ! ' Being obeyed
in all these orders, he quietly locked the door, put the key in his
pocket, walked back to Whitehall again, and told his friends, who
were still assembled there, what he had done.
They formed a new Council of State after this extraordinary pro-
ceeding, and got a new Parliament together in their own way : which
Oliver himself opened in a sort of sermon, and which he said was
the beginning of a perfect heaven upon earth. In this Parliament
there sat a well-known leather-seller, who had taken the singular
name of Praise God Barebones, and from whom it was called, for
a joke, Barebones's Parliament, though its general name was the
Ivittle Parliament. As it soon appeared that it was not going to
put Oliver in the first place, it turned out to be not at all like the
beginning of heaven upon earth, and Oliver said it really was not
to be borne with. So he cleared off that Parliament in much the
same way as he had disposed of the other ; and then the council
of officers decided that he must be made the supreme authority of
the kingdom, under the title of the Lord Protector of the Common-
wealth.
So, on the sixteenth of December, one thousand six hundred and
fifty-three, a great procession was formed at Oliver's door, and he
came out in a black velvet suit and a big pair of boots, and got into
his coach and went down to ^^'estminster, attended by the judges,
u
290 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
and the lord mayor, and the aldermen, and all the other great and
wonderful personages of the country. There, in the Court of
Chancery, he publicly accepted the office of Lord Protector. Then
he was sworn, and the City sword was handed to him, and the seal
was handed to him, and all the other things were handed to him
which are usually handed to Kings and Queens on state occasions.
When Oliver had handed them all back, he was quite made and
completely finished off as Lord Protector ; and several of the Iron-
sides preached about it at great length, all the evening.
Second Part
Oliver Cromwell — whom the people long called Old Noll — in
accepting the office of Protector, had bound himself by a certain
paper which was handed to him, called ' the Instrument,' to summon
a Parliament, consisting of between four and five hundred members,
in the election of which neither the Royalists nor the Catholics were
to have any share. He had also pledged himself that this Parliament
should not be dissolved without its own consent until it had sat
five months.
When this Parliament met, Oliver made a speech to them of
three hours long, very wisely advising them what to do for the
credit and happiness of the country. To keep down the more
violent members, he required them to sign a recognition of what
they were forbidden by ' the Instrument ' to do ; which was, chiefly,
to take the power from one single person at the head of the state or to
command the army. Then he dismissed them to go to work. With
his usual vigour and resolution he went to work himself with some
frantic preachers — who were rather overdoing their sermons in
calling him a villain and a tyrant — by shutting up their chapels, and
sending a few of them off to prison.
There was not at that time, in England or anywhere else, a man
so able to govern the country as Oliver Cromwell. Although he
ruled with a strong hand, and levied a very heavy tax on the
Royalists (but not until they had plotted against his life), he ruled
wisely, and as the times required. He caused England to be so
respected abroad, that I wish some lords and gentlemen who have
governed it under kings and queens in later days would have taken
a leaf out of Ohver Cromwell's book. He sent bold Admiral Blake
to the Mediterranean Sea, to make the Duke of Tuscany pay sixty
thousand pounds for injuries he had done to British subjects,
and spoliation he had committed on English merchants. He
further despatched him and his fleet to Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli,
to have every English ship and every English man delivered up to
him that had been taken by pirates in those parts. All this was
OLIVER CROMWELL 291
gloriously done ; and it began to be thoroughly well known, all
over the world, that England was governed by a man in earnest,
who would not allow the English name to be insulted or slighted
anywhere.
These were not all his foreign triumphs. He sent a fleet to sea
against the Dutch ; and the two powers, each with one hundred
ships upon its side, met in the English Channel off the North
Foreland, where the fight lasted all day long. Dean was killed in
this fight ; but Monk, who commanded in the same ship with him,
threw his cloak over his body, that the sailors might not know of
his death, and be disheartened. Nor were they. The English
broadsides so exceedingly astonished the Dutch that they sheered
off at last, though the redoubtable Van Tromp fired upon them
with his own guns for deserting their flag. Soon afterwards, the
two fleets engaged again, off the coast of Holland. There, the
valiant Van Tromp was shot through the heart, and the Dutch gave
in, and peace was made.
Further than this, Oliver resolved not to bear the domineering
and bigoted conduct of Spain, which country not only claimed a
right to all the gold and silver that could be found in South
America, and treated the ships of all other countries who visited
those regions, as pirates, but put English subjects into the horrible
Spanish prisons of the Inquisition. So, Oliver told the Spanish
ambassador that English ships must be free to go wherever they
would, and that English merchants must not be thrown into those
same dungeons, no, not for the pleasure of all the priests in Spain.
To this, the Spanish ambassador replied that the gold and silver
country, and the Holy Inquisition, were his King's two eyes,
neither of which he could submit to have put out. Very well, said
Oliver, then he was afraid he (Oliver) must damage those two eyes
directly.
So, another fleet was despatched under two commanders, Penn
and Venables, for Hispaniola ; where, however, the Spaniards got
the better of the fight. Consequently, the fleet came home again,
after taking Jamaica on the way, Oliver, indignant with the two
commanders who had not done what bold Admiral Blake would
have done, clapped them both into prison, declared war against
Spain, and made a treaty with France, in virtue of which it was to
shelter the King and his brother the Duke of York no longer.
Then, he sent a fleet abroad under bold Admiral Blake, which
brought the King of Portugal to his senses — ^just to keep its hand
in — and then engaged a Spanish fleet, sunk four great ships, and
took two more, laden with silver to the value of two millions of
pounds : which dazzling prize was brought from Portsmouth to
London in waggons, with the populace of all the towns and villages
through which the waggons passed, shouting with all their might.
292 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
After this victory, bold Admiral Blake sailed away to the port of
Santa Cruz to cut off the Spanish treasure-ships coming from
Mexico. There, he found them, ten in number, with seven others
to take care of them, and a big castle, and seven batteries, all
roaring and blazing away at him with great guns. Blake cared no
more for great guns than for pop-guns — no more for their hot iron
balls than for snow-balls. He dashed into the harbour, captured and
burnt every one of the ships, and came sailing out again triumphantly,
with the victorious English flag flying at his masthead. This was
the last triumph of this great commander, who had sailed and
fought until he was quite worn out. He died, as his successful
ship was coming into Plymouth Harbour amidst the joyful acclama-
tions of the people, and was buried in state in Westminster Abbey.
Not to lie there, long.
Over and above all this, Oliver found that the Vaudois, or
Protestant people of the valleys of Lucerne, were insolently treated
by the Catholic powers, and were even put to death for their
religion, in an audacious and bloody manner. Instantly, he in-
formed those powers that this was a thing which Protestant England
would not allow; and he speedily carried his point, through the
might of his great name, and established their right to worship God
in peace after their own harmless manner.
Lastly, his English army won such admiration iii fighting with
the French against the Spaniards, that, after they had assaulted the
tow'n of Dunkirk together, the French King in person gave it up to
the English, that it might be a token to them of their might and
valour.
There were plots enough against Oliver among the frantic
religionists (who called themselves Fifth Monarchy Men), and
among the disappointed Republicans. He had a difficult game to
play, for the Royalists were always ready to side with either party
against him. The ' King over the w^ater,' too, as Charles was
called, had no scruples about plotting with any one against his life ;
although there is reason to suppose that he would willingly have
married one of his daughters, if Oliver would have had such a son-
in-law. There was a certain Colonel Saxby of the army, once a
great supporter of Oliver's but now turned against him, who was a
grievous trouble to him through all this part of his career ; and who
came and went between the discontented in England and Spain,
and Charles who put himself in alliance with Spain on being thrown
off by France. This man died in prison at last ; but not until there
had been very serious plots between the Royalists and Republicans,
and an actual rising of them in England, when they burst into the
city of Salisbury, on a Sunday night, seized the judges who v.ere
going to hold the assizes there next day, and would have hanged
them but for the merciful objections of the more temperate of their
OLIVER CROMWELL 293
number. Oliver was so vigorous and shrewd that he soon put this
revolt down, as he did most other conspiracies ; and it was well for
one of its chief managers — that same Lord Wilmot who had
assisted in Charles's flight, and was now Earl of Rochester —
that he made his escape. Oliver seemed to have eyes and ears
everywhere, and secured such sources of information as his enemies
little dreamed of. There was a chosen body of six persons, called
the Sealed Knot, who were in the closest and most secret confidence
of Charles. One of the foremost of these very men, a Sir Richard
Willis, reported to Oliver everything that passed among them, and
had two hundred a year for it.
Miles Svndarcomb, also of the old army, was another con-
spirator against the Protector. He and a man named Cecil,
bribed one of his Life Guards to let them have good notice when
he was going out — intending to shoot him from a window. But,
owing either to his caution or his good fortune, they could never
get an aim at him. Disappointed in this design, they got into the
chapel in Whitehall, with a basketful of combustibles, which were to
explode by means of a slow match in six hours ; then, in the noise
and confusion of the fire, they hoped to kill Oliver. But, the
Life Guardsman himself disclosed this plot ; and they were seized,
and Miles died (or killed himself in prison) a little while before he
was ordered for execution. A few such plotters Oliver caused to
be beheaded, a few more to be hanged, and many more, including
those who rose in arms against him, to be sent as slaves to the West
Lidies. If he were rigid, he was impartial too, in asserting the laws
of England, ^^'hen a Portuguese nobleman, the brother of the
Portuguese ambassador, killed a London citizen in mistake for
another man with whom he had had a quarrel, Oliver caused him to
be tried before a jury of Englishmen and foreigners, and had him
executed in spite of the entreaties of all the ambassadors in London.
One of Oliver's own friends, the Duke of Oldenburgh, in
sending him a present of six fine coach-horses, was very near doing
more to please the Royalists than all the plotters put together.
One day, Oliver went with his coach, drawn by these six horses,
into Hyde Park, to dine with his secretary and some of his other
gentlemen under the trees there. After dinner, being meny, he took
it into his head to put his friends inside and to drive them home :
a postillion riding one of the foremost horses, as the custom was.
On account of Oliver's being too free with the whip, the six fine
horses went off at a gallop, the postillion got thrown, and Oliver
fell upon the coach-pole and narrowly escaped being shot by his
own pistol, which got entangled with his clothes in the harness, and
went off. He was dragged some distance by the foot, until his foot
came out of the shoe, and then he came safely to the ground under
the broad body of the coach, and was very little the worse. The
294 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
gentlemen inside were only bruised, and the discontented people of
all parties were much disappointed.
The rest of the history of the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell is
a history of his Parliaments. His first one not pleasing him at all,
he waited until the five months were out, and then dissolved it. The
next was better suited to his views ; and from that he desired to
get — if he could with safety to himself — the title of King. He had
had this in his mind some time : whether because he thought that
the English people, being more used to the title, were more likely
to obey it ; or whether because he really wished to be a king him-
self, and to leave the succession to that title in his family, is far
from clear. He was already as high, in England and in all the
world, as he would ever be, and I doubt if he cared for the mere
name. However, a paper, called the ' Humble Petition and
Advice,' was presented to him by the House of Commons, praying
him to take a high title and to appoint his successor. That he
would have taken the title of King there is no doubt, but for the
strong opposition of the army. This induced him to forbear, and
to assent only to the other points of the petition. Upon which
occasion there was another grand show in Westminster Hall, when
the Speaker of the House of Commons formally invested him with
a purple robe lined with ermine, and presented him with a splendidly
bound Bible, and put a golden sceptre in his hand. The next
time the Parliament met, he called a House of Lords of sixty
members, as the petition gave him power to do ; but as that
Parliament did not please him either, and would not proceed to the
business of the country, he jumped into a coach one morning, took
six Guards with him, and sent them to the right-about. I wish this
had been a warning to Parliaments to avoid long speeches, and do
more work.
It was the month of August, one thousand six hundred and fifty-
eight, when Oliver Cromwell's favourite daughter, Elizabeth Clay-
pole (who had lately lost her youngest son), lay very ill, and his
mind was greatly troubled, because he loved her dearly. Another
of his daughters was married to Lord Falconberg, another to the
grandson of the Earl of Warwick, and he had made his son Richard
one of the Members of the Upper House. He was very kind and
loving to them all, being a good father and a good husband ; but
he loved this daughter the best of the family, and went down to
Hampton Court to see her, and could hardly be induced to stir
from her sick room until she died. Although his religion had been
of a gloomy kind, his disposition had been always cheerful. He
had been fond of music in his home, and had kept open table once
a week for all officers of the army not below the rank of captain,
and had always preserved in his house a quiet, sensible dignity.
He encouraged men of genius and learning, and loved to have them
OLIVER CROMWELL 295
about him. Milton was one of his great friends. He was good
humoured too, with the nobihty, whose dresses and manners were
very different from his ; and to show them what good information
he had, he would sometimes jokingly tell them when they were
his guests, where they had last dnmk the health of the ' King over
the water,' and would recommend them to be more private (if they
could) another time. But he had lived in busy times, had borne
the weight of heavy State affairs, and had often gone in fear of his
life. He was ill of the gout and ague ; and when the death of his
beloved child came upon him in addition, he sank, never to raise
his head again. He told his physicians on the twenty-fourth of
August that the Lord had assured him that he was not to die in that
illness, and that he would certainly get better. This was only his
sick fancy, for on the third of September, which was the anniversary
of the great battle of Worcester, and the day of the year which he
called his fortunate day, he died, in the sixtieth year of his age.
He had been delirious, and had lain insensible some hours, but he
had been overheard to murmur a very good prayer the day before.
The whole country lamented his death. If you want to know the
real worth of Oliver Cromwell, and his real services to his country,
you can hardly do better than compare England under him, with
England under Charles the Second.
He had appointed his son Richard to succeed him, and after
there had been, at Somerset House in the Strand, a lying in state
more splendid than sensible — as all such vanities after death are, I
think — Richard became Lord Protector. He was an amiable
country gentleman, but had none of his father's great genius, and
was quite unfit for such a post in such a storm of parties. Richard's
Protectorate, which only lasted a year and a half, is a history of
quarrels between the officers of the army and the Parliament, and
between the officers among themselves ; and of a growing discontent
among the people, who had far too many long sermons and far too
few amusements, and wanted a change. At last. General Monk
got the army well into his own hands, and then in pursuance of a
secret plan he seems to have entertained from the time of Oliver's
death, declared for the King's cause. He did not do this openly ;
but, in his place in the House of Commons, as one of the members
for Devonshire, strongly advocated the proposals of one Sir John
Greenville, who came to the House with a letter from Charles,
dated from Breda, and with whom he had previously been in secret
communication. There had been plots and counterplots, and a
recall of the last members of the Long Parliament, and an end of
the Long Parliament, and risings of the Royalists that were made
too soon ; and most men being tired out, and there being no one
to head the country now great Oliver was dead, it was readily
agreed to welcome Charles Stuart. Some of the wiser and better
296 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
members said — what was most true — that in the letter from Breda,
he gave no real promise to govern well, and that it would be best
to make him pledge himself beforehand as to what he should be
bound to do for the benefit of the kingdom. Monk said, however,
it would be all right when he came, and he could not come
too soon.
So, everybody found out all in a moment that the country must
be prosperous and happy, having another Stuart to condescend to
reign over it ; and there was a prodigious firing ofif of guns, lighting
of bonfires, ringing of bells, and throwing up of caps. The people
drank the King's health by thousands in the open streets, and
everybody rejoiced. Down came the Arms of the Commonwealth,
up went the Royal Arms instead, and out came the public money.
Fifty thousand pounds for the King, ten thousand pounds for his
brother the Duke of York, five thousand pounds for his brother the
Duke of Gloucester. Prayers for these gracious Stuarts were put
up in all the churches ; commissioners were sent to Holland (which
suddenly foiuid out that Charles was a great man, and that it loved
him) to invite the King home ; Monk and the Kentish grandees
went to Dover, to kneel down before him as he landed. He kissed
and embraced Monk, made him ride in the coach with himself and
his brothers, came on to London amid wonderful shoutings, and
passed through the army at Blackheath on the twenty-ninth of May
(his birthday), in the year one thousand six hundred and sixty.
Greeted by splendid dinners under tents, by flags and tapestry
streaming from all the houses, by delighted crowds in all the streets,
by troops of noblemen and gentlemen in rich dresses, by City
companies, train-bands, drummers, trumpeters, the great Lord Mayor,
and the majestic Aldermen, the King went on to Whitehall. On
entering it, he commemorated his Restoration with the joke that
it really would seem to have been his own fault that he had not
come long ago, since everybody told him that he had always wished
for him with all his heart.
CHAPTER XXXV
ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND, CALLED THE MERRY
MONARCH
There never were such profligate times in England as under Charles
the Second. Whenever you see his portrait, with his swarthy, ill-
looking face and great nose, you may fancy him in his Court at
Whitehall, surrounded by some of the very worst vagabonds in the
CHARLES THE SECOND 297
kingdom (though they were lords and ladies), drinking, gamblings
indulging in vicious conversation, and committing every kind of
profligate excess. It has been a fashion to call Charles the Second
'The Merry Monarch.' Let me try to give you a general idea
of some of the merry things that were done, in the merry days
when this merry gentleman sat upon his merry throne, in merry
England.
The first merry proceeding was — of course — to declare that he
was one of the greatest, the wisest, and the noblest kings that
ever shone, like the blessed sun itself, on this benighted earth.
The next merry and pleasant piece of business was, for the Parlia-
ment, in the humblest manner, to give him one million two hundred
thousand pounds a year, and to settle upon him for life that old
disputed tonnage and poundage which had been so bravely fouglit
for. Then, General Monk being made Earl of Albemarle, and
a few other Royalists similarly rewarded, the law went to work
to see what v/as to be done to those persons (they were called
Regicides) who had been concerned in making a martyr of the late
King. Ten of these were merrily executed ; that is to say, six of
the judges, one of the council, Colonel Hacker and another officer
who had commanded the Guards, and Hugh Peters, a preacher
who had preached against the martyr with all his heart. These
executions were so extremely merry, that every horrible circum-
stance which Cromwell had aI)andoned was revived with appalling
cruelty. The hearts of the sufferers were torn out of their living
bodies ; their bowels' were burned before their faces ; the execu-
tioner cut jokes to the next victim, as he rubbed his filthy hands
together, that were reeking with the blood of the last; and the
heads of the dead were drawn on sledges with the living to the
place of suffering. Still, even so merry a monarch could not force
one of these dying men to say that he was sorry for what he had
done. Nay, the most memorable thing said among them was, that
if the thing were to do again they would do it.
Sir Harry Vane, who had furnished the evidence against Strafford,
and was one of the most staunch of the Republicans, v.-as also tried,
found guilty, and ordered for execution. When he came upon the
scaffold on Tower Hill, after conducting his own defence with great
power, his notes of what he had meant to say to the people were
torn away from him, and the drums and trumpets were ordered to
sound lustily and drown his voice ; for, the people had been so
much impressed by what the Regicides had calmly said with their
last breath, that it was the custom now, to have the drums and
trumpets always under the scaffold, ready to strike up. Vane said
no more than this : ' It is a bad cause which cannot bear the words
of a dying man : ' and bravely died.
These merry scenes were succeeded by another, perhaps even
'298 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
merrier. On the anniversary of the late King's death, the bodies
of OHver Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, were torn out of their
graves in Westminster Abbey, dragged to Tyburn, hanged there on
a gallows all day long, and then beheaded. Imagine the head of
Oliver Cromwell set upon a pole to be stared at by a brutal crowd,
not one of whom would have dared to look the living Oliver in the
face for half a moment ! Think, after you have read this reign,
what England was under Oliver Cromwell who was torn out of his
grave, and what it was under this merry monarch who sold it, like
a merry Judas, over and over again.
Of course, the remains of Oliver's wife and daughter were not
to be spared either, though they had been most excellent women.
The base clergy of that time gave up their bodies, which had been
buried in the Abbey, and — to the eternal disgrace of England — they
were thrown into a pit, together with the mouldering bones of Pym
and of the brave and bold old Admiral Blake.
The clergy acted this disgraceful part because they hoped to get
the nonconformists, or dissenters, thoroughly put down in this reign,
and to have but one prayer-book and one service for all kinds of
people, no matter what their private opinions were. This was pretty
well, I think, for a Protestant Church, which had displaced the
Romish Church because people had a right to their own opinions in
religious matters. However, they carried it with a high hand, and
a prayer-book was agreed upon, in which the extremest opinions
of Archbishop Laud were not forgotten. An Act was passed, too,
preventing any dissenter from holding any office under any corpora-
tion. So, the regular clergy in their triumph were soon as merry as
the King. The army being by this time disbanded, and the King
crowned, everything was to go on easily for evermore.
I must say a word here about the King's family. He had not
been long upon the throne when his brother the Duke of Gloucester,
and his sister the Princess of Orange, died within a few months
of each other, of small-pox. His remaining sister, the Princess
Henrietta, married the Duke of Orleans, the brother of Louis
THE Fourteenth, King of France. His brother James, Duke of
York, was made High Admiral, and by-and-by became a Catholic.
He was a gloomy, sullen, bilious sort of man, with a remarkable
partiality for the ugliest women in the country. He married, under
very discreditable circumstances, Anne Hyde, the daughter of
Lord Clarendon, then the King's principal Minister — not at all
a delicate minister either, but doing much of the dirty work of a
very dirty palace. It became important now that the King himself
should be married ; and divers foreign Monarchs, not very particular
about the character of their son-in-law, proposed their daughters to
him. The King of Portugal offered his daughter, Catherine
OF Braganza, and fifty thousand pounds : in addition to which,
CHARLES THE SECOND 299
the French King, who was favourable to that match, ofifered a
loan of another fifty thousand. The King of Spain, on the other
hand, offered any one out of a dozen of Princesses, and other hopes
of gain. But the ready money carried the day, and Catherine
came over in state to her merry marriage.
The whole Court was a great flaunting crowd of debauched men
and shameless women ; and Catherine's merry husband insulted
and outraged her in every possible way, until she consented to
receive those worthless creatures as her very good friends, and to
degrade herself by their companionship. A Mrs. Palmer, whom
the King made Lady Castlemaine, and afterwards Duchess of
Cleveland, was one of the most powerful of the bad women about
the Court, and had great influence with the King nearly all through
his reign. Another merry lady named Moll Davies, a dancer at
the theatre, was afterwards her rival. So was Nell Gwvn, first an
orange girl and then an actress, who really had good in her, and of
whom one of the worst things I know is, that actually she does seem
to have been fond of the King. The first Duke of St. Albans
was this orange girl's child. In like manner the son of a merry
waiting-lady, whom the King created Duchess of Portsmouth,
became the Duke of Richmond. Upon the whole it is not so
bad a thing to be a commoner.
The Merry Monarch was so exceedingly merry among these
merry ladies, and some equally merry (and equally infamous) lords
and gentlemen, that he soon got through his hundred thousand
pounds, and then, by way of raising a little pocket-money, made a
merry bargain. He sold Dunkirk to the French King for five
millions of livres. When I think of the dignity to which Oliver
Cromwell raised England in the eyes of foreign powers, and when
I think of the manner in which he gained for England this very
Dunkirk, I am much inclined to consider that if the Merry Monarch
had been made to follow his father for this action, he would have
received his just deserts.
Though he was like his father in none of that father's greater
qualities, he was like him in being worthy of no trust. When he
sent that letter to the Parliament, from Breda, he did expressly
promise that all sincere religious opinions should be respected.
Yet he was no sooner firm in his power than he consented to one
of the worst Acts of Parliament ever passed. Under this law, every
minister who should not give his solemn assent to the Prayer-Book
by a certain day, was declared to be a minister no longer, and to
be deprived of his church. The consequence of this was that some
two thousand honest men were taken from their congregations, and
reduced to dire poverty and distress. It was followed by another
outrageous law, called the Conventicle Act, by which any person
above the age of sixteen who was present at any religious service
300 A CHILd'S history OF ENGLAND
not according to the Prayer-Book, was to be imprisoned three
months for the first offence, six for the second, and to be transported
for the third. This Act alone filled the prisons, which were then
most dreadful dungeons, to overflowing.
The Covenanters in Scotland had already fared no better. A
base Parliament, usually known as the Drunken Parliament, in
consequence of its principal members being seldom sober, had been
got together to make laws against the Covenanters, and to force all
men to be of one mind in religious matters. The Marquis of
Argyle, relying on the King's honour, had given himself up to
him ; but, he was wealthy, and his enemies wanted his wealth. He
was tried for treason, on the evidence of some private letters in
which he had expressed opinions — as well he might — more favour-
able to the government of the late Lord Protector than of the
present merry and religious King. He was executed, as were two
men of mark among the Covenanters ; and Sharp, a traitor who
had once been the friend of the Presbyterians and betrayed them,
v/as made Archbishop of St. Andrew's, to teach the Scotch how to
like bishops.
Things being in this merry state at home, the Merry Monarch
undertook a war with the Dutch ; principally because they interfered
with an African company, established with the two objects of buying
gold-dust and slaves, of which the Duke of York was a leading
member. After some preliminary hostilities, the said Duke sailed
to the coast of Holland with a fleet of ninety-eight vessels of war,
and four fire-ships. This engaged with the Dutch fleet, of no fewer
than one hundred and thirteen ships. In the great battle between
the two forces, the Dutch lost eighteen ships, four admirals, and
seven thousand men. But, the English on shore were in no mood
of exultation when they heard the news.
For, this was the year and the time of the Great Plague in
London. During the winter of one thousand six hundred and
sixty-four it had been whispered about, that some few people had
died here and there of the disease called the Plague, in some of the
unwholesome suburbs around London. News was not published at
that time as it is now, and some people believed these rumours, and
some disbelieved them, and they were soon forgotten. But, in the
month of May, one thousand six hundred and sixty-five, it began to
be said all over the town that the disease had burst out with great
violence in St. Giles's, and that the people were dying in great
numbers. This soon turned out to be awfully true. The roads out
of London were choked up by people endeavouring to escape from
the infected city, and large sums were paid for any kind of convey-
ance. The disease soon spread so fast, that it was necessary to
shut up the houses in which sick people were, and to cut them off
from communication with the living. Every one of these houses
CHARLES THE SECOND 301
was marked on the outside of the door with a red cross, and the
words, Lord, have mercy upon us ! The streets were all deserted,
grass grew in the public ways, and there was a dreadful silence in
the air. When night came on, dismal rumblings used to be heard,
and these were the wheels of the death-carts, attended by men with
veiled faces and holding cloths to their mouths, who rang doleful
bells and cried in a loud and solemn voice, ' Bring out your dead ! '
The corpses put into these carts were buried by torchlight in great
pits ; no service being performed over them ; all men being afraid
to stay for a moment on the brink of the ghastly graves. In the
general fear, children ran away from their parents, and parents from
their children. Some who were taken ill, died alone, and without
any help. Some were stabbed or strangled by hired nurses who
robbed them of all their money, and stole the very beds on which
they lay. Some went mad, dropped from the windows, ran through
the streets, and in their pain and frenzy flung themselves into the
river.
These were not all the horrors of the time. The wicked and
dissolute, in wild desperation, sat in the taverns singing roaring
songs, and were stricken as they drank, and went out and died.
The fearful and superstitious persuaded themselves that they saw
supernatural sights — burning swords in the sky, gigantic arms and
darts. Others pretended that at nights vast crowds of ghosts walked
round and round the dismal pits. One madman, naked, and cariy-
ing a brazier full of burning coals upon his head, stalked through
the streets, crying out that he was a Prophet, commissioned to
denounce the vengeance of the Lord on wicked London. Another
always went to and fro, exclaiming, ' Yet forty days, and London
shall be destroyed ! ' A third awoke the echoes in. the dismal streets,
by night and by day, and made the blood of the sick run cold, by
calling out incessantly, in a deep hoarse voice, ' O, the great and
dreadful God ! '
Through the months of July and August and September, the
Great Plague raged more and more. Great fires were lighted in
the streets, in the hope of stopping the infection ; but there was a
plague of rain too, and it beat the fires out. At last, the winds
which usually arise at that time of the year which is called the
equinox, when day and night are of equal length all over the
world, began to blow, and to purify the wretched town. The
deaths began to decrease, the red crosses slowly to disappear, the
fugitives to return, the shops to open, pale frightened faces to be
seen in the streets. The Plague had been in every part of England,
but in close and unwholesome London it had killed one hundred
thousand people.
All this time, the Merry Monarch was as merry as ever, and
as worthless as ever. All this time, the debauched lords and
302 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
gentlemen and the shameless ladies danced and gamed and drank,
and loved and hated one another, according to their merry ways.
So little humanity did the government learn from the late affliction,
that one of the first things the Parliament did when it met at Oxford
(being as yet afraid to come to London), was to make a law, called
the Five Mile Act, expressly directed against those poor ministers
who, in the time of the Plague, had manfully come back to comfort
the unhappy people. This infamous law, by forbidding them to
teach in any school, or to come within five miles of any city, town,
or village, doomed them to starvation and death.
The fleet had been at sea, and healthy. The King of France
was now in alliance with the Dutch, though his navy was chiefly
employed in looking on while the English and Dutch fought. The
Dutch gained one victory ; and the English gained another and a
greater ; and Prince Rupert, one of the English admirals, was out
in the Channel one windy night, looking for the French Admiral,
with the intention of giving him something more to do than he had
had yet, when the gale increased to a storm, and blew him into
Saint Helen's. That night was the third of September, one thousand
six hundred and sixty-six, and that wind fanned the Great Fire of
London.
It broke out at a baker's shop near London Bridge, on the spot
on which the Monument now stands as a remembrance of those
raging flames. It spread and spread, and burned and burned, for
three days. The nights were lighter than the days; in the day-
time there was an immense cloud of smoke, and in the night-time
there was a great tower of fire mounting up into the sky, which
lighted the whole country landscape for ten miles round. Showers
of hot ashes rose into the air and fell on distant places ; flying
sparks carried the conflagration to great distances, and kindled it
in twenty new spots at a time; church steeples fell down with
tremendous crashes ; houses crumbled into cinders by the hundred
and the thousand. The summer had been intensely hot and dry,
the streets were very narrow, and the houses mostly built of wood
and plaster. Nothing could stop the tremendous fire, but the want
of more houses to burn ; nor did it stop until the whole way from
the Tower to Temple Bar was a desert, composed of the ashes of
thirteen thousand houses and eighty-nine churches.
This was a terrible visitation at the time, and occasioned great
loss and suffering to the two hundred thousand burnt-out people,
who were obliged to lie in the fields under the open night sky, or
in hastily-made huts of mud and straw, while the lanes and roads
were rendered impassable by carts which had broken down as they
tried to save their goods. But the Fire was a great blessing to the
City afterwards, for it arose from its ruins very much improved — ■
built more regularly, more widely, more cleanly and carefully, and
CHARLES THE SECOND 303
therefore much more hcaltliily. It might be far more healthy than
it is, but there are some people in it still — even now, at this time,
nearly two hundred years later — so selfish, so pig-headed, and so
ignorant, that I doubt if even another Great Fire would warm them
up to do their duty.
The Catholics were accused of having wilfully set London in
flames; one poor Frenchman, who had been mad for years, even
accused himself of having with his own hand fired the first house.
There is no reasonable doubt, however, that the fire was accidental.
An inscription on the Monument long attributed it to the Catholics ;
but it is removed now, and was always a malicious and stupid
untruth.
Second Part
That the Merry Monarch might be very merry indeed, in the
merry times when his people were suffering under pestilence and
fire, he drank and gambled and flung away among his favourites
the money which the Parliament had voted for the war. The con-
sequence of this was that the stout-hearted English sailors were
merrily starving of want, and dying in the streets ; while the Dutch,
under their admirals De Witt and De Ruyter, came into the
River Thames, and up the River Medway as far as Upnor, burned
the guard-ships, silenced the weak batteries, and did what they
would to the English coast for six Avhole Aveeks. Most of the
English ships that could have prevented them had neither powder
nor shot on board ; in this merry reign, public officers made them-
selves as merry as the King did with the public money ; and when
it was entrusted to them to spend in national defences or prepa-
rations, they put it into their own pockets with the merriest grace
in the world.
• Lord Clarendon had, by this time, run as long a course as is
usually allotted to the unscrupulous ministers of bad kings. He was
impeached by his political opponents, but unsuccessfully. The
King then commanded him to withdraw from England and retire
to France, which he did, after defending himself in writing. He
was no great loss at home, and died abroad some seven years
afterwards.
There then came into power a ministry called the Cabal Ministry,
because it was composed of Lord Clifford, the Earl of Arling-
ton, the Duke of Buckingham (a great rascal, and the King's
most powerful favourite). Lord Ashley, and the Duke of Lauder-
dale, c. a, b. a. l. As the French were making conquests in
Flanders, the first Cabal proceeding was to make a treaty with the
Dutch, for uniting with Spain to oppose the French. It was no
sooner made than the Merry Monarch, who always wanted to get
304 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
money without being accountable to a Parliament for his expendi-
ture, apologised to the King of France for having had anything to
do with it, and concluded a secret treaty with him, making himself
his infamous pensioner to the amount of two millions of livres
down, and three millions more a year ; and engaging to desert that
very Spain, to make war against those very Dutch, and to declare
himself a Catholic when a convenient time should arrive. This
religious king had lately been crying to his Catholic brother on the
subject of his strong desire to be a Catholic ; and now he merrily
concluded this treasonable conspiracy against the country he
governed, by undertaking to become one as soon as he safely could.
For all of which, though he had had ten merry heads instead of
one, he richly deserved to lose them by the headsman's axe.
As his one merry head might have been far from safe, if these
things had been known, they were kept very quiet, and war was
declared by France and England against the Dutch. But, a very
uncommon man, afterwards most important to English history and
to the religion and liberty of this land, arose among them, and for
many long years defeated the whole projects of France. This was
William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, son of the last Prince of
Orange of the same name, who married the daughter of Charles
the First of England. He was a young man at this time, only just
of age; but he Avas brave, cool, intrepid, and wise. His father
had been so detested that, upon his death, the Dutch had abolished
the authority to which this son would have otherwise succeeded
(Stadtholder it was called), and placed the chief power in the hands
of John de Witt, who educated this young prince. Now, the
Prince became very popular, and John de \Vitt's brother Cornelius
was sentenced to banishment on a false accusation of conspiring to
kill him. John went to the prison where he was, to take him away
to exile, in his coach; and a great mob who collected on the
occasion, then and there cruelly murdered both the brothers. This
left the government in the hands of the Prince, who was really the
choice of the nation ; and from this time he exercised it with the
greatest vigour, against the whole power of France, under its famous
generals Conde and Turenne, and in support of the Protestant
religion. It was full seven years before this war ended in a treaty
of peace made at Nimeguen, and its details would occupy a very
considerable space. It is enough to say that William of Orange
established a famous character with the whole world ; and that the
Merry Monarch, adding to and improving on his former baseness,
bound himself to do everything the King of France liked, and
nothing the King of France did not like, for a pension of one
hundred thousand i)ounds a year, which was afterwards doubled.
Besides this, the King of France, by means of his corrupt ambas-
sador— who wrote accounts of his proceedings in England, which
CHARLES THE SECOND 305
are not always to be believed, I think — bought our English members
of Parliament, as he wanted them. So, in point of fact, during a
considerable portion of this merry reign, the King of France was
the real King of this country.
But there was a better time to come, and it was to come (though
his royal uncle little thought so) through that very William, Prince
of Orange. He came over to England, saw Mary, the elder daughter
of the Duke of York, and married her. We shall see by-and-by
what came of that marriage, and why it is never to be forgotten.
This daughter was a Protestant, but her mother died a Catholic.
She and her sister Anne, also a Protestant, were the only survivors
of eight children. Anne afterwards married George, Prince of
Denmark, brother to the King of that country.
Lest you should do the Merry Monarch the injustice of supposing
that he was even good humoured (except when he had everything
his own way), or that he was high spirited and honourable, I will
mention here what was done to a member of the House of Commons,
Sir John Coventry. He made a remark in a debate about taxing
the theatres, which gave the King offence. The King agreed with
his illegitimate son, who had been born abroad, and whom he had
made Duke of Monmouth, to take the following merry vengeance.
To waylay him at night, fifteen armed men to one, and to slit his
nose with a penknife. Like master, like man. The King's favourite,
the Duke of Buckingham, was strongly suspected of setting on an
assassin to murder the Duke of Ormond as he was returning home
from a dinner; and that Duke's spirited son, Lord Ossorv, was so
persuaded of his guilt, that he said to him at Court, even as he stood
beside the King, ' My lord, I know very well that you are at the
bottom of this late attempt upon my father. But I give you warning,
if he ever come to a violent end, his blood shall be upon you, and
wherever I meet you I will pistol you ! I will do so, though I
find you standing behind the King's chair ; and I tell you this in
his Majesty's presence, that you may be quite sure of my doing
what I threaten.' Those were merry times indeed.
There was a fellow named Blood, who was seized for making,
with two companions, an audacious attempt to steal the crown, the
globe, and sceptre, from the place where the jewels were kept in
the Tower. This robber, who was a swaggering ruffian, being
taken, declared that he was the man who had endeavoured to kill
the Duke of Ormond, and that he had meant to kill the King too,
but was overawed by the majesty of his appearance, when he might
otherwise have done it, as he was bathing at Battersea. The King
being but an ill-looking fellow, I don't believe a word of this.
Whether he was flattered, or whether he knew that Buckingham had
really set Blood on to murder the Duke, is uncertain. But it is
quite certain that he pardoned this thief, gave him an estate of five
X
3o5 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
hundred a year in Ireland (which had had the honour of giving him
birth), and presented him at Court to the debauched lords and the
shameless ladies, who made a great deal of him — as I have no doubt
they would have made of the Devil himself, if the King had intro-
duced him.
Infamously pensioned as he was, the King still wanted money,
and consequently was obliged to call Parliaments. In these, the
great object of the Protestants was to thwart the Catholic Duke of
York, who married a second time ; his new wife being a young lady
oaly fifteen years old, the Catholic sister of the Duke of Modena.
In this they were seconded by the Protestant Dissenters, though to
their own disadvantage : since, to exclude Catholics from power,
they were even willing to exclude themselves. The King's object
was to pretend to be a Protestant, while he was really a Catholic ;
to swear to the bishops that he was devoutly attached to the English
Church, while he knew he had bargained it away to the King of
France ; and by cheating and deceiving them, and all who were
attached to royalty, to become despotic and be powerful enough to
confess what a rascal he was. Meantime, the King of France,
knowing his merry pensioner well, intrigued with the King's
opponents in Parliament, as well as with the King and his
friends.
The fears that the country had of the Catholic religion being
restored, if the Duke of York should come to the throne, and the
low cunning of the King in pretending to share their alarms, led to
some very terrible results. A certain Dr. Tonge, a dull clergyman
in the City, fell into the hands of a certain Titus Oates, a most
infamous character, who pretended to have acquired among the
Jesuits abroad a knowledge of a great plot for the murder of the
King, and the re-establishment of the Catholic religion. Titus
Oates, being produced by this unlucky Dr. Tonge and solemnly
examined before the council, contradicted himself in a thousand
ways, told the most ridiculous and improbable stories, and impli-
cated Coleman, the Secretary of the Duchess of York. Now,
although what he charged against Coleman was not true, and
although you and I know very well that the real dangerous Catholic
plot was that one with the King of France of which the Merry
Monarch was himself the head, there happened to be found among
Coleman's papers, some letters, in which he did praise the days
of Bloody Queen Mary, and abuse the Protestant religion. This
was great good fortune for Titus, as it seemed to confirm him ; but
better still was in store. Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, the magis-
trate who had first examined him, being unexpectedly found dead
near Primrose Hill, was confidently believed to have been killed by
the Catholics. I think there is no doubt that he had been melan-
choly mad, and that he killed himself; but he had a great Protestant
CHARLES THE SECOND 307
funeral, and Titus was called the Saver of the Nation, and received
a pension of twelve hundred pounds a year.
As soon as Oates's wickedness had met with this success, up
started another villain, named William Bedloe, who, attracted by
a reward of five hundred pounds oftered for the apprehension of
the murderers of Godfrey, came forward and charged two Jesuits
and some other persons with having committed it at the Queen's
desire. Gates, going into partnership with this new informer, had
the audacity to accuse the poor Queen herself of high treason.
Then appeared a third informer, as bad as either of the two, and
accused a Catholic banker named Stayley of having said that the
King was the greatest rogue in the world (which would not have
been far from the truth), and that he would kill him with his own
hand. This banker, being at once tried and executed, Coleman
and two others were tried and executed. Then, a miserable wretch
named Prance, a Catholic silversmith, being accused by Bedloe,
was tortured into confessing that he had taken part in Godfrey's
murder, and into accusing three other men of having committed it.
Then, five Jesuits were accused by Gates, Bedloe, and Prance
together, and were all found guilty, and executed on the same kind
of contradictory and absurd evidence. The Queen's physician and
three monks were next put on their trial ; but Gates and Bedloe
had for the time gone far enough and these four were acquitted.
The public mind, however, was so full of a Catholic plot, and so
strong against the Duke of York, that James consented to obey a
written order from his brother, and to go with his family to Brussels,
provided that his rights should never be sacrificed in his absence
to the Duke of Monmouth. The House of Commons, not satisfied
with this as the King hoped, passed a bill to exclude the Duke
from ever succeeding to the throne. In return, the King dissolved
the Parliament. He had deserted his old favourite, the Duke of
Buckingham, who was now in the opposition.
To give any sufficient idea of the miseries of Scotland in this
merry reign, would occupy a hundred pages. Because the people
would not have bishops, and were resolved to stand by their solemn
League and Covenant, such cruelties were inflicted upon them as
make the blood run cold. Ferocious dragoons galloped through
the country to punish the peasants for deserting the churches ; sons
were hanged up at their fathers' doors for refusing to disclose where
their fathers were concealed ; wives were tortured to death for not
betraying their husbands ; people were taken out of their fields and
gardens, and shot on the public roads without trial ; lighted matches
were tied to the fingers of prisoners, and a most horrible torment
called the Boot was invented, and constantly applied, which ground
and mashed the victims' legs with iron wedges. Witnesses were
tortured as well as prisoners. All the prisons were full ; all the
3o8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
gibbets were heavy with bodies; murder and plunder devastated
the whole country. In spite of all, the Covenanters were by no
means to be dragged into the churches, and persisted in worship-
ping God as they thought right. A body of ferocious Highlanders,
turined upon them from the mountains of their own country, had
no greater effect than the English dragoons under Grahame of
Claverhouse, the most cruel and rapacious of all their enemies,
whose name will ever be cursed through the length and breadth of
Scotland. Archbishop Sharp had ever aided and abetted all these
outrages. But he fell at last ; for, when the injuries of the Scottish
people were at their height, he was seen, in his coach-and-six coming
across a moor, by a body of men, headed by one John Balfour,
who were waiting for another of their oppressors. Upon this they
cried out that Heaven had delivered him into their hands, and
killed him with many wounds. If ever a man deserved such a
death, I think Archbishop Sharp did.
It made a great noise directly, and the Merry Monarch— strongly
suspected of having goaded the Scottish people on, that he might
have an excuse for a greater army than the Parliament were willing
to give him — sent down his son, the Duke of Monmouth, as com-
mander-in-chief, with instructions to attack the Scottish rebels, or
Whigs as they were called, whenever he came up with them.
Marching with ten thousand men from Edinburgh, he found them,
in number four or five thousand, drawn up at Bothwell Bridge, by
the Clyde. They were soon dispersed; and Monmouth showed
a more humane character towards them, than he had shown towards
that Member of Parliament whose nose he had caused to be slit
with a penknife. But the Duke of Lauderdale was their bitter foe,
and sent Claverhouse to finish them.
As the Duke of York became more and more unpopular, the
Duke of INIonmouth became more and more popular. It would
have been decent in the latter not to have voted in favour of the
renewed bill for the exclusion of James from the throne ; but he
did so, much to the King's amusement, who used to sit in the
House of Lords by the fire, hearing the debates, which he said
were as good as a play. The House of Commons passed the bill
by a large majority, and it was carried up to the House of Lords
by Lord Russell, one of the best of the leaders on the Protestant
side. It was rejected there, chiefly because the bishops helped the
King to get rid of it ; and the fear of Catholic plots revived again.
There had been another got up, by a fellow out of Newgate, named
Dangerfield, which is more famous than it deserves to be, under
the name of the Meal-Tub Plot. This jail-bird having been got
out of Newgate by a Mrs. Cellier, a Catholic nurse, had turned
Catholic himself, and pretended that he knew of a plot among the
Presbyterians against the King's life. This was very pleasant to
CHARLES THE SECOND 309
the Duke of York, who hated the Presbyterians, \Yho returned the
compHment. He gave Dangerfield twenty guineas, and sent him
to the King his brother. But Dangerfield, breaking down altogether
in his charge, and being sent back to Newgate, almost astonished
the Duke out of his five senses by suddenly swearing that the
Catholic nurse had put that false design into his head, and that
what he really knew about, was, a Catholic plot against the King ;
the evidence of which would be found in some papers, concealed
in a meal-tub in Mrs. Cellier's house. There they were, of course
— for he had put them there himself — and so the tub gave the name
to the plot. But, the nurse was acquitted on her trial, and it came
to nothing.
Lord Ashley, of the Cabal, was now Lord Shaftesbury, and was
strong against the succession of the Duke of York. The House of
Commons, aggravated to the utmost extent, as we may well suppose,
by suspicions of the King's conspiracy with the King of France,
made a desperate point of the exclusion still, and were bitter against
the Catholics generally. So unjustly bitter were they, I grieve to
say, that they impeached the venerable Lord Stafford, a Catholic
nobleman seventy years old, of a design to kill the King. The
witnesses were that atrocious Gates and two other birds of the
same feather. He was found guilty, on evidence quite as foolish
as it was false, and was beheaded on Tower Hill. The people
were opposed to him when he first appeared upon the scaffold ;
but, when he had addressed them and shown them how innocent
he was and how wickedly he was sent there, their better nature
was aroused, and they said, ' ^^'e believe you, my Lord. God bless
you, my Lord ! '
The House of Commons refused to let the King have any money
until he should consent to the Exclusion Bill ; but, as he could get
it and did get it from his master the King of France, he could
afford to hold them very cheap. He called a Parliament at Gxford,
to which he went down with a great show of being armed and pro-
tected as if he were in danger of his life, and to which the opposition
members also went armed and protected, alleging that they were
in fear of the Papists, who were numerous among the King's guards.
However, they went on with the Exclusion Bill, and were so earnest
upon it that they would have carried it again, if the King had not
popped his crown and state robes into a sedan-chair, bundled him-
self into it along with them, hurried down to the chamber where
the House of Lords met, and dissolved the Parliament. After which
he scampered home, and the members of Parliament scampered
home too, as fast as their legs could carry them.
The Duke of York, then residing in Scotland, had, under the law^
which excluded Catholics from public trust, no right whatever to
public employment. Nevertheless, he was openly employed as the
310 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
King's representative in Scotland, and there gratified his sullen and
cruel nature to his heart's content by directing the dreadful cruelties
against the Covenanters. There were two ministers named Cargill
and Cameron who had escaped from the battle of Bothwell Bridge,
and who returned to Scotland, and raised the miserable but still
brave and unsubdued Covenanters afresh, under the name of Came-
ronians. As Cameron publicly posted a declaration that the King
was a forsworn tyrant, no mercy was shown to his unhappy followers
after he was slain in battle. The Duke of York, who was particularly
fond of the Boot and derived great pleasure from having it applied,
offered their lives to some of these people, if they would cry on the
scaffold ' God save the King ! ' But their relations, friends, and
countrymen, had been so barbarously tortured and murdered in
this merry reign, that they preferred to die, and did die. The Duke
then obtained his merry brother's permission to hold a Parliament
in Scotland, which first, with most shameless deceit, confirmed the
laws for securing the Protestant religion against Popery, and then
declared that nothing must or should prevent the succession of the
Popish Duke. After this double-faced beginning, it established an
oath which no human being could understand, but which everybody
was to take, as a proof that his religion was the lawful religion.
The Earl of Argyle, taking it with the explanation that he did not
consider it to prevent him from favouring any alteration either in
the Church or State which was not inconsistent with the Protestant
religion or with his loyalty, was tried for high treason before a
Scottish jury of which the Marquis of Montrose was foreman,
and was found guilty. He escaped the scaffold, for that time, by
getting away, in the disguise of a page, in the train of his daughter,
Lady Sophia Lindsay. It was absolutely proposed, by certain
members of the Scottish Council, that this lady should be whipped
through the streets of Edinburgh. But this was too much even for
the Duke, who had the manliness then (he had very little at most
times) to remark that Englishmen were not accustomed to treat
ladies in that manner. In those merry times nothing could equal
the brutal servility of the Scottish fawners, but the conduct of
similar degraded beings in England.
After the settlement of these little affairs, the Duke returned to
England, and soon resumed his place at the Council, and his office
of High Admiral — all this by his brother's favour, and in open
defiance of the law. It would have been no loss to the country, if
he had been drowned when his ship, in going to Scotland to fetch
his family, struck on a sand-bank, and was lost with two hundred
souls on board. But he escaped in a boat with some friends ; and
the sailors were so brave and unselfish, that, when they saw him
rowing away, they gave three cheers, while they themselves were
going down for ever.
CHARLES THE SECOND 31!
The Merry Monarch, having got rid of his Parhament, went to
work to make himself despotic, with all speed. Having had the
villainy to order the execution of Oliver Plunket, Bishop of
Armagh, falsely accused of a plot to establish Popery in that
country by means of a French army — the very thing this royal
traitor was himself trying to do at home — and having tried to ruin
Lord Shaftesbury, and failed — he turned his hand to controlling the
corporations all over the country ; because, if he could only do that,
he could get what juries he chose, to bring in perjured verdicts, and
could get what members he chose returned to Parliament. These
merry times produced, and made Chief Justice of the Court of
King's Bench, a drunken ruffian of the name of Jeffreys ; a red-
faced, swollen, bloated, horrible creature, with a bullying, roaring
voice, and a more savage nature perhaps than was ever lodged in
any human breast. This monster was the Merry ISIonarch's especial
favourite, and he testified his admiration of him by giving him a
ring from his own finger, which the people used to call Judge
Jeffreys's Bloodstone. Him the King employed to go about and
bully the corporations, beginning with London ; or, as Jeffreys
himself elegantly called it, ' to give them a lick with the rough side
of his tongue.' And he did it so thoroughly, that they soon became
the basest and most sycophantic bodies in the kingdom — except the
University of Oxford, which, in that respect, was quite pre-eminent
and unapproachable.
Lord Shaftesbury (who died soon after the King's failure against
him). Lord William Russell, the Duke of Monmouth, Lord
Howard, Lord Jersey, Algernon Sidney, John Hampden
(grandson of the great Hampden), and some others, used to hold
a council together after the dissolution of the Parliament, arranging
what it might be necessary to do, if the King carried his Popish
plot to the utmost height. Lord Shaftesbury having been much the
most violent of this party, brought two violent men into their secrets
— Rumsey, who had been a soldier in the Republican army ; and
West, a lawyer. These two knew an old officer of Cromwell's,
called Rum bold, who had married a maltster's widow, and so had
come into possession of a solitary dwelling called the Rye House,
near Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire. Rumbold said to them what a
capital place this house of his would be from which to shoot at the
King, who often passed there going to and fro from Newmarket.
They liked the idea, and entertained it. But, one of their body
gave information; and they, together with Shepherd a wine
merchant, Lord Russell, Algernon Sidney, Lord Essex, Lord
Howard, and Hampden, were all arrested.
Lord Russell might have easily escaped, but scorned to do so,
being innocent of any wrong ; Lord Essex might have easily
escaped, but scorned to do so, lest his flight should prejudice Lord
"312 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Russell. But it weighed upon his mind that he had brought into
their council, Lord Howard — who now turned a miserable traitor—
against a great dislike Lord Russell had always had of him. He
could not bear the reflection, and destroyed himself before Lord
Russell was brought to trial at the Old Bailey.
He knew very well that he had nothing to hope, having always
been manful in the Protestant cause against the two false brothers,
the one on the throne, and the other standing next to it. He had
a wife, one of the noblest and best of women, who acted as his
secretary on his trial, who comforted him in his prison, who supped
with him on the night before he died, and whose love and virtue
and devotion have made her name imperishable. Of course, he
was found guilty, and was sentenced to be beheaded in Lincoln's
Inn-fields, not many yards from his own house. When he had
parted from his children on the evening before his death, his wife
still stayed with him until ten o'clock at night ; and when their final
separation in this world was over, and he had kissed her many
times, he still sat for a long while in his prison, talking of her
goodness. Hearing the rain fall fast at that time, he calmly said,
' Such a rain to-morrow will spoil a great show, which is a dull thing
on a rainy day.' At midnight he went to bed, and slept till four ;
even when his servant called him, he fell asleep again while his
clothes were being made ready. He rode to the scaffold in his
own carriage, attended by two famous clergymen, Tillotson and
EuRNET, and sang a psalm to himself very softly, as he went along.
He was as quiet and as steady as if he had been going out for an
ordinary ride. After saying that he was surprised to. see so great a
crowd, he laid down his head upon the block, as if upon the pillow
of his bed, and had it struck off at the second blow. His noble
wife was busy for him even then ; for that true-hearted lady printed
and widely circulated his last words, of which he had given her a
copy. They made the blood of all the honest men in England boil.
The University of Oxford distinguished itself on the very same
day by pretending to believe that the accusation against Lord
Russell was true, and by calling the King, in a written paper, the
Breath of their Nostrils and the Anointed of the Lord. This paper
the Parliament afterwards caused to be burned by the common
hangman ; which I am sorry for, as I wish it had been framed and
glazed and hung up in some public place, as a monument of baseness
for the scorn of mankind.
Next, came the trial of Algernon Sidney, at which Jeffreys
presided, like a great crimson toad, sweltering and swelling with
rage. ' I pray God, Mr. Sidney,' said this Chief Justice of a merry
reign, after passing sentence, ' to work in you a temper fit to go to
the other world, for I see you are not fit for this.' ' My lord,' said
the prisoner, composedly holding out his arm, ' feel my pulse, and see
CHARLES TPIE SECOND 313
if I be disordered. I thank Heaven I never was in better temper
than I am now.' Algernon Sidney was executed on Tower Hill,
on the seventh of December, one thousand six hundred and eighty-
three. He died a hero, and died, in his own words, ' For that good
old cause in which he had been engaged from his youth, and for
which God had so often and so wonderfully declared himself.'
The Duke of Monmouth had been making his uncle, the Duke
of York, very jealous, by going about the country in a royal sort of
way, playing at the people's games, becoming godfLither to their
children, and even touching for the King's evil, or stroking the
faces of the sick to cure them — though, for the matter of that, I
should say he did them about as much good as any crowned king
could have done. His father had got him to write a letter, confess-
ing his having had a part in the conspiracy, for which Lord Russell
had been beheaded ; but he was ever a weak man, and as soon as
he had written it, he was ashamed of it and got it back again. For
this, he was banished to the Netherlands; but he soon returned
and had an interview with his father, unknown to his uncle. It
would seem that he was coming into the Merry Monarch's favour
again, and that the Duke of York was sliding out of it, when Death
appeared to the merry galleries at Whitehall, and astonished the
debauched lords and gentlemen, and the shameless ladies, very
considerably.
On Monday, the second of February, one thousand six hundred
and eighty-five, the merry pensioner and servant of the King of
France fell down in a fit of apoplexy. By the Wednesday his case
was hopeless, and on the Thursday he was told so. As he made a
difificulty about taking the sacrament from the Protestant Bishop of
Bath, the Duke of York got all who were present away from the
bed, and asked his brother, in a whisper, if he should send for a
Catholic priest ? The King replied, ' For God's sake, brother, do ! '
The Duke smuggled in, up the back stairs, disguised in a wig and
gown, a priest named Huddleston, who had saved the King's life
after the battle of Worcester : telling him that this worthy man in
the wig had once saved his body, and was now come to save his
soul.
The Merry Monarch lived through that night, and died before
noon on the next day, which was Friday, the sixth. Two of the
last things he said were of a human sort, and your remembrance
will give him the full benefit of them. When the Queen sent to say
she was too unwell to attend him and to ask his pardon, he said,
' Alas ! poor woman, she beg 7ny pardon ! I beg hers with all my
heart. Take back that answer to her.' And he also said, in
jeference to Nell Gwyn, ' Do not let poor Nelly starve.'
He died in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and the twenty-fifth of
his reign.
314 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
CHAPTER XXXVI
ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE SECOND
King James the Second was a man so very disagreeable, that
even the best of historians has favoured his brother Charles, as
becoming, by comparison, quite a pleasant character. The one
object of his short reign was to re-establish the Catholic religion in
England ; and this he doggedly pursued with such a stupid obstinacy,
that his career very soon came to a close.
The first thing he did, was, to assure his council that he would
make it his endeavour to preserve the Government, both in Church
and State, as it was by law established ; and that he would always
take care to defend and support the Church. Great public accla-
mations were raised over this fair speech, and a great deal was said,
from the pulpits and elsewhere, about the word of a King which
was never broken, by credulous people who little supposed that he
had formed a secret council for Catholic affairs, of which a mis-
chievous Jesuit, called Father Petre, was one of the chief members.
With tears of joy in his eyes, he received, as the beginning of his
pension from the King of France, five hundred thousand livres ;
yet, with a mixture of meanness and arrogance that belonged to his
contemptible character, he was always jealous of making some show
of being independent of the King of France, while he pocketed his
money. As — notwithstanding his publishing two papers in favour
of Popery (and not likely to do it much service, I should think)
written by the King, his brother, and found in his strong-box ; and
his open display of himself attending mass — the Parliament was
very obsequious, and granted him a large sum of money, he began
his reign with a belief that he could do what he pleased, and with a
determination to do it.
Before we proceed to its principal events, let us dispose of Titus
Oates. He was tried for perjury, a fortnight after the coronation,
and besides being very heavily fined, was sentenced to stand twice
in the pillory, to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate one day,
and from Newgate to Tyburn two days afterwards, and to stand in
the pillory five times a year as long as he lived. This fearful
sentence was actually inflicted on the rascal. Being unable to stand
after his first flogging, he was dragged on a sledge from Newgate to
Tyburn, and flogged as he was drawn along. He was so strong a
villain that he did not die under the torture, but lived to be after-
wards pardoned and rewarded, though not to be ever believed in
any more. Dangerfield, the only other one of that crew left alive.
JAMES THE SECOND 315
was not so fortunate. He was almost killed by a whipping from
Newgate to Tyburn, and, as if that were not punishment enough, a
ferocious barrister of Gray's Inn gave him a poke in the eye with
his cane, which caused his death ; for which the ferocious barrister
was deservedly tried and executed.
As soon as James was on the throne, Argyle and Monmouth
went from Brussels to Rotterdam, and attended a meeting of Scottish
exiles held there, to concert measures for a rising in England. It
was agreed that Argyle should effect a landing in Scotland, and
Monmouth in England ; and that two Englishmen should be sent
with Argyle to be in his confidence, and two Scotchmen with the
Duke of Monmouth.
Argyle was the first to act upon this contract. But, two of his
men being taken prisoners at the Orkney Islands, the Government
became aware of his intention, and was able to act against him
with such vigour as to prevent his raising more than two or three
thousand Highlanders, although he sent a fiery cross, by trusty
messengers, from clan to clan and from glen to glen, as the custom
then was when those wild people were to be excited by their chiefs.
As he was moving towards Glasgow with his small force, he was
betrayed by some of his followers, taken, and carried, with his hands
tied behind his back, to his old prison in Edinburgh Castle. James
ordered him to be executed, on his old shamefully unjust sentence,
within three days ; and he appears to have been anxious that his
legs should have been pounded with his old favourite the boot.
However, the boot was not applied ; he was simply beheaded, and
his head was set upon the top of Edinburgh Jail. One of those
Englishmen who had been assigned to him was that old soldier
Rumbold, the master of the Rye House. He was sorely wounded,
and within a week after Argyle had suffered with great courage, was
brought up for trial, lest he should die and disappoint the King.
He, too, was executed, after defending himself with great spirit, and
saying that he did not believe that God had made the greater part
of mankind to carry saddles on their backs and bridles in their
mouths, and to be ridden by a few, booted and spurred for the
purpose — in which I thoroughly agree with Rumbold.
The Duke of Monmouth, partly through being detained and
partly through idling his time away, was five or six weeks behind
his friend when he landed at Lyme, in Dorset : having at his right
hand an unlucky nobleman called Lord Grey of Werk, who of
himself would have ruined a far more promising expedition. He
immediately set up his standard in the market-place, and proclaimed
the King a tyrant, and a Popish usurper, and I know not what else ;
charging him, not only with what he had done, which was bad
enough, but with what neither he nor anybody else had done, such
as setting fire to London, and poisoning the late King. Raising
310 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
some four thousand men by these means, he marched on to Taunton,
where there were many Protestant dissenters who were strongly
opposed to the CathoHcs. Here, both the rich and poor turned out
to receive him, ladies waved a welcome to him from all the windows
as he passed along the streets, flowers were strewn in his way, and
every compliment and honour that could be devised was showered
upon him. Among the rest, twenty young ladies came forward, in
their best clothes, and in their brightest beauty, and gave him a
Bible ornamented with their own fair hands, together with other
presents.
Encouraged by this homage, he proclaimed himself King, and
went on to Bridgewater. But, here the Government troops, under
the Earl of Feversham, were close at hand ; and he was so
dispirited at finding that he made but few powerful friends after all,
that it was a question whether he should disband his army and
endeavour to escape. It was resolved, at the instance of that
unlucky Lord Grey, to make a night attack on the King's army, as
it lay encamped on the edge of a morass called Sedgemoor. The
horsemen were commanded by the same unlucky lord, who was not
a brave man. He gave up the battle almost at the first obstacle —
which was a deep drain ; and although the poor countrymen, who
had turned out for Monmouth, fought bravely with scythes, poles,
pitchforks, and such poor weapons as they had, they were soon
dispersed by the trained soldiers, and fled in all directions. When
the Duke of Monmouth himself fled, was not known in the confusion ;
but the unlucky Lord Grey was taken early next day, and then
another of the party was taken, who confessed that he had parted
from the Duke only four hours before. Strict search being made,
he was found disguised as a peasant, hidden in a ditch under fern
and nettles, with a few peas in his pocket which he had gathered in
the fields to eat. The only other articles he had upon him were a
few papers and little books : one of the latter being a strange jumble,
in his own writing, of charms, songs, recipes, and prayers. He was
completely broken. He wrote a miserable letter to the King,
beseeching and entreating to be allowed to see him. When he was
taken to London, and conveyed bound into the King's presence, he
crawled to him on his knees, and made a most degrading exhibition.
As James never forgave or relented towards anybody, he was not
likely to soften towards the issuer of the Lyme proclamation, so he
told the suppliant to prepare for death.
On the fifteenth of July, one thousand six hundred and eighty-
five, this unfortunate favourite of the people was brought out to die
on Tower Hill. The crowd was immense, and the tops of all the
houses were covered with gazers. He had seen his wife, the
daughter of the Duke of Buccleuch, in the Tower, and had talked
much of a lady whom he loved far better — the Ladv LIarriet
JAMES THE SECOND 317
Wentworth — who was one of the last persons he remenihercd in this
life. Before laying down his head upon the block he felt the edge
of the axe, and told the executioner that he feared it was not sharp
enough, and that the axe was not heavy enough. On the executioner
replying that it was of the proper kind, the Duke said, ' I pray you
have a care, and do not use me so awkwardly as you used my
Lord Russell,' 'J'he executioner, made nervous by this, and
trembling, struck once and merely gashed him in the neck. Upon
this, the Duke of Monmouth raised his head and looked the man
reproachfully in the face. Then he struck twice, and then thrice,
and then threw down the axe, and cried out in a voice of horror
that he could not finish that work. The sheriffs, however, threaten-
ing him with what should be done to himself if he did not, he took
it up again and struck a fourth time and a fifth time. Then the
wretched head at last fell off, and James, Duke of Monmouth, was
dead, in the thirty-sixth year of his age. He was a showy, graceful
man, with many popular qualities, and had found much favour in
the open hearts of the English.
The atrocities, committed by tlie Government, which followed this
Monmouth rebellion, form the blackest and most lamentable page
in English history. The poor peasants, having been dispersed with
great loss, and their leaders having been taken, one would think
that the implacable King might have been satisfied. But no ; he
let loose upon them, among other intolerable monsters, a Colonel
Kirk, who had served against the Moors, and whose soldiers-
called by the people Kirk's lambs, because they bore a lamb upon
their flag, as the emblem of Christianity — were worthy of their
leader. The atrocities committed by these demons in human shape
are far too horrible to be related here. It is enough to say, that
besides most ruthlessly murdering and robbing them, and ruining
them by making them buy their pardons at the price of all they
possessed, it was one of Kirk's favourite amusements, as he and his
otTficers sat drinking after dinner, and toasting the King, to have
batches of prisoners hanged outside the windows for the company's
diversion ; and that when tlieir feet quivered in the convulsions of
death, he used to swear that they should have music to their
dancing, and would order the drums to beat and the trumpets to
play. The detestable King informed him, as an acknowledgment
of these services, that he was ' very w-ell satisfied with his i)ro-
ceedings.' But the King's great delight was in the proceedings of
Jeffreys, now a peer, who went down into the west, with four other
judges, to try persons accused of having had any share in the
rebellion. The King pleasantly called this ' Jeffreys's campaign.'
The people down in that part of the country remember it to this
day as The Bloody Assi/.e.
It began at Winchester, where a poor deaf old lady, Mrs. Alicia
3i8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Lisle, the widow of one of the judges of Charles the First (who
had been murdered abroad by some Royalist assassins), was charged
with having given shelter in her house to two fugitives from Sedge-
moor. Three times the jury refused to find her guilty, until
Jeffreys bullied and frightened them into that false verdict. When
he had extorted it from them, he said, ' Gentlemen, if I had been
one of you, and she had been my own mother, I would have found
her guilty;' — as I dare say he would. He sentenced her to be
burned alive, that very afternoon. The clergy of the cathedral and
some others interfered in her favour, and she was beheaded within
a week. As a high mark of his approbation, the King made
JefiEVeys Lord Chancellor ; and he then went on to Dorchester, to
Exeter, to Taunton, and to Wells. It is astonishing, when we read
of the enormous injustice and barbarity of this beast, to know that
no one struck him dead on the judgment-seat. It was enough for
any man or woman to be accused by an enemy, before Jeffreys, to
be found guilty of high treason. One man who pleaded not guilty,
he ordered to be taken out of court upon the instant, and hanged ;
and this so terrified the prisoners in general that they mostly
pleaded guilty at once. At Dorchester alone, in the course of a
few days, Jeffreys hanged eighty people ; besides whipping, trans-
porting, imprisoning, and selling as slaves, great numbers. He
executed, in all, two hundred and fifty, or three hundred.
These executions took place, among the neighbours and friends
of the sentenced, in thirty-six towns and villages. Their bodies
were mangled, steeped in caldrons of boiling pitch and tar, and
hung up by the roadsides, in the streets, over the very churches.
The sight and smell of heads and limbs, the hissing and bubbling
of the infernal caldrons, and the tears and terrors of the people,
were dreadful beyond all description. One rustic, who was forced
to steep the remains in the black pot, was ever afterwards called
' Tom Boilman.' The hangman has ever since been called Jack
Ketch, because a man of that name went hanging and hanging, all
day long, in the train of Jeffreys. You will hear much of the
horrors of the great French Revolution. Many and terrible they
were, there is no doubt ; but I know of nothing worse, done by the
maddened people of France in that awful time, than was done by
the highest judge in England, with the express approval of the King
of England, in The Bloody Assize.
Nor was even this all. Jeffreys was as fond of money for himself
as of misery for others, and he sold pardons wholesale to fill his
pockets. The King ordered, at one time, a thousand prisoners to
be given to certain of his favourites, in order that they might
bargain with them for their pardons. The young ladies of Taunton
who had presented the Bible, were bestowed upon the maids of
honour at court ; and those precious ladies made very hard bargains
JAMES THE SECOND 319
with them indeed. When The Bloody Assize was at its most dismal
height, the King was diverting himself with horse-races in the very
place where Mrs. Lisle had been executed. When Jeffreys had
done his worst, and came home again, he was particularly compli-
mented in the Royal Gazette; and when the King heard that
through drunkenness and raging he was very ill, his odious Majesty
remarked that such another man could not easily be found in
England. Besides all this, a former sheriff of London, named
Cornish, was hanged within sight of his own house, after an
abominably conducted trial, for having had a share in the Rye
House Plot, on evidence given by Rumsey, which that villain was
obliged to confess was directly opposed to the evidence he had
given on the trial of Lord Russell. And on the very same day, a
worthy widow, named Elizabeth Gaunt, was burned alive at
Tyburn, for having sheltered a wretch who himself gave evidence
against her. She settled the fuel about herself with her own hands,
so that the flames should reach her quickly : and nobly said, with
her last breath, that she had obeyed the sacred command of God,
to give refuge to the outcast, and not to betray the wanderer.
After all this hanging, beheading, burning, boiling, mutilating,
exposing, robbing, transporting, and selling into slavery, of his
unhappy subjects, the King not unnaturally thought that he could
do whatever he would. So, he went to work to change the religion
of the country with all possible speed ; and what he did was this.
He first of all tried to get rid of what was called the Test Act — ■
which prevented the Catholics from holding public employments — •
by his own power of dispensing with the penalties. He tried it in
one case, and, eleven of the twelve judges deciding in his favour,
he exercised it in three others, being those of three dignitaries of
University College, Oxford, who had become Papists, and whom
he kept in their places and sanctioned. He revived the hated
Ecclesiastical Commission, to get rid of Compton, Bishop of
London, who manfully opposed him. He solicited the Pope to
favour England with an ambassador, which the Pope (who was a
sensible man then) rather unwillingly did. He flourished Father
Petre before the eyes of the people on all possible occasions. He
favoured the establishment of convents in several parts of London.
He was delighted to have the streets, and even the court itself,
filled with Monks and Friars in the habits of their orders. He
constantly endeavoured to make Catholics of the Protestants about
him. He held private interviews, which he called ' closetings,'
with those Members of Parliament who held offices, to persuade
them to consent to the design he had in view. When they did not
consent, they were removed, or resigned of themselves, and their
places were given to Catholics. He displaced Protestant ofKicers
from the army, by every means in his power, and got Catholics into
320 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
their places too. He tried the same thing with the corporations,
and also (though not so successfully) with the Lord Lieutenants of
counties. To terrify the people into the endurance of all these
measures, he kept an army of fifteen thousand men encamped on
Hounslow Heath, where mass was openly performed in the General's
tent, and where priests went among the soldiers endeavouring to
persuade them to become Catholics. For circulating a paper
among those men advising them to be true to their religion, a
Protestant clergyman, named Johnson, the chaplain of the late
Lord Russell, was actually sentenced to stand three times in the
pillory, and was actually whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. He
dismissed his own brother-in-law from his Council because he was a
Protestant, and made a Privy Councillor of the before-mentioned
Father Petre. He handed Ireland over to Richard Talbot, Earl
OF Tyrconnell, a worthless, dissolute knave, who played the same
game there for his master, and who played the deeper game for
himself of one day putting it under the protection of the French
King. In going to these extremities, every man of sense and
judgment among the Catholics, from the Pope to a porter, knew
that the King was a mere bigoted fool, who would undo himself
and the cause he sought to advance ; but he was deaf to all reason,
and, happily for England ever afterwards, went tumbling off his
throne in his own blind way.
A spirit began to arise in the country, which the besotted blunderer
little expected. He first found it out in the University of Cambridge.
Having made a Catholic a dean at Oxford without any opposition,
he tried to make a monk a master of arts at Cambridge : which
attempt the University resisted, and defeated him. He then
went back to his favourite Oxford. On the death of the President
of Magdalen College, he commanded that there should be elected
to succeed him, one Mr. Anthony Farmer, whose only recom-
mendation was, that he was of the King's religion. The University
plucked up courage at last, and refused. The King substituted
another man, and it still refused, resolving to stand by its own
election of a Mr. Hough. The dull tyrant, upon this, punished
Mr. Hough, and five-and-twenty more, by causing them to be
expelled and declared incapable of holding any church preferment ;
then he proceeded to what he supposed to be his highest step, but
to what was, in fact, his last plunge head-foremost in his tumble off
his throne.
He had issued a declaration that there should be no religious
tests or penal laws, in order to let in the Catholics more easily ; but
the Protestant dissenters, unmindful of themselves, had gallantly
joined the regular church in opposing it tooth and nail. The King
and Father Petre now resolved to have this read, on a certain
Sunday, in all the churches, and to order it to be circulated for that
JAMES THE SECOND 321
purpose by the bishops. The latter took counsel with the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, who was in disgrace ; and they resolved that
the declaration should not be read, and that they would petition the
King against it. The Archbishop himself wrote out the petition,
and six bishops went into the King's bedchamber the same night
to present it, to his infinite astonishment. Next day was the Sunday
fixed for the reading, and it was only read by two hundred clergymen
out of ten thousand. The King resolved against all advice to
prosecute the bishops in the Court of King's Bench, and within
three weeks they were summoned before the Privy Council, and
committed to the Tower. As the six bishops were taken to that
dismal place, by water, the people who were assembled in immense
numbers fell upon their knees, and wept for them, and prayed for
them. When they got to the Tower, the officers and soldiers on
guard besought them for their blessing. While they were confined
there, the soldiers every day drank to their release with loud shouts.
When they were brought up to the Court of King's Bench for their
trial, which the Attorney-General said was for the high offence of
censuring the Government, and giving their opinion about affairs of
state, they were attended by similar multitudes, and surrounded by
a throng of noblemen and gentlemen. When the jury went out at
seven o'clock at night to consider of their verdict, everybody (except
the King) knew that they would rather starve than yield to the
King's brewer, who was one of them, and wanted a verdict for his
customer. When they came into court next morning, after resisting
the brewer all night, and gave a verdict of not guilty, such a shout
rose up in Westminster Hall as it had never heard before ; and it
was passed on among the people away to Temple Bar, and away
again to the Tower. It did not pass only to the east, but passed to
the west too, until it reached the camp at Hounslow, where the
fifteen thousand soldiers took it up and echoed it. And still, when
the dull King, who was then with Lord Feversham, heard the
mighty roar, asked in alarm what it was, and was told that it was
' nothing but the acquittal of the bishops,' he said, in his dogged
way, ' Call you that nothing ? It is so much the worse for them.'
Between the petition and the trial, the Queen had given birth to
a son, which Father Petre rather thought was owing to Saint
Winifred. But I doubt if Saint Winifred had much to do with it as
the King's friend, inasmuch as the entirely new prospect of a
Catholic successor (for both the King's daughters were Protestants)
determined the Earls of Shrewsbury, Danby, and Devonshire,
Lord Lumley, the Bishop of London, Admiral Russell, and
Colonel Sidney, to invite the Prince of Orange over to England.
The Royal Mole, seeing his danger at last, made, in his fright,
many great concessions, besides raising an army of forty thousand
men ; but the Prince of Orange was not a man for James the Second
Y
322 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
to cope with. His preparations were extraordinarily vigorous, and
his mind was resolved.
For a fortnight after the Prince was ready to sail for England, a
great wind from the west prevented the departure of his fleet. Even
when the wind lulled, and it did sail, it was dispersed by a storm,
and was obliged to put back to refit. At last, on the first of
November, one thousand six hundred and eighty-eight, the
Protestant east wind, as it was long called, began to blow ; and on
the third, the people of Dover and the people of Calais saw a fleet
twenty miles long sailing gallantly by, between the two places. On
IMonday, the fifth, it anchored at Torbay in Devonshire, and the
Prince, with a splendid retinue of officers and men, marched into
Exeter. But the people in that western part of the country had
suffered so much in The Bloody Assize, that they had lost heart.
Few people joined him ; and he began to think of returning, and
publishing the invitation he had received from those lords, as his
justification for having come at all. At this crisis, some of the
gentry joined him ; the Royal army began to falter ; an engagement
was signed, by which all who set their hand to it declared that they
would support one another in defence of the laws and liberties of
the three Kingdoms, of the Protestant religion, and of the Prince of
Orange. From that time, the cause received no check ; the greatest
towns in England began, one after another, to declare for the Prince ;
and he knew that it was all safe with him when the University of
Oxford offered to melt down its plate, if he wanted any money.
By this time the King was running about in a pitiable way,
touching people for the King's evil in one place, reviewing his
troops in another, and bleeding from the nose in a third. The
young Prince was sent to Portsmouth, Father Petre went off" like
a shot to France, and there was a general and swift dispersal of
all the priests and friars. One after another, the King's most
important officers and friends deserted him and went over to the
Prince. In the night, his daughter Anne fled from \\'hitehall
Palace ; and the Bishop of London, who had once been a soldier,
rode before her with a drawn sword in his hand, and pistols at
his saddle. ' God help me,' cried the miserable King : ' my very
children have forsaken me ! ' In his wildness, after debating with
such lords as were in London, whether he should or should not
call a Parliament, and after naming three of them to negotiate with
the Prince, he resolved to fly to France. He had the little Prince
of Wales brought back from Portsmouth; and the child and the
Queen crossed the river to Lambeth in an open boat, on a miserable
wet night, and got safely away. This was on the night of the ninth
of December.
At one o'clock on the morning of the eleventh, the King, who
had, in the meantime, received a letter from the Prince of Orange,
JAMES THE SECOND 323
stating his objects, got out of bed, told Lord NorthUiMberland
who lay in his room not to open the door until the usual hour in
the morning, and went down the back stairs (the same, I suppose,
by which the priest in the wig and gown had come up to his
brother) and crossed the river in a small boat : sinking the great
seal of England by the way. Horses having been provided, he
rode, accompanied by Sir Edward Hales, to Feversham, where
he embarked in a Custom House Hoy. The master of this Hoy,
wanting more ballast, ran into the Isle of Sheppy to get it, where
the fishermen and smugglers crowded about the boat, and informed
the King of their suspicions that he was a ' hatchet-faced Jesuit.'
As they took his money and would not let him go, he told them
who he was, and that the Prince of Orange wanted to take his life ;
and he began to scream for a boat — and then to cry, because he
had lost a piece of wood on his ride which he called a fragment of
Our Saviour's cross. He put himself into the hands of the Lord
Lieutenant of the county, and his detention was made known to
the Prince of Orange at ^^'indsor — who, only wanting to get rid of
him, and not caring v>'here he went, so that he went away, was very
much disconcerted that they did not let him go. However, there
was nothing for it but to have him brought back, with some state
in the way of Life Guards, to AMiitehall. And as soon as he got
there, in his infatuation, he heard mass, and set a Jesuit to say
grace at his public dinner.
The people had been thrown into the strangest state of confusion
by his flight, and had taken it into their heads that the Irish part of
the army were going to murder the Protestants. Therefore, they
set the bells a ringing, and lighted watch-fires, and burned Catholic
Chapels, and looked about in all directions for Father Petre and
the Jesuits, while the Pope's ambassador was running away in the
dress of a footman. They found no Jesuits ; but a man, who had
once been a frightened witness before Jeffreys in court, saw a
swollen, drunken face looking through a window down at Wapping,
which he well remembered. The face was in a sailor's dress, but
he knew it to be the face of that accursed Judge, and he seized him.
The people, to their lasting honour, did not tear him to pieces.
After knocking him about a little, they took him, in the basest
agonies of terror, to the Lord Mayor, who sent him, at his own
shrieking petition, to the Tower for safety. There, he died.
Their bewilderment continuing, the people now lighted bonfires
and made rejoicings, as if they had any reason to be glad to have
the King back again. But, his stay was very short, for the English
guards were removed from \\'hitehall, Dutch guards were marched
up to it, and he was told by one of his late ministers that the Prince
would enter London, next day, and he had better go to Ham. He
said, Ham was a cold, damp place, and he would rather go to
324 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Rochester, He thought himself very cunning in this, as he meant
to escape from Rochester to France. The Prince of Orange and
his friends knew that, perfectly well, and desired nothing more.
So, he went to Gravesend, in his royal barge, attended by certain
lords, and watched by Dutch troops, and pitied by the generous
people, who were far more forgiving than he had ever been, when
they saw him in his humiliation. On the night of the twenty-third
of December, not even then understanding that everybody wanted
to get rid of him, he went out, absurdly, through his Rochester
garden, down to the Medway, and got away to France, where he
rejoined the Queen.
There had been a council in his absence, of the lords, and the
authorities of London. When the Prince came, on the day after
the King's departure, he summoned the Lords to meet him, and
soon afterwards, all those who had served in any of the Parliaments
of King Charles the Second. It was finally resolved by these
authorities that the throne was vacant by the conduct of King
James the Second ; that it was inconsistent with the safety and
welfare of this Protestant kingdom, to be governed by a Popish
prince ; that the Prince and Princess of Orange should be King
and Queen during their lives and the life of the survivor of them ;
and that their children should succeed them, if they had any.
That if they had none, the Princess Anne and her children should
succeed ; that if she had none, the heirs of the Prince of Orange
should succeed.
On the thirteenth of January, one thousand six hundred and
eighty-nine, the Prince and Princess, sitting on a throne in White-
hall, bound themselves to these conditions. The Protestant religion
was established in England, and England's great and glorious
Revolution was complete.
CHAPTER XXXVII
I HAVE now arrived at the close of my little history. The events
which succeeded the famous Revolution of one thousand six hundred
and eighty-eight, would neither be easily related nor easily under-
stood in such a book as this.
William and Mary reigned together, five years. After the death
of his good wife, William occupied the throne, alone, for seven
years longer. During his reign, on the sixteenth of September, one
thousand seven hundred and one, the poor weak creature who had
CONCLUSION 325
once been James the Second of England, died in France. In the
meantime he had done his utmost (which was not much) to cause
WiUiani to be assassinated, and to regain his lost dominions.
James's son was declared, by the French King, the rightful King of
England ; and was called in France The Chevalier Saixt George,
and in England The Pretender. Some infatuated people in
England, and particularly in Scotland, took up the Pretender's
cause from time to time — as if the country had not had Stuarts
enough ! — and many lives were sacrificed, and much misery was
occasioned. King "\Villiam died on Sunday, the seventh of March,
one thousand seven hundred and two, of the consequences of an
accident occasioned by his horse stumbling with him. He was
always a brave, patriotic Prince, and a man of remarkable abilities.
His manner was cold, and he made but few friends ; but he had
truly loved his queen. When he was dead, a lock of her hair, in a
ring, was found tied with a black ribbon round his left arm.
He was succeeded by the Princess Anne, a popular Queen, who
reigned twelve years. In her reign, in the month of May, one
thousand seven hundred and seven, the Union between England
and Scotland was effected, and the two countries were incorpo-
rated under the name of Great Britain. Then, from the year one
thousand seven hundred and fourteen to the year one thousand
eight hundred and thirty, reigned the four Georges.
It was in the reign of George the Second, one thousand seven
hundred and forty-five, that the Pretender did his last mischief, and
made his last appearance. Being an old man by that time, he and
the Jacobites — as his friends were called — put forward his son,
Charles Edward, known as the young Chevalier. The High-
landers of Scotland, an extremely troublesome and wrong-headed
race on the subject of the Stuarts, espoused his cause, and he
joined them, and there was a Scottish rebellion to make him king,
in w^hich many gallant and devoted gentlemen lost their lives. It
was a hard matter for Charles Edward to escape abroad again,
with a high price on his head ; but the Scottish people w^ere extra-
ordinarily faithful to him, and, after undergoing many romantic
adventures, not unlike those of Charles the Second, he escaped
to France. A number of charming stories and delightful songs
arose out of the Jacobite feelings, and belong to the Jacobite times.
Otherwise I think the Stuarts were a public nuisance altogether.
It was in the reign of George the Third that P^ngland lost North
America, by persisting in taxing her without her own consent.
That immense country, made independent under Washington, and
left to itself, became the United States ; one of the greatest nations
of the earth. In these times in which I write, it is honourably
remarkable for protecting its subjects, wherever they may travel,
with a dignity and a determination which is a model for England.
326 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Between you and me, England has rather lost ground in this respect
since the days of Oliver Cromwell.
The Union of Great Britain with Ireland — which had been
getting on very ill by itself — took place in the reign of George the
Third, on the second of July, one thousand seven hundred and
ninety-eight.
William the Fourth succeeded George the Fourth, in the year
one thousand eight hundred and thirty, and reigned seven years.
Queen Victoria, his niece, the only child of the Duke of Kent,
the fourth son of George the Third, came to the throne on the
twentieth of June, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven.
She was married to Prince Albert of Saxe Gotha on the tenth of
February, one thousand eight hundred and forty. She is very good,
and much beloved. So I end, like the crier, with
God Save the Queen !
the end
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