CHAPTER XXVI--ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SEVENTH
King Henry the Seventh did not turn out to be as fine a fellow as thenobility and people hoped, in the first joy of their deliverance fromRichard the Third. He was very cold, crafty, and calculating, and woulddo almost anything for money. He possessed considerable ability, but hischief merit appears to have been that he was not cruel when there wasnothing to be got by it.
The new King had promised the nobles who had espoused his cause that hewould marry the Princess Elizabeth. The first thing he did, was, todirect 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 inLondon. The young Earl of Warwick, Edward Plantagenet, son and heir ofthe late Duke of Clarence, had been kept a prisoner in the same oldYorkshire Castle with her. This boy, who was now fifteen, the new Kingplaced 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 heoften very much relied for keeping them in good humour. The sports andfeasts which took place were followed by a terrible fever, called theSweating Sickness; of which great numbers of people died. Lord Mayorsand Aldermen are thought to have suffered most from it; whether, becausethey were in the habit of over-eating themselves, or because they werevery jealous of preserving filth and nuisances in the City (as they havebeen since), I don't know.
The King's coronation was postponed on account of the general ill-health,and he afterwards deferred his marriage, as if he were not very anxiousthat it should take place: and, even after that, deferred the Queen'scoronation so long that he gave offence to the York party. However, heset these things right in the end, by hanging some men and seizing on therich possessions of others; by granting more popular pardons to thefollowers of the late King than could, at first, be got from him; and, byemploying about his Court, some very scrupulous persons who had beenemployed in the previous reign.
As this reign was principally remarkable for two very curious impostureswhich have become famous in history, we will make those two stories itsprincipal feature.
There was a priest at Oxford of the name of Simons, who had for a pupil ahandsome boy named Lambert Simnel, the son of a baker. Partly to gratifyhis own ambitious ends, and partly to carry out the designs of a secretparty formed against the King, this priest declared that his pupil, theboy, was no other than the young Earl of Warwick; who (as everybody mighthave known) was safely locked up in the Tower of London. The priest andthe boy went over to Ireland; and, at Dublin, enlisted in their cause allranks of the people: who seem to have been generous enough, butexceedingly irrational. The Earl of Kildare, the governor of Ireland,declared that he believed the boy to be what the priest represented; andthe boy, who had been well tutored by the priest, told them such thingsof his childhood, and gave them so many descriptions of the Royal Family,that they were perpetually shouting and hurrahing, and drinking hishealth, and making all kinds of noisy and thirsty demonstrations, toexpress their belief in him. Nor was this feeling confined to Irelandalone, for the Earl of Lincoln--whom the late usurper had named as hissuccessor--went over to the young Pretender; and, after holding a secretcorrespondence with the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy--the sister of Edwardthe Fourth, who detested the present King and all his race--sailed toDublin with two thousand German soldiers of her providing. In thispromising state of the boy's fortunes, he was crowned there, with a crowntaken off the head of a statue of the Virgin Mary; and was then,according to the Irish custom of those days, carried home on theshoulders of a big chieftain possessing a great deal more strength thansense. Father Simons, you may be sure, was mighty busy at thecoronation.
Ten days afterwards, the Germans, and the Irish, and the priest, and theboy, and the Earl of Lincoln, all landed in Lancashire to invade England.The King, who had good intelligence of their movements, set up hisstandard at Nottingham, where vast numbers resorted to him every day;while the Earl of Lincoln could gain but very few. With his small forcehe tried to make for the town of Newark; but the King's army gettingbetween him and that place, he had no choice but to risk a battle atStoke. It soon ended in the complete destruction of the Pretender'sforces, one half of whom were killed; among them, the Earl himself. Thepriest and the baker's boy were taken prisoners. The priest, afterconfessing the trick, was shut up in prison, where he afterwardsdied--suddenly perhaps. The boy was taken into the King's kitchen andmade a turnspit. He was afterwards raised to the station of one of theKing's falconers; and so ended this strange imposition.
There seems reason to suspect that the Dowager Queen--always a restlessand busy woman--had had some share in tutoring the baker's son. The Kingwas very angry with her, whether or no. He seized upon her property, andshut her up in a convent at Bermondsey.
One might suppose that the end of this story would have put the Irishpeople on their guard; but they were quite ready to receive a secondimpostor, as they had received the first, and that same troublesomeDuchess of Burgundy soon gave them the opportunity. All of a suddenthere appeared at Cork, in a vessel arriving from Portugal, a young manof excellent abilities, of very handsome appearance and most winningmanners, who declared himself to be Richard, Duke of York, the second sonof King Edward the Fourth. 'O,' said some, even of those ready Irishbelievers, 'but surely that young Prince was murdered by his uncle in theTower!'--'It _is_ supposed so,' said the engaging young man; 'and mybrother _was_ killed in that gloomy prison; but I escaped--it don'tmatter how, at present--and have been wandering about the world for sevenlong years.' This explanation being quite satisfactory to numbers of theIrish people, they began again to shout and to hurrah, and to drink hishealth, and to make the noisy and thirsty demonstrations 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 handsomeyoung man, he could trouble his enemy sorely. So, he invited him over tothe French Court, and appointed him a body-guard, and treated him in allrespects as if he really were the Duke of York. Peace, however, beingsoon concluded between the two Kings, the pretended Duke was turnedadrift, and wandered for protection to the Duchess of Burgundy. She,after feigning to inquire into the reality of his claims, declared him tobe the very picture of her dear departed brother; gave him a body-guardat her Court, of thirty halberdiers; and called him by the sounding nameof the White Rose of England.
The leading members of the White Rose party in England sent over anagent, named Sir Robert Clifford, to ascertain whether the White Rose'sclaims were good: the King also sent over his agents to inquire into theRose's history. The White Roses declared the young man to be really theDuke of York; the King declared him to be PERKIN WARBECK, the son of amerchant of the city of Tournay, who had acquired his knowledge ofEngland, its language and manners, from the English merchants who tradedin Flanders; it was also stated by the Royal agents that he had been inthe service of Lady Brompton, the wife of an exiled English nobleman, andthat the Duchess of Burgundy had caused him to be trained and taught,expressly for this deception. The King then required the ArchdukePhilip--who was the sovereign of Burgundy--to banish this new Pretender,or to deliver him up; but, as the Archduke replied that he could notcontrol the Duchess in her own land, the King, in revenge, took themarket of English cloth away from Antwerp, and prevented all commercialintercourse between the two countries.
He also, by arts and bribes, prevailed on Sir Robert Clifford to betrayhis employers; and he denouncing several famous English noblemen as beingsecretly the friends of Perkin Warbeck, the King had three of theforemost executed at once. Whether he pardoned the remainder becausethey were poor, I do not know; but it is only too probable that herefused to pardon one famous nobleman against whom the same Clifford soonafterwards informed separately, because he was rich. This was no otherthan Sir William Stanley, who had saved the King's life at the battle ofBosworth Field. It is very doubtful whether his treason amounted to muchmore than his having said, that if he were sure the young man was theDuke of York, he would not take arms against him. Whatever he had donehe admitted, like an honourable spirit; and he lost his head for it, andthe covetous King gained all his wealth.
Perkin Warbeck kept quiet for three years; but, as the Flemings began tocomplain heavily of the loss of their trade by the stoppage of theAntwerp market on his account, and as it was not unlikely that they mighteven go so far as to take his life, or give him up, he found it necessaryto do something. Accordingly he made a desperate sally, and landed, withonly a few hundred men, on the coast of Deal. But he was soon glad toget back to the place from whence he came; for the country people roseagainst his followers, killed a great many, and took a hundred and fiftyprisoners: who were all driven to London, tied together with ropes, likea team of cattle. Every one of them was hanged on some part or other ofthe sea-shore; in order, that if any more men should come over withPerkin Warbeck, they might see the bodies as a warning before theylanded.
Then the wary King, by making a treaty of commerce with the Flemings,drove Perkin Warbeck out of that country; and, by completely gaining overthe Irish to his side, deprived him of that asylum too. He wandered awayto Scotland, and told his story at that Court. King James the Fourth ofScotland, who was no friend to King Henry, and had no reason to be (forKing Henry had bribed his Scotch lords to betray him more than once; buthad never succeeded in his plots), gave him a great reception, called himhis cousin, and gave him in marriage the Lady Catherine Gordon, abeautiful and charming creature related to the royal house of Stuart.
Alarmed by this successful reappearance of the Pretender, the King stillundermined, and bought, and bribed, and kept his doings and PerkinWarbeck's story in the dark, when he might, one would imagine, haverendered the matter clear to all England. But, for all this bribing ofthe Scotch lords at the Scotch King's Court, he could not procure thePretender to be delivered up to him. James, though not very particularin many respects, would not betray him; and the ever-busy Duchess ofBurgundy so provided him with arms, and good soldiers, and with moneybesides, that he had soon a little army of fifteen hundred men of variousnations. With these, and aided by the Scottish King in person, hecrossed the border into England, and made a proclamation to the people,in which he called the King 'Henry Tudor;' offered large rewards to anywho should take or distress him; and announced himself as King Richardthe Fourth come to receive the homage of his faithful subjects. Hisfaithful subjects, however, cared nothing for him, and hated his faithfultroops: who, being of different nations, quarrelled also amongthemselves. Worse than this, if worse were possible, they began toplunder the country; upon which the White Rose said, that he would ratherlose his rights, than gain them through the miseries of the Englishpeople. The Scottish King made a jest of his scruples; but they andtheir whole force went back again without fighting a battle.
The worst consequence of this attempt was, that a rising took place amongthe people of Cornwall, who considered themselves too heavily taxed tomeet the charges of the expected war. Stimulated by Flammock, a lawyer,and Joseph, a blacksmith, and joined by Lord Audley and some othercountry gentlemen, they marched on all the way to Deptford Bridge, wherethey fought a battle with the King's army. They were defeated--thoughthe Cornish men fought with great bravery--and the lord was beheaded, andthe lawyer and the blacksmith were hanged, drawn, and quartered. Therest were pardoned. The King, who believed every man to be as avariciousas himself, and thought that money could settle anything, allowed them tomake bargains for their liberty with the soldiers who had taken them.
Perkin Warbeck, doomed to wander up and down, and never to find restanywhere--a sad fate: almost a sufficient punishment for an imposture,which he seems in time to have half believed himself--lost his Scottishrefuge through a truce being made between the two Kings; and foundhimself, once more, without a country before him in which he could layhis head. But James (always honourable and true to him, alike when hemelted down his plate, and even the great gold chain he had been used towear, to pay soldiers in his cause; and now, when that cause was lost andhopeless) did not conclude the treaty, until he had safely departed outof the Scottish dominions. He, and his beautiful wife, who was faithfulto him under all reverses, and left her state and home to follow his poorfortunes, were put aboard ship with everything necessary for theircomfort and protection, and sailed for Ireland.
But, the Irish people had had enough of counterfeit Earls of Warwick andDukes 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 hisbeautiful wife to Cornwall as a forlorn resource, and see what might bemade of the Cornish men, who had risen so valiantly a little whilebefore, and who had fought so bravely at Deptford Bridge.
To Whitsand Bay, in Cornwall, accordingly, came Perkin Warbeck and hiswife; 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 threethousand Cornishmen. These were increased to six thousand by the time ofhis arrival in Exeter; but, there the people made a stout resistance, andhe went on to Taunton, where he came in sight of the King's army. Thestout Cornish men, although they were few in number, and badly armed,were so bold, that they never thought of retreating; but bravely lookedforward to a battle on the morrow. Unhappily for them, the man who waspossessed of so many engaging qualities, and who attracted so many peopleto his side when he had nothing else with which to tempt them, was not asbrave as they. In the night, when the two armies lay opposite to eachother, he mounted a swift horse and fled. When morning dawned, the poorconfiding Cornish men, discovering that they had no leader, surrenderedto the King's power. Some of them were hanged, and the rest werepardoned and went miserably home.
Before the King pursued Perkin Warbeck to the sanctuary of Beaulieu inthe New Forest, where it was soon known that he had taken refuge, he senta body of horsemen to St. Michael's Mount, to seize his wife. She wassoon taken and brought as a captive before the King. But she was sobeautiful, and so good, and so devoted to the man in whom she believed,that the King regarded her with compassion, treated her with greatrespect, and placed her at Court, near the Queen's person. And manyyears after Perkin Warbeck was no more, and when his strange story hadbecome like a nursery tale, _she_ was called the White Rose, by thepeople, in remembrance of her beauty.
The sanctuary at Beaulieu was soon surrounded by the King's men; and theKing, pursuing his usual dark, artful ways, sent pretended friends toPerkin Warbeck to persuade him to come out and surrender himself. Thishe soon did; the King having taken a good look at the man of whom he hadheard so much--from behind a screen--directed him to be well mounted, andto ride behind him at a little distance, guarded, but not bound in anyway. So they entered London with the King's favourite show--aprocession; and some of the people hooted as the Pretender rode slowlythrough the streets to the Tower; but the greater part were quiet, andvery curious to see him. From the Tower, he was taken to the Palace atWestminster, and there lodged like a gentleman, though closely watched.He was examined every now and then as to his imposture; but the King wasso secret in all he did, that even then he gave it a consequence, whichit cannot be supposed to have in itself deserved.
At last Perkin Warbeck ran away, and took refuge in another sanctuarynear Richmond in Surrey. From this he was again persuaded to deliverhimself up; and, being conveyed to London, he stood in the stocks for awhole day, outside Westminster Hall, and there read a paper purporting tobe his full confession, and relating his history as the King's agents hadoriginally described it. He was then shut up in the Tower again, in thecompany of the Earl of Warwick, who had now been there for fourteenyears: ever since his removal out of Yorkshire, except when the King hadhad him at Court, and had shown him to the people, to prove the impostureof the Baker's boy. It is but too probable, when we consider the craftycharacter of Henry the Seventh, that these two were brought together fora cruel purpose. A plot was soon discovered between them and thekeepers, to murder the Governor, get possession of the keys, and proclaimPerkin Warbeck as King Richard the Fourth. That there was some suchplot, is likely; that they were tempted into it, is at least as likely;that the unfortunate Earl of Warwick--last male of the Plantagenetline--was too unused to the world, and too ignorant and simple to knowmuch about it, whatever it was, is perfectly certain; and that it was theKing's interest to get rid of him, is no less so. He was beheaded onTower Hill, and Perkin Warbeck was hanged at Tyburn.
Such was the end of the pretended Duke of York, whose shadowy history wasmade more shadowy--and ever will be--by the mystery and craft of theKing. If he had turned his great natural advantages to a more honestaccount, he might have lived a happy and respected life, even in thosedays. But he died upon a gallows at Tyburn, leaving the Scottish lady,who had loved him so well, kindly protected at the Queen's Court. Aftersome time she forgot her old loves and troubles, as many people do withTime's merciful assistance, and married a Welsh gentleman. Her secondhusband, 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 thecontinued plotting of the Duchess of Burgundy, and disputes respectingthe affairs of Brittany. The King feigned to be very patriotic,indignant, and warlike; but he always contrived so as never to make warin reality, and always to make money. His taxation of the people, onpretence of war with France, involved, at one time, a very dangerousinsurrection, headed by Sir John Egremont, and a common man called John aChambre. But it was subdued by the royal forces, under the command ofthe Earl of Surrey. The knighted John escaped to the Duchess ofBurgundy, who was ever ready to receive any one who gave the Kingtrouble; and the plain John was hanged at York, in the midst of a numberof his men, but on a much higher gibbet, as being a greater traitor. Hunghigh 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, whowas called Prince Arthur, in remembrance of the old British prince ofromance and story; and who, when all these events had happened, beingthen in his fifteenth year, was married to CATHERINE, the daughter of theSpanish monarch, with great rejoicings and bright prospects; but in avery few months he sickened and died. As soon as the King had recoveredfrom his grief, he thought it a pity that the fortune of the SpanishPrincess, amounting to two hundred thousand crowns, should go out of thefamily; and therefore arranged that the young widow should marry hissecond son HENRY, then twelve years of age, when he too should befifteen. There were objections to this marriage on the part of theclergy; but, as the infallible Pope was gained over, and, as he _must_ beright, that settled the business for the time. The King's eldestdaughter was provided for, and a long course of disturbance wasconsidered 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, hismind once more reverted to his darling money for consolation, and hethought of marrying the Dowager Queen of Naples, who was immensely rich:but, as it turned out not to be practicable to gain the money howeverpracticable it might have been to gain the lady, he gave up the idea. Hewas not so fond of her but that he soon proposed to marry the DowagerDuchess of Savoy; and, soon afterwards, the widow of the King of Castile,who was raving mad. But he made a money-bargain instead, and marriedneither.
The Duchess of Burgundy, among the other discontented people to whom shehad given refuge, had sheltered EDMUND DE LA POLE (younger brother ofthat Earl of Lincoln who was killed at Stoke), now Earl of Suffolk. TheKing had prevailed upon him to return to the marriage of Prince Arthur;but, he soon afterwards went away again; and then the King, suspecting aconspiracy, resorted to his favourite plan of sending him sometreacherous friends, and buying of those scoundrels the secrets theydisclosed or invented. Some arrests and executions took place inconsequence. In the end, the King, on a promise of not taking his life,obtained possession of the person of Edmund de la Pole, and shut him upin the Tower.
This was his last enemy. If he had lived much longer he would have mademany more among the people, by the grinding exaction to which heconstantly exposed them, and by the tyrannical acts of his two primefavourites in all money-raising matters, EDMUND DUDLEY and RICHARDEMPSON. 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 himselfat this juncture, and ended the King's reign. He died of the gout, onthe twenty-second of April, one thousand five hundred and nine, and inthe fifty-third year of his age, after reigning twenty-four years; he wasburied in the beautiful Chapel of Westminster Abbey, which he had himselffounded, and which still bears his name.
It was in this reign that the great CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, on behalf ofSpain, discovered what was then called The New World. Great wonder,interest, and hope of wealth being awakened in England thereby, the Kingand the merchants of London and Bristol fitted out an English expeditionfor further discoveries in the New World, and entrusted it to SEBASTIANCABOT, of Bristol, the son of a Venetian pilot there. He was verysuccessful in his voyage, and gained high reputation, both for himselfand England.