A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND

By CHARLES DICKENS

With Illustrations by F. H. Townsend and others

LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LD. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS1905

CHAPTER I--ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS

If you look at a Map of the World, you will see, in the left-hand uppercorner of the Eastern Hemisphere, two Islands lying in the sea. They areEngland and Scotland, and Ireland. England and Scotland form the greaterpart of these Islands. Ireland is the next in size. The littleneighbouring 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 thecourse 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 onearth 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 seawas not alive, then, with great ships and brave sailors, sailing to andfrom all parts of the world. It was very lonely. The Islands laysolitary, in the great expanse of water. The foaming waves dashedagainst their cliffs, and the bleak winds blew over their forests; butthe winds and waves brought no adventurers to land upon the Islands, andthe savage Islanders knew nothing of the rest of the world, and the restof the world knew nothing of them. 

It is supposed that the Phoenicians, who were an ancient people, famousfor carrying on trade, came in ships to these Islands, and found thatthey produced tin and lead; both very useful things, as you know, andboth produced to this very hour upon the sea-coast. The most celebratedtin mines in Cornwall are, still, close to the sea. One of them, which Ihave seen, is so close to it that it is hollowed out underneath theocean; and the miners say, that in stormy weather, when they are at workdown in that deep place, they can hear the noise of the waves thunderingabove their heads. So, the Phoenicians, coasting about the Islands, would come, without much difficulty, to where the tin and lead were. 

The Phoenicians traded with the Islanders for these metals, and gave theIslanders some other useful things in exchange. The Islanders were, atfirst, poor savages, going almost naked, or only dressed in the roughskins of beasts, and staining their bodies, as other savages do, withcoloured earths and the juices of plants. But the Phoenicians, sailingover to the opposite coasts of France and Belgium, and saying to thepeople there, 'We have been to those white cliffs across the water, whichyou can see in fine weather, and from that country, which is calledBRITAIN, we bring this tin and lead, ' tempted some of the French andBelgians to come over also. These people settled themselves on the southcoast of England, which is now called Kent; and, although they were arough people too, they taught the savage Britons some useful arts, andimproved that part of the Islands. It is probable that other people cameover 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 wherethe foreign settlers seldom went; but hardy, brave, and strong. 

The whole country was covered with forests, and swamps. The greater partof it was very misty and cold. There were no roads, no bridges, nostreets, no houses that you would think deserving of the name. A townwas nothing but a collection of straw-covered huts, hidden in a thickwood, with a ditch all round, and a low wall, made of mud, or the trunksof 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, assavage people often are; and they could make a coarse kind of cloth, andsome very bad earthenware. But in building fortresses they were muchmore clever. 

They made boats of basket-work, covered with the skins of animals, butseldom, if ever, ventured far from the shore. They made swords, ofcopper mixed with tin; but, these swords were of an awkward shape, and sosoft that a heavy blow would bend one. They made light shields, shortpointed daggers, and spears--which they jerked back after they had thrownthem at an enemy, by a long strip of leather fastened to the stem. Thebutt-end was a rattle, to frighten an enemy's horse. The ancientBritons, being divided into as many as thirty or forty tribes, eachcommanded by its own little king, were constantly fighting with oneanother, as savage people usually do; and they always fought with theseweapons. 

They were very fond of horses. The standard of Kent was the picture of awhite horse. They could break them in and manage them wonderfully well. Indeed, the horses (of which they had an abundance, though they wererather small) were so well taught in those days, that they can scarcelybe said to have improved since; though the men are so much wiser. Theyunderstood, and obeyed, every word of command; and would stand still bythemselves, in all the din and noise of battle, while their masters wentto fight on foot. The Britons could not have succeeded in their mostremarkable art, without the aid of these sensible and trusty animals. Theart I mean, is the construction and management of war-chariots or cars, for which they have ever been celebrated in history. Each of the bestsort of these chariots, not quite breast high in front, and open at theback, contained one man to drive, and two or three others to fight--allstanding up. The horses who drew them were so well trained, that theywould tear, at full gallop, over the most stony ways, and even throughthe woods; dashing down their masters' enemies beneath their hoofs, andcutting them to pieces with the blades of swords, or scythes, which werefastened to the wheels, and stretched out beyond the car on each side, for that cruel purpose. In a moment, while at full speed, the horseswould stop, at the driver's command. The men within would leap out, dealblows about them with their swords like hail, leap on the horses, on thepole, spring back into the chariots anyhow; and, as soon as they weresafe, the horses tore away again. 

The Britons had a strange and terrible religion, called the Religion ofthe Druids. It seems to have been brought over, in very early timesindeed, from the opposite country of France, anciently called Gaul, andto 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 itsceremonies were kept secret by the priests, the Druids, who pretended tobe enchanters, 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 agolden case. But it is certain that the Druidical ceremonies includedthe sacrifice of human victims, the torture of some suspected criminals, and, on particular occasions, even the burning alive, in immense wickercages, of a number of men and animals together. The Druid Priests hadsome kind of veneration for the Oak, and for the mistletoe--the sameplant that we hang up in houses at Christmas Time now--when its whiteberries grew upon the Oak. They met together in dark woods, which theycalled Sacred Groves; and there they instructed, in their mysteriousarts, young men who came to them as pupils, and who sometimes stayed withthem as long as twenty years. 

These Druids built great Temples and altars, open to the sky, fragmentsof some of which are yet remaining. Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain, inWiltshire, is the most extraordinary of these. Three curious stones, called Kits Coty House, on Bluebell Hill, near Maidstone, in Kent, formanother. We know, from examination of the great blocks of which suchbuildings are made, that they could not have been raised without the aidof some ingenious machines, which are common now, but which the ancientBritons certainly did not use in making their own uncomfortable houses. Ishould not wonder if the Druids, and their pupils who stayed with themtwenty years, knowing more than the rest of the Britons, kept the peopleout of sight while they made these buildings, and then pretended thatthey 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, andas they made and executed the laws, and paid no taxes, I don't wonderthat they liked their trade. And, as they persuaded the people the moreDruids there were, the better off the people would be, I don't wonderthat there were a good many of them. But it is pleasant to think thatthere are no Druids, _now_, who go on in that way, and pretend to carryEnchanters' Wands and Serpents' Eggs--and of course there is nothing ofthe kind, anywhere. 

Such was the improved condition of the ancient Britons, fifty-five yearsbefore the birth of Our Saviour, when the Romans, under their greatGeneral, Julius Caesar, were masters of all the rest of the known world. Julius Caesar had then just conquered Gaul; and hearing, in Gaul, a gooddeal about the opposite Island with the white cliffs, and about thebravery of the Britons who inhabited it--some of whom had been fetchedover to help the Gauls in the war against him--he resolved, as he was sonear, to come and conquer Britain next. 

So, Julius Caesar came sailing over to this Island of ours, with eightyvessels and twelve thousand men. And he came from the French coastbetween Calais and Boulogne, 'because thence was the shortest passageinto Britain;' just for the same reason as our steam-boats now take thesame track, every day. He expected to conquer Britain easily: but it wasnot such easy work as he supposed--for the bold Britons fought mostbravely; and, what with not having his horse-soldiers with him (for theyhad been driven back by a storm), and what with having some of hisvessels dashed to pieces by a high tide after they were drawn ashore, heran great risk of being totally defeated. However, for once that thebold Britons beat him, he beat them twice; though not so soundly but thathe 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 eighthundred vessels and thirty thousand men. The British tribes chose, astheir general-in-chief, a Briton, whom the Romans in their Latin languagecalled CASSIVELLAUNUS, but whose British name is supposed to have beenCASWALLON. A brave general he was, and well he and his soldiers foughtthe Roman army! So well, that whenever in that war the Roman soldierssaw a great cloud of dust, and heard the rattle of the rapid Britishchariots, they trembled in their hearts. Besides a number of smallerbattles, there was a battle fought near Canterbury, in Kent; there was abattle fought near Chertsey, in Surrey; there was a battle fought near amarshy little town in a wood, the capital of that part of Britain whichbelonged to CASSIVELLAUNUS, and which was probably near what is now SaintAlbans, in Hertfordshire. However, brave CASSIVELLAUNUS had the worst ofit, on the whole; though he and his men always fought like lions. As theother British chiefs were jealous of him, and were always quarrellingwith him, and with one another, he gave up, and proposed peace. JuliusCaesar was very glad to grant peace easily, and to go away again with allhis remaining 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, hefound delicious oysters, and I am sure he found tough Britons--of whom, Idare say, he made the same complaint as Napoleon Bonaparte the greatFrench General did, eighteen hundred years afterwards, when he said theywere such unreasonable fellows that they never knew when they werebeaten. They never _did_ know, I believe, and never will. 

Nearly a hundred years passed on, and all that time, there was peace inBritain. The Britons improved their towns and mode of life: became morecivilised, travelled, and learnt a great deal from the Gauls and Romans. At last, the Roman Emperor, Claudius, sent AULUS PLAUTIUS, a skilfulgeneral, with a mighty force, to subdue the Island, and shortlyafterwards arrived himself. They 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 bravestwas CARACTACUS, or CARADOC, who gave battle to the Romans, with his army, among the mountains of North Wales. '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 greatCaesar himself across the sea!' On hearing these words, his men, with agreat shout, rushed upon the Romans. But the strong Roman swords andarmour were too much for the weaker British weapons in close conflict. The Britons lost the day. The wife and daughter of the brave CARACTACUSwere taken prisoners; his brothers delivered themselves up; he himselfwas betrayed into the hands of the Romans by his false and basestepmother: 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 inchains. His noble air, and dignified endurance of distress, so touchedthe Roman people who thronged the streets to see him, that he and hisfamily were restored to freedom. No one knows whether his great heartbroke, and he died in Rome, or whether he ever returned to his own dearcountry. English oaks have grown up from acorns, and withered away, whenthey were hundreds of years old--and other oaks have sprung up in theirplaces, and died too, very aged--since the rest of the history of thebrave CARACTACUS was forgotten. 

Still, the Britons _would not_ yield. They rose again and again, anddied by thousands, sword in hand. They rose, on every possible occasion. SUETONIUS, another Roman general, came, and stormed the Island ofAnglesey (then called MONA), which was supposed to be sacred, and heburnt the Druids in their own wicker cages, by their own fires. But, even while he was in Britain, with his victorious troops, the BRITONSrose. Because BOADICEA, a British queen, the widow of the King of theNorfolk and Suffolk people, resisted the plundering of her property bythe Romans who were settled in England, she was scourged, by order ofCATUS a Roman officer; and her two daughters were shamefully insulted inher presence, and her husband's relations were made slaves. To avengethis injury, the Britons rose, with all their might and rage. They droveCATUS into Gaul; they laid the Roman possessions waste; they forced theRomans out of London, then a poor little town, but a trading place; theyhanged, burnt, crucified, and slew by the sword, seventy thousand Romansin a few days. SUETONIUS strengthened his army, and advanced to givethem battle. They strengthened their army, and desperately attacked his, on the field where it was strongly posted. Before the first charge ofthe Britons was made, BOADICEA, in a war-chariot, with her fair hairstreaming in the wind, and her injured daughters lying at her feet, droveamong the troops, and cried to them for vengeance on their oppressors, the licentious Romans. The Britons fought to the last; but they werevanquished with great slaughter, and the unhappy queen took poison. 

Still, the spirit of the Britons was not broken. When SUETONIUS left thecountry, they fell upon his troops, and retook the Island of Anglesey. AGRICOLA came, fifteen or twenty years afterwards, and retook it oncemore, and devoted seven years to subduing the country, especially thatpart of it which is now called SCOTLAND; but, its people, theCaledonians, resisted him at every inch of ground. They fought thebloodiest battles with him; they killed their very wives and children, toprevent his making prisoners of them; they fell, fighting, in such greatnumbers that certain hills in Scotland are yet supposed to be vast heapsof stones piled up above their graves. HADRIAN came, thirty yearsafterwards, and still they resisted him. SEVERUS came, nearly a hundredyears afterwards, and they worried his great army like dogs, and rejoicedto see them die, by thousands, in the bogs and swamps. CARACALLA, theson 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 yieldedup a quantity of land to the Caledonians, and gave the Britons the sameprivileges as the Romans possessed. There was peace, after this, forseventy years. 

Then new enemies arose. They were the Saxons, a fierce, sea-faringpeople from the countries to the North of the Rhine, the great river ofGermany on the banks of which the best grapes grow to make the Germanwine. They began to come, in pirate ships, to the sea-coast of Gaul andBritain, and to plunder them. They were repulsed by CARAUSIUS, a nativeeither of Belgium or of Britain, who was appointed by the Romans to thecommand, and under whom the Britons first began to fight upon the sea. But, after this time, they renewed their ravages. A few years more, andthe Scots (which was then the name for the people of Ireland), and thePicts, a northern people, began to make frequent plundering incursionsinto the South of Britain. All these attacks were repeated, atintervals, during two hundred years, and through a long succession ofRoman Emperors and chiefs; during all which length of time, the Britonsrose against the Romans, over and over again. At last, in the days ofthe Roman HONORIUS, when the Roman power all over the world was fastdeclining, and when Rome wanted all her soldiers at home, the Romansabandoned all hope of conquering Britain, and went away. And still, atlast, as at first, the Britons rose against them, in their old bravemanner; for, a very little while before, they had turned away the Romanmagistrates, and declared themselves an independent people. 

Five hundred years had passed, since Julius Caesar's first invasion ofthe Island, when the Romans departed from it for ever. In the course ofthat time, although they had been the cause of terrible fighting andbloodshed, they had done much to improve the condition of the Britons. They had made great military roads; they had built forts; they had taughtthem how to dress, and arm themselves, much better than they had everknown 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 keepingout the Picts and Scots; HADRIAN had strengthened it; SEVERUS, finding itmuch in want of repair, had built it afresh of stone. 

Above all, it was in the Roman time, and by means of Roman ships, thatthe Christian Religion was first brought into Britain, and its peoplefirst taught the great lesson that, to be good in the sight of GOD, theymust love their neighbours as themselves, and do unto others as theywould be done by. The Druids declared that it was very wicked to believein any such thing, and cursed all the people who did believe it, veryheartily. But, when the people found that they were none the better forthe blessings of the Druids, and none the worse for the curses of theDruids, but, that the sun shone and the rain fell without consulting theDruids at all, they just began to think that the Druids were mere men, and that it signified very little whether they cursed or blessed. Afterwhich, the pupils of the Druids fell off greatly in numbers, and theDruids took to other trades. 

Thus I have come to the end of the Roman time in England. It is butlittle that is known of those five hundred years; but some remains ofthem are still found. Often, when labourers are digging up the ground, to make foundations for houses or churches, they light on rusty moneythat once belonged to the Romans. Fragments of plates from which theyate, of goblets from which they drank, and of pavement on which theytrod, are discovered among the earth that is broken by the plough, or thedust that is crumbled by the gardener's spade. Wells that the Romanssunk, still yield water; roads that the Romans made, form part of ourhighways. In some old battle-fields, British spear-heads and Romanarmour have been found, mingled together in decay, as they fell in thethick 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 beseen in almost all parts of the country. Across the bleak moors ofNorthumberland, the wall of SEVERUS, overrun with moss and weeds, stillstretches, a strong ruin; and the shepherds and their dogs lie sleepingon it in the summer weather. On Salisbury Plain, Stonehenge yet stands:a monument of the earlier time when the Roman name was unknown inBritain, and when the Druids, with their best magic wands, could not havewritten it in the sands of the wild sea-shore. 

CHAPTER II--ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS

The Romans had scarcely gone away from Britain, when the Britons began towish they had never left it. For, the Romans being gone, and the Britonsbeing much reduced in numbers by their long wars, the Picts and Scotscame pouring in, over the broken and unguarded wall of SEVERUS, inswarms. They plundered the richest towns, and killed the people; andcame back so often for more booty and more slaughter, that theunfortunate Britons lived a life of terror. As if the Picts and Scotswere not bad enough on land, the Saxons attacked the islanders by sea;and, as if something more were still wanting to make them miserable, theyquarrelled bitterly among themselves as to what prayers they ought tosay, and how they ought to say them. The priests, being very angry withone another on these questions, cursed one another in the heartiestmanner; and (uncommonly like the old Druids) cursed all the people whomthey could not persuade. So, altogether, the Britons were very badlyoff, you may believe. 

They were in such distress, in short, that they sent a letter to Romeentreating help--which they called the Groans of the Britons; and inwhich they said, 'The barbarians chase us into the sea, the sea throws usback upon the barbarians, and we have only the hard choice left us ofperishing by the sword, or perishing by the waves. ' But, the Romanscould not help them, even if they were so inclined; for they had enoughto do to defend themselves against their own enemies, who were then veryfierce and strong. At last, the Britons, unable to bear their hardcondition any longer, resolved to make peace with the Saxons, and toinvite the Saxons to come into their country, and help them to keep outthe Picts and Scots. 

It was a British Prince named VORTIGERN who took this resolution, and whomade a treaty of friendship with HENGIST and HORSA, two Saxon chiefs. Both of these names, in the old Saxon language, signify Horse; for theSaxons, like many other nations in a rough state, were fond of giving menthe names of animals, as Horse, Wolf, Bear, Hound. The Indians of NorthAmerica, --a very inferior people to the Saxons, though--do the same tothis day. 

HENGIST and HORSA drove out the Picts and Scots; and VORTIGERN, beinggrateful to them for that service, made no opposition to their settlingthemselves in that part of England which is called the Isle of Thanet, orto their inviting over more of their countrymen to join them. ButHENGIST had a beautiful daughter named ROWENA; and when, at a feast, shefilled 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 lovewith her. My opinion is, that the cunning HENGIST meant him to do so, inorder that the Saxons might have greater influence with him; and that thefair ROWENA came to that feast, golden goblet and all, on purpose. 

At any rate, they were married; and, long afterwards, whenever the Kingwas angry with the Saxons, or jealous of their encroachments, ROWENAwould 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 girlwho gave you the golden goblet of wine at the feast!' And, really, Idon't see how the King could help himself. 

Ah! We must all die! In the course of years, VORTIGERN died--he wasdethroned, and put in prison, first, I am afraid; and ROWENA died; andgenerations of Saxons and Britons died; and events that happened during along, long time, would have been quite forgotten but for the tales andsongs of the old Bards, who used to go about from feast to feast, withtheir white beards, recounting the deeds of their forefathers. Among thehistories of which they sang and talked, there was a famous one, concerning the bravery and virtues of KING ARTHUR, supposed to have beena British Prince in those old times. But, whether such a person reallylived, or whether there were several persons whose histories came to beconfused together under that one name, or whether all about him wasinvention, no one knows. 

I will tell you, shortly, what is most interesting in the early Saxontimes, as they are described in these songs and stories of the Bards. 

In, and long after, the days of VORTIGERN, fresh bodies of Saxons, undervarious chiefs, came pouring into Britain. One body, conquering theBritons in the East, and settling there, called their kingdom Essex;another body settled in the West, and called their kingdom Wessex; theNorthfolk, or Norfolk people, established themselves in one place; theSouthfolk, or Suffolk people, established themselves in another; andgradually seven kingdoms or states arose in England, which were calledthe Saxon Heptarchy. The poor Britons, falling back before these crowdsof fighting men whom they had innocently invited over as friends, retiredinto Wales and the adjacent country; into Devonshire, and into Cornwall. Those parts of England long remained unconquered. And in Cornwallnow--where the sea-coast is very gloomy, steep, and rugged--where, in thedark winter-time, ships have often been wrecked close to the land, andevery soul on board has perished--where the winds and waves howl drearilyand split the solid rocks into arches and caverns--there are very ancientruins, which the people call the ruins of KING ARTHUR'S Castle. 

Kent is the most famous of the seven Saxon kingdoms, because theChristian religion was preached to the Saxons there (who domineered overthe Britons too much, to care for what _they_ said about their religion, or anything else) by AUGUSTINE, a monk from Rome. KING ETHELBERT, ofKent, was soon converted; and the moment he said he was a Christian, hiscourtiers all said _they_ were Christians; after which, ten thousand ofhis subjects said they were Christians too. AUGUSTINE built a littlechurch, close to this King's palace, on the ground now occupied by thebeautiful cathedral of Canterbury. SEBERT, the King's nephew, built on amuddy 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 builtanother little church which has risen up, since that old time, to beSaint Paul's. 

After the death of ETHELBERT, EDWIN, King of Northumbria, who was such agood king that it was said a woman or child might openly carry a purse ofgold, in his reign, without fear, allowed his child to be baptised, andheld a great council to consider whether he and his people should all beChristians or not. It was decided that they should be. COIFI, the chiefpriest of the old religion, made a great speech on the occasion. In thisdiscourse, he told the people that he had found out the old gods to beimpostors. 'I am quite satisfied of it, ' he said. 'Look at me! I havebeen serving them all my life, and they have done nothing for me;whereas, if they had been really powerful, they could not have decentlydone 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 areimpostors!' When this singular priest had finished speaking, he hastilyarmed himself with sword and lance, mounted a war-horse, rode at afurious gallop in sight of all the people to the temple, and flung hislance against it as an insult. From that time, the Christian religionspread itself among the Saxons, and became their faith. 

The next very famous prince was EGBERT. He lived about a hundred andfifty years afterwards, and claimed to have a better right to the throneof Wessex than BEORTRIC, another Saxon prince who was at the head of thatkingdom, and who married EDBURGA, the daughter of OFFA, king of anotherof the seven kingdoms. This QUEEN EDBURGA was a handsome murderess, whopoisoned people when they offended her. One day, she mixed a cup ofpoison for a certain noble belonging to the court; but her husband drankof it too, by mistake, and died. Upon this, the people revolted, ingreat crowds; and running to the palace, and thundering at the gates, cried, 'Down with the wicked queen, who poisons men!' They drove her outof the country, and abolished the title she had disgraced. When yearshad passed away, some travellers came home from Italy, and said that inthe town of Pavia they had seen a ragged beggar-woman, who had once beenhandsome, but was then shrivelled, bent, and yellow, wandering about thestreets, crying for bread; and that this beggar-woman was the poisoningEnglish queen. It was, indeed, EDBURGA; and so she died, without ashelter for her wretched head. 

EGBERT, not considering himself safe in England, in consequence of hishaving claimed the crown of Wessex (for he thought his rival might takehim prisoner and put him to death), sought refuge at the court ofCHARLEMAGNE, King of France. On the death of BEORTRIC, so unhappilypoisoned by mistake, EGBERT came back to Britain; succeeded to the throneof Wessex; conquered some of the other monarchs of the seven kingdoms;added their territories to his own; and, for the first time, called thecountry over which he ruled, ENGLAND. 

And now, new enemies arose, who, for a long time, troubled Englandsorely. These were the Northmen, the people of Denmark and Norway, whomthe English called the Danes. They were a warlike people, quite at homeupon the sea; not Christians; very daring and cruel. They came over inships, and plundered and burned wheresoever they landed. Once, they beatEGBERT in battle. Once, EGBERT beat them. But, they cared no more forbeing beaten than the English themselves. In the four following shortreigns, of ETHELWULF, and his sons, ETHELBALD, ETHELBERT, and ETHELRED, they came back, over and over again, burning and plundering, and layingEngland waste. In the last-mentioned reign, they seized EDMUND, King ofEast England, and bound him to a tree. Then, they proposed to him thathe should change his religion; but he, being a good Christian, steadilyrefused. Upon that, they beat him, made cowardly jests upon him, alldefenceless as he was, shot arrows at him, and, finally, struck off hishead. It is impossible to say whose head they might have struck offnext, but for the death of KING ETHELRED from a wound he had received infighting against them, and the succession to his throne of the best andwisest king that ever lived in England. 

CHAPTER III--ENGLAND UNDER THE GOOD SAXON, ALFRED

Alfred the Great was a young man, three-and-twenty years of age, when hebecame king. Twice in his childhood, he had been taken to Rome, wherethe Saxon nobles were in the habit of going on journeys which theysupposed to be religious; and, once, he had stayed for some time inParis. Learning, however, was so little cared for, then, that at twelveyears old he had not been taught to read; although, of the sons of KINGETHELWULF, he, the youngest, was the favourite. But he had--as most menwho grow up to be great and good are generally found to have had--anexcellent mother; and, one day, this lady, whose name was OSBURGA, happened, as she was sitting among her sons, to read a book of Saxonpoetry. The art of printing was not known until long and long after thatperiod, and the book, which was written, was what is called'illuminated, ' with beautiful bright letters, richly painted. Thebrothers admiring it very much, their mother said, 'I will give it tothat one of you four princes who first learns to read. ' ALFRED soughtout 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 withthe Danes. He made some treaties with them too, by which the false Danesswore they would quit the country. They pretended to consider that theyhad taken a very solemn oath, in swearing this upon the holy braceletsthat they wore, and which were always buried with them when they died;but they cared little for it, for they thought nothing of breaking oathsand treaties too, as soon as it suited their purpose, and coming backagain to fight, plunder, and burn, as usual. One fatal winter, in thefourth year of KING ALFRED'S reign, they spread themselves in greatnumbers over the whole of England; and so dispersed and routed the King'ssoldiers that the King was left alone, and was obliged to disguisehimself as a common peasant, and to take refuge in the cottage of one ofhis cowherds who did not know his face. 

Here, KING ALFRED, while the Danes sought him far and near, was leftalone one day, by the cowherd's wife, to watch some cakes which she putto 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 shouldcome, and thinking deeply of his poor unhappy subjects whom the Daneschased through the land, his noble mind forgot the cakes, and they wereburnt. 'What!' said the cowherd's wife, who scolded him well when shecame back, and little thought she was scolding the King, 'you will beready enough to eat them by-and-by, and yet you cannot watch them, idledog?'

At length, the Devonshire men made head against a new host of Danes wholanded on their coast; killed their chief, and captured their flag; onwhich was represented the likeness of a Raven--a very fit bird for athievish army like that, I think. The loss of their standard troubledthe Danes greatly, for they believed it to be enchanted--woven by thethree daughters of one father in a single afternoon--and they had a storyamong themselves that when they were victorious in battle, the Ravenstretched 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 doneanything half so sensible; for, KING ALFRED joined the Devonshire men;made a camp with them on a piece of firm ground in the midst of a bog inSomersetshire; and prepared for a great attempt for vengeance on theDanes, and the deliverance of his oppressed people. 

But, first, as it was important to know how numerous those pestilentDanes were, and how they were fortified, KING ALFRED, being a goodmusician, disguised himself as a glee-man or minstrel, and went, with hisharp, to the Danish camp. He played and sang in the very tent of GUTHRUMthe Danish leader, and entertained the Danes as they caroused. While heseemed to think of nothing but his music, he was watchful of their tents, their arms, their discipline, everything that he desired to know. Andright soon did this great king entertain them to a different tune; for, summoning all his true followers to meet him at an appointed place, wherethey received him with joyful shouts and tears, as the monarch whom manyof 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, andbesieged them for fourteen days to prevent their escape. But, being asmerciful as he was good and brave, he then, instead of killing them, proposed peace: on condition that they should altogether depart from thatWestern part of England, and settle in the East; and that GUTHRUM shouldbecome a Christian, in remembrance of the Divine religion which nowtaught his conqueror, the noble ALFRED, to forgive the enemy who had sooften injured him. This, GUTHRUM did. At his baptism, KING ALFRED washis godfather. And GUTHRUM was an honourable chief who well deservedthat clemency; for, ever afterwards he was loyal and faithful to theking. The Danes under him were faithful too. They plundered and burnedno more, but worked like honest men. They ploughed, and sowed, andreaped, and led good honest English lives. And I hope the children ofthose Danes played, many a time, with Saxon children in the sunny fields;and that Danish young men fell in love with Saxon girls, and marriedthem; and that English travellers, benighted at the doors of Danishcottages, often went in for shelter until morning; and that Danes andSaxons 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 thema fierce pirate of the name of HASTINGS, who had the boldness to sail upthe Thames to Gravesend, with eighty ships. For three years, there was awar with these Danes; and there was a famine in the country, too, and aplague, both upon human creatures and beasts. But KING ALFRED, whosemighty heart never failed him, built large ships nevertheless, with whichto pursue the pirates on the sea; and he encouraged his soldiers, by hisbrave example, to fight valiantly against them on the shore. At last, hedrove 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 ALFREDnever rested from his labours to improve his people. He loved to talkwith clever men, and with travellers from foreign countries, and to writedown what they told him, for his people to read. He had studied Latinafter learning to read English, and now another of his labours was, totranslate Latin books into the English-Saxon tongue, that his peoplemight be interested, and improved by their contents. He made just laws, that they might live more happily and freely; he turned away all partialjudges, that no wrong might be done them; he was so careful of theirproperty, and punished robbers so severely, that it was a common thing tosay that under the great KING ALFRED, garlands of golden chains andjewels might have hung across the streets, and no man would have touchedone. He founded schools; he patiently heard causes himself in his Courtof Justice; the great desires of his heart were, to do right to all hissubjects, and to leave England better, wiser, happier in all ways, thanhe found it. His industry in these efforts was quite astonishing. Everyday he divided into certain portions, and in each portion devoted himselfto a certain pursuit. That he might divide his time exactly, he had waxtorches or candles made, which were all of the same size, were notchedacross at regular distances, and were always kept burning. Thus, as thecandles burnt down, he divided the day into notches, almost as accuratelyas we now divide it into hours upon the clock. But when the candles werefirst invented, it was found that the wind and draughts of air, blowinginto the palace through the doors and windows, and through the chinks inthe walls, caused them to gutter and burn unequally. To prevent this, the King had them put into cases formed of wood and white horn. Andthese were the first lanthorns ever made in England. 

All this time, he was afflicted with a terrible unknown disease, whichcaused him violent and frequent pain that nothing could relieve. He boreit, 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 thirtyyears, he died. He died in the year nine hundred and one; but, long agoas that is, his fame, and the love and gratitude with which his subjectsregarded him, are freshly remembered to the present hour. 

In the next reign, which was the reign of EDWARD, surnamed THE ELDER, whowas chosen in council to succeed, a nephew of KING ALFRED troubled thecountry by trying to obtain the throne. The Danes in the East of Englandtook part with this usurper (perhaps because they had honoured his uncleso much, and honoured him for his uncle's sake), and there was hardfighting; but, the King, with the assistance of his sister, gained theday, and reigned in peace for four and twenty years. He graduallyextended his power over the whole of England, and so the Seven Kingdomswere united into one. 

When England thus became one kingdom, ruled over by one Saxon king, theSaxons had been settled in the country more than four hundred and fiftyyears. Great changes had taken place in its customs during that time. The Saxons were still greedy eaters and great drinkers, and their feastswere often of a noisy and drunken kind; but many new comforts and evenelegances had become known, and were fast increasing. Hangings for thewalls of rooms, where, in these modern days, we paste up paper, are knownto have been sometimes made of silk, ornamented with birds and flowers inneedlework. Tables and chairs were curiously carved in different woods;were sometimes decorated with gold or silver; sometimes even made ofthose precious metals. Knives and spoons were used at table; goldenornaments were worn--with silk and cloth, and golden tissues andembroideries; dishes were made of gold and silver, brass and bone. Therewere varieties of drinking-horns, bedsteads, musical instruments. A harpwas passed round, at a feast, like the drinking-bowl, from guest toguest; and each one usually sang or played when his turn came. Theweapons of the Saxons were stoutly made, and among them was a terribleiron hammer that gave deadly blows, and was long remembered. The Saxonsthemselves were a handsome people. The men were proud of their long fairhair, parted on the forehead; their ample beards, their freshcomplexions, and clear eyes. The beauty of the Saxon women filled allEngland with a new delight and grace. 

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-Saxoncharacter were first encouraged, and in him first shown. It has been thegreatest character among the nations of the earth. Wherever thedescendants of the Saxon race have gone, have sailed, or otherwise madetheir way, even to the remotest regions of the world, they have beenpatient, persevering, never to be broken in spirit, never to be turnedaside from enterprises on which they have resolved. In Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the whole world over; in the desert, in the forest, onthe sea; scorched by a burning sun, or frozen by ice that never melts;the Saxon blood remains unchanged. Wheresoever that race goes, there, law, and industry, and safety for life and property, and all the greatresults of steady perseverance, are certain to arise. 

I pause to think with admiration, of the noble king who, in his singleperson, possessed all the Saxon virtues. Whom misfortune could notsubdue, whom prosperity could not spoil, whose perseverance nothing couldshake. Who was hopeful in defeat, and generous in success. Who lovedjustice, freedom, truth, and knowledge. Who, in his care to instruct hispeople, probably did more to preserve the beautiful old Saxon language, than I can imagine. Without whom, the English tongue in which I tellthis story might have wanted half its meaning. As it is said that hisspirit still inspires some of our best English laws, so, let you and Ipray that it may animate our English hearts, at least to this--toresolve, when we see any of our fellow-creatures left in ignorance, thatwe will do our best, while life is in us, to have them taught; and totell those rulers whose duty it is to teach them, and who neglect theirduty, that they have profited very little by all the years that haverolled away since the year nine hundred and one, and that they are farbehind 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 reignedonly fifteen years; but he remembered the glory of his grandfather, thegreat Alfred, and governed England well. He reduced the turbulent peopleof 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 theCornish men, who were not yet quite under the Saxon government. Herestored such 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 strongalliance, made against him by ANLAF a Danish prince, CONSTANTINE King ofthe Scots, and the people of North Wales, he broke and defeated in onegreat 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 tobecome polite and agreeable; and foreign princes were glad (as they havesometimes been since) to come to England on visits to the English court. 

When Athelstan died, at forty-seven years old, his brother EDMUND, whowas only eighteen, became king. He was the first of six boy-kings, asyou will presently know. 

They called him the Magnificent, because he showed a taste forimprovement and refinement. But he was beset by the Danes, and had ashort and troubled reign, which came to a troubled end. One night, whenhe 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 fromEngland. Made very angry by the boldness of this man, the King turned tohis 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 lifeany man may take, at any time. Command that robber to depart!' 'I willnot depart!' said Leof. 'No?' cried the King. 'No, by the Lord!' saidLeof. Upon that the King rose from his seat, and, making passionately atthe 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 theKing'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 mayimagine what rough lives the kings of those times led, when one of themcould 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, butof a strong mind. And his armies fought the Northmen, the Danes, andNorwegians, or the Sea-Kings, as they were called, and beat them for thetime. And, in nine years, Edred died, and passed away. 

Then came the boy-king EDWY, fifteen years of age; but the real king, whohad the real power, was a monk named DUNSTAN--a clever priest, a littlemad, and not a little proud and cruel. 

Dunstan was then Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, whither the body of KingEdmund the Magnificent was carried, to be buried. While yet a boy, hehad got out of his bed one night (being then in a fever), and walkedabout Glastonbury Church when it was under repair; and, because he didnot tumble off some scaffolds that were there, and break his neck, it wasreported that he had been shown over the building by an angel. He hadalso made a harp that was said to play of itself--which it very likelydid, as AEolian Harps, which are played by the wind, and are understoodnow, always do. For these wonders he had been once denounced by hisenemies, who were jealous of his favour with the late King Athelstan, asa magician; and he had been waylaid, bound hand and foot, and thrown intoa marsh. But he got out again, somehow, to cause a great deal of troubleyet. 

The priests of those days were, generally, the only scholars. They werelearned in many things. Having to make their own convents andmonasteries on uncultivated grounds that were granted to them by theCrown, it was necessary that they should be good farmers and goodgardeners, or their lands would have been too poor to support them. Forthe decoration of the chapels where they prayed, and for the comfort ofthe refectories where they ate and drank, it was necessary that thereshould be good carpenters, good smiths, good painters, among them. Fortheir greater safety in sickness and accident, living alone by themselvesin solitary places, it was necessary that they should study the virtuesof plants and herbs, and should know how to dress cuts, burns, scalds, and bruises, and how to set broken limbs. Accordingly, they taughtthemselves, and one another, a great variety of useful arts; and becameskilful in agriculture, medicine, surgery, and handicraft. And when theywanted the aid of any little piece of machinery, which would be simpleenough now, but was marvellous then, to impose a trick upon the poorpeasants, they knew very well how to make it; and _did_ make it many atime and often, I have no doubt. 

Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, was one of the most sagacious ofthese monks. He was an ingenious smith, and worked at a forge in alittle cell. This cell was made too short to admit of his lying at fulllength when he went to sleep--as if _that_ did any good to anybody!--andhe used to tell the most extraordinary lies about demons and spirits, who, he said, came there to persecute him. For instance, he related thatone 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, havinghis pincers in the fire, red hot, he seized the devil by the nose, andput 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'smadness (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 alwayswanted. 

On the day of the coronation of the handsome boy-king Edwy, it wasremarked by ODO, Archbishop of Canterbury (who was a Dane by birth), thatthe King quietly left the coronation feast, while all the company werethere. 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 grosslyabused them, but dragged the young King back into the feasting-hall byforce. Some, again, think Dunstan did this because the young King's fairwife was his own cousin, and the monks objected to people marrying theirown cousins; but I believe he did it, because he was an imperious, audacious, ill-conditioned priest, who, having loved a young lady himselfbefore he became a sour monk, hated all love now, and everythingbelonging to it. 

The young King was quite old enough to feel this insult. Dunstan hadbeen Treasurer in the last reign, and he soon charged Dunstan with havingtaken some of the last king's money. The Glastonbury Abbot fled toBelgium (very narrowly escaping some pursuers who were sent to put outhis eyes, as you will wish they had, when you read what follows), and hisabbey was given to priests who were married; whom he always, both beforeand afterwards, opposed. But he quickly conspired with his friend, Odothe Dane, to set up the King's young brother, EDGAR, as his rival for thethrone; and, not content with this revenge, he caused the beautiful queenElgiva, though a lovely girl of only seventeen or eighteen, to be stolenfrom 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 andbefriended 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 cruelwound, and sent her home as beautiful as before. But the villainDunstan, and that other villain, Odo, caused her to be waylaid atGloucester as she was joyfully hurrying to join her husband, and to behacked and hewn with swords, and to be barbarously maimed and lamed, andleft to die. When Edwy the Fair (his people called him so, because hewas so young and handsome) heard of her dreadful fate, he died of abroken heart; and so the pitiful story of the poor young wife and husbandends! Ah! Better to be two cottagers in these better times, than kingand 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 themonasteries and abbeys, and replaced them by solitary monks like himself, of the rigid order called the Benedictines. He made himself Archbishopof Canterbury, for his greater glory; and exercised such power over theneighbouring British princes, and so collected them about the King, thatonce, when the King held his court at Chester, and went on the river Deeto visit the monastery of St. John, the eight oars of his boat werepulled (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 wasvery obedient to Dunstan and the monks, they took great pains torepresent him as the best of kings. But he was really profligate, debauched, and vicious. He once forcibly carried off a young lady fromthe convent at Wilton; and Dunstan, pretending to be very much shocked, condemned him not to wear his crown upon his head for seven years--nogreat punishment, I dare say, as it can hardly have been a morecomfortable ornament to wear, than a stewpan without a handle. Hismarriage with his second wife, ELFRIDA, is one of the worst events of hisreign. Hearing of the beauty of this lady, he despatched his favouritecourtier, ATHELWOLD, to her father's castle in Devonshire, to see if shewere really as charming as fame reported. Now, she was so exceedinglybeautiful 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 thenewly-married couple a visit; and, suddenly, told Athelwold to preparefor his immediate coming. Athelwold, terrified, confessed to his youngwife what he had said and done, and implored her to disguise her beautyby some ugly dress or silly manner, that he might be safe from the King'sanger. She promised that she would; but she was a proud woman, who wouldfar rather have been a queen than the wife of a courtier. She dressedherself in her best dress, and adorned herself with her richest jewels;and when the King came, presently, he discovered the cheat. So, hecaused his false friend, Athelwold, to be murdered in a wood, and marriedhis widow, this bad Elfrida. Six or seven years afterwards, he died; andwas buried, as if he had been all that the monks said he was, in theabbey 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 mountains of Waleswhen they were not attacking travellers and animals, that the tributepayable by the Welsh people was forgiven them, on condition of theirproducing, every year, three hundred wolves' heads. And the Welshmenwere so sharp upon the wolves, to save their money, that in four yearsthere was not a wolf left. 

Then came the boy-king, EDWARD, called the Martyr, from the manner of hisdeath. Elfrida had a son, named ETHELRED, for whom she claimed thethrone; but Dunstan did not choose to favour him, and he made Edwardking. The boy was hunting, one day, down in Dorsetshire, when he rodenear to Corfe Castle, where Elfrida and Ethelred lived. Wishing to seethem kindly, he rode away from his attendants and galloped to the castlegate, where he arrived at twilight, and blew his hunting-horn. 'You arewelcome, dear King, ' said Elfrida, coming out, with her brightest smiles. 'Pray you dismount and enter. ' 'Not so, dear madam, ' said the King. 'Mycompany will miss me, and fear that I have met with some harm. Pleaseyou to give me a cup of wine, that I may drink here, in the saddle, toyou and to my little brother, and so ride away with the good speed I havemade in riding here. ' Elfrida, going in to bring the wine, whispered anarmed servant, one of her attendants, who stole out of the darkeninggateway, and crept round behind the King's horse. As the King raised thecup to his lips, saying, 'Health!' to the wicked woman who was smiling onhim, and to his innocent brother whose hand she held in hers, and who wasonly ten years old, this armed man made a spring and stabbed him in theback. He dropped the cup and spurred his horse away; but, soon faintingwith loss of blood, dropped from the saddle, and, in his fall, entangledone of his feet in the stirrup. The frightened horse dashed on; trailinghis rider's curls upon the ground; dragging his smooth young face throughruts, and stones, and briers, and fallen leaves, and mud; until thehunters, tracking the animal's course by the King's blood, caught hisbridle, 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 fromthe castle gate, unmercifully beat with a torch which she snatched fromone of the attendants. The people so disliked this boy, on account ofhis cruel mother and the murder she had done to promote him, that Dunstanwould not have had him for king, but would have made EDGITHA, thedaughter of the dead King Edgar, and of the lady whom he stole out of theconvent at Wilton, Queen of England, if she would have consented. Butshe knew the stories of the youthful kings too well, and would not bepersuaded from the convent where she lived in peace; so, Dunstan putEthelred on the throne, having no one else to put there, and gave him thenickname of THE UNREADY--knowing that he wanted resolution and firmness. 

At first, Elfrida possessed great influence over the young King, but, ashe grew older and came of age, her influence declined. The infamouswoman, not having it in her power to do any more evil, then retired fromcourt, and, according, to the fashion of the time, built churches andmonasteries, to expiate her guilt. As if a church, with a steeplereaching to the very stars, would have been any sign of true repentancefor the blood of the poor boy, whose murdered form was trailed at hishorse's heels! As if she could have buried her wickedness beneath thesenseless stones of the whole world, piled up one upon another, for themonks to live in!

About the ninth or tenth year of this reign, Dunstan died. He wasgrowing old then, but was as stern and artful as ever. Two circumstancesthat happened in connexion with him, in this reign of Ethelred, made agreat noise. Once, he was present at a meeting of the Church, when thequestion was discussed whether priests should have permission to marry;and, as he sat with his head hung down, apparently thinking about it, avoice seemed to come out of a crucifix in the room, and warn the meetingto be of his opinion. This was some juggling of Dunstan's, and wasprobably his own voice disguised. But he played off a worse juggle thanthat, soon afterwards; for, another meeting being held on the samesubject, and he and his supporters being seated on one side of a greatroom, and their opponents on the other, he rose and said, 'To Christhimself, as judge, do I commit this cause!' Immediately on these wordsbeing spoken, the floor where the opposite party sat gave way, and somewere killed and many wounded. You may be pretty sure that it had beenweakened 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 aworkman for that. 

When he died, the monks settled that he was a Saint, and called him SaintDunstan ever afterwards. They might just as well have settled that hewas 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 holysaint; but, left to himself, he was a poor weak king, and his reign was areign of defeat and shame. The restless Danes, led by SWEYN, a son ofthe King of Denmark who had quarrelled with his father and had beenbanished from home, again came into England, and, year after year, attacked and despoiled large towns. To coax these sea-kings away, theweak Ethelred paid them money; but, the more money he paid, the moremoney the Danes wanted. At first, he gave them ten thousand pounds; ontheir next invasion, sixteen thousand pounds; on their next invasion, four and twenty thousand pounds: to pay which large sums, the unfortunateEnglish people were heavily taxed. But, as the Danes still came back andwanted more, he thought it would be a good plan to marry into somepowerful foreign family that would help him with soldiers. So, in theyear one thousand and two, he courted and married Emma, the sister ofRichard 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 neverdone on English ground before or since. On the thirteenth of November, in pursuance of secret instructions sent by the King over the wholecountry, the inhabitants of every town and city armed, and murdered allthe Danes who were their neighbours. 

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 theEnglish great wrong, and whose pride and insolence, in swaggering in thehouses of the English and insulting their wives and daughters, had becomeunbearable; but no doubt there were also among them many peacefulChristian Danes who had married English women and become like Englishmen. They were all slain, even to GUNHILDA, the sister of the King ofDenmark, married to an English lord; who was first obliged to see themurder 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 thathe would have a great revenge. He raised an army, and a mightier fleetof ships than ever yet had sailed to England; and in all his army therewas not a slave or an old man, but every soldier was a free man, and theson of a free man, and in the prime of life, and sworn to be revengedupon the English nation, for the massacre of that dread thirteenth ofNovember, when his countrymen and countrywomen, and the little childrenwhom they loved, were killed with fire and sword. And so, the sea-kingscame to England in many great ships, each bearing the flag of its owncommander. Golden eagles, ravens, dragons, dolphins, beasts of prey, threatened England from the prows of those ships, as they came onwardthrough the water; and were reflected in the shining shields that hungupon 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 hisanger prayed that the Gods in whom he trusted might all desert him, ifhis 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 theirlances in the earth as they advanced, or throwing them into rivers, intoken of their making all the island theirs. In remembrance of the blackNovember night when the Danes were murdered, wheresoever the invaderscame, they made the Saxons prepare and spread for them great feasts; andwhen they had eaten those feasts, and had drunk a curse to England withwild rejoicings, they drew their swords, and killed their Saxonentertainers, and marched on. For six long years they carried on thiswar: burning the crops, farmhouses, barns, mills, granaries; killing thelabourers in the fields; preventing the seed from being sown in theground; causing famine and starvation; leaving only heaps of ruin andsmoking ashes, where they had found rich towns. To crown this misery, English officers and men deserted, and even the favourites of Ethelredthe Unready, becoming traitors, seized many of the English ships, turnedpirates against their own country, and aided by a storm occasioned theloss of nearly the whole English navy. 

There was but one man of note, at this miserable pass, who was true tohis country and the feeble King. He was a priest, and a brave one. Fortwenty days, the Archbishop of Canterbury defended that city against itsDanish besiegers; and when a traitor in the town threw the gates open andadmitted them, he said, in chains, 'I will not buy my life with moneythat must be extorted from the suffering people. Do with me what youplease!' Again and again, he steadily refused to purchase his releasewith gold wrung from the poor. 

At last, the Danes being tired of this, and being assembled at a drunkenmerry-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 closeto him, to the shaggy beards against the walls, where men were mounted ontables and forms to see him over the heads of others: and he knew thathis 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 unmoved. Then, one man struck him; then, another; then a cursing soldier picked up froma heap in a corner of the hall, where fragments had been rudely thrown atdinner, a great ox-bone, and cast it at his face, from which the bloodcame spurting forth; then, others ran to the same heap, and knocked himdown with other bones, and bruised and battered him; until one soldierwhom he had baptised (willing, as I hope for the sake of that soldier'ssoul, to shorten the sufferings of the good man) struck him dead with hisbattle-axe. 

If Ethelred had had the heart to emulate the courage of this noblearchbishop, he might have done something yet. But he paid the Danesforty-eight thousand pounds, instead, and gained so little by thecowardly act, that Sweyn soon afterwards came over to subdue all England. So broken was the attachment of the English people, by this time, totheir incapable King and their forlorn country which could not protectthem, that they welcomed Sweyn on all sides, as a deliverer. Londonfaithfully stood out, as long as the King was within its walls; but, whenhe sneaked away, it also welcomed the Dane. Then, all was over; and theKing took refuge abroad with the Duke of Normandy, who had already givenshelter to the King's wife, once the Flower of that country, and to herchildren. 

Still, the English people, in spite of their sad sufferings, could notquite forget the great King Alfred and the Saxon race. When Sweyn diedsuddenly, in little more than a month after he had been proclaimed Kingof England, they generously sent to Ethelred, to say that they would havehim for their King again, 'if he would only govern them better than hehad governed them before. ' The Unready, instead of coming himself, sentEdward, 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 ofSweyn, King. Thus, direful war began again, and lasted for three years, when the Unready died. And I know of nothing better that he did, in allhis reign of eight and thirty years. 

Was Canute to be King now? Not over the Saxons, they said; they musthave EDMUND, one of the sons of the Unready, who was surnamed IRONSIDE, because of his strength and stature. Edmund and Canute thereupon fellto, and fought five battles--O unhappy England, what a fighting-ground itwas!--and then Ironside, who was a big man, proposed to Canute, who was alittle man, that they two should fight it out in single combat. IfCanute had been the big man, he would probably have said yes, but, beingthe little man, he decidedly said no. However, he declared that he waswilling to divide the kingdom--to take all that lay north of WatlingStreet, 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 ofso much bloodshed, this was done. But Canute soon became sole King ofEngland; for Ironside died suddenly within two months. Some think thathe 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. Afterhe had clasped the hands of the Saxon chiefs, in token of the sinceritywith which he swore to be just and good to them in return for theiracknowledging him, he denounced and slew many of them, as well as manyrelations of the late King. 'He who brings me the head of one of myenemies, ' he used to say, 'shall be dearer to me than a brother. ' And hewas so severe in hunting down his enemies, that he must have got togethera pretty large family of these dear brothers. He was strongly inclinedto 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 ofSweden, with a request that the King would be so good as 'dispose ofthem. ' If the King of Sweden had been like many, many other men of thatday, he would have had their innocent throats cut; but he was a kind man, and brought them up tenderly. 

Normandy ran much in Canute's mind. In Normandy were the two children ofthe late king--EDWARD and ALFRED by name; and their uncle the Duke mightone day claim the crown for them. But the Duke showed so littleinclination to do so now, that he proposed to Canute to marry his sister, the widow of The Unready; who, being but a showy flower, and caring fornothing so much as becoming a queen again, left her children and waswedded to him. 

Successful and triumphant, assisted by the valour of the English in hisforeign wars, and with little strife to trouble him at home, Canute had aprosperous reign, and made many improvements. He was a poet and amusician. He grew sorry, as he grew older, for the blood he had shed atfirst; 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 tookit from the English before he started. On the whole, however, hecertainly became a far better man when he had no opposition to contendwith, 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 disgustedwith his courtiers for their flattery, and how he caused his chair to beset on the sea-shore, and feigned to command the tide as it came up notto 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 hisflatterers, and rebuked them, saying, what was the might of any earthlyking, to the might of the Creator, who could say unto the sea, 'Thus farshalt thou go, and no farther!' We may learn from this, I think, that alittle sense will go a long way in a king; and that courtiers are noteasily cured of flattery, nor kings of a liking for it. If the courtiersof 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. Andif they had not known that he was vain of this speech (anything but awonderful speech it seems to me, if a good child had made it), they wouldnot have been at such great pains to repeat it. I fancy I see them allon the sea-shore together; the King's chair sinking in the sand; the Kingin a mighty good humour with his own wisdom; and the courtiers pretendingto 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 toCanute in the year one thousand and thirty-five, and stretched him deadupon his bed. Beside it, stood his Norman wife. Perhaps, as the Kinglooked his last upon her, he, who had so often thought distrustfully ofNormandy, long ago, thought once more of the two exiled Princes in theiruncle's court, and of the little favour they could feel for either Danesor Saxons, and of a rising cloud in Normandy that slowly moved towardsEngland. 

CHAPTER VI--ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD HAREFOOT, HARDICANUTE, AND EDWARD THECONFESSOR

Canute left three sons, by name SWEYN, HAROLD, and HARDICANUTE; but hisQueen, Emma, once the Flower of Normandy, was the mother of onlyHardicanute. Canute had wished his dominions to be divided between thethree, and had wished Harold to have England; but the Saxon people in theSouth of England, headed by a nobleman with great possessions, called thepowerful EARL GODWIN (who is said to have been originally a poorcow-boy), opposed this, and desired to have, instead, either Hardicanute, or one of the two exiled Princes who were over in Normandy. It seemed socertain that there would be more bloodshed to settle this dispute, thatmany people left their homes, and took refuge in the woods and swamps. Happily, however, it was agreed to refer the whole question to a greatmeeting at Oxford, which decided that Harold should have all the countrynorth of the Thames, with London for his capital city, and thatHardicanute should have all the south. The quarrel was so arranged; and, as Hardicanute was in Denmark troubling himself very little aboutanything but eating and getting drunk, his mother and Earl Godwingoverned the south for him. 

They had hardly begun to do so, and the trembling people who had hiddenthemselves were scarcely at home again, when Edward, the elder of the twoexiled Princes, came over from Normandy with a few followers, to claimthe English Crown. His mother Emma, however, who only cared for her lastson Hardicanute, instead of assisting him, as he expected, opposed him sostrongly with all her influence that he was very soon glad to get safelyback. His brother Alfred was not so fortunate. Believing in anaffectionate letter, written some time afterwards to him and his brother, in his mother's name (but whether really with or without his mother'sknowledge is now uncertain), he allowed himself to be tempted over toEngland, with a good force of soldiers, and landing on the Kentish coast, and being met and welcomed by Earl Godwin, proceeded into Surrey, as faras the town of Guildford. Here, he and his men halted in the evening torest, having still the Earl in their company; who had ordered lodgingsand good cheer for them. But, in the dead of the night, when they wereoff their guard, being divided into small parties sleeping soundly aftera long march and a plentiful supper in different houses, they were setupon by the King's troops, and taken prisoners. Next morning they weredrawn out in a line, to the number of six hundred men, and werebarbarously tortured and killed; with the exception of every tenth man, who was sold into slavery. As to the wretched Prince Alfred, he wasstripped naked, tied to a horse and sent away into the Isle of Ely, wherehis eyes were torn out of his head, and where in a few days he miserablydied. I am not sure that the Earl had wilfully entrapped him, but Isuspect it strongly. 

Harold was now King all over England, though it is doubtful whether theArchbishop of Canterbury (the greater part of the priests were Saxons, and not friendly to the Danes) ever consented to crown him. Crowned oruncrowned, with the Archbishop's leave or without it, he was King forfour years: after which short reign he died, and was buried; having neverdone 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), forthe invasion of England. The Danes and Saxons, finding themselveswithout a King, and dreading new disputes, made common cause, and joinedin inviting him to occupy the Throne. He consented, and soon troubledthem enough; for he brought over numbers of Danes, and taxed the peopleso insupportably to enrich those greedy favourites that there were manyinsurrections, especially one at Worcester, where the citizens rose andkilled his tax-collectors; in revenge for which he burned their city. Hewas a brutal King, whose first public act was to order the dead body ofpoor 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 agoblet of wine in his hand, at a wedding-feast at Lambeth, given inhonour of the marriage of his standard-bearer, a Dane named TOWED THEPROUD. And he never spoke again. 

EDWARD, afterwards called by the monks THE CONFESSOR, succeeded; and hisfirst 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. Hewas the exiled prince whose brother Alfred had been so foully killed. Hehad been invited over from Normandy by Hardicanute, in the course of hisshort reign of two years, and had been handsomely treated at court. Hiscause was now favoured by the powerful Earl Godwin, and he was soon madeKing. This Earl had been suspected by the people, ever since PrinceAlfred's cruel death; he had even been tried in the last reign for thePrince's murder, but had been pronounced not guilty; chiefly, as it wassupposed, because of a present he had made to the swinish King, of agilded ship with a figure-head of solid gold, and a crew of eightysplendidly armed men. It was his interest to help the new King with hispower, if the new King would help him against the popular distrust andhatred. So they made a bargain. Edward the Confessor got the Throne. The Earl got more power and more land, and his daughter Editha was madequeen; for it was a part of their compact that the King should take herfor his wife. 

But, although she was a gentle lady, in all things worthy to bebeloved--good, beautiful, sensible, and kind--the King from the firstneglected her. Her father and her six proud brothers, resenting thiscold treatment, harassed the King greatly by exerting all their power tomake him unpopular. Having lived so long in Normandy, he preferred theNormans to the English. He made a Norman Archbishop, and Norman Bishops;his great officers and favourites were all Normans; he introduced theNorman fashions and the Norman language; in imitation of the state customof Normandy, he attached a great seal to his state documents, instead ofmerely marking them, as the Saxon Kings had done, with the sign of thecross--just as poor people who have never been taught to write, now makethe same mark for their names. All this, the powerful Earl Godwin andhis six proud sons represented to the people as disfavour shown towardsthe English; and thus they daily increased their own power, and dailydiminished the power of the King. 

They were greatly helped by an event that occurred when he had reignedeight years. Eustace, Earl of Bologne, who had married the King'ssister, came to England on a visit. After staying at the court sometime, he set forth, with his numerous train of attendants, to returnhome. They were to embark at Dover. Entering that peaceful town inarmour, they took possession of the best houses, and noisily demanded tobe lodged and entertained without payment. One of the bold men of Dover, who would not endure to have these domineering strangers jingling theirheavy swords and iron corselets up and down his house, eating his meatand drinking his strong liquor, stood in his doorway and refusedadmission to the first armed man who came there. The armed man drew, andwounded him. The man of Dover struck the armed man dead. Intelligenceof what he had done, spreading through the streets to where the CountEustace and his men were standing by their horses, bridle in hand, theypassionately mounted, galloped to the house, surrounded it, forced theirway in (the doors and windows being closed when they came up), and killedthe man of Dover at his own fireside. They then clattered through thestreets, cutting down and riding over men, women, and children. This didnot last long, you may believe. The men of Dover set upon them withgreat fury, killed nineteen of the foreigners, wounded many more, and, blockading the road to the port so that they should not embark, beat themout of the town by the way they had come. Hereupon, Count Eustace ridesas hard as man can ride to Gloucester, where Edward is, surrounded byNorman monks and Norman lords. 'Justice!' cries the Count, 'upon the menof Dover, who have set upon and slain my people!' The King sendsimmediately for the powerful Earl Godwin, who happens to be near; remindshim that Dover is under his government; and orders him to repair to Doverand do military execution on the inhabitants. 'It does not become you, 'says the proud Earl in reply, 'to condemn without a hearing those whomyou have sworn to protect. I will not do it. '

The King, therefore, summoned the Earl, on pain of banishment and loss ofhis titles and property, to appear before the court to answer thisdisobedience. The Earl refused to appear. He, his eldest son Harold, and his second son Sweyn, hastily raised as many fighting men as theirutmost power could collect, and demanded to have Count Eustace and hisfollowers surrendered to the justice of the country. The King, in histurn, refused to give them up, and raised a strong force. After sometreaty and delay, the troops of the great Earl and his sons began to falloff. The Earl, with a part of his family and abundance of treasure, sailed to Flanders; Harold escaped to Ireland; and the power of the greatfamily was for that time gone in England. But, the people did not forgetthem. 

Then, Edward the Confessor, with the true meanness of a mean spirit, visited his dislike of the once powerful father and sons upon thehelpless daughter and sister, his unoffending wife, whom all who saw her(her husband and his monks excepted) loved. He seized rapaciously uponher fortune and her jewels, and allowing her only one attendant, confinedher in a gloomy convent, of which a sister of his--no doubt an unpleasantlady after his own heart--was abbess or jailer. 

Having got Earl Godwin and his six sons well out of his way, the Kingfavoured the Normans more than ever. He invited over WILLIAM, DUKE OFNORMANDY, the son of that Duke who had received him and his murderedbrother long ago, and of a peasant girl, a tanner's daughter, with whomthat Duke had fallen in love for her beauty as he saw her washing clothesin a brook. William, who was a great warrior, with a passion for finehorses, dogs, and arms, accepted the invitation; and the Normans inEngland, finding themselves more numerous than ever when he arrived withhis retinue, and held in still greater honour at court than before, became more and more haughty towards the people, and were more and moredisliked 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 keptspies and agents in his pay all over England. 

Accordingly, he thought the time was come for fitting out a greatexpedition against the Norman-loving King. With it, he sailed to theIsle of Wight, where he was joined by his son Harold, the most gallantand brave of all his family. And so the father and son came sailing upthe Thames to Southwark; great numbers of the people declaring for them, and shouting for the English Earl and the English Harold, against theNorman favourites!

The King was at first as blind and stubborn as kings usually have beenwhensoever they have been in the hands of monks. But the people ralliedso thickly round the old Earl and his son, and the old Earl was so steadyin demanding without bloodshed the restoration of himself and his familyto their rights, that at last the court took the alarm. The NormanArchbishop of Canterbury, and the Norman Bishop of London, surrounded bytheir retainers, fought their way out of London, and escaped from Essexto France in a fishing-boat. The other Norman favourites dispersed inall directions. The old Earl and his sons (except Sweyn, who hadcommitted crimes against the law) were restored to their possessions anddignities. Editha, the virtuous and lovely Queen of the insensible King, was triumphantly released from her prison, the convent, and once more satin her chair of state, arrayed in the jewels of which, when she had nochampion to support her rights, her cold-blooded husband had deprivedher. 

The old Earl Godwin did not long enjoy his restored fortune. He felldown in a fit at the King's table, and died upon the third dayafterwards. Harold succeeded to his power, and to a far higher place inthe attachment of the people than his father had ever held. By hisvalour he subdued the King's enemies in many bloody fights. He wasvigorous against rebels in Scotland--this was the time when Macbeth slewDuncan, upon which event our English Shakespeare, hundreds of yearsafterwards, wrote his great tragedy; and he killed the restless WelshKing GRIFFITH, and brought his head to England. 

What Harold was doing at sea, when he was driven on the French coast by atempest, is not at all certain; nor does it at all matter. That his shipwas forced by a storm on that shore, and that he was taken prisoner, there is no doubt. In those barbarous days, all shipwrecked strangerswere taken prisoners, and obliged to pay ransom. So, a certain CountGuy, who was the Lord of Ponthieu where Harold's disaster happened, seized him, instead of relieving him like a hospitable and Christian lordas he ought to have done, and expected to make a very good thing of it. 

But Harold sent off immediately to Duke William of Normandy, complainingof this treatment; and the Duke no sooner heard of it than he orderedHarold to be escorted to the ancient town of Rouen, where he then was, and where he received him as an honoured guest. Now, some writers tellus that Edward the Confessor, who was by this time old and had nochildren, had made a will, appointing Duke William of Normandy hissuccessor, and had informed the Duke of his having done so. There is nodoubt that he was anxious about his successor; because he had eveninvited over, from abroad, EDWARD THE OUTLAW, a son of Ironside, who hadcome to England with his wife and three children, but whom the King hadstrangely refused to see when he did come, and who had died in Londonsuddenly (princes were terribly liable to sudden death in those days), and had been buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. The King might possiblyhave made such a will; or, having always been fond of the Normans, hemight have encouraged Norman William to aspire to the English crown, bysomething that he said to him when he was staying at the English court. But, certainly William did now aspire to it; and knowing that Haroldwould be a powerful rival, he called together a great assembly of hisnobles, offered Harold his daughter ADELE in marriage, informed him thathe meant on King Edward's death to claim the English crown as his owninheritance, and required Harold then and there to swear to aid him. Harold, being in the Duke's power, took this oath upon the Missal, orPrayer-book. It is a good example of the superstitions of the monks, that this Missal, instead of being placed upon a table, was placed upon atub; which, when Harold had sworn, was uncovered, and shown to be full ofdead men's bones--bones, as the monks pretended, of saints. This wassupposed 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 mademore solemn by a knuckle-bone, or a double-tooth, or a finger-nail, ofDunstan!

Within a week or two after Harold's return to England, the dreary oldConfessor was found to be dying. After wandering in his mind like a veryweak old man, he died. As he had put himself entirely in the hands ofthe 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 workmiracles; and had brought people afflicted with a bad disorder of theskin, to him, to be touched and cured. This was called 'touching for theKing's Evil, ' which afterwards became a royal custom. You know, however, Who really touched the sick, and healed them; and you know His sacredname is not among the dusty line of human kings. 

CHAPTER VII--ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD THE SECOND, AND CONQUERED BY THENORMANS

Harold was crowned King of England on the very day of the maudlinConfessor's funeral. He had good need to be quick about it. When thenews reached Norman William, hunting in his park at Rouen, he dropped hisbow, returned to his palace, called his nobles to council, and presentlysent ambassadors to Harold, calling on him to keep his oath and resignthe Crown. Harold would do no such thing. The barons of France leaguedtogether round Duke William for the invasion of England. Duke Williampromised freely to distribute English wealth and English lands amongthem. The Pope sent to Normandy a consecrated banner, and a ringcontaining a hair which he warranted to have grown on the head of SaintPeter. He blessed the enterprise; and cursed Harold; and requested thatthe Normans would pay 'Peter's Pence'--or a tax to himself of a penny ayear on every house--a little more regularly in future, if they couldmake it convenient. 

King Harold had a rebel brother in Flanders, who was a vassal of HAROLDHARDRADA, King of Norway. This brother, and this Norwegian King, joiningtheir forces against England, with Duke William's help, won a fight inwhich the English were commanded by two nobles; and then besieged York. Harold, who was waiting for the Normans on the coast at Hastings, withhis army, marched to Stamford Bridge upon the river Derwent to give theminstant battle. 

He found them drawn up in a hollow circle, marked out by their shiningspears. Riding round this circle at a distance, to survey it, he saw abrave figure on horseback, in a blue mantle and a bright helmet, whosehorse 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, ifhe withdraw his troops, he shall be Earl of Northumberland, and rich andpowerful 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. 

'No more?' returned the brother, with a smile. 

'The King of Norway being a tall man, perhaps a little more, ' replied thecaptain. 

'Ride back!' said the brother, 'and tell King Harold to make ready forthe fight!'

He did so, very soon. And such a fight King Harold led against thatforce, that his brother, and the Norwegian King, and every chief of notein all their host, except the Norwegian King's son, Olave, to whom hegave honourable dismissal, were left dead upon the field. The victoriousarmy marched to York. As King Harold sat there at the feast, in themidst of all his company, a stir was heard at the doors; and messengersall covered with mire from riding far and fast through broken ground camehurrying 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, towhich they had been driven back, was strewn with Norman bodies. But theyhad once more made sail, led by the Duke's own galley, a present from hiswife, upon the prow whereof the figure of a golden boy stood pointingtowards England. By day, the banner of the three Lions of Normandy, thediverse coloured sails, the gilded vans, the many decorations of thisgorgeous ship, had glittered in the sun and sunny water; by night, alight had sparkled like a star at her mast-head. And now, encamped nearHastings, with their leader lying in the old Roman castle of Pevensey, the English retiring in all directions, the land for miles aroundscorched 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 armywas ready. He sent out spies to ascertain the Norman strength. Williamtook them, caused them to be led through his whole camp, and thendismissed. 'The Normans, ' said these spies to Harold, 'are not beardedon the upper lip as we English are, but are shorn. They are priests. ''My men, ' replied Harold, with a laugh, 'will find those priests goodsoldiers!'

'The Saxons, ' reported Duke William's outposts of Norman soldiers, whowere instructed to retire as King Harold's army advanced, 'rush on usthrough 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 thearmies lay encamped before each other, in a part of the country thencalled Senlac, now called (in remembrance of them) Battle. With thefirst dawn of day, they arose. There, in the faint light, were theEnglish on a hill; a wood behind them; in their midst, the Royal banner, representing a fighting warrior, woven in gold thread, adorned withprecious stones; beneath the banner, as it rustled in the wind, stoodKing Harold on foot, with two of his remaining brothers by his side;around them, still and silent as the dead, clustered the whole Englisharmy--every soldier covered by his shield, and bearing in his hand hisdreaded English battle-axe. 

On an opposite hill, in three lines, archers, foot-soldiers, horsemen, 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 thehill to attack the English. 

There was one tall Norman Knight who rode before the Norman army on aprancing horse, throwing up his heavy sword and catching it, and singingof the bravery of his countrymen. An English Knight, who rode out fromthe English force to meet him, fell by this Knight's hand. AnotherEnglish Knight rode out, and he fell too. But then a third rode out, andkilled the Norman. This was in the first beginning of the fight. Itsoon raged everywhere. 

The English, keeping side by side in a great mass, cared no more for theshowers of Norman arrows than if they had been showers of Norman rain. When the Norman horsemen rode against them, with their battle-axes theycut men and horses down. The Normans gave way. The English pressedforward. A cry went forth among the Norman troops that Duke William waskilled. Duke William took off his helmet, in order that his face mightbe distinctly seen, and rode along the line before his men. This gavethem courage. As they turned again to face the English, some of theirNorman horse divided the pursuing body of the English from the rest, andthus all that foremost portion of the English army fell, fightingbravely. The main body still remaining firm, heedless of the Normanarrows, and with their battle-axes cutting down the crowds of horsemenwhen they rode up, like forests of young trees, Duke William pretended toretreat. The eager English followed. The Norman army closed again, andfell upon them with great slaughter. 

'Still, ' said Duke William, 'there are thousands of the English, firms asrocks around their King. Shoot upward, Norman archers, that your arrowsmay fall down upon their faces!'

The sun rose high, and sank, and the battle still raged. Through all thewild October day, the clash and din resounded in the air. In the redsunset, and in the white moonlight, heaps upon heaps of dead men laystrewn, a dreadful spectacle, all over the ground. 

King Harold, wounded with an arrow in the eye, was nearly blind. Hisbrothers were already killed. Twenty Norman Knights, whose batteredarmour had flashed fiery and golden in the sunshine all day long, and nowlooked silvery in the moonlight, dashed forward to seize the Royal bannerfrom the English Knights and soldiers, still faithfully collected roundtheir blinded King. The King received a mortal wound, and dropped. TheEnglish broke and fled. The Normans rallied, and the day was lost. 

O what a sight beneath the moon and stars, when lights were shining inthe tent of the victorious Duke William, which was pitched near the spotwhere Harold fell--and he and his knights were carousing, within--andsoldiers with torches, going slowly to and fro, without, sought for thecorpse of Harold among piles of dead--and the Warrior, worked in goldenthread and precious stones, lay low, all torn and soiled with blood--andthe three Norman Lions kept watch over the field!

CHAPTER VIII--ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE FIRST, THE NORMAN CONQUEROR

Upon the ground where the brave Harold fell, William the Normanafterwards founded an abbey, which, under the name of Battle Abbey, was arich and splendid place through many a troubled year, though now it is agrey ruin overgrown with ivy. But the first work he had to do, was toconquer the English thoroughly; and that, as you know by this time, washard work for any man. 

He ravaged several counties; he burned and plundered many towns; he laidwaste scores upon scores of miles of pleasant country; he destroyedinnumerable lives. At length STIGAND, Archbishop of Canterbury, withother representatives of the clergy and the people, went to his camp, andsubmitted to him. EDGAR, the insignificant son of Edmund Ironside, wasproclaimed King by others, but nothing came of it. He fled to Scotlandafterwards, where his sister, who was young and beautiful, married theScottish King. Edgar himself was not important enough for anybody tocare much about him. 

On Christmas Day, William was crowned in Westminster Abbey, under thetitle of WILLIAM THE FIRST; but he is best known as WILLIAM THECONQUEROR. It was a strange coronation. One of the bishops whoperformed the ceremony asked the Normans, in French, if they would haveDuke William for their king? They answered Yes. Another of the bishopsput the same question to the Saxons, in English. They too answered Yes, with a loud shout. The noise being heard by a guard of Normanhorse-soldiers outside, was mistaken for resistance on the part of theEnglish. The guard instantly set fire to the neighbouring houses, and atumult ensued; in the midst of which the King, being left alone in theAbbey, with a few priests (and they all being in a terrible frighttogether), was hurriedly crowned. When the crown was placed upon hishead, he swore to govern the English as well as the best of their ownmonarchs. I dare say you think, as I do, that if we except the GreatAlfred, he might pretty easily have done that. 

Numbers of the English nobles had been killed in the last disastrousbattle. Their estates, and the estates of all the nobles who had foughtagainst him there, King William seized upon, and gave to his own Normanknights and nobles. Many great English families of the present timeacquired 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 wereobliged to build castles all over England, to defend their new property;and, do what he would, the King could neither soothe nor quell the nationas he wished. He gradually introduced the Norman language and the Normancustoms; yet, for a long time the great body of the English remainedsullen and revengeful. On his going over to Normandy, to visit hissubjects there, the oppressions of his half-brother ODO, whom he left incharge of his English kingdom, drove the people mad. The men of Kenteven invited over, to take possession of Dover, their old enemy CountEustace of Boulogne, who had led the fray when the Dover man was slain athis own fireside. The men of Hereford, aided by the Welsh, and commandedby a chief named EDRIC THE WILD, drove the Normans out of their country. Some of those who had been dispossessed of their lands, banded togetherin the North of England; some, in Scotland; some, in the thick woods andmarshes; and whensoever they could fall upon the Normans, or upon theEnglish who had submitted to the Normans, they fought, despoiled, andmurdered, like the desperate outlaws that they were. Conspiracies wereset on foot for a general massacre of the Normans, like the old massacreof the Danes. In short, the English were in a murderous mood all throughthe kingdom. 

King William, fearing he might lose his conquest, came back, and tried topacify the London people by soft words. He then set forth to repress thecountry people by stern deeds. Among the towns which he besieged, andwhere he killed and maimed the inhabitants without any distinction, sparing none, young or old, armed or unarmed, were Oxford, Warwick, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln, York. In all these places, and inmany others, fire and sword worked their utmost horrors, and made theland dreadful to behold. The streams and rivers were discoloured withblood; the sky was blackened with smoke; the fields were wastes of ashes;the waysides were heaped up with dead. Such are the fatal results ofconquest and ambition! Although William was a harsh and angry man, I donot suppose that he deliberately meant to work this shocking ruin, whenhe invaded England. But what he had got by the strong hand, he couldonly keep by the strong hand, and in so doing he made England a greatgrave. 

Two sons of Harold, by name EDMUND and GODWIN, came over from Ireland, with some ships, against the Normans, but were defeated. This wasscarcely done, when the outlaws in the woods so harassed York, that theGovernor sent to the King for help. The King despatched a general and alarge force to occupy the town of Durham. The Bishop of that place metthe general outside the town, and warned him not to enter, as he would bein danger there. The general cared nothing for the warning, and went inwith 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 thetown, and slew the Normans every one. The English afterwards besoughtthe Danes to come and help them. The Danes came, with two hundred andforty ships. The outlawed nobles joined them; they captured York, anddrove the Normans out of that city. Then, William bribed the Danes to goaway; and took such vengeance on the English, that all the former fireand sword, smoke and ashes, death and ruin, were nothing compared withit. In melancholy songs, and doleful stories, it was still sung and toldby cottage fires on winter evenings, a hundred years afterwards, how, inthose dreadful days of the Normans, there was not, from the River Humberto the River Tyne, one inhabited village left, nor one cultivatedfield--how there was nothing but a dismal ruin, where the human creaturesand the beasts lay dead together. 

The outlaws had, at this time, what they called a Camp of Refuge, in themidst of the fens of Cambridgeshire. Protected by those marshy groundswhich were difficult 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 Englishmannamed HEREWARD, whose father had died in his absence, and whose propertyhad been given to a Norman. When he heard of this wrong that had beendone him (from such of the exiled English as chanced to wander into thatcountry), he longed for revenge; and joining the outlaws in their camp ofrefuge, became their commander. He was so good a soldier, that theNormans supposed him to be aided by enchantment. William, even after hehad made a road three miles in length across the Cambridgeshire marshes, on purpose to attack this supposed enchanter, thought it necessary toengage an old lady, who pretended to be a sorceress, to come and do alittle enchantment in the royal cause. For this purpose she was pushedon before the troops in a wooden tower; but Hereward very soon disposedof this unfortunate sorceress, by burning her, tower and all. The monksof the convent of Ely near at hand, however, who were fond of goodliving, and who found it very uncomfortable to have the country blockadedand their supplies of meat and drink cut off, showed the King a secretway of surprising the camp. So Hereward was soon defeated. Whether heafterwards died quietly, or whether he was killed after killing sixteenof the men who attacked him (as some old rhymes relate that he did), Icannot say. His defeat put an end to the Camp of Refuge; and, very soonafterwards, the King, victorious both in Scotland and in England, quelledthe last rebellious English noble. He then surrounded himself withNorman lords, enriched by the property of English nobles; had a greatsurvey made of all the land in England, which was entered as the propertyof its new owners, on a roll called Doomsday Book; obliged the people toput out their fires and candles at a certain hour every night, on theringing of a bell which was called The Curfew; introduced the Normandresses and manners; made the Normans masters everywhere, and theEnglish, servants; turned out the English bishops, and put Normans intheir places; and showed himself to be the Conqueror indeed. 

But, even with his own Normans, he had a restless life. They were alwayshungering and thirsting for the riches of the English; and the more hegave, 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 hehad come with him to England to do his duty as a faithful servant, andthat property taken by force from other men had no charms for him. Hisname was GUILBERT. We should not forget his name, for it is good toremember and to honour honest men. 

Besides all these troubles, William the Conqueror was troubled byquarrels among his sons. He had three living. ROBERT, called CURTHOSE, because of his short legs; WILLIAM, called RUFUS or the Red, from thecolour of his hair; and HENRY, fond of learning, and called, in theNorman language, BEAUCLERC, or Fine-Scholar. When Robert grew up, heasked of his father the government of Normandy, which he had nominallypossessed, as a child, under his mother, MATILDA. The King refusing togrant it, Robert became jealous and discontented; and happening one day, while in this temper, to be ridiculed by his brothers, who threw water onhim from a balcony as he was walking before the door, he drew his sword, rushed up-stairs, and was only prevented by the King himself from puttingthem to death. That same night, he hotly departed with some followersfrom his father's court, and endeavoured to take the Castle of Rouen bysurprise. Failing in this, he shut himself up in another Castle inNormandy, which the King besieged, and where Robert one day unhorsed andnearly killed him without knowing who he was. His submission when hediscovered his father, and the intercession of the queen and others, reconciled them; but not soundly; for Robert soon strayed abroad, andwent from court to court with his complaints. He was a gay, careless, thoughtless fellow, spending all he got on musicians and dancers; but hismother loved him, and often, against the King's command, supplied himwith money through a messenger named SAMSON. At length the incensed Kingswore he would tear out Samson's eyes; and Samson, thinking that his onlyhope of safety was in becoming a monk, became one, went on such errandsno more, and kept his eyes in his head. 

All this time, from the turbulent day of his strange coronation, theConqueror had been struggling, you see, at any cost of cruelty andbloodshed, to maintain what he had seized. All his reign, he struggledstill, 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 leisureto indulge one other passion, and that was his love of hunting. Hecarried it to such a height that he ordered whole villages and towns tobe swept away to make forests for the deer. Not satisfied with sixty-eight Royal Forests, he laid waste an immense district, to form anotherin Hampshire, called the New Forest. The many thousands of miserablepeasants who saw their little houses pulled down, and themselves andchildren turned into the open country without a shelter, detested him forhis 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 toRouen, England was as full of hatred against him, as if every leaf onevery tree in all his Royal Forests had been a curse upon his head. Inthe New Forest, his son Richard (for he had four sons) had been gored todeath by a Stag; and the people said that this so cruelly-made Forestwould yet be fatal to others of the Conqueror's race. 

He was engaged in a dispute with the King of France about some territory. While he stayed at Rouen, negotiating with that King, he kept his bed andtook medicines: being advised by his physicians to do so, on account ofhaving grown to an unwieldy size. Word being brought to him that theKing of France made light of this, and joked about it, he swore in agreat rage that he should rue his jests. He assembled his army, marchedinto the 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 uponsome burning embers, started, threw him forward against the pommel of thesaddle, and gave him a mortal hurt. For six weeks he lay dying in amonastery near Rouen, and then made his will, giving England to William, Normandy to Robert, and five thousand pounds to Henry. And now, hisviolent deeds lay heavy on his mind. He ordered money to be given tomany English churches and monasteries, and--which was much betterrepentance--released his prisoners of state, some of whom had beenconfined in his dungeons twenty years. 

It was a September morning, and the sun was rising, when the King wasawakened from slumber by the sound of a church bell. 'What bell isthat?' he faintly asked. They told him it was the bell of the chapel ofSaint 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 knowingwhat contest for the throne might now take place, or what might happen init, hastened away, each man for himself and his own property; themercenary servants of the court began to rob and plunder; the body of theKing, in the indecent strife, was rolled from the bed, and lay alone, forhours, upon the ground. O Conqueror, of whom so many great names areproud now, of whom so many great names thought nothing then, it werebetter to have conquered one true heart, than England!

By-and-by, the priests came creeping in with prayers and candles; and agood knight, named HERLUIN, undertook (which no one else would do) toconvey the body to Caen, in Normandy, in order that it might be buried inSt. Stephen's church there, which the Conqueror had founded. But fire, of which he had made such bad use in his life, seemed to follow him ofitself in death. A great conflagration broke out in the town when thebody was placed in the church; and those present running out toextinguish the flames, it was once again left alone. 

It was not even buried in peace. It was about to be let down, in itsRoyal robes, into a tomb near the high altar, in presence of a greatconcourse of people, when a loud voice in the crowd cried out, 'Thisground is mine! Upon it, stood my father's house. This King despoiledme of both ground and house to build this church. In the great name ofGOD, I here forbid his body to be covered with the earth that is myright!' The priests and bishops present, knowing the speaker's right, and knowing that the King had often denied him justice, paid him downsixty shillings for the grave. Even then, the corpse was not at rest. The tomb was too small, and they tried to force it in. It broke, adreadful smell arose, the people hurried out into the air, and, for thethird time, it was left alone. 

Where were the Conqueror's three sons, that they were not at theirfather's burial? Robert was lounging among minstrels, dancers, andgamesters, in France or Germany. Henry was carrying his five thousandpounds safely away in a convenient chest he had got made. William theRed was hurrying to England, to lay hands upon the Royal treasure and thecrown. 

CHAPTER IX--ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE SECOND, CALLED RUFUS

William the Red, in breathless haste, secured the three great forts ofDover, Pevensey, and Hastings, and made with hot speed for Winchester, where the Royal treasure was kept. The treasurer delivering him thekeys, he found that it amounted to sixty thousand pounds in silver, besides gold and jewels. Possessed of this wealth, he soon persuaded theArchbishop 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 theunhappy state captives whom his father had set free, and directed agoldsmith to ornament his father's tomb profusely with gold and silver. It would have been more dutiful in him to have attended the sickConqueror when he was dying; but England itself, like this Red King, whoonce governed it, has sometimes made expensive tombs for dead men whom ittreated shabbily when they were alive. 

The King's brother, Robert of Normandy, seeming quite content to be onlyDuke of that country; and the King's other brother, Fine-Scholar, beingquiet enough with his five thousand pounds in a chest; the King flatteredhimself, we may suppose, with the hope of an easy reign. But easy reignswere difficult to have in those days. The turbulent Bishop ODO (who hadblessed 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 concertwith some powerful Norman nobles, to trouble the Red King. 

The truth seems to be that this bishop and his friends, who had lands inEngland and lands in Normandy, wished to hold both under one Sovereign;and greatly preferred a thoughtless good-natured person, such as Robertwas, to Rufus; who, though far from being an amiable man in any respect, was keen, and not to be imposed upon. They declared in Robert's favour, and retired to their castles (those castles were very troublesome tokings) in a sullen humour. The Red King, seeing the Normans thus fallingfrom him, revenged himself upon them by appealing to the English; to whomhe made a variety of promises, which he never meant to perform--inparticular, promises to soften the cruelty of the Forest Laws; and who, in return, so aided him with their valour, that ODO was besieged in theCastle of Rochester, and forced to abandon it, and to depart from Englandfor ever: whereupon the other rebellious Norman nobles were soon reducedand scattered. 

Then, the Red King went over to Normandy, where the people sufferedgreatly under the loose rule of Duke Robert. The King's object was toseize upon the Duke's dominions. This, the Duke, of course, prepared toresist; 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 brothersagreed to give up something of his claims, and that the longer-liver ofthe two should inherit all the dominions of the other. When they hadcome to this loving understanding, they embraced and joined their forcesagainst Fine-Scholar; who had bought some territory of Robert with a partof his five thousand pounds, and was considered a dangerous individual inconsequence. 

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 placeperched 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 closelybesieged by his two brothers. At one time, when he was reduced to greatdistress for want of water, the generous Robert not only permitted hismen to get water, but sent Fine-Scholar wine from his own table; and, onbeing remonstrated with by the Red King, said 'What! shall we let our ownbrother die of thirst? Where shall we get another, when he is gone?' Atanother time, the Red King riding alone on the shore of the bay, lookingup at the Castle, was taken by two of Fine-Scholar's men, one of whom wasabout to kill him, when he cried out, 'Hold, knave! I am the King ofEngland!' The story says that the soldier raised him from the groundrespectfully and humbly, and that the King took him into his service. Thestory may or may not be true; but at any rate it is true thatFine-Scholar could not hold out against his united brothers, and that heabandoned Mount St. Michael, and wandered about--as poor and forlorn asother scholars have been sometimes known to be. 

The Scotch became unquiet in the Red King's time, and were twicedefeated--the second time, with the loss of their King, Malcolm, and hisson. The Welsh became unquiet too. Against them, Rufus was lesssuccessful; for they fought among their native mountains, and did greatexecution on the King's troops. Robert of Normandy became unquiet too;and, complaining that his brother the King did not faithfully perform hispart of their agreement, took up arms, and obtained assistance from theKing of France, whom Rufus, in the end, bought off with vast sums ofmoney. England became unquiet too. Lord Mowbray, the powerful Earl ofNorthumberland, headed a great conspiracy to depose the King, and toplace upon the throne, STEPHEN, the Conqueror's near relative. The plotwas discovered; all the chief conspirators were seized; some were fined, some were put in prison, some were put to death. The Earl ofNorthumberland himself was shut up in a dungeon beneath Windsor Castle, where he died, an old man, thirty long years afterwards. The Priests inEngland were more unquiet than any other class or power; for the Red Kingtreated them with such small ceremony that he refused to appoint newbishops or archbishops when the old ones died, but kept all the wealthbelonging to those offices in his own hands. In return for this, thePriests wrote his life when he was dead, and abused him well. I aminclined to think, myself, that there was little to choose between thePriests and the Red King; that both sides were greedy and designing; andthat they were fairly matched. 

The Red King was false of heart, selfish, covetous, and mean. He had aworthy minister in his favourite, Ralph, nicknamed--for almost everyfamous person had a nickname in those rough days--Flambard, or theFirebrand. Once, the King being ill, became penitent, and made ANSELM, aforeign priest and a good man, Archbishop of Canterbury. But he nosooner got well again than he repented of his repentance, and persistedin wrongfully keeping to himself some of the wealth belonging to thearchbishopric. This led to violent disputes, which were aggravated bythere being in Rome at that time two rival Popes; each of whom declaredhe was the only real original infallible Pope, who couldn't make amistake. At last, Anselm, knowing the Red King's character, and notfeeling himself safe in England, asked leave to return abroad. The RedKing gladly gave it; for he knew that as soon as Anselm was gone, hecould 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 everypossible way, the Red King became very rich. When he wanted money forany purpose, he raised it by some means or other, and cared nothing forthe injustice he did, or the misery he caused. Having the opportunity ofbuying from Robert the whole duchy of Normandy for five years, he taxedthe English people more than ever, and made the very convents sell theirplate 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 raisingmoney; for, a part of the Norman people objecting--very naturally, Ithink--to being sold in this way, he headed an army against them with allthe speed and energy of his father. He was so impatient, that heembarked for Normandy in a great gale of wind. And when the sailors toldhim 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 hisdominions. It happened thus. It had long been the custom for manyEnglish people to make journeys to Jerusalem, which were calledpilgrimages, in order that they might pray beside the tomb of Our Saviourthere. Jerusalem belonging to the Turks, and the Turks hatingChristianity, these Christian travellers were often insulted and illused. The Pilgrims bore it patiently for some time, but at length aremarkable man, of great earnestness and eloquence, called PETER THEHERMIT, began to preach in various places against the Turks, and todeclare that it was the duty of good Christians to drive away thoseunbelievers from the tomb of Our Saviour, and to take possession of it, and protect it. An excitement such as the world had never known beforewas created. Thousands and thousands of men of all ranks and conditionsdeparted for Jerusalem to make war against the Turks. The war is calledin history the first Crusade, and every Crusader wore a cross marked onhis right shoulder. 

All the Crusaders were not zealous Christians. Among them were vastnumbers of the restless, idle, profligate, and adventurous spirit of thetime. Some became Crusaders for the love of change; some, in the hope ofplunder; some, because they had nothing to do at home; some, because theydid what the priests told them; some, because they liked to see foreigncountries; some, because they were fond of knocking men about, and wouldas soon knock a Turk about as a Christian. Robert of Normandy may havebeen influenced by all these motives; and by a kind desire, besides, tosave the Christian Pilgrims from bad treatment in future. He wanted toraise a number of armed men, and to go to the Crusade. He could not doso without money. He had no money; and he sold his dominions to hisbrother, the Red King, for five years. With the large sum he thusobtained, he fitted out his Crusaders gallantly, and went away toJerusalem in martial state. The Red King, who made money out ofeverything, stayed at home, busily squeezing more money out of Normansand English. 

After three years of great hardship and suffering--from shipwreck at sea;from travel in strange lands; from hunger, thirst, and fever, upon theburning sands of the desert; and from the fury of the Turks--the valiantCrusaders got possession of Our Saviour's tomb. The Turks were stillresisting and fighting bravely, but this success increased the generaldesire in Europe to join the Crusade. Another great French Duke wasproposing to sell his dominions for a term to the rich Red King, when theRed King's reign came to a sudden and violent end. 

You have not forgotten the New Forest which the Conqueror made, and whichthe miserable people whose homes he had laid waste, so hated. Thecruelty of the Forest Laws, and the torture and death they brought uponthe peasantry, increased this hatred. The poor persecuted country peoplebelieved that the New Forest was enchanted. They said that in thunder-storms, and on dark nights, demons appeared, moving beneath the branchesof the gloomy trees. They said that a terrible spectre had foretold toNorman hunters that the Red King should be punished there. And now, inthe pleasant season of May, when the Red King had reigned almost thirteenyears; and a second Prince of the Conqueror's blood--another Richard, theson of Duke Robert--was killed by an arrow in this dreaded Forest; thepeople said that the second time was not the last, and that there wasanother death to come. 

It was a lonely forest, accursed in the people's hearts for the wickeddeeds that had been done to make it; and no man save the King and hisCourtiers and Huntsmen, liked to stray there. But, in reality, it waslike any other forest. In the spring, the green leaves broke out of thebuds; in the summer, flourished heartily, and made deep shades; in thewinter, shrivelled and blew down, and lay in brown heaps on the moss. Some trees were stately, and grew high and strong; some had fallen ofthemselves; some were felled by the forester's axe; some were hollow, andthe rabbits burrowed at their roots; some few were struck by lightning, 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, andsolemn places where but little light came through the rustling leaves. The songs of the birds in the New Forest were pleasanter to hear than theshouts of fighting men outside; and even when the Red King and his Courtcame hunting through its solitudes, cursing loud and riding hard, with ajingling of stirrups and bridles and knives and daggers, they did muchless harm there than among the English or Normans, and the stags died (asthey 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 Forest. Fine-Scholarwas of the party. They were a merry party, and had lain all night atMalwood-Keep, a hunting-lodge in the forest, where they had made goodcheer, both at supper and breakfast, and had drunk a deal of wine. Theparty dispersed in various directions, as the custom of hunters then was. The King took with him only SIR WALTER TYRREL, who was a famoussportsman, and to whom he had given, before they mounted horse thatmorning, two fine arrows. 

The last time the King was ever seen alive, he was riding with Sir WalterTyrrel, and their dogs were hunting together. 

It was almost night, when a poor charcoal-burner, passing through theforest with his cart, came upon the solitary body of a dead man, shotwith an arrow in the breast, and still bleeding. He got it into hiscart. It was the body of the King. Shaken and tumbled, with its redbeard all whitened with lime and clotted with blood, it was driven in thecart by the charcoal-burner next day to Winchester Cathedral, where itwas received and buried. 

Sir Walter Tyrrel, who escaped to Normandy, and claimed the protection ofthe King of France, swore in France that the Red King was suddenly shotdead 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 thathe instantly set spurs to his horse, and fled to the sea-shore. Othersdeclared that the King and Sir Walter Tyrrel were hunting in company, alittle before sunset, standing in bushes opposite one another, when astag came between them. That the King drew his bow and took aim, but thestring broke. That the King then cried, 'Shoot, Walter, in the Devil'sname!' That Sir Walter shot. That the arrow glanced against a tree, wasturned aside from the stag, and struck the King from his horse, dead. 

By whose hand the Red King really fell, and whether that hand despatchedthe 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 Kinghad made so many enemies, both among priests and people, that suspicionmay reasonably rest upon a less unnatural murderer. Men know no morethan that he was found dead in the New Forest, which the suffering peoplehad regarded as a doomed ground for his race. 

CHAPTER X--ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIRST, CALLED FINE-SCHOLAR

Fine-scholar, on hearing of the Red King's death, hurried to Winchesterwith as much speed as Rufus himself had made, to seize the Royaltreasure. 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 atabout the same time, refused to yield it up. Upon this, Fine-Scholardrew his sword, and threatened to kill the treasurer; who might have paidfor his fidelity with his life, but that he knew longer resistance to beuseless when he found the Prince supported by a company of powerfulbarons, who declared they were determined to make him King. Thetreasurer, therefore, gave up the money and jewels of the Crown: and onthe third day after the death of the Red King, being a Sunday, Fine-Scholar stood before the high altar in Westminster Abbey, and made asolemn declaration that he would resign the Church property which hisbrother had seized; that he would do no wrong to the nobles; and that hewould restore to the people the laws of Edward the Confessor, with allthe improvements of William the Conqueror. So began the reign of KINGHENRY THE FIRST. 

The people were attached to their new King, both because he had knowndistresses, and because he was an Englishman by birth and not a Norman. To strengthen this last hold upon them, the King wished to marry anEnglish lady; and could think of no other wife than MAUD THE GOOD, thedaughter of the King of Scotland. Although this good Princess did notlove the King, she was so affected by the representations the nobles madeto her of the great charity it would be in her to unite the Norman andSaxon races, and prevent hatred and bloodshed between them for thefuture, that she consented to become his wife. After some disputingamong the priests, who said that as she had been in a convent in heryouth, and had worn the veil of a nun, she could not lawfully bemarried--against which the Princess stated that her aunt, with whom shehad lived in her youth, had indeed sometimes thrown a piece of blackstuff over her, but for no other reason than because the nun's veil wasthe only dress the conquering Normans respected in girl or woman, and notbecause she had taken the vows of a nun, which she never had--she wasdeclared free to marry, and was made King Henry's Queen. A good Queenshe was; beautiful, kind-hearted, and worthy of a better husband than theKing. 

For he was a cunning and unscrupulous man, though firm and clever. Hecared very little for his word, and took any means to gain his ends. Allthis is shown in his treatment of his brother Robert--Robert, who hadsuffered him to be refreshed with water, and who had sent him the winefrom 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 allthe favourites of the late King; who were for the most part basecharacters, much detested by the people. Flambard, or Firebrand, whomthe 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 ajolly companion, and made himself so popular with his guards that theypretended to know nothing about a long rope that was sent into his prisonat the bottom of a deep flagon of wine. The guards took the wine, andFirebrand took the rope; with which, when they were fast asleep, he lethimself down from a window in the night, and so got cleverly aboard shipand away to Normandy. 

Now Robert, when his brother Fine-Scholar came to the throne, was stillabsent in the Holy Land. Henry pretended that Robert had been madeSovereign of that country; and he had been away so long, that theignorant people believed it. But, behold, when Henry had been some timeKing of England, Robert came home to Normandy; having leisurely returnedfrom Jerusalem through Italy, in which beautiful country he had enjoyedhimself very much, and had married a lady as beautiful as itself! InNormandy, he found Firebrand waiting to urge him to assert his claim tothe English crown, and declare war against King Henry. This, after greatloss of time in feasting and dancing with his beautiful Italian wifeamong his Norman friends, he at last did. 

The English in general were on King Henry's side, though many of theNormans were on Robert's. But the English sailors deserted the King, andtook a great part of the English fleet over to Normandy; so that Robertcame to invade this country in no foreign vessels, but in English ships. The virtuous Anselm, however, whom Henry had invited back from abroad, and made Archbishop of Canterbury, was steadfast in the King's cause; andit was so well supported that the two armies, instead of fighting, made apeace. Poor Robert, who trusted anybody and everybody, readily trustedhis brother, the King; and agreed to go home and receive a pension fromEngland, on condition that all his followers were fully pardoned. Thisthe King very faithfully promised, but Robert was no sooner gone than hebegan to punish them. 

Among them was the Earl of Shrewsbury, who, on being summoned by the Kingto answer to five-and-forty accusations, rode away to one of his strongcastles, shut himself up therein, called around him his tenants andvassals, and fought for his liberty, but was defeated and banished. Robert, with all his faults, was so true to his word, that when he firstheard of this nobleman having risen against his brother, he laid wastethe Earl of Shrewsbury's estates in Normandy, to show the King that hewould favour no breach of their treaty. Finding, on better information, afterwards, that the Earl's only crime was having been his friend, hecame over to England, in his old thoughtless, warm-hearted way, tointercede with the King, and remind him of the solemn promise to pardonall his followers. 

This confidence might have put the false King to the blush, but it didnot. Pretending to be very friendly, he so surrounded his brother withspies and traps, that Robert, who was quite in his power, had nothing forit but to renounce his pension and escape while he could. Getting hometo Normandy, and understanding the King better now, he naturally alliedhimself with his old friend the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had still thirtycastles in that country. This was exactly what Henry wanted. Heimmediately declared that Robert had broken the treaty, and next yearinvaded 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 wasbad enough; for his beautiful wife had died, leaving him with an infantson, and his court was again so careless, dissipated, and ill-regulated, that it was said he sometimes lay in bed of a day for want of clothes toput on--his attendants having stolen all his dresses. But he headed hisarmy like a brave prince and a gallant soldier, though he had themisfortune to be taken prisoner by King Henry, with four hundred of hisKnights. Among them was poor harmless Edgar Atheling, who loved Robertwell. Edgar was not important enough to be severe with. The Kingafterwards 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 manyfaults, and yet with virtues that might have made a better and a happierman--what was the end of him? If the King had had the magnanimity to saywith a kind air, 'Brother, tell me, before these noblemen, that from thistime you will be my faithful follower and friend, and never raise yourhand against me or my forces more!' he might have trusted Robert to thedeath. But the King was not a magnanimous man. He sentenced his brotherto be confined for life in one of the Royal Castles. In the beginning ofhis imprisonment, he was allowed to ride out, guarded; but he one daybroke away from his guard and galloped of. He had the evil fortune toride into a swamp, where his horse stuck fast and he was taken. When theKing heard of it he ordered him to be blinded, which was done by puttinga red-hot metal basin on his eyes. 

And so, in darkness and in prison, many years, he thought of all his pastlife, of the time he had wasted, of the treasure he had squandered, ofthe opportunities he had lost, of the youth he had thrown away, of thetalents he had neglected. Sometimes, on fine autumn mornings, he wouldsit and think of the old hunting parties in the free Forest, where he hadbeen the foremost and the gayest. Sometimes, in the still nights, hewould wake, and mourn for the many nights that had stolen past him at thegaming-table; sometimes, 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, hegroped 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 theshouts of welcome greeting him in Italy, and seemed again to walk amongthe sunny vineyards, or on the shore of the blue sea, with his lovelywife. And then, thinking of her grave, and of his fatherless boy, hewould stretch out his solitary arms and weep. 

At length, one day, there lay in prison, dead, with cruel and disfiguringscars upon his eyelids, bandaged from his jailer's sight, but on whichthe eternal Heavens looked down, a worn old man of eighty. He had oncebeen Robert of Normandy. Pity him!

{Duke Robert of Normandy: p52. Jpg}

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, heknew he had good reason to be afraid of his Royal uncle. The King wasnot much accustomed to pity those who were in his power, but his coldheart seemed for the moment to soften towards the boy. He was observedto make a great effort, as if to prevent himself from being cruel, andordered the child to be taken away; whereupon a certain Baron, who hadmarried a daughter of Duke Robert's (by name, Helie of Saint Saen), tookcharge of him, tenderly. The King's gentleness did not last long. Beforetwo years were over, he sent messengers to this lord's Castle to seizethe child and bring him away. The Baron was not there at the time, buthis servants were faithful, and carried the boy off in his sleep and hidhim. When the Baron came home, and was told what the King had done, hetook the child abroad, and, leading him by the hand, went from King toKing and from Court to Court, relating how the child had a claim to thethrone of England, and how his uncle the King, knowing that he had thatclaim, would have murdered him, perhaps, but for his escape. 

The youth and innocence of the pretty little WILLIAM FITZ-ROBERT (forthat was his name) made him many friends at that time. When he became ayoung man, the King of France, uniting with the French Counts of Anjouand Flanders, supported his cause against the King of England, and tookmany of the King's towns and castles in Normandy. But, King Henry, artful and cunning always, bribed 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'sdaughter; and indeed the whole trust of this King's life was in suchbargains, and he believed (as many another King has done since, and asone King did in France a very little time ago) that every man's truth andhonour can be bought at some price. For all this, he was so afraid ofWilliam Fitz-Robert and his friends, that, for a long time, he believedhis life to be in danger; and never lay down to sleep, even in his palacesurrounded by his guards, without having a sword and buckler at hisbedside. 

To strengthen his power, the King with great ceremony betrothed hiseldest daughter MATILDA, then a child only eight years old, to be thewife of Henry the Fifth, the Emperor of Germany. To raise her marriage-portion, he taxed the English people in a most oppressive manner; thentreated them to a great procession, to restore their good humour; andsent Matilda away, in fine state, with the German ambassadors, to beeducated in the country of her future husband. 

And now his Queen, Maud the Good, unhappily died. It was a sad thoughtfor that gentle lady, that the only hope with which she had married a manwhom she had never loved--the hope of reconciling the Norman and Englishraces--had failed. At the very time of her death, Normandy and allFrance was in arms against England; for, so soon as his last danger wasover, King Henry had been false to all the French powers he had promised, bribed, and bought, and they had naturally united against him. Aftersome fighting, however, in which few suffered but the unhappy commonpeople (who always suffered, whatsoever was the matter), he began topromise, bribe, and buy again; and by those means, and by the help of thePope, who exerted himself to save more bloodshed, and by solemnlydeclaring, 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 overto Normandy with his son Prince William and a great retinue, to have thePrince acknowledged as his successor by the Norman Nobles, and tocontract the promised marriage (this was one of the many promises theKing had broken) between him and the daughter of the Count of Anjou. Boththese things were triumphantly done, with great show and rejoicing; andon the twenty-fifth of November, in the year one thousand one hundred andtwenty, the whole retinue prepared to embark at the Port of Barfleur, forthe voyage home. 

On that day, and at that place, there came to the King, Fitz-Stephen, asea-captain, and said:

'My liege, my father served your father all his life, upon the sea. Hesteered the ship with the golden boy upon the prow, in which your fathersailed to conquer England. I beseech you to grant me the same office. Ihave a fair vessel in the harbour here, called The White Ship, manned byfifty sailors of renown. I pray you, Sire, to let your servant have thehonour of steering you in The White Ship to England!'

'I am sorry, friend, ' replied the King, 'that my vessel is alreadychosen, and that I cannot (therefore) sail with the son of the man whoserved my father. But the Prince and all his company shall go along withyou, 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 andgentle wind, arrived upon the coast of England in the morning. While itwas yet night, the people in some of those ships heard a faint wild crycome over the sea, and wondered what it was. 

Now, the Prince was a dissolute, debauched young man of eighteen, whobore no love to the English, and had declared that when he came to thethrone he would yoke them to the plough like oxen. He went aboard TheWhite Ship, with one hundred and forty youthful Nobles like himself, among whom were eighteen noble ladies of the highest rank. All this gaycompany, with their servants and the fifty sailors, made three hundredsouls aboard the fair White Ship. 

'Give three casks of wine, Fitz-Stephen, ' said the Prince, 'to the fiftysailors 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 therest?'

'Prince!' said Fitz-Stephen, 'before morning, my fifty and The White Shipshall 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 thethree casks of wine; and the Prince and all the noble company danced inthe moonlight on the deck of The White Ship. 

When, at last, she shot out of the harbour of Barfleur, there was not asober seaman on board. But the sails were all set, and the oars allgoing merrily. Fitz-Stephen had the helm. The gay young nobles and thebeautiful ladies, wrapped in mantles of various bright colours to protectthem from the cold, talked, laughed, and sang. The Prince encouraged thefifty sailors to row harder yet, for the honour of The White Ship. 

Crash! A terrific cry broke from three hundred hearts. It was the crythe 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. 'Pushoff, ' he whispered; 'and row to land. It is not far, and the sea issmooth. The rest of us must die. '

But, as they rowed away, fast, from the sinking ship, the Prince heardthe 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 anagony, '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 sameinstant The White 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 theother who he was? He said, 'I am a nobleman, GODFREY by name, the son ofGILBERT DE L'AIGLE. And you?' said he. 'I am BEROLD, a poor butcher ofRouen, ' was the answer. Then, they said together, 'Lord be merciful tous both!' and tried to encourage one another, as they drifted in the coldbenumbing sea on that unfortunate November night. 

By-and-by, another man came swimming towards them, whom they knew, whenhe pushed aside his long wet hair, to be Fitz-Stephen. 'Where is thePrince?' 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 wethree, 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 youngnoble said faintly, 'I am exhausted, and chilled with the cold, and canhold no longer. Farewell, good friend! God preserve you!' So, hedropped and sunk; and of all the brilliant crowd, the poor Butcher ofRouen alone was saved. In the morning, some fishermen saw him floatingin his sheep-skin coat, and got him into their boat--the sole relater ofthe dismal tale. 

For three days, no one dared to carry the intelligence to the King. Atlength, 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 allon board. The King fell to the ground like a dead man, and never, neverafterwards, was seen to smile. 

But he plotted again, and promised again, and bribed and bought again, inhis 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 Englishpeople), he took a second wife--ADELAIS or ALICE, a duke's daughter, andthe Pope's niece. Having no more children, however, he proposed to theBarons to swear that they would recognise as his successor, his daughterMatilda, whom, as she was now a widow, he married to the eldest son ofthe Count of Anjou, GEOFFREY, surnamed PLANTAGENET, from a custom he hadof wearing a sprig of flowering broom (called Genet in French) in his capfor 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 tookthe oath about the succession of Matilda (and her children after her), twice over, without in the least intending to keep it. The King was nowrelieved from any remaining fears of William Fitz-Robert, by his death inthe 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 thoughtthe succession to the throne secure. 

He spent most of the latter part of his life, which was troubled byfamily quarrels, in Normandy, to be near Matilda. When he had reignedupward of thirty-five years, and was sixty-seven years old, he died of anindigestion and fever, brought on by eating, when he was far from well, of a fish called Lamprey, against which he had often been cautioned byhis physicians. His remains were brought over to Reading Abbey to beburied. 

You may perhaps hear the cunning and promise-breaking of King Henry theFirst, called 'policy' by some people, and 'diplomacy' by others. Neitherof these fine words will in the least mean that it was true; and nothingthat is not true can possibly be good. 

His greatest merit, that I know of, was his love of learning--I shouldhave given him greater credit even for that, if it had been strong enoughto 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 fromhis head, because he had laughed at him in his verses; and the poet, inthe pain of that torture, dashed out his own brains against his prisonwall. 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. 

CHAPTER XI--ENGLAND UNDER MATILDA AND STEPHEN

The King was no sooner dead than all the plans and schemes he hadlaboured at so long, and lied so much for, crumbled away like a hollowheap 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 theCount of Blois. To Stephen, and to his brother HENRY, the late King hadbeen liberal; making Henry Bishop of Winchester, and finding a goodmarriage for Stephen, and much enriching him. This did not preventStephen from hastily producing a false witness, a servant of the lateKing, 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 newKing, 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 havehad small right to will away the English people, like so many sheep oroxen, without their consent. But he had, in fact, bequeathed all histerritory to Matilda; who, supported by ROBERT, Earl of Gloucester, soonbegan to dispute the crown. Some of the powerful barons and priests tookher side; some took Stephen's; all fortified their castles; and again themiserable English people were involved in war, from which they couldnever derive advantage whosoever was victorious, and in which all partiesplundered, tortured, starved, and ruined them. 

Five years had passed since the death of Henry the First--and duringthose five years there had been two terrible invasions by the people ofScotland under their King, David, who was at last defeated with all hisarmy--when Matilda, attended by her brother Robert and a large force, appeared in England to maintain her claim. A battle was fought betweenher troops and King Stephen's at Lincoln; in which the King himself wastaken prisoner, after bravely fighting until his battle-axe and swordwere broken, and was carried into strict confinement at Gloucester. Matilda then submitted herself to the Priests, and the Priests crownedher Queen of England. 

She did not long enjoy this dignity. The people of London had a greataffection for Stephen; many of the Barons considered it degrading to beruled by a woman; and the Queen's temper was so haughty that she madeinnumerable enemies. The people of London revolted; and, in alliancewith the troops of Stephen, besieged her at Winchester, where they tookher brother Robert prisoner, whom, as her best soldier and chief general, she was glad to exchange for Stephen himself, who thus regained hisliberty. Then, the long war went on afresh. Once, she was pressed sohard in the Castle of Oxford, in the winter weather when the snow laythick upon the ground, that her only chance of escape was to dressherself all in white, and, accompanied by no more than three faithfulKnights, dressed in like manner that their figures might not be seen fromStephen's camp as they passed over the snow, to steal away on foot, crossthe frozen Thames, walk a long distance, and at last gallop away onhorseback. All this she did, but to no great purpose then; for herbrother dying while the struggle was yet going on, she at last withdrewto 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 onlyeighteen years of age, was very powerful: not only on account of hismother having resigned all Normandy to him, but also from his havingmarried ELEANOR, the divorced wife of the French King, a bad woman, whohad great possessions in France. Louis, the French King, not relishingthis arrangement, helped EUSTACE, King Stephen's son, to invade Normandy:but Henry drove their united forces out of that country, and thenreturned here, to assist his partisans, whom the King was then besiegingat Wallingford upon the Thames. Here, for two days, divided only by theriver, 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 OFARUNDEL took heart and said 'that it was not reasonable to prolong theunspeakable miseries of two kingdoms to minister to the ambition of twoprinces. '

Many other noblemen repeating and supporting this when it was onceuttered, Stephen and young Plantagenet went down, each to his own bank ofthe river, and held a conversation across it, in which they arranged atruce; very much to the dissatisfaction of Eustace, who swaggered awaywith 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 atWinchester, in which it was agreed that Stephen should retain the crown, on condition of his declaring Henry his successor; that WILLIAM, anotherson of the King's, should inherit his father's rightful possessions; andthat all the Crown lands which Stephen had given away should be recalled, and all the Castles he had permitted to be built demolished. Thusterminated the bitter war, which had now lasted fifteen years, and hadagain laid England waste. In the next year STEPHEN died, after atroubled reign of nineteen years. 

Although King Stephen was, for the time in which he lived, a humane andmoderate man, with many excellent qualities; and although nothing worseis known of him than his usurpation of the Crown, which he probablyexcused to himself by the consideration that King Henry the First was ausurper too--which was no excuse at all; the people of England sufferedmore in these dread nineteen years, than at any former period even oftheir suffering history. In the division of the nobility between the tworival claimants of the Crown, and in the growth of what is called theFeudal System (which made the peasants the born vassals and mere slavesof the Barons), every Noble had his strong Castle, where he reigned thecruel king of all the neighbouring people. Accordingly, he perpetratedwhatever cruelties he chose. And never were worse cruelties committedupon earth than in wretched England in those nineteen years. 

The writers who were living then describe them fearfully. They say thatthe castles were filled with devils rather than with men; that thepeasants, men and women, were put into dungeons for their gold andsilver, 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 tornwith jagged irons, killed with hunger, broken to death in narrow chestsfilled with sharp-pointed stones, murdered in countless fiendish ways. InEngland there was no corn, no meat, no cheese, no butter, there were notilled lands, no harvests. Ashes of burnt towns, and dreary wastes, wereall that the traveller, fearful of the robbers who prowled abroad at allhours, would see in a long day's journey; and from sunrise until night, he would not come upon a home. 

The clergy sometimes suffered, and heavily too, from pillage, but many ofthem had castles of their own, and fought in helmet and armour like thebarons, 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 meansthat he allowed no service to be performed in the churches, no couples tobe married, no bells to be rung, no dead bodies to be buried. Any manhaving the power to refuse these things, no matter whether he were calleda Pope or a Poulterer, would, of course, have the power of afflictingnumbers of innocent people. That nothing might be wanting to themiseries of King Stephen's time, the Pope threw in this contribution tothe public store--not very like the widow's contribution, as I think, when Our Saviour sat in Jerusalem over-against the Treasury, 'and shethrew in two mites, which make a farthing. '

CHAPTER XII--ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SECOND

PART THE FIRST

Henry Plantagenet, when he was but twenty-one years old, quietlysucceeded to the throne of England, according to his agreement made withthe late King at Winchester. Six weeks after Stephen's death, he and hisQueen, Eleanor, were crowned in that city; into which they rode onhorseback in great state, side by side, amidst much shouting andrejoicing, and clashing of music, and strewing of flowers. 

The reign of King Henry the Second began well. The King had greatpossessions, and (what with his own rights, and what with those of hiswife) was lord of one-third part of France. He was a young man ofvigour, ability, and resolution, and immediately applied himself toremove some of the evils which had arisen in the last unhappy reign. Herevoked all the grants of land that had been hastily made, on eitherside, during the late struggles; he obliged numbers of disorderlysoldiers to depart from England; he reclaimed all the castles belongingto the Crown; and he forced the wicked nobles to pull down their owncastles, to the number of eleven hundred, in which such dismal crueltieshad been inflicted on the people. The King's brother, GEOFFREY, roseagainst him in France, while he was so well employed, and rendered itnecessary for him to repair to that country; where, after he had subduedand made a friendly arrangement with his brother (who did not live long), his ambition to increase his possessions involved him in a war with theFrench King, Louis, with whom he had been on such friendly terms justbefore, that to the French King's infant daughter, then a baby in thecradle, he had promised one of his little sons in marriage, who was achild of five years old. However, the war came to nothing at last, andthe Pope made the two Kings friends again. 

Now, the clergy, in the troubles of the last reign, had gone on very illindeed. There were all kinds of criminals among them--murderers, thieves, and vagabonds; and the worst of the matter was, that the goodpriests would not give up the bad priests to justice, when they committedcrimes, but persisted in sheltering and defending them. The King, wellknowing that there could be no peace or rest in England while such thingslasted, resolved to reduce the power of the clergy; and, when he hadreigned seven years, found (as he considered) a good opportunity fordoing so, in the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury. 'I will have forthe new Archbishop, ' thought the King, 'a friend in whom I can trust, whowill help me to humble these rebellious priests, and to have them dealtwith, when they do wrong, as other men who do wrong are dealt with. ' So, he resolved to make his favourite, the new Archbishop; and this favouritewas so extraordinary a man, and his story is so curious, that I must tellyou all about him. 

Once upon a time, a worthy merchant of London, named GILBERT A BECKET, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and was taken prisoner by a Saracenlord. This lord, who treated him kindly and not like a slave, had onefair daughter, who fell in love with the merchant; and who told him thatshe wanted to become a Christian, and was willing to marry him if theycould fly to a Christian country. The merchant returned her love, untilhe found an opportunity to escape, when he did not trouble himself aboutthe Saracen lady, but escaped with his servant Richard, who had beentaken prisoner along with him, and arrived in England and forgot her. TheSaracen lady, who was more loving than the merchant, left her father'shouse 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 madelove 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 findan English vessel that would carry her there; so they showed her such aship, and she paid for her passage with some of her jewels, and sailedaway. Well! The merchant was sitting in his counting-house in Londonone day, when he heard a great noise in the street; and presently Richardcame running in from the warehouse, with his eyes wide open and hisbreath almost gone, saying, 'Master, master, here is the Saracen lady!'The merchant thought Richard was mad; but Richard said, 'No, master! AsI 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 ofwindow; and there they saw her among the gables and water-spouts of thedark, dirty street, in her foreign dress, so forlorn, surrounded by awondering crowd, and passing slowly along, calling Gilbert, Gilbert! Whenthe merchant saw her, and thought of the tenderness she had shown him inhis captivity, and of her constancy, his heart was moved, and he ran downinto the street; and she saw him coming, and with a great cry fainted inhis arms. They were married without loss of time, and Richard (who wasan excellent man) danced with joy the whole day of the wedding; and theyall lived happy ever afterwards. 

This merchant and this Saracen lady had one son, THOMAS A BECKET. He itwas 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 battlesin France; had defeated a French knight in single combat, and brought hishorse away as a token of the victory. He lived in a noble palace, he wasthe tutor of the young Prince Henry, he was served by one hundred andforty knights, his riches were immense. The King once sent him as hisambassador to France; and the French people, beholding in what state hetravelled, cried out in the streets, 'How splendid must the King ofEngland be, when this is only the Chancellor!' They had good reason towonder at the magnificence of Thomas a Becket, for, when he entered aFrench town, his procession was headed by two hundred and fifty singingboys; then, came his hounds in couples; then, eight waggons, each drawnby five horses driven by five drivers: two of the waggons filled withstrong ale to be given away to the people; four, with his gold and silverplate and stately clothes; two, with the dresses of his numerousservants. Then, came twelve horses, each with a monkey on his back;then, a train of people bearing shields and leading fine war-horsessplendidly equipped; then, falconers with hawks upon their wrists; then, a host of knights, and gentlemen and priests; then, the Chancellor withhis brilliant garments flashing in the sun, and all the people caperingand shouting with delight. 

The King was well pleased with all this, thinking that it only madehimself the more magnificent to have so magnificent a favourite; but hesometimes jested with the Chancellor upon his splendour too. Once, whenthey were riding together through the streets of London in hard winterweather, they saw a shivering old man in rags. 'Look at the poorobject!' said the King. 'Would it not be a charitable act to give thataged man a comfortable warm cloak?' 'Undoubtedly it would, ' said Thomasa 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 richcrimson trimmed with ermine. The King tried to pull it off, theChancellor tried to keep it on, both were near rolling from their saddlesin the mud, when the Chancellor submitted, and the King gave the cloak tothe old beggar: much to the beggar's astonishment, and much to themerriment of all the courtiers in attendance. For, courtiers are notonly eager to laugh when the King laughs, but they really do enjoy alaugh 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 ofthe Church, and, being devoted to me, will help me to correct the Church. He has always upheld my power against the power of the clergy, and oncepublicly told some bishops (I remember), that men of the Church wereequally bound to me, with men of the sword. Thomas a Becket is the man, of all other men in England, to help me in my great design. ' So theKing, regardless of all objection, either that he was a fighting man, ora lavish man, or a courtly man, or a man of pleasure, or anything but alikely man for the office, made him Archbishop accordingly. 

Now, Thomas a Becket was proud and loved to be famous. He was alreadyfamous for the pomp of his life, for his riches, his gold and silverplate, his waggons, horses, and attendants. He could do no more in thatway than he had done; and being tired of that kind of fame (which is avery 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 settingof his utmost power and ability against the utmost power and ability ofthe 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 Kingmay have offended his proud humour at some time or other, for anything Iknow. I think it likely, because it is a common thing for Kings, Princes, and other great people, to try the tempers of their favouritesrather severely. Even the little affair of the crimson cloak must havebeen anything but a pleasant one to a haughty man. Thomas a Becket knewbetter than any one in England what the King expected of him. In all hissumptuous life, he had never yet been in a position to disappoint theKing. He could take up that proud stand now, as head of the Church; andhe determined that it should be written in history, either that hesubdued the King, or that the King subdued him. 

So, of a sudden, he completely altered the whole manner of his life. Heturned off all his brilliant followers, ate coarse food, drank bitterwater, wore next his skin sackcloth covered with dirt and vermin (for itwas then thought very religious to be very dirty), flogged his back topunish himself, lived chiefly in a little cell, washed the feet ofthirteen poor people every day, and looked as miserable as he possiblycould. If he had put twelve hundred monkeys on horseback instead oftwelve, and had gone in procession with eight thousand waggons instead ofeight, he could not have half astonished the people so much as by thisgreat change. It soon caused him to be more talked about as anArchbishop than he had been as a Chancellor. 

The King was very angry; and was made still more so, when the newArchbishop, claiming various estates from the nobles as being rightfullyChurch property, required the King himself, for the same reason, to giveup Rochester Castle, and Rochester City too. Not satisfied with this, hedeclared that no power but himself should appoint a priest to any Churchin the part of England over which he was Archbishop; and when a certaingentleman of Kent made such an appointment, as he claimed to have theright to do, Thomas a Becket excommunicated him. 

Excommunication was, next to the Interdict I told you of at the close ofthe last chapter, the great weapon of the clergy. It consisted indeclaring the person who was excommunicated, an outcast from the Churchand from all religious offices; and in cursing him all over, from the topof his head to the sole of his foot, whether he was standing up, lyingdown, sitting, kneeling, walking, running, hopping, jumping, gaping, coughing, sneezing, or whatever else he was doing. This unchristiannonsense would of course have made no sort of difference to the personcursed--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 superstitions ofthe people, who avoided excommunicated persons, and made their livesunhappy. So, the King said to the New Archbishop, 'Take off thisExcommunication from this gentleman of Kent. ' To which the Archbishopreplied, 'I shall do no such thing. '

The quarrel went on. A priest in Worcestershire committed a mostdreadful murder, that aroused the horror of the whole nation. The Kingdemanded to have this wretch delivered up, to be tried in the same courtand in the same way as any other murderer. The Archbishop refused, andkept him in the Bishop's prison. The King, holding a solemn assembly inWestminster Hall, demanded that in future all priests found guilty beforetheir Bishops of crimes against the law of the land should be consideredpriests no longer, and should be delivered over to the law of the landfor punishment. The Archbishop again refused. The King required to knowwhether the clergy would obey the ancient customs of the country? Everypriest there, but one, said, after Thomas a Becket, 'Saving my order. 'This really meant that they would only obey those customs when they didnot interfere with their own claims; and the King went out of the Hall ingreat wrath. 

Some of the clergy began to be afraid, now, that they were going too far. Though Thomas a Becket was otherwise as unmoved as Westminster Hall, theyprevailed upon him, for the sake of their fears, to go to the King atWoodstock, and promise to observe the ancient customs of the country, without saying anything about his order. The King received thissubmission favourably, and summoned a great council of the clergy to meetat the Castle of Clarendon, by Salisbury. But when the council met, theArchbishop again insisted on the words 'saying my order;' and he stillinsisted, though lords entreated him, and priests wept before him andknelt to him, and an adjoining room was thrown open, filled with armedsoldiers of the King, to threaten him. At length he gave way, for thattime, and the ancient customs (which included what the King had demandedin vain) were stated in writing, and were signed and sealed by the chiefof 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, heagain resolved to do his worst in opposition to the King, and beganopenly to set the ancient customs at defiance. 

The King summoned him before a great council at Northampton, where heaccused him of high treason, and made a claim against him, which was nota just one, for an enormous sum of money. Thomas a Becket was aloneagainst the whole assembly, and the very Bishops advised him to resignhis office and abandon his contest with the King. His great anxiety andagitation stretched him on a sick-bed for two days, but he was stillundaunted. He went to the adjourned council, carrying a great cross inhis right hand, and sat down holding it erect before him. The Kingangrily retired into an inner room. The whole assembly angrily retiredand left him there. But there he sat. The Bishops came out again in abody, and renounced him as a traitor. He only said, 'I hear!' and satthere still. They retired again into the inner room, and his trialproceeded without him. By-and-by, the Earl of Leicester, heading thebarons, came out to read his sentence. He refused to hear it, denied thepower of the court, and said he would refer his cause to the Pope. As hewalked out of the hall, with the cross in his hand, some of those presentpicked up rushes--rushes were strewn upon the floors in those days by wayof carpet--and threw them at him. He proudly turned his head, and saidthat were he not Archbishop, he would chastise those cowards with thesword 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 hethrew open his house that night and gave a supper, supping with themhimself. That same night he secretly departed from the town; and so, travelling by night and hiding by day, and calling himself 'BrotherDearman, ' got away, not without difficulty, to Flanders. 

The struggle still went on. The angry King took possession of therevenues of the archbishopric, and banished all the relations andservants of Thomas a Becket, to the number of four hundred. The Pope andthe French King both protected him, and an abbey was assigned for hisresidence. Stimulated by this support, Thomas a Becket, on a greatfestival day, formally proceeded to a great church crowded with people, and going up into the pulpit publicly cursed and excommunicated all whohad supported the Constitutions of Clarendon: mentioning many Englishnoblemen by name, and not distantly hinting at the King of Englandhimself. 

When intelligence of this new affront was carried to the King in hischamber, his passion was so furious that he tore his clothes, and rolledlike a madman on his bed of straw and rushes. But he was soon up anddoing. He ordered all the ports and coasts of England to be narrowlywatched, 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 a Becket, for his part, was not idle at Rome, but constantlyemployed his utmost arts in his own behalf. Thus the contest stood, until there was peace between France and England (which had been for sometime at war), and until the two children of the two Kings were married incelebration of it. Then, the French King brought about a meeting betweenHenry and his old favourite, so long his enemy. 

Even then, though Thomas a Becket knelt before the King, he was obstinateand immovable as to those words about his order. King Louis of Francewas weak enough in his veneration for Thomas a Becket and such men, butthis was a little too much for him. He said that a Becket 'wanted to begreater than the saints and better than St. Peter, ' and rode away fromhim with the King of England. His poor French Majesty asked a Becket'spardon for so doing, however, soon afterwards, and cut a very pitifulfigure. 

At last, and after a world of trouble, it came to this. There wasanother meeting on French ground between King Henry and Thomas a Becket, and it was agreed that Thomas a Becket should be Archbishop ofCanterbury, according to the customs of former Archbishops, and that theKing 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 atrest. NO, not even yet. For Thomas a Becket hearing, by some means, that King Henry, when he was in dread of his kingdom being placed underan interdict, had had his eldest son Prince Henry secretly crowned, notonly persuaded the Pope to suspend the Archbishop of York who hadperformed that ceremony, and to excommunicate the Bishops who hadassisted at it, but sent a messenger of his own into England, in spite ofall the King's precautions along the coast, who delivered the letters ofexcommunication into the Bishops' own hands. Thomas a Becket then cameover to England himself, after an absence of seven years. He wasprivately warned that it was dangerous to come, and that an irefulknight, named RANULF DE BROC, had threatened that he should not live toeat a loaf of bread in England; but he came. 

The common people received him well, and marched about with him in asoldierly way, armed with such rustic weapons as they could get. Hetried to see the young prince who had once been his pupil, but wasprevented. He hoped for some little support among the nobles andpriests, but found none. He made the most of the peasants who attendedhim, and feasted them, and went from Canterbury to Harrow-on-the-Hill, and from Harrow-on-the-Hill back to Canterbury, and on Christmas Daypreached in the Cathedral there, and told the people in his sermon thathe had come to die among them, and that it was likely he would bemurdered. He had no fear, however--or, if he had any, he had much moreobstinacy--for he, then and there, excommunicated three of his enemies, of whom Ranulf de Broc, the ireful knight, was one. 

As men in general had no fancy for being cursed, in their sitting andwalking, and gaping and sneezing, and all the rest of it, it was verynatural in the persons so freely excommunicated to complain to the King. It was equally natural in the King, who had hoped that this troublesomeopponent was at last quieted, to fall into a mighty rage when he heard ofthese new affronts; and, on the Archbishop of York telling him that henever could hope for rest while Thomas a Becket lived, to cry out hastilybefore 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 atone another, and went out. 

The names of these knights were REGINALD FITZURSE, WILLIAM TRACY, HUGH DEMORVILLE, and RICHARD BRITO; three of whom had been in the train ofThomas a Becket in the old days of his splendour. They rode away onhorseback, in a very secret manner, and on the third day after ChristmasDay arrived at Saltwood House, not far from Canterbury, which belonged tothe family of Ranulf de Broc. They quietly collected some followershere, in case they should need any; and proceeding to Canterbury, suddenly appeared (the four knights and twelve men) before theArchbishop, in his own house, at two o'clock in the afternoon. Theyneither bowed nor spoke, but sat down on the floor in silence, staring atthe Archbishop. 

Thomas a Becket said, at length, 'What do you want?'

'We want, ' said Reginald Fitzurse, 'the excommunication taken from theBishops, and you to answer for your offences to the King. ' Thomas aBecket defiantly replied, that the power of the clergy was above thepower of the King. That it was not for such men as they were, tothreaten 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 wentout with the twelve men, and put on their armour, and drew their shiningswords, and came back. 

His servants, in the meantime, had shut up and barred the great gate ofthe palace. At first, the knights tried to shatter it with their battle-axes; but, being shown a window by which they could enter, they let thegate alone, and climbed in that way. While they were battering at thedoor, the attendants of Thomas a Becket had implored him to take refugein the Cathedral; in which, as a sanctuary or sacred place, they thoughtthe knights would dare to do no violent deed. He told them, again andagain, that he would not stir. Hearing the distant voices of the monkssinging the evening service, however, he said it was now his duty toattend, and therefore, and for no other reason, he would go. 

There was a near way between his Palace and the Cathedral, by somebeautiful old cloisters which you may yet see. He went into theCathedral, without any hurry, and having the Cross carried before him asusual. When he was safely there, his servants would have fastened thedoor, 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 Cathedraldoorway, darkening the little light there was outside, on the dark winterevening. This knight said, in a strong voice, 'Follow me, loyal servantsof the King!' The rattle of the armour of the other knights echoedthrough the Cathedral, as they came clashing in. 

It was so dark, in the lofty aisles and among the stately pillars of thechurch, and there were so many hiding-places in the crypt below and inthe narrow passages above, that Thomas a Becket might even at that passhave saved himself if he would. But he would not. He told the monksresolutely that he would not. And though they all dispersed and left himthere with no other follower than EDWARD GRYME, his faithfulcross-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 withtheir armed tread upon the stone pavement of the church. 'Where is thetraitor?' they cried out. He made no answer. But when they cried, 'Where is the Archbishop?' he said proudly, 'I am here!' and came out ofthe shade and stood before them. 

The knights had no desire to kill him, if they could rid the King andthemselves of him by any other means. They told him he must either flyor go with them. He said he would do neither; and he threw William Tracyoff with such force when he took hold of his sleeve, that Tracy reeledagain. By his reproaches and his steadiness, he so incensed them, andexasperated their fierce humour, that Reginald Fitzurse, whom he calledby an ill name, said, 'Then die!' and struck at his head. But thefaithful Edward Gryme put out his arm, and there received the main forceof the blow, so that it only made his master bleed. Another voice fromamong the knights again called to Thomas a Becket to fly; but, with hisblood running down his face, and his hands clasped, and his head bent, hecommanded himself to God, and stood firm. Then they cruelly killed himclose 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 showeredhis curses about, lying, all disfigured, in the church, where a few lampshere and there were but red specks on a pall of darkness; and to think ofthe guilty knights riding away on horseback, looking over their shouldersat the dim Cathedral, and remembering what they had left inside. 

PART THE SECOND

When the King heard how Thomas a Becket had lost his life in CanterburyCathedral, through the ferocity of the four Knights, he was filled withdismay. 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, andmeant 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 hisdominions must have known, namely, that such a murder would rouse thePope and the whole Church against him. 

He sent respectful messengers to the Pope, to represent his innocence(except in having uttered the hasty words); and he swore solemnly andpublicly to his innocence, and contrived in time to make his peace. Asto the four guilty Knights, who fled into Yorkshire, and never againdared to show themselves at Court, the Pope excommunicated them; and theylived miserably for some time, shunned by all their countrymen. At last, they went humbly to Jerusalem as a penance, and there died and wereburied. 

It happened, fortunately for the pacifying of the Pope, that anopportunity arose very soon after the murder of a Becket, for the King todeclare his power in Ireland--which was an acceptable undertaking to thePope, as the Irish, who had been converted to Christianity by onePatricius (otherwise Saint Patrick) long ago, before any Pope existed, considered that the Pope had nothing at all to do with them, or they withthe Pope, and accordingly refused to pay him Peter's Pence, or that taxof a penny a house which I have elsewhere mentioned. The King'sopportunity arose in this way. 

The Irish were, at that time, as barbarous a people as you can wellimagine. They were continually quarrelling and fighting, cutting oneanother's throats, slicing one another's noses, burning one another'shouses, carrying away one another's wives, and committing all sorts ofviolence. The country was divided into five kingdoms--DESMOND, THOMOND, CONNAUGHT, ULSTER, and LEINSTER--each governed by a separate King, ofwhom 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 onewild kind of way), had carried off the wife of a friend of his, andconcealed her on an island in a bog. The friend resenting this (thoughit was quite the custom of the country), complained to the chief King, and, with the chief King's help, drove Dermond Mac Murrough out of hisdominions. Dermond came over to England for revenge; and offered to holdhis realm as a vassal of King Henry, if King Henry would help him toregain it. The King consented to these terms; but only assisted him, then, with what were called Letters Patent, authorising any Englishsubjects who were so disposed, to enter into his service, and aid hiscause. 

There was, at Bristol, a certain EARL RICHARD DE CLARE, called STRONGBOW;of no very good character; needy and desperate, and ready for anythingthat offered him a chance of improving his fortunes. There were, inSouth Wales, two other broken knights of the same good-for-nothing sort, called ROBERT FITZ-STEPHEN, and MAURICE FITZ-GERALD. These three, eachwith a small band of followers, took up Dermond's cause; and it wasagreed that if it proved successful, Strongbow should marry Dermond'sdaughter EVA, and be declared his heir. 

The trained English followers of these knights were so superior in allthe discipline of battle to the Irish, that they beat them againstimmense superiority of numbers. In one fight, early in the war, they cutoff three hundred heads, and laid them before Mac Murrough; who turnedthem every one up with his hands, rejoicing, and, coming to one which wasthe head of a man whom he had much disliked, grasped it by the hair andears, and tore off the nose and lips with his teeth. You may judge fromthis, what kind of a gentleman an Irish King in those times was. Thecaptives, all through this war, were horribly treated; the victoriousparty making nothing of breaking their limbs, and casting them into thesea from the tops of high rocks. It was in the midst of the miseries andcruelties attendant on the taking of Waterford, where the dead lay piledin the streets, and the filthy gutters ran with blood, that Strongbowmarried Eva. An odious marriage-company those mounds of corpse's musthave made, I think, and one quite worthy of the young lady's father. 

He died, after Waterford and Dublin had been taken, and various successesachieved; and Strongbow became King of Leinster. Now came King Henry'sopportunity. To restrain the growing power of Strongbow, he himselfrepaired to Dublin, as Strongbow's Royal Master, and deprived him of hiskingdom, but confirmed him in the enjoyment of great possessions. TheKing, then, holding state in Dublin, received the homage of nearly allthe Irish Kings and Chiefs, and so came home again with a great additionto his reputation as Lord of Ireland, and with a new claim on the favourof the Pope. And now, their reconciliation was completed--more easilyand mildly by the Pope, than the King might have expected, I think. 

At this period of his reign, when his troubles seemed so few and hisprospects so bright, those domestic miseries began which gradually madethe King the most unhappy of men, reduced his great spirit, wore away hishealth, and broke his heart. 

He had four sons. HENRY, now aged eighteen--his secret crowning of whomhad given such offence to Thomas a Becket. RICHARD, aged sixteen;GEOFFREY, fifteen; and JOHN, his favourite, a young boy whom thecourtiers named LACKLAND, because he had no inheritance, but to whom theKing meant to give the Lordship of Ireland. All these misguided boys, intheir turn, were unnatural sons to him, and unnatural brothers to eachother. Prince Henry, stimulated by the French King, and by his badmother, Queen Eleanor, began the undutiful history, First, he demanded that his young wife, MARGARET, the French King'sdaughter, should be crowned as well as he. His father, the King, consented, and it was done. It was no sooner done, than he demanded tohave a part of his father's dominions, during his father's life. Thisbeing refused, he made off from his father in the night, with his badheart full of bitterness, and took refuge at the French King's Court. Within a day or two, his brothers Richard and Geoffrey followed. Theirmother tried to join them--escaping in man's clothes--but she was seizedby 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 andoppression had given offence, deserted him and joined the Princes. Everyday he heard some fresh intelligence of the Princes levying armiesagainst him; of Prince Henry's wearing a crown before his own ambassadorsat the French Court, and being called the Junior King of England; of allthe Princes swearing never to make peace with him, their father, withoutthe consent and approval of the Barons of France. But, with hisfortitude and energy unshaken, King Henry met the shock of thesedisasters with a resolved and cheerful face. He called upon all Royalfathers 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 withsuch vigour, that Louis soon proposed a conference to treat for peace. 

The conference was held beneath an old wide-spreading green elm-tree, upon a plain in France. It led to nothing. The war recommenced. PrinceRichard began his fighting career, by leading an army against his father;but his father beat him and his army back; and thousands of his men wouldhave rued the day in which they fought in such a wicked cause, had notthe King received news of an invasion of England by the Scots, andpromptly come home through a great storm to repress it. And whether hereally began to fear that he suffered these troubles because a Becket hadbeen 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 ownpeople, of whom many believed that even a Becket's senseless tomb couldwork miracles, I don't know: but the King no sooner landed in Englandthan he went straight to Canterbury; and when he came within sight of thedistant Cathedral, he dismounted from his horse, took off his shoes, andwalked with bare and bleeding feet to a Becket's grave. There, he laydown 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 hisback and shoulders, submitted himself to be beaten with knotted cords(not beaten very hard, I dare say though) by eighty Priests, one afteranother. It chanced that on the very day when the King made this curiousexhibition of himself, a complete victory was obtained over the Scots;which very much delighted the Priests, who said that it was won becauseof his great example of repentance. For the Priests in general had foundout, since a Becket's death, that they admired him of all things--thoughthey had hated him very cordially when he was alive. 

The Earl of Flanders, who was at the head of the base conspiracy of theKing's undutiful sons and their foreign friends, took the opportunity ofthe King being thus employed at home, to lay siege to Rouen, the capitalof Normandy. But the King, who was extraordinarily quick and active inall his movements, was at Rouen, too, before it was supposed possiblethat he could have left England; and there he so defeated the said Earlof Flanders, that the conspirators proposed peace, and his bad sons Henryand Geoffrey submitted. Richard resisted for six weeks; but, beingbeaten out of castle after castle, he at last submitted too, and hisfather forgave him. 

To forgive these unworthy princes was only to afford them breathing-timefor new faithlessness. They were so false, disloyal, and dishonourable, that they were no more to be trusted than common thieves. In the verynext year, Prince Henry rebelled again, and was again forgiven. In eightyears more, Prince Richard rebelled against his elder brother; and PrinceGeoffrey infamously said that the brothers could never agree welltogether, unless they were united against their father. In the very nextyear after their reconciliation by the King, Prince Henry again rebelledagainst his father; and again submitted, swearing to be true; and wasagain forgiven; and again rebelled with Geoffrey. 

But the end of this perfidious Prince was come. He fell sick at a Frenchtown; and his conscience terribly reproaching him with his baseness, hesent messengers to the King his father, imploring him to come and seehim, and to forgive him for the last time on his bed of death. Thegenerous King, who had a royal and forgiving mind towards his childrenalways, would have gone; but this Prince had been so unnatural, that thenoblemen about the King suspected treachery, and represented to him thathe could not safely trust his life with such a traitor, though his owneldest son. Therefore the King sent him a ring from off his finger as atoken of forgiveness; and when the Prince had kissed it, with much griefand many tears, and had confessed to those around him how bad, andwicked, and undutiful a son he had been; he said to the attendantPriests: 'O, tie a rope about my body, and draw me out of bed, and lay medown upon a bed of ashes, that I may die with prayers to God in arepentant 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 bea 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 andwas again forgiven, swearing on the New Testament never to rebel again;and in another year or so, rebelled again; and, in the presence of hisfather, knelt down on his knee before the King of France; and did theFrench King homage: and declared that with his aid he would possesshimself, by force, of all his father's French dominions. 

And yet this Richard called himself a soldier of Our Saviour! And yetthis Richard wore the Cross, which the Kings of France and England hadboth taken, in the previous year, at a brotherly meeting underneath theold 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 theTruth!

Sick at heart, wearied out by the falsehood of his sons, and almost readyto lie down and die, the unhappy King who had so long stood firm, beganto fail. But the Pope, to his honour, supported him; and obliged theFrench King and Richard, though successful in fight, to treat for peace. Richard wanted to be Crowned King of England, and pretended that hewanted to be married (which he really did not) to the French King'ssister, his promised wife, whom King Henry detained in England. KingHenry wanted, on the other hand, that the French King's sister should bemarried 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 hisnobles one by one, distressed, exhausted, broken-hearted, consented toestablish peace. 

One final heavy sorrow was reserved for him, even yet. When they broughthim 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 ofmind. 'O John, whom I have loved the best! O John, for whom I havecontended through these many troubles! Have you betrayed me too!' Andthen he lay down with a heavy groan, and said, 'Now let the world go asit will. I care for nothing more!'

After a time, he told his attendants to take him to the French town ofChinon--a town he had been fond of, during many years. But he was fondof no place now; it was too true that he could care for nothing more uponthis earth. He wildly cursed the hour when he was born, and cursed thechildren whom he left behind him; and expired. 

As, one hundred years before, the servile followers of the Court hadabandoned the Conqueror in the hour of his death, so they now abandonedhis descendant. The very body was stripped, in the plunder of the Royalchamber; and it was not easy to find the means of carrying it for burialto the abbey church of Fontevraud. 

Richard was said in after years, by way of flattery, to have the heart ofa Lion. It would have been far better, I think, to have had the heart ofa Man. His heart, whatever it was, had cause to beat remorsefully withinhis breast, when he came--as he did--into the solemn abbey, and looked onhis dead father's uncovered face. His heart, whatever it was, had been ablack and perjured heart, in all its dealings with the deceased King, andmore deficient in a single touch of tenderness than any wild beast's inthe forest. 

There is a pretty story told of this Reign, called the story of FAIRROSAMOND. It relates how the King doted on Fair Rosamond, who was theloveliest girl in all the world; and how he had a beautiful Bower builtfor 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, andone day, appeared before her, with a dagger and a cup of poison, and lefther to the choice between those deaths. How Fair Rosamond, aftershedding many piteous tears and offering many useless prayers to thecruel Queen, took the poison, and fell dead in the midst of the beautifulbower, while the unconscious birds sang gaily all around her. 

Now, there _was_ a fair Rosamond, and she was (I dare say) the loveliestgirl in all the world, and the King was certainly very fond of her, andthe bad Queen Eleanor was certainly made jealous. But I am afraid--I sayafraid, because I like the story so much--that there was no bower, nolabyrinth, no silken clue, no dagger, no poison. I am afraid fairRosamond retired to a nunnery near Oxford, and died there, peaceably; hersister-nuns hanging a silken drapery over her tomb, and often dressing itwith flowers, in remembrance of the youth and beauty that had enchantedthe King when he too was young, and when his life lay fair before him. 

It was dark and ended now; faded and gone. Henry Plantagenet lay quietin the abbey church of Fontevraud, in the fifty-seventh year of hisage--never to be completed--after governing England well, for nearlythirty-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, Richardof the Lion Heart succeeded to the throne of King Henry the Second, whosepaternal heart he had done so much to break. He had been, as we haveseen, a rebel from his boyhood; but, the moment he became a king againstwhom others might rebel, he found out that rebellion was a greatwickedness. In the heat of this pious discovery, he punished all theleading people who had befriended him against his father. He couldscarcely have done anything that would have been a better instance of hisreal nature, or a better warning to fawners and parasites not to trust inlion-hearted princes. 

He likewise put his late father's treasurer in chains, and locked him upin 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, Richardcertainly 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 Westminster: walkingto the Cathedral under a silken canopy stretched on the tops of fourlances, each carried by a great lord. On the day of his coronation, adreadful murdering of the Jews took place, which seems to have givengreat delight to numbers of savage persons calling themselves Christians. The King had issued a proclamation forbidding the Jews (who weregenerally hated, though they were the most useful merchants in England)to appear at the ceremony; but as they had assembled in London from allparts, bringing presents to show their respect for the new Sovereign, some of them ventured down to Westminster Hall with their gifts; whichwere very readily accepted. It is supposed, now, that some noisy fellowin the crowd, pretending to be a very delicate Christian, set up a howlat this, and struck a Jew who was trying to get in at the Hall door withhis present. A riot arose. The Jews who had got into the Hall, weredriven forth; and some of the rabble cried out that the new King hadcommanded the unbelieving race to be put to death. Thereupon the crowdrushed through the narrow streets of the city, slaughtering all the Jewsthey met; and when they could find no more out of doors (on account oftheir having fled to their houses, and fastened themselves in), they ranmadly about, breaking open all the houses where the Jews lived, rushingin and stabbing or spearing them, sometimes even flinging old people andchildren out of window into blazing fires they had lighted up below. Thisgreat cruelty lasted four-and-twenty hours, and only three men werepunished for it. Even they forfeited their lives not for murdering androbbing the Jews, but for burning the houses of some Christians. 

King Richard, who was a strong, restless, burly man, with one idea alwaysin his head, and that the very troublesome idea of breaking the heads ofother 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 tothe Holy Land, without a great deal of money, he sold the Crown domains, and even the high offices of State; recklessly appointing noblemen torule over his English subjects, not because they were fit to govern, butbecause they could pay high for the privilege. In this way, and byselling pardons at a dear rate and by varieties of avarice andoppression, he scraped together a large treasure. He then appointed twoBishops to take care of his kingdom in his absence, and gave great powersand possessions to his brother John, to secure his friendship. Johnwould rather have been made Regent of England; but he was a sly man, andfriendly to the expedition; saying to himself, no doubt, 'The morefighting, 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 thegeneral populace distinguished themselves by astonishing cruelties on theunfortunate Jews: whom, in many large towns, they murdered by hundreds inthe most horrible manner. 

At York, a large body of Jews took refuge in the Castle, in the absenceof its Governor, after the wives and children of many of them had beenslain before their eyes. Presently came the Governor, and demandedadmission. 'How can we give it thee, O Governor!' said the Jews upon thewalls, 'when, if we open the gate by so much as the width of a foot, theroaring crowd behind thee will press in and kill us?'

Upon this, the unjust Governor became angry, and told the people that heapproved of their killing those Jews; and a mischievous maniac of afriar, dressed all in white, put himself at the head of the assault, andthey 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 hammeringat the gates and walls, and who must soon break in. As we and our wivesand children must die, either by Christian hands, or by our own, let itbe by our own. Let us destroy by fire what jewels and other treasure wehave here, then fire the castle, and then perish!'

A few could not resolve to do this, but the greater part complied. Theymade a blazing heap of all their valuables, and, when those wereconsumed, set the castle in flames. While the flames roared and crackledaround them, and shooting up into the sky, turned it blood-red, Jocen cutthe throat of his beloved wife, and stabbed himself. All the others whohad wives or children, did the like dreadful deed. When the populacebroke in, they found (except the trembling few, cowering in corners, whomthey soon killed) only heaps of greasy cinders, with here and theresomething like part of the blackened trunk of a burnt tree, but which hadlately been a human creature, formed by the beneficent hand of theCreator as they were. 

After this bad beginning, Richard and his troops went on, in no very goodmanner, with the Holy Crusade. It was undertaken jointly by the King ofEngland and his old friend Philip of France. They commenced the businessby 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 wasdead: and his uncle TANCRED had usurped the crown, cast the Royal Widowinto prison, and possessed himself of her estates. Richard fiercelydemanded his sister's release, the restoration of her lands, and(according to the Royal custom of the Island) that she should have agolden chair, a golden table, four-and-twenty silver cups, and four-and-twenty silver dishes. As he was too powerful to be successfullyresisted, Tancred yielded to his demands; and then the French King grewjealous, and complained that the English King wanted to be absolute inthe Island of Messina and everywhere else. Richard, however, caredlittle or nothing for this complaint; and in consideration of a presentof twenty thousand pieces of gold, promised his pretty little nephewARTHUR, then a child of two years old, in marriage to Tancred's daughter. We shall hear again of pretty little Arthur by-and-by. 

This Sicilian affair arranged without anybody's brains being knocked out(which must have rather disappointed him), King Richard took his sisteraway, and also a fair lady named BERENGARIA, with whom he had fallen inlove in France, and whom his mother, Queen Eleanor (so long in prison, you remember, but released by Richard on his coming to the Throne), hadbrought 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 wereshipwrecked on the shore; and easily conquering this poor monarch, heseized his only daughter, to be a companion to the lady Berengaria, andput the King himself into silver fetters. He then sailed away again withhis mother, sister, wife, and the captive princess; and soon arrivedbefore the town of Acre, which the French King with his fleet wasbesieging from the sea. But the French King was in no triumphantcondition, 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, atthe head of a numerous army, was at that time gallantly defending theplace from the hills that rise above it. 

Wherever the united army of Crusaders went, they agreed in few pointsexcept in gaming, drinking, and quarrelling, in a most unholy manner; indebauching the people among whom they tarried, whether they were friendsor foes; and in carrying disturbance and ruin into quiet places. TheFrench King was jealous of the English King, and the English King wasjealous of the French King, and the disorderly and violent soldiers ofthe two nations were jealous of one another; consequently, the two Kingscould not at first agree, even upon a joint assault on Acre; but whenthey did make up their quarrel for that purpose, the Saracens promised toyield 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 hundredthousand pieces of gold. All this was to be done within forty days; but, not being done, King Richard ordered some three thousand Saracenprisoners to be brought out in the front of his camp, and there, in fullview of their own countrymen, to be butchered. 

The French King had no part in this crime; for he was by that timetravelling homeward with the greater part of his men; being offended bythe overbearing conduct of the English King; being anxious to look afterhis own dominions; and being ill, besides, from the unwholesome air ofthat hot and sandy country. King Richard carried on the war without him;and remained in the East, meeting with a variety of adventures, nearly ayear and a half. Every night when his army was on the march, and came toa halt, the heralds cried out three times, to remind all the soldiers ofthe cause in which they were engaged, 'Save the Holy Sepulchre!' and thenall the soldiers knelt and said 'Amen!' Marching or encamping, the armyhad continually to strive with the hot air of the glaring desert, or withthe Saracen soldiers animated and directed by the brave Saladin, or withboth together. Sickness and death, battle and wounds, were always amongthem; but through every difficulty King Richard fought like a giant, andworked like a common labourer. Long and long after he was quiet in hisgrave, his terrible battle-axe, with twenty English pounds of Englishsteel in its mighty head, was a legend among the Saracens; and when allthe Saracen and Christian hosts had been dust for many a year, if aSaracen horse started at any object by the wayside, his rider wouldexclaim, 'What dost thou fear, Fool? Dost thou think King Richard isbehind 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 betweenthem--and then King Richard would mount his horse and kill as manySaracens as he could; and Saladin would mount his, and kill as manyChristians as he could. In this way King Richard fought to his heart'scontent at Arsoof and at Jaffa; and finding himself with nothing excitingto do at Ascalon, except to rebuild, for his own defence, somefortifications there which the Saracens had destroyed, he kicked his allythe 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, soonretired, and agreed with the Saracens upon a truce for three years, threemonths, three days, and three hours. Then, the English Christians, protected by the noble Saladin from Saracen revenge, visited OurSaviour's tomb; and then King Richard embarked with a small force at Acreto return home. 

But he was shipwrecked in the Adriatic Sea, and was fain to pass throughGermany, under an assumed name. Now, there were many people in Germanywho had served in the Holy Land under that proud Duke of Austria who hadbeen kicked; and some of them, easily recognising a man so remarkable asKing Richard, carried their intelligence to the kicked Duke, whostraightway took him prisoner at a little inn near Vienna. 

The Duke's master the Emperor of Germany, and the King of France, wereequally delighted to have so troublesome a monarch in safe keeping. Friendships which are founded on a partnership in doing wrong, are nevertrue; and the King of France was now quite as heartily King Richard'sfoe, as he had ever been his friend in his unnatural conduct to hisfather. He monstrously pretended that King Richard had designed topoison him in the East; he charged him with having murdered, there, a manwhom he had in truth befriended; he bribed the Emperor of Germany to keephim close prisoner; and, finally, through the plotting of these twoprinces, Richard was brought before the German legislature, charged withthe foregoing crimes, and many others. But he defended himself so well, that many of the assembly were moved to tears by his eloquence andearnestness. It was decided that he should be treated, during the restof 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. Thisransom the English people willingly raised. When Queen Eleanor took itover to Germany, it was at first evaded and refused. But she appealed tothe 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 ofthyself. The devil is unchained!'

Prince John had reason to fear his brother, for he had been a traitor tohim in his captivity. He had secretly joined the French King; had vowedto the English nobles and people that his brother was dead; and hadvainly tried to seize the crown. He was now in France, at a place calledEvreux. Being the meanest and basest of men, he contrived a mean andbase expedient for making himself acceptable to his brother. He invitedthe French officers of the garrison in that town to dinner, murdered themall, and then took the fortress. With this recommendation to the goodwill of a lion-hearted monarch, he hastened to King Richard, fell on hisknees before him, and obtained the intercession of Queen Eleanor. 'Iforgive him, ' said the King, 'and I hope I may forget the injury he hasdone me, as easily as I know he will forget my pardon. '

While King Richard was in Sicily, there had been trouble in his dominionsat home: one of the bishops whom he had left in charge thereof, arrestingthe other; and making, in his pride and ambition, as great a show as ifhe were King himself. But the King hearing of it at Messina, andappointing a new Regency, this LONGCHAMP (for that was his name) had fledto France in a woman's dress, and had there been encouraged and supportedby the French King. With all these causes of offence against Philip inhis mind, King Richard had no sooner been welcomed home by hisenthusiastic subjects with great display and splendour, and had no soonerbeen crowned afresh at Winchester, than he resolved to show the FrenchKing that the Devil was unchained indeed, and made war against him withgreat fury. 

There was fresh trouble at home about this time, arising out of thediscontents of the poor people, who complained that they were far moreheavily taxed than the rich, and who found a spirited champion in WILLIAMFITZ-OSBERT, called LONGBEARD. He became the leader of a secret society, comprising fifty thousand men; he was seized by surprise; he stabbed thecitizen who first laid hands upon him; and retreated, bravely fighting, to a church, which he maintained four days, until he was dislodged byfire, 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 toSmithfield, and there hanged. Death was long a favourite remedy forsilencing the people's advocates; but as we go on with this history, Ifancy we shall find them difficult to make an end of, for all that. 

The French war, delayed occasionally by a truce, was still in progresswhen a certain Lord named VIDOMAR, Viscount of Limoges, chanced to findin his ground a treasure of ancient coins. As the King's vassal, he sentthe King half of it; but the King claimed the whole. The lord refused toyield the whole. The King besieged the lord in his castle, swore that hewould take the castle by storm, and hang every man of its defenders onthe battlements. 

There was a strange old song in that part of the country, to the effectthat in Limoges an arrow would be made by which King Richard would die. It may be that BERTRAND DE GOURDON, a young man who was one of thedefenders of the castle, had often sung it or heard it sung of a winternight, and remembered it when he saw, from his post upon the ramparts, the King attended only by his chief officer riding below the wallssurveying the place. He drew an arrow to the head, took steady aim, saidbetween his teeth, 'Now I pray God speed thee well, arrow!' dischargedit, and struck the King in the left shoulder. 

Although the wound was not at first considered dangerous, it was severeenough to cause the King to retire to his tent, and direct the assault tobe made without him. The castle was taken; and every man of itsdefenders was hanged, as the King had sworn all should be, exceptBertrand de Gourdon, who was reserved until the royal pleasure respectinghim should be known. 

By that time unskilful treatment had made the wound mortal and the Kingknew that he was dying. He directed Bertrand to be brought into histent. The young man was brought there, heavily chained, King Richardlooked at him steadily. He looked, as steadily, at the King. 

'Knave!' said King Richard. 'What have I done to thee that thoushouldest take my life?'

'What hast thou done to me?' replied the young man. 'With thine ownhands thou hast killed my father and my two brothers. Myself thouwouldest have hanged. Let me die now, by any torture that thou wilt. Mycomfort is, that no torture can save Thee. Thou too must die; and, through me, the world is quit of thee!'

Again the King looked at the young man steadily. Again the young manlooked steadily at him. Perhaps some remembrance of his generous enemySaladin, who was not a Christian, came into the mind of the dying King. 

'Youth!' he said, 'I forgive thee. Go unhurt!' Then, turning to thechief officer who had been riding in his company when he received thewound, 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 weakened eyes tofill the tent wherein he had so often rested, and he died. His age wasforty-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 outlivemany generations of strong men, and even last longer than battle-axeswith twenty pounds of steel in the head--by which this King is said tohave been discovered in his captivity. BLONDEL, a favourite Minstrel ofKing Richard, as the story relates, faithfully seeking his Royal master, went singing it outside the gloomy walls of many foreign fortresses andprisons; until at last he heard it echoed from within a dungeon, and knewthe voice, and cried out in ecstasy, 'O Richard, O my King!' You maybelieve 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 Princetoo, he might have been a better man perhaps, and might have gone out ofthe world with less bloodshed and waste of life to answer for. 

CHAPTER XIV--ENGLAND UNDER KING JOHN, CALLED LACKLAND

At two-and-thirty years of age, JOHN became King of England. His prettylittle nephew ARTHUR had the best claim to the throne; but John seizedthe treasure, and made fine promises to the nobility, and got himselfcrowned at Westminster within a few weeks after his brother Richard'sdeath. I doubt whether the crown could possibly have been put upon thehead of a meaner coward, or a more detestable villain, if England hadbeen searched from end to end to find him out. 

The French King, Philip, refused to acknowledge the right of John to hisnew dignity, and declared in favour of Arthur. You must not suppose thathe had any generosity of feeling for the fatherless boy; it merely suitedhis ambitious schemes to oppose the King of England. So John and theFrench King went to war about Arthur. 

He was a handsome boy, at that time only twelve years old. He was notborn when his father, Geoffrey, had his brains trampled out at thetournament; and, besides the misfortune of never having known a father'sguidance and protection, he had the additional misfortune to have afoolish mother (CONSTANCE by name), lately married to her third husband. She took Arthur, upon John's accession, to the French King, who pretendedto be very much his friend, and who made him a Knight, and promised himhis daughter in marriage; but, who cared so little about him in reality, that finding it his interest to make peace with King John for a time, hedid so without the least consideration for the poor little Prince, andheartlessly sacrificed all his interests. 

Young Arthur, for two years afterwards, lived quietly; and in the courseof that time his mother died. But, the French King then finding it hisinterest 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 areKnights of mine, and with them you shall go to win back the provincesbelonging to you, of which your uncle, the usurping King of England, hastaken possession. I myself, meanwhile, will head a force against him inNormandy. ' Poor Arthur was so flattered and so grateful that he signed atreaty with the crafty French King, agreeing to consider him his superiorLord, and that the French King should keep for himself whatever he couldtake 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 afox and a wolf. But, being so young, he was ardent and flushed withhope; and, when the people of Brittany (which was his inheritance) senthim five hundred more knights and five thousand foot soldiers, hebelieved his fortune was made. The people of Brittany had been fond ofhim from his birth, and had requested that he might be called Arthur, inremembrance of that dimly-famous English Arthur, of whom I told you earlyin this book, whom they believed to have been the brave friend andcompanion of an old King of their own. They had tales among them about aprophet called MERLIN (of the same old time), who had foretold that theirown King should be restored to them after hundreds of years; and theybelieved that the prophecy would be fulfilled in Arthur; that the timewould come when he would rule them with a crown of Brittany upon hishead; and when neither King of France nor King of England would have anypower over them. When Arthur found himself riding in a glittering suitof armour on a richly caparisoned horse, at the head of his train ofknights and soldiers, he began to believe this too, and to consider oldMerlin a very superior prophet. 

He did not know--how could he, being so innocent and inexperienced?--thathis little army was a mere nothing against the power of the King ofEngland. The French King knew it; but the poor boy's fate was little tohim, so that the King of England was worried and distressed. Therefore, King Philip went his way into Normandy and Prince Arthur went his waytowards Mirebeau, a French town near Poictiers, both very well pleased. 

Prince Arthur went to attack the town of Mirebeau, because hisgrandmother Eleanor, who has so often made her appearance in this history(and who had always been his mother's enemy), was living there, andbecause his Knights said, 'Prince, if you can take her prisoner, you willbe able to bring the King your uncle to terms!' But she was not to beeasily taken. She was old enough by this time--eighty--but she was asfull of stratagem as she was full of years and wickedness. Receivingintelligence of young Arthur's approach, she shut herself up in a hightower, and encouraged her soldiers to defend it like men. Prince Arthurwith his little army besieged the high tower. King John, hearing howmatters stood, came up to the rescue, with _his_ army. So here was astrange family-party! The boy-Prince besieging his grandmother, and hisuncle besieging him!

This position of affairs did not last long. One summer night King John, by treachery, got his men into the town, surprised Prince Arthur's force, took two hundred of his knights, and seized the Prince himself in hisbed. The Knights were put in heavy irons, and driven away in open cartsdrawn by bullocks, to various dungeons where they were most inhumanlytreated, and where some of them were starved to death. Prince Arthur wassent to the castle of Falaise. 

One day, while he was in prison at that castle, mournfully thinking itstrange that one so young should be in so much trouble, and looking outof the small window in the deep dark wall, at the summer sky and thebirds, the door was softly opened, and he saw his uncle the King standingin the shadow of the archway, looking very grim. 

'Arthur, ' said the King, with his wicked eyes more on the stone floorthan on his nephew, 'will you not trust to the gentleness, thefriendship, and the truthfulness of your loving uncle?'

'I will tell my loving uncle that, ' replied the boy, 'when he does meright. Let him restore to me my kingdom of England, and then come to meand 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 thePrince was to be got rid of. Some said, 'Put out his eyes and keep himin prison, as Robort of Normandy was kept. ' Others said, 'Have himstabbed. ' Others, 'Have him hanged. ' Others, 'Have him poisoned. '

King John, feeling that in any case, whatever was done afterwards, itwould be a satisfaction to his mind to have those handsome eyes burnt outthat had looked at him so proudly while his own royal eyes were blinkingat the stone floor, sent certain ruffians to Falaise to blind the boywith red-hot irons. But Arthur so pathetically entreated them, and shedsuch piteous tears, and so appealed to HUBERT DE BOURG (or BURGH), thewarden 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 heprevented the torture from being performed, and, at his own risk, sentthe savages away. 

The chafed and disappointed King bethought himself of the stabbingsuggestion next, and, with his shuffling manner and his cruel face, proposed it to one William de Bray. 'I am a gentleman and not anexecutioner, ' 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 ofFalaise. '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!'

King John very well knowing that Hubert would never do it, but that hecourageously sent this reply to save the Prince or gain time, despatchedmessengers to convey the young prisoner to the castle of Rouen. 

Arthur was soon forced from the good Hubert--of whom he had never stoodin greater need than then--carried away by night, and lodged in his newprison: where, through his grated window, he could hear the deep watersof the river Seine, rippling against the stone wall below. 

One dark night, as he lay sleeping, dreaming perhaps of rescue by thoseunfortunate gentlemen who were obscurely suffering and dying in hiscause, he was roused, and bidden by his jailer to come down the staircaseto the foot of the tower. He hurriedly dressed himself and obeyed. Whenthey came to the bottom of the winding stairs, and the night air from theriver blew upon their faces, the jailer trod upon his torch and put itout. Then, Arthur, in the darkness, was hurriedly drawn into a solitaryboat. 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 hisentreaties, they stabbed him and sunk his body in the river with heavystones. When the spring-morning broke, the tower-door was closed, theboat was gone, the river sparkled on its way, and never more was anytrace of the poor boy beheld by mortal eyes. 

The news of this atrocious murder being spread in England, awakened ahatred of the King (already odious for his many vices, and for his havingstolen away and married a noble lady while his own wife was living) thatnever slept again through his whole reign. In Brittany, the indignationwas intense. Arthur's own sister ELEANOR was in the power of John andshut up in a convent at Bristol, but his half-sister ALICE was inBrittany. The people chose her, and the murdered prince's father-in-law, the last husband of Constance, to represent them; and carried their fierycomplaints to King Philip. King Philip summoned King John (as the holderof territory in France) to come before him and defend himself. King Johnrefusing to appear, King Philip declared him false, perjured, and guilty;and again made war. In a little time, by conquering the greater part ofhis French territory, King Philip deprived him of one-third of hisdominions. And, through all the fighting that took place, King John wasalways 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 beatencur, when it was near. 

You might suppose that when he was losing his dominions at this rate, andwhen his own nobles cared so little for him or his cause that theyplainly refused to follow his banner out of England, he had enemiesenough. But he made another enemy of the Pope, which he did in this way. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury dying, and the junior monks of that placewishing to get the start of the senior monks in the appointment of hissuccessor, met together at midnight, secretly elected a certain REGINALD, and sent him off to Rome to get the Pope's approval. The senior monksand the King soon finding this out, and being very angry about it, thejunior monks gave way, and all the monks together elected the Bishop ofNorwich, who was the King's favourite. The Pope, hearing the wholestory, declared that neither election would do for him, and that _he_elected STEPHEN LANGTON. The monks submitting to the Pope, the Kingturned them all out bodily, and banished them as traitors. The Pope sentthree bishops to the King, to threaten him with an Interdict. The Kingtold the bishops that if any Interdict were laid upon his kingdom, hewould tear out the eyes and cut off the noses of all the monks he couldlay hold of, and send them over to Rome in that undecorated state as apresent for their master. The bishops, nevertheless, soon published theInterdict, and fled. 

After it had lasted a year, the Pope proceeded to his next step; whichwas Excommunication. King John was declared excommunicated, with all theusual ceremonies. The King was so incensed at this, and was made sodesperate 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 theywould help him. It is related that the ambassadors were admitted to thepresence of the Turkish Emir through long lines of Moorish guards, andthat they found the Emir with his eyes seriously fixed on the pages of alarge book, from which he never once looked up. That they gave him aletter from the King containing his proposals, and were gravelydismissed. That presently the Emir sent for one of them, and conjuredhim, by his faith in his religion, to say what kind of man the King ofEngland truly was? That the ambassador, thus pressed, replied that theKing of England was a false tyrant, against whom his own subjects wouldsoon rise. And that this was quite enough for the Emir. 

Money being, in his position, the next best thing to men, King Johnspared no means of getting it. He set on foot another oppressing andtorturing of the unhappy Jews (which was quite in his way), and inventeda new punishment for one wealthy Jew of Bristol. Until such time as thatJew should produce a certain large sum of money, the King sentenced himto be imprisoned, and, every day, to have one tooth violently wrenchedout of his head--beginning with the double teeth. For seven days, theoppressed man bore the daily pain and lost the daily tooth; but, on theeighth, he paid the money. With the treasure raised in such ways, theKing made an expedition into Ireland, where some English nobles hadrevolted. It was one of the very few places from which he did not runaway; because no resistance was shown. He made another expedition intoWales--whence he _did_ run away in the end: but not before he had gotfrom the Welsh people, as hostages, twenty-seven young men of the bestfamilies; 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 subjectsfrom their allegiance, and sent Stephen Langton and others to the King ofFrance to tell him that, if he would invade England, he should beforgiven all his sins--at least, should be forgiven them by the Pope, ifthat would do. 

As there was nothing that King Philip desired more than to invadeEngland, he collected a great army at Rouen, and a fleet of seventeenhundred ships to bring them over. But the English people, howeverbitterly they hated the King, were not a people to suffer invasionquietly. They flocked to Dover, where the English standard was, in suchgreat numbers to enrol themselves as defenders of their native land, thatthere were not provisions for them, and the King could only select andretain sixty thousand. But, at this crisis, the Pope, who had his ownreasons for objecting to either King John or King Philip being toopowerful, interfered. He entrusted a legate, whose name was PANDOLF, with the easy task of frightening King John. He sent him to the EnglishCamp, from France, to terrify him with exaggerations of King Philip'spower, and his own weakness in the discontent of the English Barons andpeople. Pandolf discharged his commission so well, that King John, in awretched panic, consented to acknowledge Stephen Langton; to resign hiskingdom 'to God, Saint Peter, and Saint Paul'--which meant the Pope; andto hold it, ever afterwards, by the Pope's leave, on payment of an annualsum of money. To this shameful contract he publicly bound himself in thechurch of the Knights Templars at Dover: where he laid at the legate'sfeet a part of the tribute, which the legate haughtily trampled upon. Butthey _do_ say, that this was merely a genteel flourish, and that he wasafterwards seen to pick it up and pocket it. 

There was an unfortunate prophet, the name of Peter, who had greatlyincreased King John's terrors by predicting that he would be unknighted(which the King supposed to signify that he would die) before the Feastof the Ascension should be past. That was the day after thishumiliation. When the next morning came, and the King, who had beentrembling all night, found himself alive and safe, he ordered theprophet--and his son too--to be dragged through the streets at the tailsof horses, and then hanged, for having frightened him. 

As King John had now submitted, the Pope, to King Philip's greatastonishment, took him under his protection, and informed King Philipthat he found he could not give him leave to invade England. The angryPhilip resolved to do it without his leave but he gained nothing and lostmuch; for, the English, commanded by the Earl of Salisbury, went over, infive hundred ships, to the French coast, before the French fleet hadsailed away from it, and utterly defeated the whole. 

The Pope then took off his three sentences, one after another, andempowered Stephen Langton publicly to receive King John into the favourof the Church again, and to ask him to dinner. The King, who hatedLangton with all his might and main--and with reason too, for he was agreat and a good man, with whom such a King could have nosympathy--pretended to cry and to be _very_ grateful. There was a littledifficulty about settling how much the King should pay as a recompense tothe 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 gotlittle or nothing--which has also happened since King John's time, Ibelieve. 

When all these matters were arranged, the King in his triumph became morefierce, and false, and insolent to all around him than he had ever been. An alliance of sovereigns against King Philip, gave him an opportunity oflanding an army in France; with which he even took a town! But, on theFrench King's gaining a great victory, he ran away, of course, and made atruce for five years. 

And now the time approached when he was to be still further humbled, andmade 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 tooppose and subdue him. When he ruthlessly burnt and destroyed theproperty of his own subjects, because their Lords, the Barons, would notserve him abroad, Stephen Langton fearlessly reproved and threatened him. When he swore to restore the laws of King Edward, or the laws of KingHenry the First, Stephen Langton knew his falsehood, and pursued himthrough all his evasions. When the Barons met at the abbey of SaintEdmund's-Bury, to consider their wrongs and the King's oppressions, Stephen Langton roused them by his fervid words to demand a solemncharter 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 waragainst him to the death. When the King hid himself in London from theBarons, and was at last obliged to receive them, they told him roundlythey would not believe him unless Stephen Langton became a surety that hewould keep his word. When he took the Cross to invest himself with someinterest, and belong to something that was received with favour, StephenLangton was still immovable. When he appealed to the Pope, and the Popewrote to Stephen Langton in behalf of his new favourite, Stephen Langtonwas deaf, even to the Pope himself, and saw before him nothing but thewelfare of England and the crimes of the English King. 

At Easter-time, the Barons assembled at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, inproud array, and, marching near to Oxford where the King was, deliveredinto the hands of Stephen Langton and two others, a list of grievances. 'And these, ' they said, 'he must redress, or we will do it forourselves!' When Stephen Langton told the King as much, and read thelist to him, he went half mad with rage. But that did him no more goodthan his afterwards trying to pacify the Barons with lies. They calledthemselves and their followers, 'The army of God and the Holy Church. 'Marching through the country, with the people thronging to themeverywhere (except at Northampton, where they failed in an attack uponthe castle), they at last triumphantly set up their banner in Londonitself, whither the whole land, tired of the tyrant, seemed to flock tojoin them. Seven knights alone, of all the knights in England, remainedwith the King; who, reduced to this strait, at last sent the Earl ofPembroke to the Barons to say that he approved of everything, and wouldmeet them to sign their charter when they would. 'Then, ' said theBarons, '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 Windsor Castle, and the Barons came from the town ofStaines, and they met on Runny-Mead, which is still a pleasant meadow bythe 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-WALTER, and a great concourseof 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 merelyhis advisers in form. On that great day, and in that great company, theKing signed MAGNA CHARTA--the great charter of England--by which hepledged himself to maintain the Church in its rights; to relieve theBarons of oppressive obligations as vassals of the Crown--of which theBarons, in their turn, pledged themselves to relieve _their_ vassals, thepeople; to respect the liberties of London and all other cities andboroughs; to protect foreign merchants who came to England; to imprisonno man without a fair trial; and to sell, delay, or deny justice to none. As the Barons knew his falsehood well, they further required, as theirsecurities, that he should send out of his kingdom all his foreigntroops; that for two months they should hold possession of the city ofLondon, and Stephen Langton of the Tower; and that five-and-twenty oftheir body, chosen by themselves, should be a lawful committee to watchthe keeping of the charter, and to make war upon him if he broke it. 

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 hedeparted from the splendid assembly. When he got home to Windsor Castle, he was quite a madman in his helpless fury. And he broke the charterimmediately afterwards. 

He sent abroad for foreign soldiers, and sent to the Pope for help, andplotted to take London by surprise, while the Barons should be holding agreat tournament at Stamford, which they had agreed to hold there as acelebration of the charter. The Barons, however, found him out and putit off. Then, when the Barons desired to see him and tax him with histreachery, he made numbers of appointments with them, and kept none, andshifted from place to place, and was constantly sneaking and skulkingabout. At last he appeared at Dover, to join his foreign soldiers, ofwhom numbers came into his pay; and with them he besieged and tookRochester Castle, which was occupied by knights and soldiers of theBarons. He would have hanged them every one; but the leader of theforeign soldiers, fearful of what the English people might afterwards doto him, interfered to save the knights; therefore the King was fain tosatisfy his vengeance with the death of all the common men. Then, hesent the Earl of Salisbury, with one portion of his army, to ravage theeastern part of his own dominions, while he carried fire and slaughterinto the northern part; torturing, plundering, killing, and inflictingevery possible cruelty upon the people; and, every morning, setting aworthy example to his men by setting fire, with his own monster-hands, tothe 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 anInterdict again, because the people took part with the Barons. It didnot much matter, for the people had grown so used to it now, that theyhad begun to think nothing about it. It occurred to them--perhaps toStephen Langton too--that they could keep their churches open, and ringtheir bells, without the Pope's permission as well as with it. So, theytried 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, theBarons sent to Louis, son of the French monarch, to offer him the Englishcrown. Caring as little for the Pope's excommunication of him if heaccepted the offer, as it is possible his father may have cared for thePope's forgiveness of his sins, he landed at Sandwich (King Johnimmediately running away from Dover, where he happened to be), and wenton to London. The Scottish King, with whom many of the Northern EnglishLords had taken refuge; numbers of the foreign soldiers, numbers of theBarons, and numbers of the people went over to him every day;--King John, the while, continually running away in all directions. 

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 kingdomwas conquered he was sworn to banish them as traitors, and to give theirestates to some of his own Nobles. Rather than suffer this, some of theBarons hesitated: others even went over to King John. 

It seemed to be the turning-point of King John's fortunes, for, in hissavage and murderous course, he had now taken some towns and met withsome successes. But, happily for England and humanity, his death wasnear. Crossing a dangerous quicksand, called the Wash, not very far fromWisbeach, the tide came up and nearly drowned his army. He and hissoldiers escaped; but, looking back from the shore when he was safe, hesaw the roaring water sweep down in a torrent, overturn the waggons, horses, and men, that carried his treasure, and engulf them in a ragingwhirlpool from which nothing could be delivered. 

Cursing, and swearing, and gnawing his fingers, he went on to SwinesteadAbbey, where the monks set before him quantities of pears, and peaches, and new cider--some say poison too, but there is very little reason tosuppose 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 SleafordCastle, where he passed another night of pain and horror. Next day, theycarried him, with greater difficulty than on the day before, to thecastle of Newark upon Trent; and there, on the eighteenth of October, inthe 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 ofPembroke, the Marshal of England, to the city of Gloucester, and therecrowned in great haste when he was only ten years old. As the Crownitself had been lost with the King's treasure in the raging water, and asthere was no time to make another, they put a circle of plain gold uponhis head instead. 'We have been the enemies of this child's father, 'said Lord Pembroke, a good and true gentleman, to the few Lords who werepresent, 'and he merited our ill-will; but the child himself is innocent, and his youth demands our friendship and protection. ' Those Lords felttenderly 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 LordPembroke Regent or Protector of England, as the King was too young toreign alone. The next thing to be done, was to get rid of Prince Louisof France, and to win over those English Barons who were still rangedunder his banner. He was strong in many parts of England, and in Londonitself; and he held, among other places, a certain Castle called theCastle of Mount Sorel, in Leicestershire. To this fortress, after someskirmishing and truce-making, Lord Pembroke laid siege. Louis despatchedan army of six hundred knights and twenty thousand soldiers to relieveit. Lord Pembroke, who was not strong enough for such a force, retiredwith all his men. The army of the French Prince, which had marched therewith fire and plunder, marched away with fire and plunder, and came, in aboastful swaggering manner, to Lincoln. The town submitted; but theCastle in the town, held by a brave widow lady, named NICHOLA DE CAMVILLE(whose property it was), made such a sturdy resistance, that the FrenchCount in command of the army of the French Prince found it necessary tobesiege this Castle. While he was thus engaged, word was brought to himthat Lord Pembroke, with four hundred knights, two hundred and fifty menwith cross-bows, and a stout force both of horse and foot, was marchingtowards him. 'What care I?' said the French Count. 'The Englishman isnot so mad as to attack me and my great army in a walled town!' But theEnglishman 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 andbyways of Lincoln, where its horse-soldiers could not ride in any strongbody; and there he made such havoc with them, that the whole forcesurrendered themselves prisoners, except the Count; who said that hewould never yield to any English traitor alive, and accordingly gotkilled. 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 menwere slain without any mercy, and the knights and gentlemen paid ransomand went home. 

The wife of Louis, the fair BLANCHE OF CASTILE, dutifully equipped afleet of eighty good ships, and sent it over from France to her husband'said. An English fleet of forty ships, some good and some bad, gallantlymet them near the mouth of the Thames, and took or sunk sixty-five in onefight. This great loss put an end to the French Prince's hopes. Atreaty was made at Lambeth, in virtue of which the English Barons who hadremained attached to his cause returned to their allegiance, and it wasengaged on both sides that the Prince and all his troops should retirepeacefully to France. It was time to go; for war had made him so poorthat he was obliged to borrow money from the citizens of London to payhis expenses home. 

Lord Pembroke afterwards applied himself to governing the country justly, and to healing the quarrels and disturbances that had arisen among men inthe days of the bad King John. He caused Magna Charta to be still moreimproved, and so amended the Forest Laws that a Peasant was no longer putto 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 aProtector many years longer, but that was not to be. Within three yearsafter the young King's Coronation, Lord Pembroke died; and you may seehis tomb, at this day, in the old Temple Church in London. 

The Protectorship was now divided. PETER DE ROCHES, whom King John hadmade Bishop of Winchester, was entrusted with the care of the person ofthe young sovereign; and the exercise of the Royal authority was confidedto EARL HUBERT DE BURGH. These two personages had from the first noliking for each other, and soon became enemies. When the young King wasdeclared of age, Peter de Roches, finding that Hubert increased in powerand favour, retired discontentedly, and went abroad. For nearly tenyears 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, infeebleness, inconsistency, and irresolution. The best that can be saidof him is that he was not cruel. De Roches coming home again, after tenyears, and being a novelty, the King began to favour him and to lookcoldly on Hubert. Wanting money besides, and having made Hubert rich, hebegan to dislike Hubert. At last he was made to believe, or pretended tobelieve, that Hubert had misappropriated some of the Royal treasure; andordered him to furnish an account of all he had done in hisadministration. Besides which, the foolish charge was brought againstHubert that he had made himself the King's favourite by magic. Hubertvery well knowing that he could never defend himself against suchnonsense, and that his old enemy must be determined on his ruin, insteadof answering the charges fled to Merton Abbey. Then the King, in aviolent passion, sent for the Mayor of London, and said to the Mayor, 'Take twenty thousand citizens, and drag me Hubert de Burgh out of thatabbey, and bring him here. ' The Mayor posted off to do it, but theArchbishop of Dublin (who was a friend of Hubert's) warning the King thatan abbey was a sacred place, and that if he committed any violence there, he must answer for it to the Church, the King changed his mind and calledthe Mayor back, and declared that Hubert should have four months toprepare 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 enoughto have known better, came out of Merton Abbey upon these conditions, andjourneyed 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 enemiespersuaded the weak King to send out one SIR GODFREY DE CRANCUMB, whocommanded three hundred vagabonds called the Black Band, with orders toseize him. They came up with him at a little town in Essex, calledBrentwood, when he was in bed. He leaped out of bed, got out of thehouse, fled to the church, ran up to the altar, and laid his hand uponthe cross. Sir Godfrey and the Black Band, caring neither for church, altar, nor cross, dragged him forth to the church door, with their drawnswords flashing round his head, and sent for a Smith to rivet a set ofchains 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 thespeed he had made; and the Black Band, falling aside to show him thePrisoner, cried with a loud uproar, 'Make the fetters heavy! make themstrong!' the Smith dropped upon his knee--but not to the Black Band--andsaid, 'This is the brave Earl Hubert de Burgh, who fought at DoverCastle, and destroyed the French fleet, and has done his country muchgood service. You may kill me, if you like, but I will never make achain for Earl Hubert de Burgh!'

The Black Band never blushed, or they might have blushed at this. Theyknocked the Smith about from one to another, and swore at him, and tiedthe Earl on horseback, undressed as he was, and carried him off to theTower of London. The Bishops, however, were so indignant at theviolation of the Sanctuary of the Church, that the frightened King soonordered the Black Band to take him back again; at the same timecommanding the Sheriff of Essex to prevent his escaping out of BrentwoodChurch. Well! the Sheriff dug a deep trench all round the church, anderected a high fence, and watched the church night and day; the BlackBand and their Captain watched it too, like three hundred and one blackwolves. For thirty-nine days, Hubert de Burgh remained within. Atlength, upon the fortieth day, cold and hunger were too much for him, andhe gave himself up to the Black Band, who carried him off, for the secondtime, to the Tower. When his trial came on, he refused to plead; but atlast it was arranged that he should give up all the royal lands which hadbeen bestowed upon him, and should be kept at the Castle of Devizes, inwhat was called 'free prison, ' in charge of four knights appointed byfour lords. There, he remained almost a year, until, learning that afollower of his old enemy the Bishop was made Keeper of the Castle, andfearing that he might be killed by treachery, he climbed the ramparts onedark night, dropped from the top of the high Castle wall into the moat, and coming safely to the ground, took refuge in another church. Fromthis place he was delivered by a party of horse despatched to his help bysome nobles, who were by this time in revolt against the King, andassembled in Wales. He was finally pardoned and restored to his estates, but he lived privately, and never more aspired to a high post in therealm, or to a high place in the King's favour. And thus end--morehappily than the stories of many favourites of Kings--the adventures ofEarl Hubert de Burgh. 

The nobles, who had risen in revolt, were stirred up to rebellion by theoverbearing conduct of the Bishop of Winchester, who, finding that theKing secretly hated the Great Charter which had been forced from hisfather, did his utmost to confirm him in that dislike, and in thepreference he showed to foreigners over the English. Of this, and of hiseven publicly declaring that the Barons of England were inferior to thoseof France, the English Lords complained with such bitterness, that theKing, finding them well supported by the clergy, became frightened forhis throne, and sent away the Bishop and all his foreign associates. Onhis marriage, however, with ELEANOR, a French lady, the daughter of theCount of Provence, he openly favoured the foreigners again; and so manyof his wife's relations came over, and made such an immense family-partyat court, and got so many good things, and pocketed so much money, andwere so high with the English whose money they pocketed, that the bolderEnglish Barons murmured openly about a clause there was in the GreatCharter, which provided for the banishment of unreasonable favourites. But, the foreigners only laughed disdainfully, and said, 'What are yourEnglish 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 beensucceeded by his son of the same name--so moderate and just a man that hewas not the least in the world like a King, as Kings went. ISABELLA, King Henry's mother, wished very much (for a certain spite she had) thatEngland should make war against this King; and, as King Henry was a merepuppet in anybody's hands who knew how to manage his feebleness, sheeasily carried her point with him. But, the Parliament were determinedto give him no money for such a war. So, to defy the Parliament, hepacked up thirty large casks of silver--I don't know how he got so much;I dare say he screwed it out of the miserable Jews--and put them aboardship, and went away himself to carry war into France: accompanied by hismother and his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who was rich andclever. But he only got well beaten, and came home. 

The good-humour of the Parliament was not restored by this. Theyreproached the King with wasting the public money to make greedyforeigners rich, and were so stern with him, and so determined not to lethim have more of it to waste if they could help it, that he was at hiswit's end for some, and tried so shamelessly to get all he could from hissubjects, by excuses or by force, that the people used to say the Kingwas the sturdiest beggar in England. He took the Cross, thinking to getsome money by that means; but, as it was very well known that he nevermeant to go on a crusade, he got none. In all this contention, theLondoners were particularly keen against the King, and the King hatedthem warmly in return. Hating or loving, however, made no difference; hecontinued in the same condition for nine or ten years, when at last theBarons said that if he would solemnly confirm their liberties afresh, theParliament would vote him a large sum. 

As he readily consented, there was a great meeting held in WestminsterHall, one pleasant day in May, when all the clergy, dressed in theirrobes and holding every one of them a burning candle in his hand, stoodup (the Barons being also there) while the Archbishop of Canterbury readthe sentence of excommunication against any man, and all men, who shouldhenceforth, in any way, infringe the Great Charter of the Kingdom. Whenhe had done, they all put out their burning candles with a curse upon thesoul of any one, and every one, who should merit that sentence. The Kingconcluded with an oath to keep the Charter, 'As I am a man, as I am aChristian, 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 whenhe was supplied with money, and soon cured of their weakness the few whohad ever really trusted him. When his money was gone, and he was oncemore borrowing and begging everywhere with a meanness worthy of hisnature, he got into a difficulty with the Pope respecting the Crown ofSicily, which the Pope said he had a right to give away, and which heoffered to King Henry for his second son, PRINCE EDMUND. But, if you orI give away what we have not got, and what belongs to somebody else, itis likely that the person to whom we give it, will have some trouble intaking it. It was exactly so in this case. It was necessary to conquerthe Sicilian Crown before it could be put upon young Edmund's head. Itcould not be conquered without money. The Pope ordered the clergy toraise money. The clergy, however, were not so obedient to him as usual;they had been disputing with him for some time about his unjustpreference of Italian Priests in England; and they had begun to doubtwhether the King's chaplain, whom he allowed to be paid for preaching inseven hundred churches, could possibly be, even by the Pope's favour, inseven hundred places at once. 'The Pope and the King together, ' said theBishop of London, 'may take the mitre off my head; but, if they do, theywill find that I shall put on a soldier's helmet. I pay nothing. ' TheBishop of Worcester was as bold as the Bishop of London, and would paynothing either. Such sums as the more timid or more helpless of theclergy did raise were squandered away, without doing any good to theKing, or bringing the Sicilian Crown an inch nearer to Prince Edmund'shead. The end of the business was, that the Pope gave the Crown to thebrother of the King of France (who conquered it for himself), and sentthe King of England in, a bill of one hundred thousand pounds for theexpenses of not having won it. 

The King was now so much distressed that we might almost pity him, if itwere possible to pity a King so shabby and ridiculous. His cleverbrother, Richard, had bought the title of King of the Romans from theGerman people, and was no longer near him, to help him with advice. Theclergy, resisting the very Pope, were in alliance with the Barons. TheBarons were headed by SIMON DE MONTFORT, Earl of Leicester, married toKing Henry's sister, and, though a foreigner himself, the most popularman in England against the foreign favourites. When the King next methis Parliament, the Barons, led by this Earl, came before him, armed fromhead 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 Kingwas obliged to consent, on oath, to what was called a Committee ofGovernment: consisting of twenty-four members: twelve chosen by theBarons, and twelve chosen by himself. 

But, at a good time for him, his brother Richard came back. Richard'sfirst act (the Barons would not admit him into England on other terms)was to swear to be faithful to the Committee of Government--which heimmediately began to oppose with all his might. Then, the Barons beganto quarrel among themselves; especially the proud Earl of Gloucester withthe Earl of Leicester, who went abroad in disgust. Then, the peoplebegan to be dissatisfied with the Barons, because they did not do enoughfor them. The King's chances seemed so good again at length, that hetook heart enough--or caught it from his brother--to tell the Committeeof 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 shuthimself up in the Tower of London. Here he was joined by his eldest son, Prince Edward; and, from the Tower, he made public a letter of the Pope'sto the world in general, informing all men that he had been an excellentand just King for five-and-forty years. 

As everybody knew he had been nothing of the sort, nobody cared much forthis 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 ofthe Earl of Leicester, was (for the time) his friend. It fell out, therefore, that these two Earls joined their forces, took several of theRoyal Castles in the country, and advanced as hard as they could onLondon. The London people, always opposed to the King, declared for themwith great joy. The King himself remained shut up, not at allgloriously, in the Tower. Prince Edward made the best of his way toWindsor Castle. His mother, the Queen, attempted to follow him by water;but, the people seeing her barge rowing up the river, and hating her withall their hearts, ran to London Bridge, got together a quantity of stonesand mud, and pelted the barge as it came through, crying furiously, 'Drown the Witch! Drown her!' They were so near doing it, that theMayor 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 ofreading on yours, to follow the King through his disputes with theBarons, and to follow the Barons through their disputes with oneanother--so I will make short work of it for both of us, and only relatethe chief events that arose out of these quarrels. The good King ofFrance was asked to decide between them. He gave it as his opinion thatthe King must maintain the Great Charter, and that the Barons must giveup the Committee of Government, and all the rest that had been done bythe Parliament at Oxford: which the Royalists, or King's party, scornfully called the Mad Parliament. The Barons declared that thesewere not fair terms, and they would not accept them. Then they causedthe great bell of St. Paul's to be tolled, for the purpose of rousing upthe London people, who armed themselves at the dismal sound and formedquite an army in the streets. I am sorry to say, however, that insteadof falling upon the King's party with whom their quarrel was, they fellupon the miserable Jews, and killed at least five hundred of them. Theypretended that some of these Jews were on the King's side, and that theykept hidden in their houses, for the destruction of the people, a certainterrible composition called Greek Fire, which could not be put out withwater, but only burnt the fiercer for it. What they really did keep intheir houses was money; and this their cruel enemies wanted, and thistheir cruel enemies took, like robbers and murderers. 

The Earl of Leicester put himself at the head of these Londoners andother forces, and followed the King to Lewes in Sussex, where he layencamped with his army. Before giving the King's forces battle here, theEarl addressed his soldiers, and said that King Henry the Third hadbroken so many oaths, that he had become the enemy of God, and thereforethey would wear white crosses on their breasts, as if they were arrayed, not against a fellow-Christian, but against a Turk. White-crossedaccordingly, they rushed into the fight. They would have lost theday--the King having on his side all the foreigners in England: and, fromScotland, JOHN COMYN, JOHN BALIOL, and ROBERT BRUCE, with all theirmen--but for the impatience of PRINCE EDWARD, who, in his hot desire tohave vengeance on the people of London, threw the whole of his father'sarmy into confusion. He was taken Prisoner; so was the King; so was theKing's brother the King of the Romans; and five thousand Englishmen wereleft dead upon the bloody grass. 

For this success, the Pope excommunicated the Earl of Leicester: whichneither the Earl nor the people cared at all about. The people loved himand supported him, and he became the real King; having all the power ofthe government in his own hands, though he was outwardly respectful toKing Henry the Third, whom he took with him wherever he went, like a poorold limp court-card. He summoned a Parliament (in the year one thousandtwo hundred and sixty-five) which was the first Parliament in Englandthat the people had any real share in electing; and he grew more and morein favour with the people every day, and they stood by him in whatever hedid. 

Many of the other Barons, and particularly the Earl of Gloucester, whohad become by this time as proud as his father, grew jealous of thispowerful and popular Earl, who was proud too, and began to conspireagainst him. Since the battle of Lewes, Prince Edward had been kept as ahostage, and, though he was otherwise treated like a Prince, had neverbeen allowed to go out without attendants appointed by the Earl ofLeicester, who watched him. The conspiring Lords found means to proposeto him, in secret, that they should assist him to escape, and should makehim 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 fineafternoon, a little way into the country. ' As they, too, thought itwould be very pleasant to have a canter in the sunshine, they all rodeout of the town together in a gay little troop. When they came to a finelevel piece of turf, the Prince fell to comparing their horses one withanother, and offering bets that one was faster than another; and theattendants, suspecting no harm, rode galloping matches until their horseswere quite tired. The Prince rode no matches himself, but looked on fromhis saddle, and staked his money. Thus they passed the whole merryafternoon. Now, the sun was setting, and they were all going slowly up ahill, 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 thehill, and waved his hat. 'What does the fellow mean?' said theattendants one to another. The Prince answered on the instant by settingspurs 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 seenwaiting under some trees, and who closed around him; and so he departedin a cloud of dust, leaving the road empty of all but the baffledattendants, who sat looking at one another, while their horses droopedtheir ears and panted. 

The Prince joined the Earl of Gloucester at Ludlow. The Earl ofLeicester, with a part of the army and the stupid old King, was atHereford. One of the Earl of Leicester's sons, Simon de Montfort, withanother part of the army, was in Sussex. To prevent these two parts fromuniting was the Prince's first object. He attacked Simon de Montfort bynight, defeated him, seized his banners and treasure, and forced him intoKenilworth Castle in Warwickshire, which belonged to his family. 

His father, the Earl of Leicester, in the meanwhile, not knowing what hadhappened, marched out of Hereford, with his part of the army and theKing, to meet him. He came, on a bright morning in August, to Evesham, which is watered by the pleasant river Avon. Looking rather anxiouslyacross the prospect towards Kenilworth, he saw his own banners advancing;and his face brightened with joy. But, it clouded darkly when hepresently perceived that the banners were captured, and in the enemy'shands; and he said, 'It is over. The Lord have mercy on our souls, forour bodies are Prince Edward's!'

He fought like a true Knight, nevertheless. When his horse was killedunder him, he fought on foot. It was a fierce battle, and the dead layin heaps everywhere. The old King, stuck up in a suit of armour on a bigwar-horse, which didn't mind him at all, and which carried him into allsorts of places where he didn't want to go, got into everybody's way, andvery nearly got knocked on the head by one of his son's men. But hemanaged to pipe out, 'I am Harry of Winchester!' and the Prince, whoheard him, seized his bridle, and took him out of peril. The Earl ofLeicester still fought bravely, until his best son Henry was killed, andthe bodies of his best friends choked his path; and then he fell, stillfighting, sword in hand. They mangled his body, and sent it as a presentto a noble lady--but a very unpleasant lady, I should think--who was thewife of his worst enemy. They could not mangle his memory in the mindsof the faithful people, though. Many years afterwards, they loved himmore than ever, and regarded him as a Saint, and always spoke of him as'Sir Simon the Righteous. '

And even though he was dead, the cause for which he had fought stilllived, and was strong, and forced itself upon the King in the very hourof victory. Henry found himself obliged to respect the Great Charter, however much he hated it, and to make laws similar to the laws of theGreat Earl of Leicester, and to be moderate and forgiving towards thepeople at last--even towards the people of London, who had so longopposed him. There were more risings before all this was done, but theywere set at rest by these means, and Prince Edward did his best in allthings to restore peace. One Sir Adam de Gourdon was the lastdissatisfied knight in arms; but, the Prince vanquished him in singlecombat, in a wood, and nobly gave him his life, and became his friend, instead of slaying him. Sir Adam was not ungrateful. He ever afterwardsremained devoted to his generous conqueror. 

When the troubles of the Kingdom were thus calmed, Prince Edward and hiscousin Henry took the Cross, and went away to the Holy Land, with manyEnglish Lords and Knights. Four years afterwards the King of the Romansdied, and, next year (one thousand two hundred and seventy-two), hisbrother the weak King of England died. He was sixty-eight years oldthen, and had reigned fifty-six years. He was as much of a King indeath, as he had ever been in life. He was the mere pale shadow of aKing 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 himKing, immediately after the Royal funeral; and the people very willinglyconsented, since most men knew too well by this time what the horrors ofa contest for the crown were. So King Edward the First, called, in a notvery complimentary manner, LONGSHANKS, because of the slenderness of hislegs, was peacefully accepted by the English Nation. 

His legs had need to be strong, however long and thin they were; for theyhad to support him through many difficulties on the fiery sands of Asia, where his small force of soldiers fainted, died, deserted, and seemed tomelt 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 stormedNazareth, at which place, of all places on earth, I am sorry to relate, he made a frightful slaughter of innocent people; and then he went toAcre, where he got a truce of ten years from the Sultan. He had verynearly lost his life in Acre, through the treachery of a Saracen Noble, called the Emir of Jaffa, who, making the pretence that he had some ideaof turning Christian and wanted to know all about that religion, sent atrusty messenger to Edward very often--with a dagger in his sleeve. Atlast, one Friday in Whitsun week, when it was very hot, and all the sandyprospect lay beneath the blazing sun, burnt up like a great overdonebiscuit, and Edward was lying on a couch, dressed for coolness in only aloose robe, the messenger, with his chocolate-coloured face and hisbright dark eyes and white teeth, came creeping in with a letter, andkneeled down like a tame tiger. But, the moment Edward stretched out hishand to take the letter, the tiger made a spring at his heart. He wasquick, but Edward was quick too. He seized the traitor by his chocolatethroat, threw him to the ground, and slew him with the very dagger he haddrawn. The weapon had struck Edward in the arm, and although the wounditself was slight, it threatened to be mortal, for the blade of thedagger had been smeared with poison. Thanks, however, to a bettersurgeon than was often to be found in those times, and to some wholesomeherbs, and above all, to his faithful wife, ELEANOR, who devotedly nursedhim, and is said by some to have sucked the poison from the wound withher own red lips (which I am very willing to believe), Edward soonrecovered and was sound again. 

As the King his father had sent entreaties to him to return home, he nowbegan the journey. He had got as far as Italy, when he met messengerswho brought him intelligence of the King's death. Hearing that all wasquiet at home, he made no haste to return to his own dominions, but paida visit to the Pope, and went in state through various Italian Towns, where he was welcomed with acclamations as a mighty champion of the Crossfrom the Holy Land, and where he received presents of purple mantles andprancing horses, and went along in great triumph. The shouting peoplelittle knew that he was the last English monarch who would ever embark ina crusade, or that within twenty years every conquest which theChristians had made in the Holy Land at the cost of so much blood, wouldbe 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 wayto England, a wily French Lord, called the Count of Chalons, sent him apolite challenge to come with his knights and hold a fair tournament withthe Count and _his_ knights, and make a day of it with sword and lance. It was represented to the King that the Count of Chalons was not to betrusted, and that, instead of a holiday fight for mere show and in goodhumour, he secretly meant a real battle, in which the English should bedefeated by superior force. 

The King, however, nothing afraid, went to the appointed place on theappointed day with a thousand followers. When the Count came with twothousand and attacked the English in earnest, the English rushed at themwith such valour that the Count's men and the Count's horses soon beganto be tumbled down all over the field. The Count himself seized the Kinground the neck, but the King tumbled _him_ out of his saddle in returnfor the compliment, and, jumping from his own horse, and standing overhim, beat away at his iron armour like a blacksmith hammering on hisanvil. 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 upto a common soldier. There had been such fury shown in this fight, thatit was afterwards called the little Battle of Chalons. 

The English were very well disposed to be proud of their King after theseadventures; so, when he landed at Dover in the year one thousand twohundred and seventy-four (being then thirty-six years old), and went onto Westminster where he and his good Queen were crowned with greatmagnificence, splendid rejoicings took place. For the coronation-feastthere were provided, among other eatables, four hundred oxen, fourhundred sheep, four hundred and fifty pigs, eighteen wild boars, threehundred flitches of bacon, and twenty thousand fowls. The fountains andconduits in the street flowed with red and white wine instead of water;the rich citizens hung silks and cloths of the brightest colours out oftheir windows to increase the beauty of the show, and threw out gold andsilver by whole handfuls to make scrambles for the crowd. In short, there was such eating and drinking, such music and capering, such aringing of bells and tossing of caps, such a shouting, and singing, andrevelling, as the narrow overhanging streets of old London City had notwitnessed for many a long day. All the people were merry except the poorJews, who, trembling within their houses, and scarcely daring to peepout, began to foresee that they would have to find the money for thisjoviality sooner or later. 

To dismiss this sad subject of the Jews for the present, I am sorry toadd that in this reign they were most unmercifully pillaged. They werehanged in great numbers, on accusations of having clipped the King'scoin--which all kinds of people had done. They were heavily taxed; theywere disgracefully badged; they were, on one day, thirteen years afterthe coronation, taken up with their wives and children and thrown intobeastly prisons, until they purchased their release by paying to the Kingtwelve thousand pounds. Finally, every kind of property belonging tothem was seized by the King, except so little as would defray the chargeof their taking themselves away into foreign countries. Many yearselapsed before the hope of gain induced any of their race to return toEngland, where they had been treated so heartlessly and had suffered somuch. 

If King Edward the First had been as bad a king to Christians as he wasto Jews, he would have been bad indeed. But he was, in general, a wiseand great monarch, under whom the country much improved. He had no lovefor the Great Charter--few Kings had, through many, many years--but hehad high qualities. The first bold object which he conceived when hecame home, was, to unite under one Sovereign England, Scotland, andWales; 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 aprodigious disturbance--a great deal more than he was worth. In thecourse of King Edward's reign he was engaged, besides, in a war withFrance. To make these quarrels clearer, we will separate their historiesand take them thus. Wales, first. France, second. Scotland, third. 

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LLEWELLYN was the Prince of Wales. He had been on the side of the Baronsin the reign of the stupid old King, but had afterwards sworn allegianceto him. When King Edward came to the throne, Llewellyn was required toswear allegiance to him also; which he refused to do. The King, beingcrowned and in his own dominions, three times more required Llewellyn tocome and do homage; and three times more Llewellyn said he would rathernot. He was going to be married to ELEANOR DE MONTFORT, a young lady ofthe family mentioned in the last reign; and it chanced that this younglady, coming from France with her youngest brother, EMERIC, was taken byan English ship, and was ordered by the English King to be detained. Uponthis, the quarrel came to a head. The King went, with his fleet, to thecoast of Wales, where, so encompassing Llewellyn, that he could only takerefuge in the bleak mountain region of Snowdon in which no provisionscould reach him, he was soon starved into an apology, and into a treatyof peace, and into paying the expenses of the war. The King, however, forgave him some of the hardest conditions of the treaty, and consentedto his marriage. And he now thought he had reduced Wales to obedience. 

But the Welsh, although they were naturally a gentle, quiet, pleasantpeople, who liked to receive strangers in their cottages among themountains, and to set before them with free hospitality whatever they hadto eat and drink, and to play to them on their harps, and sing theirnative ballads to them, were a people of great spirit when their bloodwas up. Englishmen, after this affair, began 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 unluckyold prophecies somebody always seemed doomed to remember when there was achance of its doing harm; and just at this time some blind old gentlemanwith a harp and a long white beard, who was an excellent person, but hadbecome of an unknown age and tedious, burst out with a declaration thatMerlin had predicted that when English money had become round, a Princeof Wales would be crowned in London. Now, King Edward had recentlyforbidden the English penny to be cut into halves and quarters forhalfpence and farthings, and had actually introduced a round coin;therefore, the Welsh people said this was the time Merlin meant, and roseaccordingly. 

King Edward had bought over PRINCE DAVID, Llewellyn's brother, by heapingfavours upon him; but he was the first to revolt, being perhaps troubledin his conscience. One stormy night, he surprised the Castle ofHawarden, in possession of which an English nobleman had been left;killed the whole garrison, and carried off the nobleman a prisoner toSnowdon. Upon this, the Welsh people rose like one man. King Edward, with his army, marching from Worcester to the Menai Strait, crossedit--near to where the wonderful tubular iron bridge now, in days sodifferent, makes a passage for railway trains--by a bridge of boats thatenabled forty men to march abreast. He subdued the Island of Anglesea, and sent his men forward to observe the enemy. The sudden appearance ofthe 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 Welshpursuing them, they were driven into the sea, and there they sunk, intheir heavy iron armour, by thousands. After this victory Llewellyn, helped by the severe winter-weather of Wales, gained another battle; butthe King ordering a portion of his English army to advance through SouthWales, and catch him between two foes, and Llewellyn bravely turning tomeet this new enemy, he was surprised and killed--very meanly, for he wasunarmed and defenceless. His head was struck off and sent to London, where it was fixed upon the Tower, encircled with a wreath, some say ofivy, some say of willow, some say of silver, to make it look like aghastly coin in ridicule of the prediction. 

David, however, still held out for six months, though eagerly soughtafter by the King, and hunted by his own countrymen. One of them finallybetrayed him with his wife and children. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered; and from that time this became the establishedpunishment of Traitors in England--a punishment wholly without excuse, asbeing revolting, vile, and cruel, after its object is dead; and which hasno sense in it, as its only real degradation (and that nothing can blotout) is to the country that permits on any consideration such abominablebarbarity. 

Wales was now subdued. The Queen giving birth to a young prince in theCastle of Carnarvon, the King showed him to the Welsh people as theircountryman, and called him Prince of Wales; a title that has ever sincebeen borne by the heir-apparent to the English throne--which that littlePrince soon became, by the death of his elder brother. The King didbetter things for the Welsh than that, by improving their laws andencouraging their trade. Disturbances still took place, chieflyoccasioned by the avarice and pride of the English Lords, on whom Welshlands and castles had been bestowed; but they were subdued, and thecountry never rose again. There is a legend that to prevent the peoplefrom 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 amongother men who held out against the King; but this general slaughter is, Ithink, a fancy of the harpers themselves, who, I dare say, made a songabout it many years afterwards, and sang it by the Welsh firesides untilit came to be believed. 

The foreign war of the reign of Edward the First arose in this way. Thecrews 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 withfresh water. Being rough angry fellows, they began to quarrel, and thento fight--the English with their fists; the Normans with theirknives--and, in the fight, a Norman was killed. The Norman crew, insteadof revenging themselves upon those English sailors with whom they hadquarrelled (who were too strong for them, I suspect), took to their shipagain in a great rage, attacked the first English ship they met, laidhold of an unoffending merchant who happened to be on board, and brutallyhanged 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 fellupon each other tooth and nail. The Irish and Dutch sailors took partwith the English; the French and Genoese sailors helped the Normans; andthus the greater part of the mariners sailing over the sea became, intheir 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 todecide a difference between France and another foreign power, and hadlived upon the Continent three years. At first, neither he nor theFrench King PHILIP (the good Louis had been dead some time) interfered inthese quarrels; but when a fleet of eighty English ships engaged andutterly defeated a Norman fleet of two hundred, in a pitched battlefought round a ship at anchor, in which no quarter was given, the matterbecame too serious to be passed over. King Edward, as Duke of Guienne, was summoned to present himself before the King of France, at Paris, andanswer for the damage done by his sailor subjects. At first, he sent theBishop of London as his representative, and then his brother EDMUND, whowas married to the French Queen's mother. I am afraid Edmund was an easyman, and allowed himself to be talked over by his charming relations, theFrench court ladies; at all events, he was induced to give up hisbrother'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 timewas 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 couldbe won by energy and valour. He raised a large army, renounced hisallegiance as Duke of Guienne, and crossed the sea to carry war intoFrance. Before any important battle was fought, however, a truce wasagreed upon for two years; and in the course of that time, the Popeeffected a reconciliation. King Edward, who was now a widower, havinglost his affectionate and good wife, Eleanor, married the French King'ssister, MARGARET; and the Prince of Wales was contracted to the FrenchKing's daughter ISABELLA. 

Out of bad things, good things sometimes arise. Out of this hanging ofthe innocent merchant, and the bloodshed and strife it caused, there cameto be established one of the greatest powers that the English people nowpossess. The preparations for the war being very expensive, and KingEdward greatly wanting money, and being very arbitrary in his ways ofraising it, some of the Barons began firmly to oppose him. Two of them, in particular, HUMPHREY BOHUN, Earl of Hereford, and ROGER BIGOD, Earl ofNorfolk, were so stout against him, that they maintained he had no rightto command them to head his forces in Guienne, and flatly refused to gothere. 'By Heaven, Sir Earl, ' said the King to the Earl of Hereford, ina great passion, 'you shall either go or be hanged!' 'By Heaven, SirKing, ' 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 manyLords. The King tried every means of raising money. He taxed theclergy, in spite of all the Pope said to the contrary; and when theyrefused to pay, reduced them to submission, by saying Very well, thenthey had no claim upon the government for protection, and any man mightplunder them who would--which a good many men were very ready to do, andvery readily did, and which the clergy found too losing a game to beplayed at long. He seized all the wool and leather in the hands of themerchants, promising to pay for it some fine day; and he set a tax uponthe exportation of wool, which was so unpopular among the traders that itwas called 'The evil toll. ' But all would not do. The Barons, led bythose two great Earls, declared any taxes imposed without the consent ofParliament, unlawful; and the Parliament refused to impose taxes, untilthe King should confirm afresh the two Great Charters, and shouldsolemnly declare in writing, that there was no power in the country toraise money from the people, evermore, but the power of Parliamentrepresenting all ranks of the people. The King was very unwilling todiminish his own power by allowing this great privilege in theParliament; but there was no help for it, and he at last complied. Weshall come to another King by-and-by, who might have saved his head fromrolling off, if he had profited by this example. 

The people gained other benefits in Parliament from the good sense andwisdom of this King. Many of the laws were much improved; provision wasmade for the greater safety of travellers, and the apprehension ofthieves and murderers; the priests were prevented from holding too muchland, and so becoming too powerful; and Justices of the Peace were firstappointed (though not at first under that name) in various parts of thecountry. 

* * * * *

And now we come to Scotland, which was the great and lasting trouble ofthe 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 marriedto Margaret, King Edward's sister. All their children being dead, theScottish 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 thedeceased sovereign. King Edward proposed, that the Maiden of Norway, asthis Princess was called, should be engaged to be married to his eldestson; but, unfortunately, as she was coming over to England she fell sick, and landing on one of the Orkney Islands, died there. A great commotionimmediately began in Scotland, where as many as thirteen noisy claimantsto the vacant throne started up and made a general confusion. 

King Edward being much renowned for his sagacity and justice, it seems tohave been agreed to refer the dispute to him. He accepted the trust, andwent, 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 ofNorham, on the English side of the river Tweed; and to that Castle theycame. But, before he would take any step in the business, he requiredthose Scottish gentlemen, one and all, to do homage to him as theirsuperior Lord; and when they hesitated, he said, 'By holy Edward, whosecrown I wear, I will have my rights, or I will die in maintaining them!'The Scottish gentlemen, who had not expected this, were disconcerted, andasked for three weeks to think about it. 

At the end of the three weeks, another meeting took place, on a greenplain on the Scottish side of the river. Of all the competitors for theScottish throne, there were only two who had any real claim, in right oftheir near kindred to the Royal Family. These were JOHN BALIOL andROBERT BRUCE: and the right was, I have no doubt, on the side of JohnBaliol. At this particular meeting John Baliol was not present, butRobert Bruce was; and on Robert Bruce being formally asked whether heacknowledged the King of England for his superior lord, he answered, plainly and distinctly, Yes, he did. Next day, John Baliol appeared, andsaid the same. This point settled, some arrangements were made forinquiring into their titles. 

The inquiry occupied a pretty long time--more than a year. While it wasgoing on, King Edward took the opportunity of making a journey throughScotland, and calling upon the Scottish people of all degrees toacknowledge themselves his vassals, or be imprisoned until they did. Inthe meanwhile, Commissioners were appointed to conduct the inquiry, aParliament was held at Berwick about it, the two claimants were heard atfull length, and there was a vast amount of talking. At last, in thegreat hall of the Castle of Berwick, the King gave judgment in favour ofJohn Baliol: who, consenting to receive his crown by the King ofEngland's favour and permission, was crowned at Scone, in an old stonechair which had been used for ages in the abbey there, at the coronationsof 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 placedin 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 himself and his judges beforethe English Parliament when appeals from the decisions of Scottish courtsof justice were being heard. At length, John Baliol, who had no greatheart of his own, had so much heart put into him by the brave spirit ofthe Scottish people, who took this as a national insult, that he refusedto come any more. Thereupon, the King further required him to help himin his war abroad (which was then in progress), and to give up, assecurity for his good behaviour in future, the three strong ScottishCastles of Jedburgh, Roxburgh, and Berwick. Nothing of this being done;on the contrary, the Scottish people concealing their King among theirmountains in the Highlands and showing a determination to resist; Edwardmarched to Berwick with an army of thirty thousand foot, and fourthousand horse; took the Castle, and slew its whole garrison, and theinhabitants of the town as well--men, women, and children. LORDWARRENNE, Earl of Surrey, then went on to the Castle of Dunbar, beforewhich a battle was fought, and the whole Scottish army defeated withgreat slaughter. The victory being complete, the Earl of Surrey was leftas guardian of Scotland; the principal offices in that kingdom were givento Englishmen; the more powerful Scottish Nobles were obliged to come andlive in England; the Scottish crown and sceptre were brought away; andeven the old stone chair was carried off and placed in Westminster Abbey, where you may see it now. Baliol had the Tower of London lent him for aresidence, with permission to range about within a circle of twentymiles. Three years afterwards he was allowed to go to Normandy, where hehad estates, and where he passed the remaining six years of his life: farmore happily, I dare say, than he had lived for a long while in angryScotland. 

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 manof great size and great strength; he was very brave and daring; when hespoke to a body of his countrymen, he could rouse them in a wonderfulmanner by the power of his burning words; he loved Scotland dearly, andhe hated England with his utmost might. The domineering conduct of theEnglish who now held the places of trust in Scotland made them asintolerable to the proud Scottish people as they had been, under similarcircumstances, to the Welsh; and no man in all Scotland regarded themwith so much smothered rage as William Wallace. One day, an Englishmanin office, little knowing what he was, affronted _him_. Wallaceinstantly struck him dead, and taking refuge among the rocks and hills, and there joining with his countryman, SIR WILLIAM DOUGLAS, who was alsoin arms against King Edward, became the most resolute and undauntedchampion of a people struggling for their independence that ever livedupon the earth. 

The English Guardian of the Kingdom fled before him, and, thusencouraged, the Scottish people revolted everywhere, and fell upon theEnglish without mercy. The Earl of Surrey, by the King's commands, raised all the power of the Border-counties, and two English armiespoured into Scotland. Only one Chief, in the face of those armies, stoodby Wallace, who, with a force of forty thousand men, awaited the invadersat a place on the river Forth, within two miles of Stirling. Across theriver there was only one poor wooden bridge, called the bridge ofKildean--so narrow, that but two men could cross it abreast. With hiseyes upon this bridge, Wallace posted the greater part of his men amongsome rising grounds, and waited calmly. When the English army came up onthe opposite bank of the river, messengers were sent forward to offerterms. Wallace sent them back with a defiance, in the name of thefreedom of Scotland. Some of the officers of the Earl of Surrey incommand of the English, with _their_ eyes also on the bridge, advised himto be discreet and not hasty. He, however, urged to immediate battle bysome other officers, and particularly by CRESSINGHAM, King Edward'streasurer, and a rash man, gave the word of command to advance. Onethousand English crossed the bridge, two abreast; the Scottish troopswere as motionless as stone images. Two thousand English crossed; threethousand, four thousand, five. Not a feather, all this time, had beenseen to stir among the Scottish bonnets. Now, they all fluttered. 'Forward, one party, to the foot of the Bridge!' cried Wallace, 'and letno more English cross! The rest, down with me on the five thousand whohave come over, and cut them all to pieces!' It was done, in the sightof the whole remainder of the English army, who could give no help. Cressingham himself was killed, and the Scotch made whips for theirhorses of his skin. 

King Edward was abroad at this time, and during the successes on theScottish side which followed, and which enabled bold Wallace to win thewhole country back again, and even to ravage the English borders. But, after a few winter months, the King returned, and took the field withmore than his usual energy. One night, when a kick from his horse asthey both lay on the ground together broke two of his ribs, and a cryarose that he was killed, he leaped into his saddle, regardless of thepain he suffered, and rode through the camp. Day then appearing, he gavethe word (still, of course, in that bruised and aching state) Forward!and led his army on to near Falkirk, where the Scottish forces were seendrawn up on some stony ground, behind a morass. Here, he defeatedWallace, and killed fifteen thousand of his men. With the shatteredremainder, Wallace drew back to Stirling; but, being pursued, set fire tothe town that it might give no help to the English, and escaped. Theinhabitants of Perth afterwards set fire to their houses for the samereason, and the King, unable to find provisions, was forced to withdrawhis army. 

Another ROBERT BRUCE, the grandson of him who had disputed the Scottishcrown with Baliol, was now in arms against the King (that elder Brucebeing dead), and also JOHN COMYN, Baliol's nephew. These two young menmight agree in opposing Edward, but could agree in nothing else, as theywere rivals for the throne of Scotland. Probably it was because theyknew this, and knew what troubles must arise even if they could hope toget the better of the great English King, that the principal Scottishpeople applied to the Pope for his interference. The Pope, on theprinciple of losing nothing for want of trying to get it, very coollyclaimed 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, theKing sent SIR JOHN SEGRAVE, whom he made Governor of Scotland, withtwenty thousand men, to reduce the rebels. Sir John was not as carefulas he should have been, but encamped at Rosslyn, near Edinburgh, with hisarmy divided into three parts. The Scottish forces saw their advantage;fell on each part separately; defeated each; and killed all theprisoners. Then, came the King himself once more, as soon as a greatarmy could be raised; he passed through the whole north of Scotland, laying waste whatsoever came in his way; and he took up his winterquarters at Dunfermline. The Scottish cause now looked so hopeless, thatComyn and the other nobles made submission and received their pardons. Wallace alone stood out. He was invited to surrender, though on nodistinct pledge that his life should be spared; but he still defied theireful King, and lived among the steep crags of the Highland glens, wherethe eagles made their nests, and where the mountain torrents roared, andthe white snow was deep, and the bitter winds blew round his unshelteredhead, as he lay through many a pitch-dark night wrapped up in his plaid. Nothing could break his spirit; nothing could lower his courage; nothingcould induce him to forget or to forgive his country's wrongs. Even whenthe Castle of Stirling, which had long held out, was besieged by the Kingwith every kind of military engine then in use; even when the lead uponcathedral 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 soresolved to conquer; even when the brave garrison (then found withamazement to be not two hundred people, including several ladies) werestarved and beaten out and were made to submit on their knees, and withevery form of disgrace that could aggravate their sufferings; even then, when there was not a ray of hope in Scotland, William Wallace was asproud and firm as if he had beheld the powerful and relentless Edwardlying dead at his feet. 

Who betrayed William Wallace in the end, is not quite certain. That hewas betrayed--probably by an attendant--is too true. He was taken to theCastle of Dumbarton, under SIR JOHN MENTEITH, and thence to London, wherethe great fame of his bravery and resolution attracted immense concoursesof people to behold him. He was tried in Westminster Hall, with a crownof laurel on his head--it is supposed because he was reported to havesaid that he ought to wear, or that he would wear, a crown there and wasfound guilty as a robber, a murderer, and a traitor. What they called arobber (he said to those who tried him) he was, because he had takenspoil from the King's men. What they called a murderer, he was, becausehe had slain an insolent Englishman. What they called a traitor, he wasnot, for he had never sworn allegiance to the King, and had ever scornedto do it. He was dragged at the tails of horses to West Smithfield, andthere 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 rightarm was sent to Newcastle, his left arm to Berwick, his legs to Perth andAberdeen. But, if King Edward had had his body cut into inches, and hadsent every separate inch into a separate town, he could not havedispersed it half so far and wide as his fame. Wallace will beremembered in songs and stories, while there are songs and stories in theEnglish tongue, and Scotland will hold him dear while her lakes andmountains last. 

Released from this dreaded enemy, the King made a fairer plan ofGovernment for Scotland, divided the offices of honour among Scottishgentlemen and English gentlemen, forgave past offences, and thought, inhis old age, that his work was done. 

But he deceived himself. Comyn and Bruce conspired, and made anappointment to meet at Dumfries, in the church of the Minorites. Thereis a story that Comyn was false to Bruce, and had informed against him tothe King; that Bruce was warned of his danger and the necessity offlight, by receiving, one night as he sat at supper, from his friend theEarl of Gloucester, twelve pennies and a pair of spurs; that as he wasriding angrily to keep his appointment (through a snow-storm, with hishorse's shoes reversed that he might not be tracked), he met anevil-looking serving man, a messenger of Comyn, whom he killed, andconcealed 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, theycertainly did quarrel in the church where they met, and Bruce drew hisdagger and stabbed Comyn, who fell upon the pavement. When Bruce cameout, pale and disturbed, the friends who were waiting for him asked whatwas the matter? 'I think I have killed Comyn, ' said he. 'You only thinkso?' returned one of them; 'I will make sure!' and going into the church, and finding him alive, stabbed him again and again. Knowing that theKing would never forgive this new deed of violence, the party thendeclared Bruce King of Scotland: got him crowned at Scone--without thechair; and set up the rebellious standard once again. 

When the King heard of it he kindled with fiercer anger than he had evershown yet. He caused the Prince of Wales and two hundred and seventy ofthe young nobility to be knighted--the trees in the Temple Gardens werecut down to make room for their tents, and they watched their armour allnight, according to the old usage: some in the Temple Church: some inWestminster Abbey--and at the public Feast which then took place, heswore, by Heaven, and by two swans covered with gold network which hisminstrels placed upon the table, that he would avenge the death of Comyn, and would punish the false Bruce. And before all the company, he chargedthe Prince his son, in case that he should die before accomplishing hisvow, not to bury him until it was fulfilled. Next morning the Prince andthe rest of the young Knights rode away to the Border-country to join theEnglish army; and the King, now weak and sick, followed in ahorse-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 executing Bruce's relations andadherents, sparing neither youth nor age, and showing no touch of pity orsign of mercy. In the following spring, Bruce reappeared and gained somevictories. In these frays, both sides were grievously cruel. Forinstance--Bruce's two brothers, being taken captives desperately wounded, were ordered by the King to instant execution. Bruce's friend Sir JohnDouglas, taking his own Castle of Douglas out of the hands of an EnglishLord, roasted the dead bodies of the slaughtered garrison in a great firemade of every movable within it; which dreadful cookery his men calledthe Douglas Larder. Bruce, still successful, however, drove the Earl ofPembroke and the Earl of Gloucester into the Castle of Ayr and laid siegeto it. 

The King, who had been laid up all the winter, but had directed the armyfrom his sick-bed, now advanced to Carlisle, and there, causing thelitter in which he had travelled to be placed in the Cathedral as anoffering 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. Hewas 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 theBorder. At length, he lay down at the village of Burgh-upon-Sands; andthere, telling those around him to impress upon the Prince that he was toremember his father's vow, and was never to rest until he had thoroughlysubdued Scotland, he yielded up his last breath. 

CHAPTER XVII--ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SECOND

King Edward the Second, the first Prince of Wales, was twenty-three yearsold when his father died. There was a certain favourite of his, a youngman from Gascony, named PIERS GAVESTON, of whom his father had so muchdisapproved that he had ordered him out of England, and had made his sonswear by the side of his sick-bed, never to bring him back. But, thePrince no sooner found himself King, than he broke his oath, as so manyother Princes and Kings did (they were far too ready to take oaths), andsent 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 sucha dissipated place, but, also, because he could ride better than they attournaments, and was used, in his impudence, to cut very bad jokes onthem; calling one, the old hog; another, the stage-player; another, theJew; 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 Warwick, whowas the black dog, swore that the time should come when Piers Gavestonshould feel the black dog's teeth. 

It was not come yet, however, nor did it seem to be coming. The Kingmade him Earl of Cornwall, and gave him vast riches; and, when the Kingwent over to France to marry the French Princess, ISABELLA, daughter ofPHILIP LE BEL: who was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world:he made Gaveston, Regent of the Kingdom. His splendid marriage-ceremonyin the Church of Our Lady at Boulogne, where there were four Kings andthree Queens present (quite a pack of Court Cards, for I dare say theKnaves were not wanting), being over, he seemed to care little or nothingfor his beautiful wife; but was wild with impatience to meet Gavestonagain. 

When he landed at home, he paid no attention to anybody else, but raninto the favourite's arms before a great concourse of people, and huggedhim, and kissed him, and called him his brother. At the coronation whichsoon followed, Gaveston was the richest and brightest of all theglittering company there, and had the honour of carrying the crown. Thismade the proud Lords fiercer than ever; the people, too, despised thefavourite, and would never call him Earl of Cornwall, however much hecomplained to the King and asked him to punish them for not doing so, butpersisted in styling him plain Piers Gaveston. 

The Barons were so unceremonious with the King in giving him tounderstand that they would not bear this favourite, that the King wasobliged to send him out of the country. The favourite himself was madeto take an oath (more oaths!) that he would never come back, and theBarons supposed him to be banished in disgrace, until they heard that hewas appointed Governor of Ireland. Even this was not enough for thebesotted King, who brought him home again in a year's time, and not onlydisgusted the Court and the people by his doting folly, but offended hisbeautiful wife too, who never liked him afterwards. 

He had now the old Royal want--of money--and the Barons had the new powerof positively refusing to let him raise any. He summoned a Parliament atYork; 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 ofthemselves to correct abuses in the state and in the King's household. Hegot some money on these conditions, and directly set off with Gaveston tothe Border-country, where they spent it in idling away the time, andfeasting, while Bruce 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 themboiled clean in a caldron, and carried before the English army untilScotland was entirely subdued, the second Edward was so unlike the firstthat Bruce gained strength and power every day. 

The committee of Nobles, after some months of deliberation, ordained thatthe 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, onpain 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 doneso, however, he dissolved the Parliament, with the low cunning of a merefool, and set off to the North of England, thinking to get an army abouthim to oppose the Nobles. And once again he brought Gaveston home, andheaped upon him all the riches and titles of which the Barons haddeprived him. 

The Lords saw, now, that there was nothing for it but to put thefavourite to death. They could have done so, legally, according to theterms of his banishment; but they did so, I am sorry to say, in a shabbymanner. Led by the Earl of Lancaster, the King's cousin, they first ofall attacked the King and Gaveston at Newcastle. They had time to escapeby sea, and the mean King, having his precious Gaveston with him, wasquite content to leave his lovely wife behind. When they werecomparatively safe, they separated; the King went to York to collect aforce of soldiers; and the favourite shut himself up, in the meantime, inScarborough Castle overlooking the sea. This was what the Barons wanted. They knew that the Castle could not hold out; they attacked it, and madeGaveston surrender. He delivered himself up to the Earl of Pembroke--thatLord whom he had called the Jew--on the Earl's pledging his faith andknightly word, that no harm should happen to him and no violence be donehim. 

Now, it was agreed with Gaveston that he should be taken to the Castle ofWallingford, and there kept in honourable custody. They travelled as faras Dedington, near Banbury, where, in the Castle of that place, theystopped for a night to rest. Whether the Earl of Pembroke left hisprisoner there, knowing what would happen, or really left him thinking noharm, 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 wasbound as an honourable gentleman to protect his prisoner, and he did notdo it. In the morning, while the favourite was yet in bed, he wasrequired to dress himself and come down into the court-yard. He did sowithout any mistrust, but started and turned pale when he found it fullof strange armed men. 'I think you know me?' said their leader, alsoarmed from head to foot. 'I am the black dog of Ardenne!' The time wascome when Piers Gaveston was to feel the black dog's teeth indeed. Theyset him on a mule, and carried him, in mock state and with militarymusic, 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'sbark, I dare say--sounded through the Castle Hall, uttering these words:'You have the fox in your power. Let him go now, and you must hunt himagain. '

They sentenced him to death. He threw himself at the feet of the Earl ofLancaster--the old hog--but the old hog was as savage as the dog. He wastaken out upon the pleasant road, leading from Warwick to Coventry, wherethe beautiful river Avon, by which, long afterwards, WILLIAM SHAKESPEAREwas born and now lies buried, sparkled in the bright landscape of thebeautiful May-day; and there they struck off his wretched head, andstained the dust with his blood. 

When the King heard of this black deed, in his grief and rage hedenounced relentless war against his Barons, and both sides were in armsfor half a year. But, it then became necessary for them to join theirforces against Bruce, who had used the time well while they were divided, and had now a great power in Scotland. 

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 Kingordered 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 thesurrender, did the King find himself at Stirling, and even then with asmaller force than he had expected. However, he had, altogether, ahundred thousand men, and Bruce had not more than forty thousand; but, Bruce's army was strongly posted in three square columns, on the groundlying between the Burn or Brook of Bannock and the walls of StirlingCastle. 

On the very evening, when the King came up, Bruce did a brave act thatencouraged his men. He was seen by a certain HENRY DE BOHUN, an EnglishKnight, riding about before his army on a little horse, with a lightbattle-axe in his hand, and a crown of gold on his head. This EnglishKnight, who was mounted on a strong war-horse, cased in steel, stronglyarmed, and able (as he thought) to overthrow Bruce by crushing him withhis mere weight, set spurs to his great charger, rode on him, and made athrust at him with his heavy spear. Bruce parried the thrust, and withone 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 hecommanded, into such a host of the English, all shining in polishedarmour in the sunlight, that they seemed to be swallowed up and lost, asif they had plunged into the sea. But, they fought so well, and did suchdreadful execution, that the English staggered. Then came Bruce himselfupon them, with all the rest of his army. While they were thus hardpressed and amazed, there appeared upon the hills what they supposed tobe a new Scottish army, but what were really only the camp followers, innumber fifteen thousand: whom Bruce had taught to show themselves at thatplace and time. The Earl of Gloucester, commanding the English horse, made a last rush to change the fortune of the day; but Bruce (like Jackthe Giant-killer in the story) had had pits dug in the ground, andcovered over with turfs and stakes. Into these, as they gave way beneaththe weight of the horses, riders and horses rolled by hundreds. TheEnglish were completely routed; all their treasure, stores, and engines, were taken by the Scottish men; so many waggons and other wheeledvehicles were seized, that it is related that they would have reached, ifthey had been drawn out in a line, one hundred and eighty miles. Thefortunes of Scotland were, for the time, completely changed; and neverwas a battle won, more famous upon Scottish ground, than this greatbattle of BANNOCKBURN. 

Plague and famine succeeded in England; and still the powerless King andhis disdainful Lords were always in contention. Some of the turbulentchiefs of Ireland made proposals to Bruce, to accept the rule of thatcountry. He sent his brother Edward to them, who was crowned King ofIreland. He afterwards went himself to help his brother in his Irishwars, 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 endin one. He was too poor a creature to rely at all upon himself; and hisnew favourite was one HUGH LE DESPENSER, the son of a gentleman ofancient family. Hugh was handsome and brave, but he was the favourite ofa weak King, whom no man cared a rush for, and that was a dangerous placeto hold. The Nobles leagued against him, because the King liked him; andthey lay in wait, both for his ruin and his father's. Now, the King hadmarried him to the daughter of the late Earl of Gloucester, and had givenboth him and his father great possessions in Wales. In their endeavoursto extend these, they gave violent offence to an angry Welsh gentleman, named JOHN DE MOWBRAY, and to divers other angry Welsh gentlemen, whoresorted to arms, took their castles, and seized their estates. The Earlof Lancaster had first placed the favourite (who was a poor relation ofhis own) at Court, and he considered his own dignity offended by thepreference he received and the honours he acquired; so he, and the Baronswho were his friends, joined the Welshmen, marched on London, and sent amessage to the King demanding to have the favourite and his fatherbanished. At first, the King unaccountably took it into his head to bespirited, and to send them a bold reply; but when they quarteredthemselves around Holborn and Clerkenwell, and went down, armed, to theParliament at Westminster, he gave way, and complied with their demands. 

His turn of triumph came sooner than he expected. It arose out of anaccidental circumstance. The beautiful Queen happening to be travelling, came one night to one of the royal castles, and demanded to be lodged andentertained there until morning. The governor of this castle, who wasone of the enraged lords, was away, and in his absence, his wife refusedadmission to the Queen; a scuffle took place among the common men oneither side, and some of the royal attendants were killed. The people, who cared nothing for the King, were very angry that their beautifulQueen should be thus rudely treated in her own dominions; and the King, taking advantage of this feeling, besieged the castle, took it, and thencalled the two Despensers home. Upon this, the confederate lords and theWelshmen went over to Bruce. The King encountered them at Boroughbridge, gained the victory, and took a number of distinguished prisoners; amongthem, the Earl of Lancaster, now an old man, upon whose destruction hewas resolved. This Earl was taken to his own castle of Pontefract, andthere tried and found guilty by an unfair court appointed for thepurpose; he was not even allowed to speak in his own defence. He wasinsulted, 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 hadmade a fresh and a long truce with Bruce, he took the Despensers intogreater favour than ever, and made the father Earl of Winchester. 

One prisoner, and an important one, who was taken at Boroughbridge, madehis escape, however, and turned the tide against the King. This wasROGER MORTIMER, always resolutely opposed to him, who was sentenced todeath, and placed for safe custody in the Tower of London. He treatedhis 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 akitchen, climbed up the chimney, let himself down from the roof of thebuilding 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 forhim. He finally escaped to France, where CHARLES LE BEL, the brother ofthe beautiful Queen, was King. Charles sought to quarrel with the Kingof England, on pretence of his not having come to do him homage at hiscoronation. It was proposed that the beautiful Queen should go over toarrange the dispute; she went, and wrote home to the King, that as he wassick and could not come to France himself, perhaps it would be better tosend over the young Prince, their son, who was only twelve years old, whocould do homage to her brother in his stead, and in whose company shewould immediately return. The King sent him: but, both he and the Queenremained at the French Court, and Roger Mortimer became the Queen'slover. 

When the King wrote, again and again, to the Queen to come home, she didnot reply that she despised him too much to live with him any more (whichwas 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 oftwo thousand men, and being joined by all the English exiles then inFrance, she landed, within a year, at Orewell, in Suffolk, where she wasimmediately joined by the Earls of Kent and Norfolk, the King's twobrothers; by other powerful noblemen; and lastly, by the first Englishgeneral who was despatched to check her: who went over to her with allhis men. The people of London, receiving these tidings, would do nothingfor the King, but broke open the Tower, let out all his prisoners, andthrew up their caps and hurrahed for the beautiful Queen. 

The King, with his two favourites, fled to Bristol, where he left oldDespenser in charge of the town and castle, while he went on with the sonto Wales. The Bristol men being opposed to the King, and it beingimpossible to hold the town with enemies everywhere within the walls, Despenser yielded it up on the third day, and was instantly brought totrial for having traitorously influenced what was called 'the King'smind'--though I doubt if the King ever had any. He was a venerable oldman, upwards of ninety years of age, but his age gained no respect ormercy. He was hanged, torn open while he was yet alive, cut up intopieces, and thrown to the dogs. His son was soon taken, tried atHereford before the same judge on a long series of foolish charges, foundguilty, and hanged upon a gallows fifty feet high, with a chaplet ofnettles round his head. His poor old father and he were innocent enoughof any worse crimes than the crime of having been friends of a King, onwhom, as a mere man, they would never have deigned to cast a favourablelook. It is a bad crime, I know, and leads to worse; but, many lords andgentlemen--I even think some ladies, too, if I recollect right--havecommitted it in England, who have neither been given to the dogs, norhanged up fifty feet high. 

The wretched King was running here and there, all this time, and nevergetting anywhere in particular, until he gave himself up, and was takenoff to Kenilworth Castle. When he was safely lodged there, the Queenwent to London and met the Parliament. And the Bishop of Hereford, whowas the most skilful of her friends, said, What was to be done now? Herewas an imbecile, indolent, miserable King upon the throne; wouldn't it bebetter to take him off, and put his son there instead? I don't knowwhether 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 themwent down to Kenilworth; and there the King came into the great hall ofthe Castle, commonly dressed in a poor black gown; and when he saw acertain bishop among them, fell down, poor feeble-headed man, and made awretched spectacle of himself. Somebody lifted him up, and then SIRWILLIAM TRUSSEL, the Speaker of the House of Commons, almost frightenedhim to death by making him a tremendous speech to the effect that he wasno longer a King, and that everybody renounced allegiance to him. Afterwhich, SIR THOMAS BLOUNT, the Steward of the Household, nearly finishedhim, by coming forward and breaking his white wand--which was a ceremonyonly performed at a King's death. Being asked in this pressing mannerwhat he thought of resigning, the King said he thought it was the bestthing 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 lifein the Castle and the Castle gardens at Kenilworth, many years--that hehad a favourite, and plenty to eat and drink--and, having that, wantednothing. But he was shamefully humiliated. He was outraged, andslighted, and had dirty water from ditches given him to shave with, andwept and said he would have clean warm water, and was altogether verymiserable. He was moved from this castle to that castle, and from thatcastle to the other castle, because this lord or that lord, or the otherlord, was too kind to him: until at last he came to Berkeley Castle, nearthe River Severn, where (the Lord Berkeley being then ill and absent) hefell into the hands of two black ruffians, called THOMAS GOURNAY andWILLIAM OGLE. 

One night--it was the night of September the twenty-first, one thousandthree hundred and twenty-seven--dreadful screams were heard, by thestartled people in the neighbouring town, ringing through the thick wallsof the Castle, and the dark, deep night; and they said, as they were thushorribly 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 dismalprison!' Next morning he was dead--not bruised, or stabbed, or markedupon the body, but much distorted in the face; and it was whisperedafterwards, that those two villains, Gournay and Ogle, had burnt up hisinside with a red-hot iron. 

If you ever come near Gloucester, and see the centre tower of itsbeautiful Cathedral, with its four rich pinnacles, rising lightly in theair; you may remember that the wretched Edward the Second was buried inthe old abbey of that ancient city, at forty-three years old, after beingfor 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 lastchapter), was far from profiting by the examples he had had of the fateof favourites. Having, through the Queen's influence, come intopossession of the estates of the two Despensers, he became extremelyproud and ambitious, and sought to be the real ruler of England. Theyoung King, who was crowned at fourteen years of age with all the usualsolemnities, resolved not to bear this, and soon pursued Mortimer to hisruin. 

The people themselves were not fond of Mortimer--first, because he was aRoyal favourite; secondly, because he was supposed to have helped to makea peace with Scotland which now took place, and in virtue of which theyoung King's sister Joan, only seven years old, was promised in marriageto 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. Theywent 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 overto Mortimer and the Queen, was made an example of in the following cruelmanner:

He seems to have been anything but a wise old earl; and he was persuadedby the agents of the favourite and the Queen, that poor King Edward theSecond was not really dead; and thus was betrayed into writing lettersfavouring his rightful claim to the throne. This was made out to be hightreason, and he was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be executed. They took the poor old lord outside the town of Winchester, and therekept him waiting some three or four hours until they could find somebodyto cut off his head. At last, a convict said he would do it, if thegovernment would pardon him in return; and they gave him the pardon; andat 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 younglady, named Philippa, who she thought would make an excellent wife forher son. The young King married this lady, soon after he came to thethrone; and her first child, Edward, Prince of Wales, afterwards becamecelebrated, as we shall presently see, under the famous title of EDWARDTHE BLACK PRINCE. 

The young King, thinking the time ripe for the downfall of Mortimer, tookcounsel with Lord Montacute how he should proceed. A Parliament wasgoing to be held at Nottingham, and that lord recommended that thefavourite should be seized by night in Nottingham Castle, where he wassure to be. Now, this, like many other things, was more easily said thandone; because, to guard against treachery, the great gates of the Castlewere locked every night, and the great keys were carried up-stairs to theQueen, who laid them under her own pillow. But the Castle had agovernor, and the governor being Lord Montacute's friend, confided to himhow he knew of a secret passage underground, hidden from observation bythe weeds and brambles with which it was overgrown; and how, through thatpassage, the conspirators might enter in the dead of the night, and gostraight to Mortimer's room. Accordingly, upon a certain dark night, atmidnight, they made their way through this dismal place: startling therats, and frightening the owls and bats: and came safely to the bottom ofthe main tower of the Castle, where the King met them, and took them up aprofoundly-dark staircase in a deep silence. They soon heard the voiceof Mortimer in council with some friends; and bursting into the room witha sudden noise, took him prisoner. The Queen cried out from herbed-chamber, 'Oh, my sweet son, my dear son, spare my gentle Mortimer!'They carried him off, however; and, before the next Parliament, accusedhim of having made differences between the young King and his mother, andof having brought about the death of the Earl of Kent, and even of thelate King; for, as you know by this time, when they wanted to get rid ofa man in those old days, they were not very particular of what theyaccused him. Mortimer was found guilty of all this, and was sentenced tobe 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 whohad lands in Scotland, finding that their rights were not respected underthe late peace, made war on their own account: choosing for theirgeneral, 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 wasjoined, when thus triumphant, by the King and Parliament; and he and theKing in person besieged the Scottish forces in Berwick. The wholeScottish army coming to the assistance of their countrymen, such afurious battle ensued, that thirty thousand men are said to have beenkilled in it. Baliol was then crowned King of Scotland, doing homage tothe King of England; but little came of his successes after all, for theScottish men rose against him, within no very long time, and David Brucecame back within ten years and took his kingdom. 

France was a far richer country than Scotland, and the King had a muchgreater mind to conquer it. So, he let Scotland alone, and pretendedthat 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. Hebrought over to his cause many little princes and sovereigns, and evencourted the alliance of the people of Flanders--a busy, workingcommunity, who had very small respect for kings, and whose head man was abrewer. With such forces as he raised by these means, Edward invadedFrance; but he did little by that, except run into debt in carrying onthe war to the extent of three hundred thousand pounds. The next year hedid better; gaining a great sea-fight in the harbour of Sluys. Thissuccess, however, was very shortlived, for the Flemings took fright atthe siege of Saint Omer and ran away, leaving their weapons and baggagebehind them. Philip, the French King, coming up with his army, andEdward being very anxious to decide the war, proposed to settle thedifference by single combat with him, or by a fight of one hundredknights on each side. The French King said, he thanked him; but beingvery well as he was, he would rather not. So, after some skirmishing andtalking, a short peace was made. 

It was soon broken by King Edward's favouring the cause of John, Earl ofMontford; a French nobleman, who asserted a claim of his own against theFrench 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 inParis; but his wife, a courageous and beautiful woman, who is said tohave had the courage of a man, and the heart of a lion, assembled thepeople of Brittany, where she then was; and, showing them her infant son, made many pathetic entreaties to them not to desert her and their youngLord. They took fire at this appeal, and rallied round her in the strongcastle of Hennebon. Here she was not only besieged without by the Frenchunder Charles de Blois, but was endangered within by a dreary old bishop, who was always representing to the people what horrors they must undergoif they were faithful--first from famine, and afterwards from fire andsword. But this noble lady, whose heart never failed her, encouraged hersoldiers 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 aby-path, fell upon the French camp, set fire to the tents, and threw thewhole force into disorder. This done, she got safely back to Hennebonagain, and was received with loud shouts of joy by the defenders of thecastle, who had given her up for lost. As they were now very short ofprovisions, however, and as they could not dine off enthusiasm, and asthe 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. Thebrave Countess retiring to an upper room and looking with great grief outto sea, where she expected relief from England, saw, at this very time, the English ships in the distance, and was relieved and rescued! SirWalter Manning, the English commander, so admired her courage, that, being come into the castle with the English knights, and having made afeast there, he assaulted the French by way of dessert, and beat them offtriumphantly. Then he and the knights came back to the castle with greatjoy; and the Countess who had watched them from a high tower, thankedthem with all her heart, and kissed them every one. 

This noble lady distinguished herself afterwards in a sea-fight with theFrench off Guernsey, when she was on her way to England to ask for moretroops. Her great spirit roused another lady, the wife of another Frenchlord (whom the French King very barbarously murdered), to distinguishherself scarcely less. The time was fast coming, however, when Edward, Prince of Wales, was to be the great star of this French and English war. 

It was in the month of July, in the year one thousand three hundred andforty-six, when the King embarked at Southampton for France, with an armyof about thirty thousand men in all, attended by the Prince of Wales andby several of the chief nobles. He landed at La Hogue in Normandy; and, burning and destroying as he went, according to custom, advanced up theleft bank of the River Seine, and fired the small towns even close toParis; but, being watched from the right bank of the river by the FrenchKing and all his army, it came to this at last, that Edward foundhimself, on Saturday the twenty-sixth of August, one thousand threehundred and forty-six, on a rising ground behind the little Frenchvillage of Crecy, face to face with the French King's force. And, although the French King had an enormous army--in number more than eighttimes 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 thesecond; and the King, the third. When the morning dawned, the Kingreceived the sacrament, and heard prayers, and then, mounted on horsebackwith a white wand in his hand, rode from company to company, and rank torank, cheering and encouraging both officers and men. Then the wholearmy breakfasted, each man sitting on the ground where he had stood; andthen they remained quietly on the ground with their weapons ready. 

Up came the French King with all his great force. It was dark and angryweather; there was an eclipse of the sun; there was a thunder-storm, accompanied with tremendous rain; the frightened birds flew screamingabove the soldiers' heads. A certain captain in the French army advisedthe French King, who was by no means cheerful, not to begin the battleuntil the morrow. The King, taking this advice, gave the word to halt. But, those behind not understanding it, or desiring to be foremost withthe rest, came pressing on. The roads for a great distance were coveredwith this immense army, and with the common people from the villages, whowere flourishing their rude weapons, and making a great noise. Owing tothese circumstances, the French army advanced in the greatest confusion;every French lord doing what he liked with his own men, and putting outthe men of every other French lord. 

Now, their King relied strongly upon a great body of cross-bowmen fromGenoa; and these he ordered to the front to begin the battle, on findingthat he could not stop it. They shouted once, they shouted twice, theyshouted three times, to alarm the English archers; but, the English wouldhave heard them shout three thousand times and would have never moved. Atlast the cross-bowmen went forward a little, and began to discharge theirbolts; upon which, the English let fly such a hail of arrows, that theGenoese speedily made off--for their cross-bows, besides being heavy tocarry, required to be wound up with a handle, and consequently took timeto re-load; the English, on the other hand, could discharge their arrowsalmost as fast as the arrows could fly. 

When the French King saw the Genoese turning, he cried out to his men tokill those scoundrels, who were doing harm instead of service. Thisincreased the confusion. Meanwhile the English archers, continuing toshoot as fast as ever, shot down great numbers of the French soldiers andknights; whom certain sly Cornish-men and Welshmen, from the Englisharmy, creeping along the ground, despatched with great knives. 

The Prince and his division were at this time so hard-pressed, that theEarl of Warwick sent a message to the King, who was overlooking thebattle 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 Ishall send no aid; because I set my heart upon my son proving himselfthis day a brave knight, and because I am resolved, please God, that thehonour of a great victory shall be his!'

These bold words, being reported to the Prince and his division, soraised their spirits, that they fought better than ever. The King ofFrance 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, andthe knights and nobles who had clustered thick about him early in theday, were now completely scattered. At last, some of his few remainingfollowers led him off the field by force since he would not retire ofhimself, and they journeyed away to Amiens. The victorious English, lighting their watch-fires, made merry on the field, and the King, ridingto meet his gallant son, took him in his arms, kissed him, and told himthat he had acted nobly, and proved himself worthy of the day and of thecrown. While it was yet night, King Edward was hardly aware of the greatvictory he had gained; but, next day, it was discovered that elevenprinces, twelve hundred knights, and thirty thousand common men lay deadupon the French side. Among these was the King of Bohemia, an old blindman; who, having been told that his son was wounded in the battle, andthat no force could stand against the Black Prince, called to him twoknights, put himself on horse-back between them, fastened the threebridles together, and dashed in among the English, where he was presentlyslain. He bore as his crest three white ostrich feathers, with the motto_Ich dien_, signifying in English 'I serve. ' This crest and motto weretaken by the Prince of Wales in remembrance of that famous day, and havebeen borne by the Prince of Wales ever since. 

Five days after this great battle, the King laid siege to Calais. Thissiege--ever afterwards memorable--lasted nearly a year. In order tostarve the inhabitants out, King Edward built so many wooden houses forthe lodgings of his troops, that it is said their quarters looked like asecond Calais suddenly sprung around the first. Early in the siege, thegovernor of the town drove out what he called the useless mouths, to thenumber of seventeen hundred persons, men and women, young and old. KingEdward allowed them to pass through his lines, and even fed them, anddismissed them with money; but, later in the siege, he was not somerciful--five hundred more, who were afterwards driven out, dying ofstarvation and misery. The garrison were so hard-pressed at last, thatthey sent a letter to King Philip, telling him that they had eaten allthe horses, all the dogs, and all the rats and mice that could be foundin the place; and, that if he did not relieve them, they must eithersurrender to the English, or eat one another. Philip made one effort togive them relief; but they were so hemmed in by the English power, thathe could not succeed, and was fain to leave the place. Upon this theyhoisted the English flag, and surrendered to King Edward. 'Tell yourgeneral, ' said he to the humble messengers who came out of the town, 'that I require to have sent here, six of the most distinguishedcitizens, 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 thetown. '

When the Governor of Calais related this to the people in theMarket-place, there was great weeping and distress; in the midst ofwhich, one worthy citizen, named Eustace de Saint Pierre, rose up andsaid, that if the six men required were not sacrificed, the wholepopulation would be; therefore, he offered himself as the first. Encouraged by this bright example, five other worthy citizens rose up oneafter another, and offered themselves to save the rest. The Governor, who was too badly wounded to be able to walk, mounted a poor old horsethat had not been eaten, and conducted these good men to the gate, whileall the people cried and mourned. 

Edward received them wrathfully, and ordered the heads of the whole sixto be struck off. However, the good Queen fell upon her knees, andbesought the King to give them up to her. The King replied, 'I wish youhad been somewhere else; but I cannot refuse you. ' So she had themproperly dressed, made a feast for them, and sent them back with ahandsome present, to the great rejoicing of the whole camp. I hope thepeople of Calais loved the daughter to whom she gave birth soonafterwards, for her gentle mother's sake. 

Now came that terrible disease, the Plague, into Europe, hurrying fromthe heart of China; and killed the wretched people--especially thepoor--in such enormous numbers, that one-half of the inhabitants ofEngland are related to have died of it. It killed the cattle, in greatnumbers, too; and so few working men remained alive, that there were notenough left to till the ground. 

After eight years of differing and quarrelling, the Prince of Wales againinvaded France with an army of sixty thousand men. He went through thesouth of the country, burning and plundering wheresoever he went; whilehis father, who had still the Scottish war upon his hands, did the likein Scotland, but was harassed and worried in his retreat from thatcountry 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 hewore to set off his fair complexion, continuing to burn and destroy inFrance, roused John into determined opposition; and so cruel had theBlack Prince been in his campaign, and so severely had the Frenchpeasants suffered, that he could not find one who, for love, or money, orthe fear of death, would tell him what the French King was doing, orwhere he was. Thus it happened that he came upon the French King'sforces, all of a sudden, near the town of Poitiers, and found that thewhole neighbouring country was occupied by a vast French army. 'God helpus!' said the Black Prince, 'we must make the best of it. '

So, on a Sunday morning, the eighteenth of September, the Prince whosearmy was now reduced to ten thousand men in all--prepared to give battleto the French King, who had sixty thousand horse alone. While he was soengaged, there came riding from the French camp, a Cardinal, who hadpersuaded John to let him offer terms, and try to save the shedding ofChristian 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 hadtaken, and to swear to make no war in France for seven years; but, asJohn would hear of nothing but his surrender, with a hundred of his chiefknights, the treaty was broken off, and the Prince said quietly--'Goddefend the right; we shall fight to-morrow. '

Therefore, on the Monday morning, at break of day, the two armiesprepared for battle. The English were posted in a strong place, whichcould only be approached by one narrow lane, skirted by hedges on bothsides. The French attacked them by this lane; but were so galled andslain by English arrows from behind the hedges, that they were forced toretreat. Then went six hundred English bowmen round about, and, comingupon the rear of the French army, rained arrows on them thick and fast. The French knights, thrown into confusion, quitted their banners anddispersed in all directions. Said Sir John Chandos to the Prince, 'Rideforward, noble Prince, and the day is yours. The King of France is sovaliant a gentleman, that I know he will never fly, and may be takenprisoner. ' Said the Prince to this, 'Advance, English banners, in thename of God and St. George!' and on they pressed until they came up withthe French King, fighting fiercely with his battle-axe, and, when all hisnobles had forsaken him, attended faithfully to the last by his youngestson Philip, only sixteen years of age. Father and son fought well, andthe 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 gavehim his right-hand glove in token that he had done so. 

The Black Prince was generous as well as brave, and he invited his royalprisoner to supper in his tent, and waited upon him at table, and, whenthey afterwards rode into London in a gorgeous procession, mounted theFrench King on a fine cream-coloured horse, and rode at his side on alittle pony. This was all very kind, but I think it was, perhaps, alittle theatrical too, and has been made more meritorious than itdeserved to be; especially as I am inclined to think that the greatestkindness to the King of France would have been not to have shown him tothe people at all. However, it must be said, for these acts ofpoliteness, that, in course of time, they did much to soften the horrorsof war and the passions of conquerors. It was a long, long time beforethe common soldiers began to have the benefit of such courtly deeds; butthey did at last; and thus it is possible that a poor soldier who askedfor quarter at the battle of Waterloo, or any other such great fight, mayhave owed his life indirectly to Edward the Black Prince. 

At this time there stood in the Strand, in London, a palace called theSavoy, which was given up to the captive King of France and his son fortheir residence. As the King of Scotland had now been King Edward'scaptive for eleven years too, his success was, at this time, tolerablycomplete. The Scottish business was settled by the prisoner beingreleased under the title of Sir David, King of Scotland, and by hisengaging to pay a large ransom. The state of France encouraged Englandto propose harder terms to that country, where the people rose againstthe unspeakable cruelty and barbarity of its nobles; where the noblesrose in turn against the people; where the most frightful outrages werecommitted on all sides; and where the insurrection of the peasants, called the insurrection of the Jacquerie, from Jacques, a commonChristian name among the country people of France, awakened terrors andhatreds that have scarcely yet passed away. A treaty called the GreatPeace, was at last signed, under which King Edward agreed to give up thegreater part of his conquests, and King John to pay, within six years, aransom of three million crowns of gold. He was so beset by his ownnobles and courtiers for having yielded to these conditions--though theycould help him to no better--that he came back of his own will to his oldpalace-prison of the Savoy, and there died. 

There was a Sovereign of Castile at that time, called PEDRO THE CRUEL, who deserved the name remarkably well: having committed, among othercruelties, a variety of murders. This amiable monarch being driven fromhis throne for his crimes, went to the province of Bordeaux, where theBlack Prince--now married to his cousin JOAN, a pretty widow--wasresiding, and besought his help. The Prince, who took to him much morekindly than a prince of such fame ought to have taken to such a ruffian, readily listened to his fair promises, and agreeing to help him, sentsecret orders to some troublesome disbanded soldiers of his and hisfather's, who called themselves the Free Companions, and who had been apest to the French people, for some time, to aid this Pedro. The Prince, himself, going into Spain to head the army of relief, soon set Pedro onhis throne again--where he no sooner found himself, than, of course, hebehaved like the villain he was, broke his word without the least shame, and abandoned all the promises he had made to the Black Prince. 

Now, it had cost the Prince a good deal of money to pay soldiers tosupport this murderous King; and finding himself, when he came backdisgusted to Bordeaux, not only in bad health, but deeply in debt, hebegan to tax his French subjects to pay his creditors. They appealed tothe French King, CHARLES; war again broke out; and the French town ofLimoges, which the Prince had greatly benefited, went over to the FrenchKing. Upon this he ravaged the province of which it was the capital;burnt, and plundered, and killed in the old sickening way; and refusedmercy to the prisoners, men, women, and children taken in the offendingtown, though he was so ill and so much in need of pity himself fromHeaven, that he was carried in a litter. He lived to come home and makehimself popular with the people and Parliament, and he died on TrinitySunday, the eighth of June, one thousand three hundred and seventy-six, at forty-six years old. 

The whole nation mourned for him as one of the most renowned and belovedprinces it had ever had; and he was buried with great lamentations inCanterbury Cathedral. Near to the tomb of Edward the Confessor, hismonument, with his figure, carved in stone, and represented in the oldblack armour, lying on its back, may be seen at this day, with an ancientcoat of mail, a helmet, and a pair of gauntlets hanging from a beam aboveit, which most people like to believe were once worn by the Black Prince. 

King Edward did not outlive his renowned son, long. He was old, and oneAlice Perrers, a beautiful lady, had contrived to make him so fond of herin his old age, that he could refuse her nothing, and made himselfridiculous. She little deserved his love, or--what I dare say she valueda great deal more--the jewels of the late Queen, which he gave her amongother rich presents. She took the very ring from his finger on themorning of the day when he died, and left him to be pillaged by hisfaithless servants. Only one good priest was true to him, and attendedhim to the last. 

Besides being famous for the great victories I have related, the reign ofKing Edward the Third was rendered memorable in better ways, by thegrowth of architecture and the erection of Windsor Castle. In betterways still, by the rising up of WICKLIFFE, originally a poor parishpriest: who devoted himself to exposing, with wonderful power andsuccess, the ambition and corruption of the Pope, and of the whole churchof which he was the head. 

Some of those Flemings were induced to come to England in this reign too, and to settle in Norfolk, where they made better woollen cloths than theEnglish had ever had before. The Order of the Garter (a very fine thingin its way, but hardly so important as good clothes for the nation) alsodates from this period. The King is said to have picked 'up a lady'sgarter at a ball, and to have said, _Honi soit qui mal y pense_--inEnglish, 'Evil be to him who evil thinks of it. ' The courtiers wereusually glad to imitate what the King said or did, and hence from aslight incident the Order of the Garter was instituted, and became agreat dignity. So the story goes. 

CHAPTER XIX--ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE SECOND

Richard, son of the Black Prince, a boy eleven years of age, succeeded tothe Crown under the title of King Richard the Second. The whole Englishnation were ready to admire him for the sake of his brave father. As tothe lords and ladies about the Court, they declared him to be the mostbeautiful, the wisest, and the best--even of princes--whom the lords andladies about the Court, generally declare to be the most beautiful, thewisest, and the best of mankind. To flatter a poor boy in this basemanner was not a very likely way to develop whatever good was in him; andit brought him to anything but a good or happy end. 

The Duke of Lancaster, the young King's uncle--commonly called John ofGaunt, from having been born at Ghent, which the common people sopronounced--was supposed to have some thoughts of the throne himself;but, as he was not popular, and the memory of the Black Prince was, hesubmitted to his nephew. 

The war with France being still unsettled, the Government of Englandwanted money to provide for the expenses that might arise out of it;accordingly a certain tax, called the Poll-tax, which had originated inthe last reign, was ordered to be levied on the people. This was a taxon every person in the kingdom, male and female, above the age offourteen, of three groats (or three four-penny pieces) a year; clergymenwere charged more, and only beggars were exempt. 

I have no need to repeat that the common people of England had long beensuffering under great oppression. They were still the mere slaves of thelords of the land on which they lived, and were on most occasions harshlyand unjustly treated. But, they had begun by this time to think veryseriously of not bearing quite so much; and, probably, were emboldened bythat French insurrection I mentioned in the last chapter. 

The people of Essex rose against the Poll-tax, and being severely handledby the government officers, killed some of them. At this very time oneof the tax-collectors, going his rounds from house to house, at Dartfordin Kent came to the cottage of one WAT, a tiler by trade, and claimed thetax upon his daughter. Her mother, who was at home, declared that shewas under the age of fourteen; upon that, the collector (as othercollectors had already done in different parts of England) behaved in asavage way, and brutally insulted Wat Tyler's daughter. The daughterscreamed, the mother screamed. Wat the Tiler, who was at work not faroff, ran to the spot, and did what any honest father under suchprovocation might have done--struck the collector dead at a blow. 

Instantly the people of that town uprose as one man. They made Wat Tylertheir leader; they joined with the people of Essex, who were in armsunder a priest called JACK STRAW; they took out of prison another priestnamed JOHN BALL; and gathering in numbers as they went along, advanced, in a great confused army of poor men, to Blackheath. It is said thatthey wanted to abolish all property, and to declare all men equal. I donot think this very likely; because they stopped the travellers on theroads and made them swear to be true to King Richard and the people. Norwere 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, who hadto pass through their camp at Blackheath, on her way to her young son, lying for safety in the Tower of London, had merely to kiss a few dirty-faced rough-bearded men who were noisily fond of royalty, and so got awayin perfect safety. Next day the whole mass marched on to London Bridge. 

There was a drawbridge in the middle, which WILLIAM WALWORTH the Mayorcaused to be raised to prevent their coming into the city; but they soonterrified the citizens into lowering it again, and spread themselves, with great uproar, over the streets. They broke open the prisons; theyburned the papers in Lambeth Palace; they destroyed the DUKE OFLANCASTER'S Palace, the Savoy, in the Strand, said to be the mostbeautiful and splendid in England; they set fire to the books anddocuments in the Temple; and made a great riot. Many of these outrageswere committed in drunkenness; since those citizens, who had well-filledcellars, were only too glad to throw them open to save the rest of theirproperty; but even the drunken rioters were very careful to stealnothing. They were so angry with one man, who was seen to take a silvercup at the Savoy Palace, and put it in his breast, that they drowned himin the river, cup and all. 

The young King had been taken out to treat with them before theycommitted these excesses; but, he and the people about him were sofrightened by the riotous shouts, that they got back to the Tower in thebest way they could. This made the insurgents bolder; so they went onrioting away, striking off the heads of those who did not, at a moment'snotice, declare for King Richard and the people; and killing as many ofthe unpopular persons whom they supposed to be their enemies as theycould by any means lay hold of. In this manner they passed one veryviolent day, and then proclamation was made that the King would meet themat Mile-end, and grant their requests. 

The rioters went to Mile-end to the number of sixty thousand, and theKing met them there, and to the King the rioters peaceably proposed fourconditions. First, that neither they, nor their children, nor any comingafter them, should be made slaves any more. Secondly, that the rent ofland should be fixed at a certain price in money, instead of being paidin service. Thirdly, that they should have liberty to buy and sell inall markets and public places, like other free men. Fourthly, that theyshould be pardoned for past offences. Heaven knows, there was nothingvery unreasonable in these proposals! The young King deceitfullypretended to think so, and kept thirty clerks up, all night, writing outa charter accordingly. 

Now, Wat Tyler himself wanted more than this. He wanted the entireabolition of the forest laws. He was not at Mile-end with the rest, but, while that meeting was being held, broke into the Tower of London andslew the archbishop and the treasurer, for whose heads the people hadcried out loudly the day before. He and his men even thrust their swordsinto the bed of the Princess of Wales while the Princess was in it, tomake certain that none of their enemies were concealed there. 

So, Wat and his men still continued armed, and rode about the city. Nextmorning, the King with a small train of some sixty gentlemen--among whomwas WALWORTH the Mayor--rode into Smithfield, and saw Wat and his peopleat a little distance. Says Wat to his men, 'There is the King. I willgo 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 dowhatever I bid them. '

Some declared afterwards that as Wat said this, he laid his hand on theKing's bridle. Others declared that he was seen to play with his owndagger. 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 expectingno attack, and preparing for no resistance, when Walworth the Mayor didthe not very valiant deed of drawing a short sword and stabbing him inthe throat. He dropped from his horse, and one of the King's peoplespeedily finished him. So fell Wat Tyler. Fawners and flatterers made amighty triumph of it, and set up a cry which will occasionally find anecho 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 amuch higher nature and a much braver spirit than any of the parasites whoexulted 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. Butthe King riding up to the crowd, cried out that Tyler was a traitor, andthat he would be their leader. They were so taken by surprise, that theyset up a great shouting, and followed the boy until he was met atIslington by a large body of soldiers. 

The end of this rising was the then usual end. As soon as the King foundhimself safe, he unsaid all he had said, and undid all he had done; somefifteen hundred of the rioters were tried (mostly in Essex) with greatrigour, and executed with great cruelty. Many of them were hanged ongibbets, and left there as a terror to the country people; and, becausetheir miserable friends took some of the bodies down to bury, the Kingordered the rest to be chained up--which was the beginning of thebarbarous custom of hanging in chains. The King's falsehood in thisbusiness makes such a pitiful figure, that I think Wat Tyler appears inhistory as beyond comparison the truer and more respectable man of thetwo. 

Richard was now sixteen years of age, and married Anne of Bohemia, anexcellent princess, who was called 'the good Queen Anne. ' She deserved abetter husband; for the King had been fawned and flattered into atreacherous, wasteful, dissolute, bad young man. 

There were two Popes at this time (as if one were not enough!), and theirquarrels involved Europe in a great deal of trouble. Scotland was stilltroublesome too; and at home there was much jealousy and distrust, andplotting and counter-plotting, because the King feared the ambition ofhis relations, and particularly of his uncle, the Duke of Lancaster, andthe duke had his party against the King, and the King had his partyagainst the duke. Nor were these home troubles lessened when the dukewent to Castile to urge his claim to the crown of that kingdom; for thenthe Duke of Gloucester, another of Richard's uncles, opposed him, andinfluenced the Parliament to demand the dismissal of the King's favouriteministers. The King said in reply, that he would not for such mendismiss the meanest servant in his kitchen. But, it had begun to signifylittle what a King said when a Parliament was determined; so Richard wasat last obliged to give way, and to agree to another Government of thekingdom, under a commission of fourteen nobles, for a year. His uncle ofGloucester was at the head of this commission, and, in fact, appointedeverybody composing it. 

Having done all this, the King declared as soon as he saw an opportunitythat he had never meant to do it, and that it was all illegal; and he gotthe judges secretly to sign a declaration to that effect. The secretoozed out directly, and was carried to the Duke of Gloucester. The Dukeof Gloucester, at the head of forty thousand men, met the King on hisentering into London to enforce his authority; the King was helplessagainst him; his favourites and ministers were impeached and weremercilessly executed. Among them were two men whom the people regardedwith very different feelings; one, Robert Tresilian, Chief Justice, whowas hated for having made what was called 'the bloody circuit' to try therioters; the other, Sir Simon Burley, an honourable knight, who had beenthe dear friend of the Black Prince, and the governor and guardian of theKing. For this gentleman's life the good Queen even begged of Gloucesteron her knees; but Gloucester (with or without reason) feared and hatedhim, and replied, that if she valued her husband's crown, she had betterbeg no more. All this was done under what was called by some thewonderful--and by others, with better reason, the merciless--Parliament. 

But Gloucester's power was not to last for ever. He held it for only ayear longer; in which year the famous battle of Otterbourne, sung in theold 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 yourtwenty-second year. ' 'Am I so much?' said the King; 'then I will managemy own affairs! I am much obliged to you, my good lords, for your pastservices, but I need them no more. ' He followed this up, by appointing anew Chancellor and a new Treasurer, and announced to the people that hehad resumed the Government. He held it for eight years withoutopposition. Through all that time, he kept his determination to revengehimself some day upon his uncle Gloucester, in his own breast. 

At last the good Queen died, and then the King, desiring to take a secondwife, proposed to his council that he should marry Isabella, of France, the daughter of Charles the Sixth: who, the French courtiers said (as theEnglish courtiers had said of Richard), was a marvel of beauty and wit, and quite a phenomenon--of seven years old. The council were dividedabout this marriage, but it took place. It secured peace between Englandand France for a quarter of a century; but it was strongly opposed to theprejudices of the English people. The Duke of Gloucester, who wasanxious to take the occasion of making himself popular, declaimed againstit loudly, and this at length decided the King to execute the vengeancehe had been nursing so long. 

He went with a gay company to the Duke of Gloucester's house, PlesheyCastle, in Essex, where the Duke, suspecting nothing, came out into thecourt-yard to receive his royal visitor. While the King conversed in afriendly manner with the Duchess, the Duke was quietly seized, hurriedaway, shipped for Calais, and lodged in the castle there. His friends, the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, were taken in the same treacherousmanner, and confined to their castles. A few days after, at Nottingham, they were impeached of high treason. The Earl of Arundel was condemnedand beheaded, and the Earl of Warwick was banished. Then, a writ wassent by a messenger to the Governor of Calais, requiring him to send theDuke of Gloucester over to be tried. In three days he returned an answerthat he could not do that, because the Duke of Gloucester had died inprison. The Duke was declared a traitor, his property was confiscated tothe King, a real or pretended confession he had made in prison to one ofthe Justices of the Common Pleas was produced against him, and there wasan end of the matter. How the unfortunate duke died, very few cared toknow. Whether he really died naturally; whether he killed himself;whether, by the King's order, he was strangled, or smothered between twobeds (as a serving-man of the Governor's named Hall, did afterwardsdeclare), cannot be discovered. There is not much doubt that he waskilled, somehow or other, by his nephew's orders. Among the most activenobles in these proceedings were the King's cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, whom the King had made Duke of Hereford to smooth down the old familyquarrels, and some others: who had in the family-plotting times done justsuch acts themselves as they now condemned in the duke. They seem tohave been a corrupt set of men; but such men were easily found about thecourt in such days. 

The people murmured at all this, and were still very sore about theFrench marriage. The nobles saw how little the King cared for law, andhow crafty he was, and began to be somewhat afraid for themselves. TheKing's life was a life of continued feasting and excess; his retinue, down to the meanest servants, were dressed in the most costly manner, andcaroused at his tables, it is related, to the number of ten thousandpersons every day. He himself, surrounded by a body of ten thousandarchers, and enriched by a duty on wool which the Commons had granted himfor life, saw no danger of ever being otherwise than powerful andabsolute, 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 ofHereford and Norfolk. Sparing these no more than the others, he tamperedwith the Duke of Hereford until he got him to declare before the Councilthat 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 otherthings, that he could not believe the King's oath--which nobody could, Ishould think. For this treachery he obtained a pardon, and the Duke ofNorfolk was summoned to appear and defend himself. As he denied thecharge and said his accuser was a liar and a traitor, both noblemen, according to the manner of those times, were held in custody, and thetruth was ordered to be decided by wager of battle at Coventry. Thiswager of battle meant that whosoever won the combat was to be consideredin the right; which nonsense meant in effect, that no strong man couldever be wrong. A great holiday was made; a great crowd assembled, withmuch parade and show; and the two combatants were about to rush at eachother with their lances, when the King, sitting in a pavilion to seefair, threw down the truncheon he carried in his hand, and forbade thebattle. The Duke of Hereford was to be banished for ten years, and theDuke of Norfolk was to be banished for life. So said the King. The Dukeof Hereford went to France, and went no farther. The Duke of Norfolkmade a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and afterwards died at Venice of abroken heart. 

Faster and fiercer, after this, the King went on in his career. The Dukeof Lancaster, who was the father of the Duke of Hereford, died soon afterthe departure of his son; and, the King, although he had solemnly grantedto that son leave to inherit his father's property, if it should come tohim during his banishment, immediately seized it all, like a robber. Thejudges were so afraid of him, that they disgraced themselves by declaringthis theft to be just and lawful. His avarice knew no bounds. Heoutlawed seventeen counties at once, on a frivolous pretence, merely toraise money by way of fines for misconduct. In short, he did as manydishonest things as he could; and cared so little for the discontent ofhis subjects--though even the spaniel favourites began to whisper to himthat there was such a thing as discontent afloat--that he took that time, of all others, for leaving England and making an expedition against theIrish. 

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 therights of which he had been so monstrously deprived. He was immediatelyjoined by the two great Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland; and hisuncle, the Regent, finding the King's cause unpopular, and thedisinclination of the army to act against Henry, very strong, withdrewwith 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 distinctlyunderstood--and proceeded to Bristol Castle, whither three noblemen hadtaken the young Queen. The castle surrendering, they presently put thosethree noblemen to death. The Regent then remained there, and Henry wenton to Chester. 

All this time, the boisterous weather had prevented the King fromreceiving intelligence of what had occurred. At length it was conveyedto him in Ireland, and he sent over the EARL OF SALISBURY, who, landingat Conway, rallied the Welshmen, and waited for the King a wholefortnight; at the end of that time the Welshmen, who were perhaps notvery warm for him in the beginning, quite cooled down and went home. Whenthe 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 theWelshmen to be still at Conway, he disguised himself as a priest, andmade for that place in company with his two brothers and some few oftheir adherents. But, there were no Welshmen left--only Salisbury and ahundred soldiers. In this distress, the King's two brothers, Exeter andSurrey, offered to go to Henry to learn what his intentions were. Surrey, who was true to Richard, was put into prison. Exeter, who was false, took the royal badge, which was a hart, off his shield, and assumed therose, the badge of Henry. After this, it was pretty plain to the Kingwhat Henry's intentions were, without sending any more messengers to ask. 

The fallen King, thus deserted--hemmed in on all sides, and pressed withhunger--rode here and rode there, and went to this castle, and went tothat castle, endeavouring to obtain some provisions, but could find none. He rode wretchedly back to Conway, and there surrendered himself to theEarl of Northumberland, who came from Henry, in reality to take himprisoner, but in appearance to offer terms; and whose men were hidden notfar off. By this earl he was conducted to the castle of Flint, where hiscousin Henry met him, and dropped on his knee as if he were stillrespectful to his sovereign. 

'Fair cousin of Lancaster, ' said the King, 'you are very welcome' (verywelcome, no doubt; but he would have been more so, in chains or without ahead). 

'My lord, ' replied Henry, 'I am come a little before my time; but, withyour good pleasure, I will show you the reason. Your people complainwith some bitterness, that you have ruled them rigorously for two-and-twenty years. Now, if it please God, I will help you to govern thembetter in future. '

'Fair cousin, ' replied the abject King, 'since it pleaseth you, itpleaseth me mightily. '

After this, the trumpets sounded, and the King was stuck on a wretchedhorse, and carried prisoner to Chester, where he was made to issue aproclamation, calling a Parliament. From Chester he was taken on towardsLondon. At Lichfield he tried to escape by getting out of a window andletting himself down into a garden; it was all in vain, however, and hewas carried on and shut up in the Tower, where no one pitied him, andwhere the whole people, whose patience he had quite tired out, reproachedhim without mercy. Before he got there, it is related, that his very dogleft him and departed from his side to lick the hand of Henry. 

The day before the Parliament met, a deputation went to this wreckedKing, and told him that he had promised the Earl of Northumberland atConway 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 hispeople from their allegiance to him. He had so little spirit left thathe 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, thatsame 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 sideof the throne, which was empty and covered with a cloth of gold. Thepaper just signed by the King was read to the multitude amid shouts ofjoy, which were echoed through all the streets; when some of the noisehad died away, the King was formally deposed. Then Henry arose, and, making the sign of the cross on his forehead and breast, challenged therealm of England as his right; the archbishops of Canterbury and Yorkseated him on the throne. 

The multitude shouted again, and the shouts re-echoed throughout all thestreets. No one remembered, now, that Richard the Second had ever beenthe most beautiful, the wisest, and the best of princes; and he now madeliving (to my thinking) a far more sorry spectacle in the Tower ofLondon, than Wat Tyler had made, lying dead, among the hoofs of the royalhorses 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'srecollection 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 andcunning 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 whetherhe hoped, by pretending to be very religious, to cheat Heaven itself intothe belief that he was not a usurper, I don't know. Both suppositionsare likely enough. It is certain that he began his reign by making astrong show against the followers of Wickliffe, who were called Lollards, or heretics--although his father, John of Gaunt, had been of that way ofthinking, as he himself had been more than suspected of being. It is noless certain that he first established in England the detestable andatrocious custom, brought from abroad, of burning those people as apunishment for their opinions. It was the importation into England ofone of the practices of what was called the Holy Inquisition: which wasthe most _un_holy and the most infamous tribunal that ever disgracedmankind, and made men more like demons than followers of Our Saviour. 

No real right to the crown, as you know, was in this King. EdwardMortimer, 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 ofHenry's father--was, by succession, the real heir to the throne. However, the King got his son declared Prince of Wales; and, obtaining possessionof the young Earl of March and his little brother, kept them inconfinement (but not severely) in Windsor Castle. He then required theParliament to decide what was to be done with the deposed King, who wasquiet enough, and who only said that he hoped his cousin Henry would be'a good lord' to him. The Parliament replied that they would recommendhis being kept in some secret place where the people could not resort, and where his friends could not be admitted to see him. Henryaccordingly passed this sentence upon him, and it now began to be prettyclear 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 Lordsquarrelled so violently among themselves as to which of them had beenloyal and which disloyal, and which consistent and which inconsistent, that forty gauntlets are said to have been thrown upon the floor at onetime as challenges to as many battles: the truth being that they were allfalse and base together, and had been, at one time with the old King, andat another time with the new one, and seldom true for any length of timeto any one. They soon began to plot again. A conspiracy was formed toinvite the King to a tournament at Oxford, and then to take him bysurprise and kill him. This murderous enterprise, which was agreed uponat secret meetings in the house of the Abbot of Westminster, was betrayedby the Earl of Rutland--one of the conspirators. The King, instead ofgoing to the tournament or staying at Windsor (where the conspiratorssuddenly went, on finding themselves discovered, with the hope of seizinghim), retired to London, proclaimed them all traitors, and advanced uponthem with a great force. They retired into the west of England, proclaiming Richard King; but, the people rose against them, and theywere all slain. Their treason hastened the death of the deposed monarch. Whether he was killed by hired assassins, or whether he was starved todeath, 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; andhis body was publicly shown at St. Paul's Cathedral with only the lowerpart of the face uncovered. I can scarcely doubt that he was killed bythe 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 herlonely condition in England, he went mad: as he had several times donebefore, during the last five or six years. The French Dukes of Burgundyand 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 ofBordeaux, who had a sort of superstitious attachment to the memory ofRichard, because he was born there, swore by the Lord that he had beenthe best man in all his kingdom--which was going rather far--and promisedto do great things against the English. Nevertheless, when they came toconsider that they, and the whole people of France, were ruined by theirown 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 greatmen, could do nothing without them. Then, began negotiations betweenFrance and England for the sending home to Paris of the poor little Queenwith all her jewels and her fortune of two hundred thousand francs ingold. The King was quite willing to restore the young lady, and even thejewels; but he said he really could not part with the money. So, at lastshe was safely deposited at Paris without her fortune, and then the Dukeof Burgundy (who was cousin to the French King) began to quarrel with theDuke of Orleans (who was brother to the French King) about the wholematter; and those two dukes made France even more wretched than ever. 

As the idea of conquering Scotland was still popular at home, the Kingmarched to the river Tyne and demanded homage of the King of thatcountry. This being refused, he advanced to Edinburgh, but did littlethere; for, his army being in want of provisions, and the Scotch beingvery careful to hold him in check without giving battle, he was obligedto retire. It is to his immortal honour that in this sally he burnt novillages and slaughtered no people, but was particularly careful that hisarmy should be merciful and harmless. It was a great example in thoseruthless times. 

A war among the border people of England and Scotland went on for twelvemonths, and then the Earl of Northumberland, the nobleman who had helpedHenry to the crown, began to rebel against him--probably because nothingthat Henry could do for him would satisfy his extravagant expectations. There was a certain Welsh gentleman, named OWEN GLENDOWER, who had been astudent in one of the Inns of Court, and had afterwards been in theservice of the late King, whose Welsh property was taken from him by apowerful lord related to the present King, who was his neighbour. Appealing for redress, and getting none, he took up arms, was made anoutlaw, and declared himself sovereign of Wales. He pretended to be amagician; and not only were the Welsh people stupid enough to believehim, but, even Henry believed him too; for, making three expeditions intoWales, and being three times driven back by the wildness of the country, the bad weather, and the skill of Glendower, he thought he was defeatedby the Welshman's magic arts. However, he took Lord Grey and Sir EdmundMortimer, prisoners, and allowed the relatives of Lord Grey to ransomhim, but would not extend such favour to Sir Edmund Mortimer. Now, HenryPercy, called HOTSPUR, son of the Earl of Northumberland, who was marriedto Mortimer's sister, is supposed to have taken offence at this; and, therefore, in conjunction with his father and some others, to have joinedOwen Glendower, and risen against Henry. It is by no means clear thatthis was the real cause of the conspiracy; but perhaps it was made thepretext. It was formed, and was very powerful; including SCROOP, Archbishop of York, and the EARL OF DOUGLAS, a powerful and braveScottish nobleman. The King was prompt and active, and the two armiesmet at Shrewsbury. 

There were about fourteen thousand men in each. The old Earl ofNorthumberland being sick, the rebel forces were led by his son. TheKing wore plain armour to deceive the enemy; and four noblemen, with thesame object, wore the royal arms. The rebel charge was so furious, thatevery one of those gentlemen was killed, the royal standard was beatendown, and the young Prince of Wales was severely wounded in the face. Buthe was one of the bravest and best soldiers that ever lived, and hefought so well, and the King's troops were so encouraged by his boldexample, that they rallied immediately, and cut the enemy's forces all topieces. Hotspur was killed by an arrow in the brain, and the rout was socomplete that the whole rebellion was struck down by this one blow. TheEarl of Northumberland surrendered himself soon after hearing of thedeath of his son, and received a pardon for all his offences. 

There were some lingerings of rebellion yet: Owen Glendower being retiredto Wales, and a preposterous story being spread among the ignorant peoplethat King Richard was still alive. How they could have believed suchnonsense it is difficult to imagine; but they certainly did suppose thatthe 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 thecountry in his life, he was still to trouble it after his death. Thiswas not the worst. The young Earl of March and his brother were stolenout of Windsor Castle. Being retaken, and being found to have beenspirited away by one Lady Spencer, she accused her own brother, that Earlof Rutland who was in the former conspiracy and was now Duke of York, ofbeing in the plot. For this he was ruined in fortune, though not put todeath; and then another plot arose among the old Earl of Northumberland, some other lords, and that same Scroop, Archbishop of York, who was withthe rebels before. These conspirators caused a writing to be posted onthe church doors, accusing the King of a variety of crimes; but, the Kingbeing eager and vigilant to oppose them, they were all taken, and theArchbishop was executed. This was the first time that a great churchmanhad been slain by the law in England; but the King was resolved that itshould be done, and done it was. 

The next most remarkable event of this time was the seizure, by Henry, ofthe heir to the Scottish throne--James, a boy of nine years old. He hadbeen put aboard-ship by his father, the Scottish King Robert, to save himfrom the designs of his uncle, when, on his way to France, he wasaccidentally taken by some English cruisers. He remained a prisoner inEngland for nineteen years, and became in his prison a student and afamous poet. 

With the exception of occasional troubles with the Welsh and with theFrench, the rest of King Henry's reign was quiet enough. But, the Kingwas far from happy, and probably was troubled in his conscience byknowing that he had usurped the crown, and had occasioned the death ofhis miserable cousin. The Prince of Wales, though brave and generous, issaid to have been wild and dissipated, and even to have drawn his swordon GASCOIGNE, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, because he was firmin dealing impartially with one of his dissolute companions. Upon thisthe Chief Justice is said to have ordered him immediately to prison; thePrince of Wales is said to have submitted with a good grace; and the Kingis 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, andso is another story (of which Shakespeare has made beautiful use), thatthe Prince once took the crown out of his father's chamber as he wassleeping, and tried it on his own head. 

The King's health sank more and more, and he became subject to violenteruptions on the face and to bad epileptic fits, and his spirits sankevery day. At last, as he was praying before the shrine of St. Edward atWestminster Abbey, he was seized with a terrible fit, and was carriedinto the Abbot's chamber, where he presently died. It had been foretoldthat he would die at Jerusalem, which certainly is not, and never was, Westminster. But, as the Abbot's room had long been called the Jerusalemchamber, people said it was all the same thing, and were quite satisfiedwith the prediction. 

The King died on the 20th of March, 1413, in the forty-seventh year ofhis age, and the fourteenth of his reign. He was buried in CanterburyCathedral. He had been twice married, and had, by his first wife, afamily of four sons and two daughters. Considering his duplicity beforehe came to the throne, his unjust seizure of it, and above all, hismaking that monstrous law for the burning of what the priests calledheretics, he was a reasonably good king, as kings went. 

CHAPTER XXI--ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIFTH

FIRST PART

The Prince of Wales began his reign like a generous and honest man. Heset the young Earl of March free; he restored their estates and theirhonours to the Percy family, who had lost them by their rebellion againsthis father; he ordered the imbecile and unfortunate Richard to behonourably buried among the Kings of England; and he dismissed all hiswild companions, with assurances that they should not want, if they wouldresolve to be steady, faithful, and true. 

It is much easier to burn men than to burn their opinions; and those ofthe Lollards were spreading every day. The Lollards were represented bythe priests--probably falsely for the most part--to entertain treasonabledesigns against the new King; and Henry, suffering himself to be workedupon by these representations, sacrificed his friend Sir John Oldcastle, the Lord Cobham, to them, after trying in vain to convert him byarguments. He was declared guilty, as the head of the sect, andsentenced to the flames; but he escaped from the Tower before the day ofexecution (postponed for fifty days by the King himself), and summonedthe Lollards to meet him near London on a certain day. So the prieststold the King, at least. I doubt whether there was any conspiracy beyondsuch as was got up by their agents. On the day appointed, instead offive-and-twenty thousand men, under the command of Sir John Oldcastle, inthe meadows of St. Giles, the King found only eighty men, and no Sir Johnat all. There was, in another place, an addle-headed brewer, who hadgold trappings to his horses, and a pair of gilt spurs in hisbreast--expecting to be made a knight next day by Sir John, and so togain the right to wear them--but there was no Sir John, nor did anybodygive information respecting him, though the King offered great rewardsfor such intelligence. Thirty of these unfortunate Lollards were hangedand drawn immediately, and were then burnt, gallows and all; and thevarious prisons in and around London were crammed full of others. Someof these unfortunate men made various confessions of treasonable designs;but, such confessions were easily got, under torture and the fear offire, and are very little to be trusted. To finish the sad story of SirJohn Oldcastle at once, I may mention that he escaped into Wales, andremained there safely, for four years. When discovered by Lord Powis, itis very doubtful if he would have been taken alive--so great was the oldsoldier's bravery--if a miserable old woman had not come behind him andbroken his legs with a stool. He was carried to London in ahorse-litter, was fastened by an iron chain to a gibbet, and so roastedto death. 

To make the state of France as plain as I can in a few words, I shouldtell you that the Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of Burgundy, commonlycalled 'John without fear, ' had had a grand reconciliation of theirquarrel in the last reign, and had appeared to be quite in a heavenlystate of mind. Immediately after which, on a Sunday, in the publicstreets of Paris, the Duke of Orleans was murdered by a party of twentymen, set on by the Duke of Burgundy--according to his own deliberateconfession. The widow of King Richard had been married in France to theeldest son of the Duke of Orleans. The poor mad King was quite powerlessto help her, and the Duke of Burgundy became the real master of France. Isabella dying, her husband (Duke of Orleans since the death of hisfather) married the daughter of the Count of Armagnac, who, being a muchabler man than his young son-in-law, headed his party; thence calledafter 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; theparty 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; allfighting together; all composed of the most depraved nobles that theearth has ever known; and all tearing unhappy France to pieces. 

The late King had watched these dissensions from England, sensible (likethe French people) that no enemy of France could injure her more than herown nobility. The present King now advanced a claim to the Frenchthrone. His demand being, of course, refused, he reduced his proposal toa certain large amount of French territory, and to demanding the Frenchprincess, Catherine, in marriage, with a fortune of two millions ofgolden crowns. He was offered less territory and fewer crowns, and noprincess; but he called his ambassadors home and prepared for war. Then, he proposed to take the princess with one million of crowns. The FrenchCourt replied that he should have the princess with two hundred thousandcrowns less; he said this would not do (he had never seen the princess inhis life), and assembled his army at Southampton. There was a short plotat home just at that time, for deposing him, and making the Earl of Marchking; but the conspirators were all speedily condemned and executed, andthe King embarked for France. 

It is dreadful to observe how long a bad example will be followed; but, it is encouraging to know that a good example is never thrown away. TheKing's first act on disembarking at the mouth of the river Seine, threemiles from Harfleur, was to imitate his father, and to proclaim hissolemn orders that the lives and property of the peaceable inhabitantsshould be respected on pain of death. It is agreed by French writers, tohis lasting renown, that even while his soldiers were suffering thegreatest distress from want of food, these commands were rigidly obeyed. 

With an army in all of thirty thousand men, he besieged the town ofHarfleur both by sea and land for five weeks; at the end of which timethe town surrendered, and the inhabitants were allowed to depart withonly fivepence each, and a part of their clothes. All the rest of theirpossessions was divided amongst the English army. But, that armysuffered so much, in spite of its successes, from disease and privation, that it was already reduced one half. Still, the King was determined notto retire until he had struck a greater blow. Therefore, against theadvice of all his counsellors, he moved on with his little force towardsCalais. When he came up to the river Somme he was unable to cross, inconsequence of the fort being fortified; and, as the English moved up theleft bank of the river looking for a crossing, the French, who had brokenall the bridges, moved up the right bank, watching them, and waiting toattack them when they should try to pass it. At last the English found acrossing 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 toknow by which road he was going. 'By the road that will take me straightto Calais!' said the King, and sent them away with a present of a hundredcrowns. 

The English moved on, until they beheld the French, and then the Kinggave orders to form in line of battle. The French not coming on, thearmy broke up after remaining in battle array till night, and got goodrest and refreshment at a neighbouring village. The French were now alllying in another village, through which they knew the English must pass. They were resolved that the English should begin the battle. The Englishhad no means of retreat, if their King had any such intention; and so thetwo armies passed the night, close together. 

To understand these armies well, you must bear in mind that the immenseFrench army had, among its notable persons, almost the whole of thatwicked nobility, whose debauchery had made France a desert; and sobesotted were they by pride, and by contempt for the common people, thatthey had scarcely any bowmen (if indeed they had any at all) in theirwhole enormous number: which, compared with the English army, was atleast as six to one. For these proud fools had said that the bow was nota fit weapon for knightly hands, and that France must be defended bygentlemen only. We shall see, presently, what hand the gentlemen made ofit. 

Now, on the English side, among the little force, there was a goodproportion of men who were not gentlemen by any means, but who were goodstout archers for all that. Among them, in the morning--having sleptlittle at night, while the French were carousing and making sure ofvictory--the King rode, on a grey horse; wearing on his head a helmet ofshining steel, surmounted by a crown of gold, sparkling with preciousstones; and bearing over his armour, embroidered together, the arms ofEngland and the arms of France. The archers looked at the shining helmetand 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 brightblue eye, as he told them that, for himself, he had made up his mind toconquer there or to die there, and that England should never have aransom to pay for _him_. There was one brave knight who chanced to saythat he wished some of the many gallant gentlemen and good soldiers, whowere 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 moreman. 'The fewer we have, ' said he, 'the greater will be the honour weshall win!' His men, being now all in good heart, were refreshed withbread and wine, and heard prayers, and waited quietly for the French. TheKing waited for the French, because they were drawn up thirty deep (thelittle English force was only three deep), on very difficult and heavyground; and he knew that when they moved, there must be confusion amongthem. 

As they did not move, he sent off two parties:--one to lie concealed in awood on the left of the French: the other, to set fire to some housesbehind the French after the battle should be begun. This was scarcelydone, when three of the proud French gentlemen, who were to defend theircountry without any help from the base peasants, came riding out, callingupon the English to surrender. The King warned those gentlemen himselfto retire with all speed if they cared for their lives, and ordered theEnglish banners to advance. Upon that, Sir Thomas Erpingham, a greatEnglish general, who commanded the archers, threw his truncheon into theair, joyfully, and all the English men, kneeling down upon the ground andbiting it as if they took possession of the country, rose up with a greatshout and fell upon the French. 

Every archer was furnished with a great stake tipped with iron; and hisorders were, to thrust this stake into the ground, to discharge hisarrow, and then to fall back, when the French horsemen came on. As thehaughty French gentlemen, who were to break the English archers andutterly destroy them with their knightly lances, came riding up, theywere received with such a blinding storm of arrows, that they broke andturned. Horses and men rolled over one another, and the confusion wasterrific. Those who rallied and charged the archers got among the stakeson slippery and boggy ground, and were so bewildered that the Englisharchers--who wore no armour, and even took off their leathern coats to bemore active--cut them to pieces, root and branch. Only three Frenchhorsemen got within the stakes, and those were instantly despatched. Allthis time the dense French army, being in armour, were sinking knee-deepinto the mire; while the light English archers, half-naked, were as freshand active as if they were fighting on a marble floor. 

But now, the second division of the French coming to the relief of thefirst, closed up in a firm mass; the English, headed by the King, attacked them; and the deadliest part of the battle began. The King'sbrother, the Duke of Clarence, was struck down, and numbers of the Frenchsurrounded him; but, King Henry, standing over the body, fought like alion until they were beaten off. 

Presently, came up a band of eighteen French knights, bearing the bannerof 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 andfell upon his knees; but, his faithful men, immediately closing roundhim, killed every one of those eighteen knights, and so that French lordnever kept his oath. 

The French Duke of Alencon, seeing this, made a desperate charge, and cuthis way close up to the Royal Standard of England. He beat down the Dukeof 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 anotherblow 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 outhis hand to give him a safe and honourable acceptance of the offer; hefell dead, pierced by innumerable wounds. 

The death of this nobleman decided the battle. The third division of theFrench 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 timeof the fight, the English, who as yet had made no prisoners, began totake them in immense numbers, and were still occupied in doing so, or inkilling those who would not surrender, when a great noise arose in therear of the French--their flying banners were seen to stop--and KingHenry, supposing a great reinforcement to have arrived, gave orders thatall the prisoners should be put to death. As soon, however, as it wasfound that the noise was only occasioned by a body of plunderingpeasants, the terrible massacre was stopped. 

Then King Henry called to him the French herald, and asked him to whomthe victory belonged. 

The herald replied, 'To the King of England. '

'_We_ have not made this havoc and slaughter, ' said the King. 'It is thewrath of Heaven on the sins of France. What is the name of that castleyonder?'

The herald answered him, 'My lord, it is the castle of Azincourt. ' Saidthe King, 'From henceforth this battle shall be known to posterity, bythe name of the battle of Azincourt. '

Our English historians have made it Agincourt; but, under that name, itwill ever be famous in English annals. 

The loss upon the French side was enormous. Three Dukes were killed, twomore were taken prisoners, seven Counts were killed, three more weretaken prisoners, and ten thousand knights and gentlemen were slain uponthe field. The English loss amounted to sixteen hundred men, among whomwere the Duke of York and the Earl of Suffolk. 

War is a dreadful thing; and it is appalling to know how the English wereobliged, next morning, to kill those prisoners mortally wounded, who yetwrithed in agony upon the ground; how the dead upon the French side werestripped by their own countrymen and countrywomen, and afterwards buriedin great pits; how the dead upon the English side were piled up in agreat 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, thatthe real desolation and wickedness of war consist. Nothing can make warotherwise than horrible. But the dark side of it was little thought ofand soon forgotten; and it cast no shade of trouble on the Englishpeople, except on those who had lost friends or relations in the fight. They welcomed their King home with shouts of rejoicing, and plunged intothe water to bear him ashore on their shoulders, and flocked out incrowds to welcome him in every town through which he passed, and hungrich carpets and tapestries out of the windows, and strewed the streetswith flowers, and made the fountains run with wine, as the great field ofAgincourt had run with blood. 

SECOND PART

That proud and wicked French nobility who dragged their country todestruction, and who were every day and every year regarded with deeperhatred and detestation in the hearts of the French people, learntnothing, even from the defeat of Agincourt. So far from uniting againstthe common enemy, they became, among themselves, more violent, morebloody, and more false--if that were possible--than they had been before. The Count of Armagnac persuaded the French king to plunder of hertreasures Queen Isabella of Bavaria, and to make her a prisoner. She, who had hitherto been the bitter enemy of the Duke of Burgundy, proposedto join him, in revenge. He carried her off to Troyes, where sheproclaimed herself Regent of France, and made him her lieutenant. TheArmagnac party were at that time possessed of Paris; but, one of thegates of the city being secretly opened on a certain night to a party ofthe duke's men, they got into Paris, threw into the prisons all theArmagnacs upon whom they could lay their hands, and, a few nightsafterwards, with the aid of a furious mob of sixty thousand people, brokethe prisons open, and killed them all. The former Dauphin was now dead, and the King's third son bore the title. Him, in the height of thismurderous scene, a French knight hurried out of bed, wrapped in a sheet, and bore away to Poitiers. So, when the revengeful Isabella and the Dukeof Burgundy entered Paris in triumph after the slaughter of theirenemies, the Dauphin was proclaimed at Poitiers as the real Regent. 

King Henry had not been idle since his victory of Agincourt, but hadrepulsed a brave attempt of the French to recover Harfleur; had graduallyconquered a great part of Normandy; and, at this crisis of affairs, tookthe important town of Rouen, after a siege of half a year. This greatloss so alarmed the French, that the Duke of Burgundy proposed that ameeting to treat of peace should be held between the French and theEnglish kings in a plain by the river Seine. On the appointed day, KingHenry appeared there, with his two brothers, Clarence and Gloucester, anda thousand men. The unfortunate French King, being more mad than usualthat day, could not come; but the Queen came, and with her the PrincessCatherine: who was a very lovely creature, and who made a real impressionon King Henry, now that he saw her for the first time. This was the mostimportant circumstance that arose out of the meeting. 

As if it were impossible for a French nobleman of that time to be true tohis word of honour in anything, Henry discovered that the Duke ofBurgundy was, at that very moment, in secret treaty with the Dauphin; andhe therefore abandoned the negotiation. 

The Duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin, each of whom with the best reasondistrusted the other as a noble ruffian surrounded by a party of nobleruffians, were rather at a loss how to proceed after this; but, at lengththey agreed to meet, on a bridge over the river Yonne, where it wasarranged that there should be two strong gates put up, with an emptyspace between them; and that the Duke of Burgundy should come into thatspace by one gate, with ten men only; and that the Dauphin should comeinto 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 ofBurgundy was on his knee before him in the act of speaking, one of theDauphin's noble ruffians cut the said duke down with a small axe, andothers speedily finished him. 

It was in vain for the Dauphin to pretend that this base murder was notdone with his consent; it was too bad, even for France, and caused ageneral horror. The duke's heir hastened to make a treaty with KingHenry, and the French Queen engaged that her husband should consent toit, whatever it was. Henry made peace, on condition of receiving thePrincess Catherine in marriage, and being made Regent of France duringthe rest of the King's lifetime, and succeeding to the French crown athis death. He was soon married to the beautiful Princess, and took herproudly home to England, where she was crowned with great honour andglory. 

This peace was called the Perpetual Peace; we shall soon see how long itlasted. It gave great satisfaction to the French people, although theywere so poor and miserable, that, at the time of the celebration of theRoyal marriage, numbers of them were dying with starvation, on thedunghills in the streets of Paris. There was some resistance on the partof the Dauphin in some few parts of France, but King Henry beat it alldown. 

And now, with his great possessions in France secured, and his beautifulwife to cheer him, and a son born to give him greater happiness, allappeared bright before him. But, in the fulness of his triumph and theheight of his power, Death came upon him, and his day was done. When hefell ill at Vincennes, and found that he could not recover, he was verycalm and quiet, and spoke serenely to those who wept around his bed. Hiswife and child, he said, he left to the loving care of his brother theDuke of Bedford, and his other faithful nobles. He gave them his advicethat England should establish a friendship with the new Duke of Burgundy, and offer him the regency of France; that it should not set free theroyal princes who had been taken at Agincourt; and that, whatever quarrelmight arise with France, England should never make peace without holdingNormandy. Then, he laid down his head, and asked the attendant prieststo chant the penitential psalms. Amid which solemn sounds, on the thirty-first of August, one thousand four hundred and twenty-two, in only thethirty-fourth year of his age and the tenth of his reign, King Henry theFifth passed away. 

Slowly and mournfully they carried his embalmed body in a procession ofgreat state to Paris, and thence to Rouen where his Queen was: from whomthe sad intelligence of his death was concealed until he had been deadsome days. Thence, lying on a bed of crimson and gold, with a goldencrown upon the head, and a golden ball and sceptre lying in the nervelesshands, they carried it to Calais, with such a great retinue as seemed todye the road black. The King of Scotland acted as chief mourner, all theRoyal Household followed, the knights wore black armour and black plumesof feathers, crowds of men bore torches, making the night as light asday; and the widowed Princess followed last of all. At Calais there wasa fleet of ships to bring the funeral host to Dover. And so, by way ofLondon Bridge, where the service for the dead was chanted as it passedalong, they brought the body to Westminster Abbey, and there buried itwith great respect. 

CHAPTER XXII--ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SIXTH

PART THE FIRST

It had been the wish of the late King, that while his infant son KINGHENRY THE SIXTH, at this time only nine months old, was under age, theDuke of Gloucester should be appointed Regent. The English Parliament, however, preferred to appoint a Council of Regency, with the Duke ofBedford at its head: to be represented, in his absence only, by the Dukeof Gloucester. The Parliament would seem to have been wise in this, forGloucester soon showed himself to be ambitious and troublesome, and, inthe gratification of his own personal schemes, gave dangerous offence tothe Duke of Burgundy, which was with difficulty adjusted. 

As that duke declined the Regency of France, it was bestowed by the poorFrench King upon the Duke of Bedford. But, the French King dying withintwo months, the Dauphin instantly asserted his claim to the Frenchthrone, and was actually crowned under the title of CHARLES THE SEVENTH. The Duke of Bedford, to be a match for him, entered into a friendlyleague with the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, and gave them his twosisters in marriage. War with France was immediately renewed, and thePerpetual Peace came to an untimely end. 

In the first campaign, the English, aided by this alliance, were speedilysuccessful. As Scotland, however, had sent the French five thousand men, and might send more, or attack the North of England while England wasbusy with France, it was considered that it would be a good thing tooffer the Scottish King, James, who had been so long imprisoned, hisliberty, on his paying forty thousand pounds for his board and lodgingduring nineteen years, and engaging to forbid his subjects from servingunder the flag of France. It is pleasant to know, not only that theamiable captive at last regained his freedom upon these terms, but, thathe married a noble English lady, with whom he had been long in love, andbecame an excellent King. I am afraid we have met with some Kings inthis history, and shall meet with some more, who would have been verymuch the better, and would have left the world much happier, if they hadbeen imprisoned nineteen years too. 

In the second campaign, the English gained a considerable victory atVerneuil, in a battle which was chiefly remarkable, otherwise, for theirresorting to the odd expedient of tying their baggage-horses together bythe heads and tails, and jumbling them up with the baggage, so as toconvert them into a sort of live fortification--which was found useful tothe troops, but which I should think was not agreeable to the horses. Forthree years afterwards very little was done, owing to both sides beingtoo poor for war, which is a very expensive entertainment; but, a councilwas then held in Paris, in which it was decided to lay siege to the townof 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, underthe command of the Earl of Salisbury, a general of fame. He beingunfortunately killed early in the siege, the Earl of Suffolk took hisplace; under whom (reinforced by SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, who brought up fourhundred waggons laden with salt herrings and other provisions for thetroops, and, beating off the French who tried to intercept him, camevictorious out of a hot skirmish, which was afterwards called in jest theBattle 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 ofBurgundy. The English general, however, replied that his English men hadwon it, so far, by their blood and valour, and that his English men musthave 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 toSpain--when a peasant girl rose up and changed the whole state ofaffairs. 

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 adaughter, JOAN OF ARC, who was at this time in her twentieth year. Shehad been a solitary girl from her childhood; she had often tended sheepand cattle for whole days where no human figure was seen or human voiceheard; and she had often knelt, for hours together, in the gloomy, empty, little village chapel, looking up at the altar and at the dim lampburning before it, until she fancied that she saw shadowy figuresstanding there, and even that she heard them speak to her. The people inthat part of France were very ignorant and superstitious, and they hadmany ghostly tales to tell about what they had dreamed, and what they sawamong the lonely hills when the clouds and the mists were resting onthem. So, they easily believed that Joan saw strange sights, and theywhispered among themselves that angels and spirits talked to her. 

At last, Joan told her father that she had one day been surprised by agreat unearthly light, and had afterwards heard a solemn voice, whichsaid it was Saint Michael's voice, telling her that she was to go andhelp the Dauphin. Soon after this (she said), Saint Catherine and SaintMargaret had appeared to her with sparkling crowns upon their heads, andhad encouraged her to be virtuous and resolute. These visions hadreturned sometimes; but the Voices very often; and the voices alwayssaid, '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 thesethings. It is very well known that such delusions are a disease which isnot by any means uncommon. It is probable enough that there were figuresof Saint Michael, and Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret, in the littlechapel (where they would be very likely to have shining crowns upon theirheads), 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 verygood 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 takecare of thee, girl, and work to employ thy mind!' But Joan told him inreply, that she had taken a vow never to have a husband, and that shemust go as Heaven directed her, to help the Dauphin. 

It happened, unfortunately for her father's persuasions, and mostunfortunately for the poor girl, too, that a party of the Dauphin'senemies found their way into the village while Joan's disorder was atthis point, and burnt the chapel, and drove out the inhabitants. Thecruelties she saw committed, touched Joan's heart and made her worse. Shesaid that the voices and the figures were now continually with her; thatthey told her she was the girl who, according to an old prophecy, was todeliver France; and she must go and help the Dauphin, and must remainwith him until he should be crowned at Rheims: and that she must travel along way to a certain lord named BAUDRICOURT, who could and would, bringher into the Dauphin's presence. 

As her father still said, 'I tell thee, Joan, it is thy fancy, ' she setoff to find out this lord, accompanied by an uncle, a poor villagewheelwright and cart-maker, who believed in the reality of her visions. They travelled a long way and went on and on, over a rough country, fullof 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 Joanof Arc, accompanied by nobody but an old village wheelwright and cart-maker, who wished to see him because she was commanded to help theDauphin and save France, Baudricourt burst out a-laughing, and bade themsend the girl away. But, he soon heard so much about her lingering inthe town, and praying in the churches, and seeing visions, and doing harmto no one, that he sent for her, and questioned her. As she said thesame things after she had been well sprinkled with holy water as she hadsaid before the sprinkling, Baudricourt began to think there might besomething in it. At all events, he thought it worth while to send her onto 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 hadtold Joan that she was to wear a man's dress, now, she put one on, andgirded her sword to her side, and bound spurs to her heels, and mountedher horse and rode away with her two squires. As to her uncle thewheelwright, he stood staring at his niece in wonder until she was out ofsight--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, whereshe was, after some doubt, admitted into the Dauphin's presence. Pickinghim out immediately from all his court, she told him that she camecommanded by Heaven to subdue his enemies and conduct him to hiscoronation at Rheims. She also told him (or he pretended so afterwards, to make the greater impression upon his soldiers) a number of his secretsknown only to himself, and, furthermore, she said there was an old, oldsword in the cathedral of Saint Catherine at Fierbois, marked with fiveold crosses on the blade, which Saint Catherine had ordered her to wear. 

{Joan of Arc: p158. Jpg}

Now, nobody knew anything about this old, old sword, but when thecathedral came to be examined--which was immediately done--there, sureenough, the sword was found! The Dauphin then required a number of gravepriests and bishops to give him their opinion whether the girl derivedher power from good spirits or from evil spirits, which they heldprodigiously long debates about, in the course of which several learnedmen fell fast asleep and snored loudly. At last, when one gruff oldgentleman had said to Joan, 'What language do your Voices speak?' andwhen Joan had replied to the gruff old gentleman, 'A pleasanter languagethan yours, ' they agreed that it was all correct, and that Joan of Arcwas inspired from Heaven. This wonderful circumstance put new heart intothe Dauphin's soldiers when they heard of it, and dispirited the Englisharmy, who took Joan for a witch. 

So Joan mounted horse again, and again rode on and on, until she came toOrleans. But she rode now, as never peasant girl had ridden yet. Sherode upon a white war-horse, in a suit of glittering armour; with theold, old sword from the cathedral, newly burnished, in her belt; with awhite flag carried before her, upon which were a picture of God, and thewords JESUS MARIA. In this splendid state, at the head of a great bodyof troops escorting provisions of all kinds for the starving inhabitantsof Orleans, she appeared before that beleaguered city. 

When the people on the walls beheld her, they cried out 'The Maid iscome! The Maid of the Prophecy is come to deliver us!' And this, andthe sight of the Maid fighting at the head of their men, made the Frenchso bold, and made the English so fearful, that the English line of fortswas soon broken, the troops and provisions were got into the town, andOrleans was saved. 

Joan, henceforth called THE MAID OF ORLEANS, remained within the wallsfor a few days, and caused letters to be thrown over, ordering LordSuffolk and his Englishmen to depart from before the town according tothe will of Heaven. As the English general very positively declined tobelieve that Joan knew anything about the will of Heaven (which did notmend the matter with his soldiers, for they stupidly said if she were notinspired 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 toadvance. 

The besiegers held the bridge, and some strong towers upon the bridge;and here the Maid of Orleans attacked them. The fight was fourteen hourslong. She planted a scaling ladder with her own hands, and mounted atower wall, but was struck by an English arrow in the neck, and fell intothe trench. She was carried away and the arrow was taken out, duringwhich operation she screamed and cried with the pain, as any other girlmight have done; but presently she said that the Voices were speaking toher and soothing her to rest. After a while, she got up, and was againforemost in the fight. When the English who had seen her fall andsupposed her dead, saw this, they were troubled with the strangest fears, and some of them cried out that they beheld Saint Michael on a whitehorse (probably Joan herself) fighting for the French. They lost thebridge, and lost the towers, and next day set their chain of forts onfire, 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 wasstruck upon the head with a stone, and was again tumbled down into theditch; but, she only cried all the more, as she lay there, 'On, on, mycountrymen! And fear nothing, for the Lord hath delivered them into ourhands!' After this new success of the Maid's, several other fortressesand places which had previously held out against the Dauphin weredelivered up without a battle; and at Patay she defeated the remainder ofthe English army, and set up her victorious white banner on a field wheretwelve hundred Englishmen lay dead. 

She now urged the Dauphin (who always kept out of the way when there wasany fighting) to proceed to Rheims, as the first part of her mission wasaccomplished; and to complete the whole by being crowned there. TheDauphin was in no particular hurry to do this, as Rheims was a long wayoff, and the English and the Duke of Burgundy were still strong in thecountry through which the road lay. However, they set forth, with tenthousand men, and again the Maid of Orleans rode on and on, upon herwhite war-horse, and in her shining armour. Whenever they came to a townwhich yielded readily, the soldiers believed in her; but, whenever theycame to a town which gave them any trouble, they began to murmur that shewas an impostor. The latter was particularly the case at Troyes, whichfinally yielded, however, through the persuasion of one Richard, a friarof the place. Friar Richard was in the old doubt about the Maid ofOrleans, until he had sprinkled her well with holy water, and had alsowell 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 othergrave old gentlemen had said, that it was all right, and became her greatally. 

So, at last, by dint of riding on and on, the Maid of Orleans, and theDauphin, and the ten thousand sometimes believing and sometimesunbelieving men, came to Rheims. And in the great cathedral of Rheims, the Dauphin actually was crowned Charles the Seventh in a great assemblyof the people. Then, the Maid, who with her white banner stood besidethe King in that hour of his triumph, kneeled down upon the pavement athis 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 sheshould now have leave to go back to her distant home, and her sturdilyincredulous father, and her first simple escort the village wheelwrightand cart-maker. But the King said 'No!' and made her and her family asnoble 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 herrustic dress that day, and had gone home to the little chapel and thewild hills, and had forgotten all these things, and had been a good man'swife, and had heard no stranger voices than the voices of littlechildren!

It was not to be, and she continued helping the King (she did a world forhim, in alliance with Friar Richard), and trying to improve the lives ofthe coarse soldiers, and leading a religious, an unselfish, and a modestlife, herself, beyond any doubt. Still, many times she prayed the Kingto let her go home; and once she even took off her bright armour and hungit up in a church, meaning never to wear it more. But, the King alwayswon her back again--while she was of any use to him--and so she went onand on and on, to her doom. 

When the Duke of Bedford, who was a very able man, began to be active forEngland, and, by bringing the war back into France and by holding theDuke of Burgundy to his faith, to distress and disturb Charles very much, Charles sometimes asked the Maid of Orleans what the Voices said aboutit? But, the Voices had become (very like ordinary voices in perplexedtimes) contradictory and confused, so that now they said one thing, andnow said another, and the Maid lost credit every day. Charles marched onParis, which was opposed to him, and attacked the suburb of Saint Honore. In this fight, being again struck down into the ditch, she was abandonedby the whole army. She lay unaided among a heap of dead, and crawled outhow she could. Then, some of her believers went over to an oppositionMaid, Catherine of La Rochelle, who said she was inspired to tell wherethere were treasures of buried money--though she never did--and then Joanaccidentally broke the old, old sword, and others said that her power wasbroken with it. Finally, at the siege of Compiegne, held by the Duke ofBurgundy, where she did valiant service, she was basely left alone in aretreat, though facing about and fighting to the last; and an archerpulled her off her horse. 

O the uproar that was made, and the thanksgivings that were sung, aboutthe capture of this one poor country-girl! O the way in which she wasdemanded 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 thatgreat man, until it is wearisome to think of! She was bought at last bythe Bishop of Beauvais for ten thousand francs, and was shut up in hernarrow prison: plain Joan of Arc again, and Maid of Orleans no more. 

I should never have done if I were to tell you how they had Joan out toexamine her, and cross-examine her, and re-examine her, and worry herinto saying anything and everything; and how all sorts of scholars anddoctors bestowed their utmost tediousness upon her. Sixteen times shewas brought out and shut up again, and worried, and entrapped, and arguedwith, until she was heart-sick of the dreary business. On the lastoccasion of this kind she was brought into a burial-place at Rouen, dismally decorated with a scaffold, and a stake and faggots, and theexecutioner, and a pulpit with a friar therein, and an awful sermonready. It is very affecting to know that even at that pass the poor girlhonoured the mean vermin of a King, who had so used her for his purposesand so abandoned her; and, that while she had been regardless ofreproaches heaped upon herself, she spoke out courageously for him. 

It was natural in one so young to hold to life. To save her life, shesigned a declaration prepared for her--signed it with a cross, for shecouldn'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 aman's dress in future, she was condemned to imprisonment for life, 'onthe bread of sorrow and the water of affliction. '

But, on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction, the visions andthe Voices soon returned. It was quite natural that they should do so, for that kind of disease is much aggravated by fasting, loneliness, andanxiety of mind. It was not only got out of Joan that she consideredherself inspired again, but, she was taken in a man's dress, which hadbeen left--to entrap her--in her prison, and which she put on, in hersolitude; perhaps, in remembrance of her past glories, perhaps, becausethe imaginary Voices told her. For this relapse into the sorcery andheresy and anything else you like, she was sentenced to be burnt todeath. And, in the market-place of Rouen, in the hideous dress which themonks had invented for such spectacles; with priests and bishops sittingin a gallery looking on, though some had the Christian grace to go away, unable to endure the infamous scene; this shrieking girl--last seenamidst the smoke and fire, holding a crucifix between her hands; lastheard, calling upon Christ--was burnt to ashes. They threw her ashesinto the river Seine; but they will rise against her murderers on thelast day. 

From the moment of her capture, neither the French King nor one singleman in all his court raised a finger to save her. It is no defence ofthem that they may have never really believed in her, or that they mayhave won her victories by their skill and bravery. The more theypretended to believe in her, the more they had caused her to believe inherself; and she had ever been true to them, ever brave, ever noblydevoted. But, it is no wonder, that they, who were in all things falseto themselves, false to one another, false to their country, false toHeaven, false to Earth, should be monsters of ingratitude and treacheryto a helpless peasant girl. 

In the picturesque old town of Rouen, where weeds and grass grow high onthe cathedral towers, and the venerable Norman streets are still warm inthe blessed sunlight though the monkish fires that once gleamed horriblyupon them have long grown cold, there is a statue of Joan of Arc, in thescene of her last agony, the square to which she has given its presentname. I know some statues of modern times--even in the World'smetropolis, I think--which commemorate less constancy, less earnestness, smaller claims upon the world's attention, and much greater impostors. 

PART THE THIRD

Bad deeds seldom prosper, happily for mankind; and the English causegained no advantage from the cruel death of Joan of Arc. For a longtime, the war went heavily on. The Duke of Bedford died; the alliancewith the Duke of Burgundy was broken; and Lord Talbot became a greatgeneral on the English side in France. But, two of the consequences ofwars are, Famine--because the people cannot peacefully cultivate theground--and Pestilence, which comes of want, misery, and suffering. Boththese horrors broke out in both countries, and lasted for two wretchedyears. Then, the war went on again, and came by slow degrees to be sobadly conducted by the English government, that, within twenty years fromthe 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 oftime, many strange things happened at home. The young King, as he grewup, proved to be very unlike his great father, and showed himself amiserable puny creature. There was no harm in him--he had a greataversion to shedding blood: which was something--but, he was a weak, silly, helpless young man, and a mere shuttlecock to the great lordlybattledores about the Court. 

Of these battledores, Cardinal Beaufort, a relation of the King, and theDuke of Gloucester, were at first the most powerful. The Duke ofGloucester had a wife, who was nonsensically accused of practisingwitchcraft to cause the King's death and lead to her husband's coming tothe throne, he being the next heir. She was charged with having, by thehelp of a ridiculous old woman named Margery (who was called a witch), made a little waxen doll in the King's likeness, and put it before a slowfire 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, wassure to happen. Whether 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, withouthurting the King or anybody else. However, she was tried for it, and sowas old Margery, and so was one of the duke's chaplains, who was chargedwith having assisted them. Both he and Margery were put to death, andthe duchess, after being taken on foot and bearing a lighted candle, three times round the City, as a penance, was imprisoned for life. Theduke, himself, took all this pretty quietly, and made as little stirabout 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. The royalshuttlecock being three-and-twenty, the battledores were very anxious toget him married. The Duke of Gloucester wanted him to marry a daughterof the Count of Armagnac; but, the Cardinal and the Earl of Suffolk wereall for MARGARET, the daughter of the King of Sicily, who they knew was aresolute, ambitious woman and would govern the King as she chose. Tomake friends with this lady, the Earl of Suffolk, who went over toarrange the match, consented to accept her for the King's wife withoutany fortune, and even to give up the two most valuable possessionsEngland then had in France. So, the marriage was arranged, on terms veryadvantageous to the lady; and Lord Suffolk brought her to England, andshe was married at Westminster. On what pretence this queen and herparty charged the Duke of Gloucester with high treason within a couple ofyears, it is impossible to make out, the matter is so confused; but, theypretended that the King's life was in danger, and they took the dukeprisoner. 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 thebest part of his estates. You know by this time how strangely liablestate prisoners were to sudden death. 

If Cardinal Beaufort had any hand in this matter, it did him no good, forhe died within six weeks; thinking it very hard and curious--at eightyyears old!--that he could not live to be Pope. 

This was the time when England had completed her loss of all her greatFrench conquests. The people charged the loss principally upon the Earlof Suffolk, now a duke, who had made those easy terms about the RoyalMarriage, and who, they believed, had even been bought by France. So hewas impeached as a traitor, on a great number of charges, but chiefly onaccusations of having aided the French King, and of designing to make hisown son King of England. The Commons and the people being violentagainst him, the King was made (by his friends) to interpose to save him, by banishing him for five years, and proroguing the Parliament. The dukehad much ado to escape from a London mob, two thousand strong, who lay inwait for him in St. Giles's fields; but, he got down to his own estatesin Suffolk, and sailed away from Ipswich. Sailing across the Channel, hesent into Calais to know if he might land there; but, they kept his boatand men in the harbour, until an English ship, carrying a hundred andfifty men and called the Nicholas of the Tower, came alongside his littlevessel, and ordered him on board. 'Welcome, traitor, as men say, ' wasthe captain's grim and not very respectful salutation. He was kept onboard, a prisoner, for eight-and-forty hours, and then a small boatappeared rowing toward the ship. As this boat came nearer, it was seento have in it a block, a rusty sword, and an executioner in a black mask. The duke was handed down into it, and there his head was cut off with sixstrokes of the rusty sword. Then, the little boat rowed away to Doverbeach, where the body was cast out, and left until the duchess claimedit. By whom, high in authority, this murder was committed, has neverappeared. No one was ever punished for it. 

There now arose in Kent an Irishman, who gave himself the name ofMortimer, but whose real name was JACK CADE. Jack, in imitation of WatTyler, though he was a very different and inferior sort of man, addressedthe Kentish men upon their wrongs, occasioned by the bad government ofEngland, among so many battledores and such a poor shuttlecock; and theKentish men rose up to the number of twenty thousand. Their place ofassembly was Blackheath, where, headed by Jack, they put forth twopapers, which they called 'The Complaint of the Commons of Kent, ' and'The Requests of the Captain of the Great Assembly in Kent. ' They thenretired to Sevenoaks. The royal army coming up with them here, they beatit and killed their general. Then, Jack dressed himself in the deadgeneral's armour, and led his men to London. 

Jack passed into the City from Southwark, over the bridge, and entered itin triumph, giving the strictest orders to his men not to plunder. Havingmade a show of his forces there, while the citizens looked on quietly, hewent 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, anunpopular nobleman. Says Jack to the Lord Mayor and judges: 'Will you beso 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 mencut 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 the citizens could bear the beheading of an unpopular lord, they could not bear to have their houses pillaged. And it did so happenthat Jack, after dinner--perhaps he had drunk a little too much--began toplunder the house where he lodged; upon which, of course, his men beganto imitate him. Wherefore, the Londoners took counsel with Lord Scales, who had a thousand soldiers in the Tower; and defended London Bridge, andkept Jack and his people out. This advantage gained, it was resolved bydivers great men to divide Jack's army in the old way, by making a greatmany promises on behalf of the state, that were never intended to beperformed. This _did_ divide them; some of Jack's men saying that theyought to take the conditions which were offered, and others saying thatthey ought not, for they were only a snare; some going home at once;others staying where they were; and all doubting and quarrelling amongthemselves. 

Jack, who was in two minds about fighting or accepting a pardon, and whoindeed did both, saw at last that there was nothing to expect from hismen, and that it was very likely some of them would deliver him up andget a reward of a thousand marks, which was offered for his apprehension. So, after they had travelled and quarrelled all the way from Southwark toBlackheath, and from Blackheath to Rochester, he mounted a good horse andgalloped away into Sussex. But, there galloped after him, on a betterhorse, one Alexander Iden, who came up with him, had a hard fight withhim, and killed him. Jack's head was set aloft on London Bridge, withthe face looking towards Blackheath, where he had raised his flag; andAlexander Iden got the thousand marks. 

It is supposed by some, that the Duke of York, who had been removed froma high post abroad through the Queen's influence, and sent out of theway, to govern Ireland, was at the bottom of this rising of Jack and hismen, because he wanted to trouble the government. He claimed (though notyet publicly) to have a better right to the throne than Henry ofLancaster, as one of the family of the Earl of March, whom Henry theFourth had set aside. Touching this claim, which, being through femalerelationship, was not according to the usual descent, it is enough to saythat Henry the Fourth was the free choice of the people and theParliament, and that his family had now reigned undisputed for sixtyyears. The memory of Henry the Fifth was so famous, and the Englishpeople 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 theunfortunate circumstance of the present King's being by this time quitean idiot, and the country very ill governed. These two circumstancesgave 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 fromIreland while Jack's head was on London Bridge; being secretly advisedthat the Queen was setting up his enemy, the Duke of Somerset, againsthim. He went to Westminster, at the head of four thousand men, and onhis knees before the King, represented to him the bad state of thecountry, and petitioned him to summon a Parliament to consider it. Thisthe King promised. When the Parliament was summoned, the Duke of Yorkaccused the Duke of Somerset, and the Duke of Somerset accused the Dukeof York; and, both in and out of Parliament, the followers of each partywere full of violence and hatred towards the other. At length the Dukeof York put himself at the head of a large force of his tenants, and, inarms, demanded the reformation of the Government. Being shut out ofLondon, he encamped at Dartford, and the royal army encamped atBlackheath. According as either side triumphed, the Duke of York wasarrested, or the Duke of Somerset was arrested. The trouble ended, forthe moment, in the Duke of York renewing his oath of allegiance, andgoing in peace to one of his own castles. 

Half a year afterwards the Queen gave birth to a son, who was very illreceived by the people, and not believed to be the son of the King. Itshows the Duke of York to have been a moderate man, unwilling to involveEngland in new troubles, that he did not take advantage of the generaldiscontent at this time, but really acted for the public good. He wasmade a member of the cabinet, and the King being now so much worse thathe 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 shouldrecover, or the Prince should come of age. At the same time the Duke ofSomerset was committed to the Tower. So, now the Duke of Somerset wasdown, and the Duke of York was up. By the end of the year, however, theKing recovered his memory and some spark of sense; upon which the Queenused her power--which recovered with him--to get the Protector disgraced, and her favourite released. So now the Duke of York was down, and theDuke of Somerset was up. 

These ducal ups and downs gradually separated the whole nation into thetwo parties of York and Lancaster, and led to those terrible civil warslong known as the Wars of the Red and White Roses, because the red rosewas the badge of the House of Lancaster, and the white rose was the badgeof the House of York. 

The Duke of York, joined by some other powerful noblemen of the WhiteRose party, and leading a small army, met the King with another smallarmy at St. Alban's, and demanded that the Duke of Somerset should begiven up. The poor King, being made to say in answer that he wouldsooner die, was instantly attacked. The Duke of Somerset was killed, andthe King himself was wounded in the neck, and took refuge in the house ofa poor tanner. Whereupon, the Duke of York went to him, led him withgreat submission to the Abbey, and said he was very sorry for what hadhappened. Having now the King in his possession, he got a Parliamentsummoned and himself once more made Protector, but, only for a fewmonths; for, on the King getting a little better again, the Queen and herparty 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 constantchanges, tried even then to prevent the Red and the White Rose Wars. Theybrought about a great council in London between the two parties. TheWhite Roses assembled in Blackfriars, the Red Roses in Whitefriars; andsome good priests communicated between them, and made the proceedingsknown at evening to the King and the judges. They ended in a peacefulagreement that there should be no more quarrelling; and there was a greatroyal procession to St. Paul's, in which the Queen walked arm-in-arm withher old enemy, the Duke of York, to show the people how comfortable theyall were. This state of peace lasted half a year, when a dispute betweenthe Earl of Warwick (one of the Duke's powerful friends) and some of theKing's servants at Court, led to an attack upon that Earl--who was aWhite Rose--and to a sudden breaking out of all old animosities. So, here were greater ups and downs than ever. 

There were even greater ups and downs than these, soon after. Aftervarious battles, the Duke of York fled to Ireland, and his son the Earlof March to Calais, with their friends the Earls of Salisbury andWarwick; and a Parliament was held declaring them all traitors. Littlethe worse for this, the Earl of Warwick presently came back, landed inKent, was joined by the Archbishop of Canterbury and other powerfulnoblemen and gentlemen, engaged the King's forces at Northampton, signally defeated them, and took the King himself prisoner, who was foundin his tent. Warwick would have been glad, I dare say, to have taken theQueen and Prince too, but they escaped into Wales and thence intoScotland. 

The King was carried by the victorious force straight to London, and madeto call a new Parliament, which immediately declared that the Duke ofYork and those other noblemen were not traitors, but excellent subjects. Then, back comes the Duke from Ireland at the head of five hundredhorsemen, rides from London to Westminster, and enters the House ofLords. There, he laid his hand upon the cloth of gold which covered theempty 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 thiscountry, my lord, who ought not to visit _me_. ' None of the lordspresent spoke a single word; so, the duke went out as he had come in, established himself royally in the King's palace, and, six daysafterwards, sent in to the Lords a formal statement of his claim to thethrone. The lords went to the King on this momentous subject, and aftera great deal of discussion, in which the judges and the other lawofficers were afraid to give an opinion on either side, the question wascompromised. It was agreed that the present King should retain the crownfor his life, and that it should then pass to the Duke of York and hisheirs. 

But, the resolute Queen, determined on asserting her son's right, wouldhear 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, forhis part, set off with some five thousand men, a little time beforeChristmas Day, one thousand four hundred and sixty, to give her battle. He lodged at Sandal Castle, near Wakefield, and the Red Roses defied himto come out on Wakefield Green, and fight them then and there. Hisgenerals 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, twothousand of his men lay dead on Wakefield Green, and he himself was takenprisoner. They set him down in mock state on an ant-hill, and twistedgrass 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 hopeyour 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 laughedwith delight when she saw it (you recollect their walking so religiouslyand comfortably to St. Paul's!), and had it fixed, with a paper crownupon its head, on the walls of York. The Earl of Salisbury lost hishead, too; and the Duke of York's second son, a handsome boy who wasflying with his tutor over Wakefield Bridge, was stabbed in the heart bya murderous, lord--Lord Clifford by name--whose father had been killed bythe White Roses in the fight at St. Alban's. There was awful sacrificeof life in this battle, for no quarter was given, and the Queen was wildfor revenge. When men unnaturally fight against their own countrymen, they are always observed to be more unnaturally cruel and filled withrage than they are against any other enemy. 

But, Lord Clifford had stabbed the second son of the Duke of York--notthe first. The eldest son, Edward Earl of March, was at Gloucester; and, vowing vengeance for the death of his father, his brother, and theirfaithful friends, he began to march against the Queen. He had to turnand 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, inretaliation for the beheading of the White Roses at Wakefield. The Queenhad the next turn of beheading. Having moved towards London, and fallingin, between St. Alban's and Barnet, with the Earl of Warwick and the Dukeof 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, andstruck off the heads of two prisoners of note, who were in the King'stent with him, and to whom the King had promised his protection. Hertriumph, however, was very short. She had no treasure, and her armysubsisted by plunder. This caused them to be hated and dreaded by thepeople, and particularly by the London people, who were wealthy. As soonas the Londoners heard that Edward, Earl of March, united with the Earlof Warwick, was advancing towards the city, they refused to send theQueen supplies, and made a great rejoicing. 

The Queen and her men retreated with all speed, and Edward and Warwickcame on, greeted with loud acclamations on every side. The courage, beauty, and virtues of young Edward could not be sufficiently praised bythe whole people. He rode into London like a conqueror, and met with anenthusiastic welcome. A few days afterwards, Lord Falconbridge and theBishop of Exeter assembled the citizens in St. John's Field, Clerkenwell, and asked them if they would have Henry of Lancaster for their King? Tothis they all roared, 'No, no, no!' and 'King Edward! King Edward!'Then, said those noblemen, would they love and serve young Edward? Tothis they all cried, 'Yes, yes!' and threw up their caps and clappedtheir hands, and cheered tremendously. 

Therefore, it was declared that by joining the Queen and not protectingthose two prisoners of note, Henry of Lancaster had forfeited the crown;and Edward of York was proclaimed King. He made a great speech to theapplauding people at Westminster, and sat down as sovereign of England onthat throne, on the golden covering of which his father--worthy of abetter fate than the bloody axe which cut the thread of so many lives inEngland, 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 tookthat unquiet seat upon the throne of England. The Lancaster party, theRed Roses, were then assembling in great numbers near York, and it wasnecessary to give them battle instantly. But, the stout Earl of Warwickleading for the young King, and the young King himself closely followinghim, and the English people crowding round the Royal standard, the Whiteand the Red Roses met, on a wild March day when the snow was fallingheavily, at Towton; and there such a furious battle raged between them, that the total loss amounted to forty thousand men--all Englishmen, fighting, upon English ground, against one another. The young Kinggained the day, took down the heads of his father and brother from thewalls of York, and put up the heads of some of the most famous noblemenengaged in the battle on the other side. Then, he went to London and wascrowned with great splendour. 

A new Parliament met. No fewer than one hundred and fifty of theprincipal noblemen and gentlemen on the Lancaster side were declaredtraitors, and the King--who had very little humanity, though he washandsome 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. Sheobtained help from Scotland and from Normandy, and took several importantEnglish castles. But, Warwick soon retook them; the Queen lost all hertreasure on board ship in a great storm; and both she and her sonsuffered great misfortunes. Once, in the winter weather, as they wereriding through a forest, they were attacked and plundered by a party ofrobbers; and, when they had escaped from these men and were passing aloneand on foot through a thick dark part of the wood, they came, all atonce, upon another robber. So the Queen, with a stout heart, took thelittle Prince by the hand, and going straight up to that robber, said tohim, 'My friend, this is the young son of your lawful King! I confidehim to your care. ' The robber was surprised, but took the boy in hisarms, and faithfully restored him and his mother to their friends. Inthe end, the Queen's soldiers being beaten and dispersed, she went abroadagain, and kept quiet for the present. 

Now, all this time, the deposed King Henry was concealed by a Welshknight, who kept him close in his castle. But, next year, the Lancasterparty recovering their spirits, raised a large body of men, and calledhim out of his retirement, to put him at their head. They were joined bysome powerful noblemen who had sworn fidelity to the new King, but whowere ready, as usual, to break their oaths, whenever they thought therewas anything to be got by it. One of the worst things in the history ofthe war of the Red and White Roses, is the ease with which thesenoblemen, who should have set an example of honour to the people, lefteither side as they took slight offence, or were disappointed in theirgreedy expectations, and joined the other. Well! Warwick's brother soonbeat the Lancastrians, and the false noblemen, being taken, were beheadedwithout 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 asled to Henry's being taken while he was sitting at dinner in a placecalled Waddington Hall. He was immediately sent to London, and met atIslington by the Earl of Warwick, by whose directions he was put upon ahorse, with his legs tied under it, and paraded three times round thepillory. Then, he was carried off to the Tower, where they treated himwell enough. 

The White Rose being so triumphant, the young King abandoned himselfentirely to pleasure, and led a jovial life. But, thorns were springingup under his bed of roses, as he soon found out. For, having beenprivately married to ELIZABETH WOODVILLE, a young widow lady, verybeautiful and very captivating; and at last resolving to make his secretknown, and to declare her his Queen; he gave some offence to the Earl ofWarwick, who was usually called the King-Maker, because of his power andinfluence, and because of his having lent such great help to placingEdward on the throne. This offence was not lessened by the jealousy withwhich the Nevil family (the Earl of Warwick's) regarded the promotion ofthe Woodville family. For, the young Queen was so bent on providing forher relations, that she made her father an earl and a great officer ofstate; married her five sisters to young noblemen of the highest rank;and provided for her younger brother, a young man of twenty, by marryinghim to an immensely rich old duchess of eighty. The Earl of Warwick tookall this pretty graciously for a man of his proud temper, until thequestion 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 wasallowed to go over to the French King to make friendly proposals for thatpurpose, and to hold all manner of friendly interviews with him. But, while he was so engaged, the Woodville party married the young lady tothe 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 betweenthe Earl of Warwick and the King, and lasted until the Earl married hisdaughter, against the King's wishes, to the Duke of Clarence. While themarriage was being celebrated at Calais, the people in the north ofEngland, where the influence of the Nevil family was strongest, broke outinto rebellion; their complaint was, that England was oppressed andplundered by the Woodville family, whom they demanded to have removedfrom power. As they were joined by great numbers of people, and as theyopenly declared that they were supported by the Earl of Warwick, the Kingdid not know what to do. At last, as he wrote to the earl beseeching hisaid, he and his new son-in-law came over to England, and began to arrangethe business by shutting the King up in Middleham Castle in the safekeeping of the Archbishop of York; so England was not only in the strangeposition of having two kings at once, but they were both prisoners at thesame time. 

Even as yet, however, the King-Maker was so far true to the King, that hedispersed 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 to London, and there innumerablepledges of forgiveness and friendship were exchanged between them, andbetween the Nevils and the Woodvilles; the King's eldest daughter waspromised in marriage to the heir of the Nevil family; and more friendlyoaths were sworn, and more friendly promises made, than this book wouldhold. 

They lasted about three months. At the end of that time, the Archbishopof York made a feast for the King, the Earl of Warwick, and the Duke ofClarence, at his house, the Moor, in Hertfordshire. The King was washinghis hands before supper, when some one whispered him that a body of ahundred men were lying in ambush outside the house. Whether this weretrue or untrue, the King took fright, mounted his horse, and rode throughthe dark night to Windsor Castle. Another reconciliation was patched upbetween him and the King-Maker, but it was a short one, and it was thelast. A new rising took place in Lincolnshire, and the King marched torepress it. Having done so, he proclaimed that both the Earl of Warwickand the Duke of Clarence were traitors, who had secretly assisted it, andwho had been prepared publicly to join it on the following day. In thesedangerous circumstances they both took ship and sailed away to the Frenchcourt. 

And here a meeting took place between the Earl of Warwick and his oldenemy, the Dowager Queen Margaret, through whom his father had had hishead struck off, and to whom he had been a bitter foe. But, now, when hesaid that he had done with the ungrateful and perfidious Edward of York, and that henceforth he devoted himself to the restoration of the House ofLancaster, either in the person of her husband or of her little son, sheembraced him as if he had ever been her dearest friend. She did morethan that; she married her son to his second daughter, the Lady Anne. However agreeable this marriage was to the new friends, it was verydisagreeable to the Duke of Clarence, who perceived that his father-in-law, the King-Maker, would never make _him_ King, now. So, being but aweak-minded young traitor, possessed of very little worth or sense, hereadily listened to an artful court lady sent over for the purpose, andpromised to turn traitor once more, and go over to his brother, KingEdward, when a fitting opportunity should come. 

The Earl of Warwick, knowing nothing of this, soon redeemed his promiseto the Dowager Queen Margaret, by invading England and landing atPlymouth, where he instantly proclaimed King Henry, and summoned allEnglishmen 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, thatEdward had to ride hard for it to the coast of Norfolk, and thence to getaway in such ships as he could find, to Holland. Thereupon, thetriumphant 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 agreat procession to Saint Paul's Cathedral with the crown upon his head. This did not improve the temper of the Duke of Clarence, who saw himselffarther off from being King than ever; but he kept his secret, and saidnothing. The Nevil family were restored to all their honours andglories, and the Woodvilles and the rest were disgraced. The King-Maker, less sanguinary than the King, shed no blood except that of the Earl ofWorcester, who had been so cruel to the people as to have gained thetitle of the Butcher. Him they caught hidden in a tree, and him theytried and executed. No other death stained the King-Maker's triumph. 

To dispute this triumph, back came King Edward again, next year, landingat Ravenspur, coming on to York, causing all his men to cry 'Long liveKing Henry!' and swearing on the altar, without a blush, that he came tolay 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 hisbrother. The Marquis of Montague, though the Earl of Warwick's brother, also declining to fight against King Edward, he went on successfully toLondon, where the Archbishop of York let him into the City, and where thepeople made great demonstrations in his favour. For this they had fourreasons. Firstly, there were great numbers of the King's adherentshiding in the City and ready to break out; secondly, the King owed them agreat deal of money, which they could never hope to get if he wereunsuccessful; thirdly, there was a young prince to inherit the crown; andfourthly, the King was gay and handsome, and more popular than a betterman might have been with the City ladies. After a stay of only two dayswith these worthy supporters, the King marched out to Barnet Common, togive the Earl of Warwick battle. And now it was to be seen, for the lasttime, whether the King or the King-Maker was to carry the day. 

While the battle was yet pending, the fainthearted Duke of Clarence beganto repent, and sent over secret messages to his father-in-law, offeringhis services in mediation with the King. But, the Earl of Warwickdisdainfully rejected them, and replied that Clarence was false andperjured, and that he would settle the quarrel by the sword. The battlebegan at four o'clock in the morning and lasted until ten, and during thegreater part of the time it was fought in a thick mist--absurdly supposedto be raised by a magician. The loss of life was very great, for thehatred was strong on both sides. The King-Maker was defeated, and theKing triumphed. Both the Earl of Warwick and his brother were slain, andtheir bodies lay in St. Paul's, for some days, as a spectacle to thepeople. 

Margaret's spirit was not broken even by this great blow. Within fivedays she was in arms again, and raised her standard in Bath, whence sheset off with her army, to try and join Lord Pembroke, who had a force inWales. But, the King, coming up with her outside the town of Tewkesbury, and ordering his brother, the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, who was a bravesoldier, to attack her men, she sustained an entire defeat, and was takenprisoner, together with her son, now only eighteen years of age. Theconduct 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 aspirit which a man of spirit might have admired in a captive, 'to recovermy father's kingdom, which descended to him as his right, and from himdescends 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 otherlords, who were there, drew their noble swords, and killed him. 

His mother survived him, a prisoner, for five years; after her ransom bythe King of France, she survived for six years more. Within three weeksof this murder, Henry died one of those convenient sudden deaths whichwere so common in the Tower; in plainer words, he was murdered by theKing's order. 

Having no particular excitement on his hands after this great defeat ofthe Lancaster party, and being perhaps desirous to get rid of some of hisfat (for he was now getting too corpulent to be handsome), the Kingthought of making war on France. As he wanted more money for thispurpose than the Parliament could give him, though they were usuallyready enough for war, he invented a new way of raising it, by sending forthe principal citizens of London, and telling them, with a grave face, that he was very much in want of cash, and would take it very kind inthem if they would lend him some. It being impossible for them safely torefuse, they complied, and the moneys thus forced from them werecalled--no doubt to the great amusement of the King and the Court--as ifthey were free gifts, 'Benevolences. ' What with grants from Parliament, and what with Benevolences, the King raised an army and passed over toCalais. As nobody wanted war, however, the French King made proposals ofpeace, which were accepted, and a truce was concluded for seven longyears. The proceedings between the Kings of France and England on thisoccasion, were very friendly, very splendid, and very distrustful. Theyfinished with a meeting between the two Kings, on a temporary bridge overthe river Somme, where they embraced through two holes in a strong woodengrating like a lion's cage, and made several bows and fine speeches toone another. 

It was time, now, that the Duke of Clarence should be punished for histreacheries; and Fate had his punishment in store. He was, probably, nottrusted by the King--for who could trust him who knew him!--and he hadcertainly a powerful opponent in his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who, being avaricious and ambitious, wanted to marry that widoweddaughter of the Earl of Warwick's who had been espoused to the deceasedyoung Prince, at Calais. Clarence, who wanted all the family wealth forhimself, secreted this lady, whom Richard found disguised as a servant inthe City of London, and whom he married; arbitrators appointed by theKing, then divided the property between the brothers. This led to ill-will and mistrust between them. Clarence's wife dying, and he wishing tomake another marriage, which was obnoxious to the King, his ruin washurried by that means, too. At first, the Court struck at his retainersand dependents, and accused some of them of magic and witchcraft, andsimilar nonsense. Successful against this small game, it then mounted tothe 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 bepublicly executed. He never was publicly executed, but he met his deathsomehow, in the Tower, and, no doubt, through some agency of the King orhis brother Gloucester, or both. It was supposed at the time that he wastold to choose the manner of his death, and that he chose to be drownedin a butt of Malmsey wine. I hope the story may be true, for it wouldhave been a becoming death for such a miserable creature. 

The King survived him some five years. He died in the forty-second yearof his life, and the twenty-third of his reign. He had a very goodcapacity and some good points, but he was selfish, careless, sensual, andcruel. He was a favourite with the people for his showy manners; and thepeople were a good example to him in the constancy of their attachment. He was penitent on his death-bed for his 'benevolences, ' and otherextortions, and ordered restitution to be made to the people who hadsuffered from them. He also called about his bed the enriched members ofthe Woodville family, and the proud lords whose honours were of olderdate, and endeavoured to reconcile them, for the sake of the peacefulsuccession of his son and the tranquillity of England. 

CHAPTER XXIV--ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIFTH

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 LudlowCastle with his uncle, the Earl of Rivers. The prince's brother, theDuke of York, only eleven years of age, was in London with his mother. The boldest, most crafty, and most dreaded nobleman in England at thattime was their uncle RICHARD, Duke of Gloucester, and everybody wonderedhow the two poor boys would fare with such an uncle for a friend or afoe. 

The Queen, their mother, being exceedingly uneasy about this, was anxiousthat instructions should be sent to Lord Rivers to raise an army toescort the young King safely to London. But, Lord Hastings, who was ofthe Court party opposed to the Woodvilles, and who disliked the thoughtof giving them that power, argued against the proposal, and obliged theQueen to be satisfied with an escort of two thousand horse. The Duke ofGloucester did nothing, at first, to justify suspicion. He came fromScotland (where he was commanding an army) to York, and was there thefirst to swear allegiance to his nephew. He then wrote a condolingletter to the Queen-Mother, and set off to be present at the coronationin London. 

Now, the young King, journeying towards London too, with Lord Rivers andLord Gray, came to Stony Stratford, as his uncle came to Northampton, about ten miles distant; and when those two lords heard that the Duke ofGloucester was so near, they proposed to the young King that they shouldgo back and greet him in his name. The boy being very willing that theyshould 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 theevening, while they were merry together, up came the Duke of Buckinghamwith three hundred horsemen; and next morning the two lords and the twodukes, and the three hundred horsemen, rode away together to rejoin theKing. Just as they were entering Stony Stratford, the Duke ofGloucester, checking his horse, turned suddenly on the two lords, chargedthem with alienating from him the affections of his sweet nephew, andcaused them to be arrested by the three hundred horsemen and taken back. Then, he and the Duke of Buckingham went straight to the King (whom theyhad now in their power), to whom they made a show of kneeling down, andoffering great love and submission; and then they ordered his attendantsto disperse, and took him, alone with them, to Northampton. 

A few days afterwards they conducted him to London, and lodged him in theBishop's Palace. But, he did not remain there long; for, the Duke ofBuckingham with a tender face made a speech expressing how anxious he wasfor the Royal boy's safety, and how much safer he would be in the Toweruntil his coronation, than he could be anywhere else. So, to the Towerhe was taken, very carefully, and the Duke of Gloucester was namedProtector of the State. 

Although Gloucester had proceeded thus far with a very smoothcountenance--and although he was a clever man, fair of speech, and notill-looking, in spite of one of his shoulders being something higher thanthe other--and although he had come into the City riding bare-headed atthe King's side, and looking very fond of him--he had made the King'smother more uneasy yet; and when the Royal boy was taken to the Tower, she became so alarmed that she took sanctuary in Westminster with herfive daughters. 

Nor did she do this without reason, for, the Duke of Gloucester, findingthat the lords who were opposed to the Woodville family were faithful tothe young King nevertheless, quickly resolved to strike a blow forhimself. Accordingly, while those lords met in council at the Tower, heand those who were in his interest met in separate council at his ownresidence, Crosby Palace, in Bishopsgate Street. Being at last quiteprepared, he one day appeared unexpectedly at the council in the Tower, and appeared to be very jocular and merry. He was particularly gay withthe Bishop of Ely: praising the strawberries that grew in his garden onHolborn Hill, and asking him to have some gathered that he might eat themat dinner. The Bishop, quite proud of the honour, sent one of his men tofetch some; and the Duke, still very jocular and gay, went out; and thecouncil all said what a very agreeable duke he was! In a little time, however, he came back quite altered--not at all jocular--frowning andfierce--and suddenly said, --

'What do those persons deserve who have compassed my destruction; I beingthe King's lawful, as well as natural, protector?'

To this strange question, Lord Hastings replied, that they deserveddeath, whosoever they were. 

'Then, ' said the Duke, 'I tell you that they are that sorceress mybrother's wife;' meaning the Queen: 'and that other sorceress, JaneShore. Who, by witchcraft, have withered my body, and caused my arm toshrink 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 thehour of his birth. 

Jane Shore, being then the lover of Lord Hastings, as she had formerlybeen 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 youthat they _have_ so done, and I will make it good upon thy body, thoutraitor!'

With that, he struck the table a great blow with his fist. This was asignal to some of his people outside to cry 'Treason!' They immediatelydid so, and there was a rush into the chamber of so many armed men thatit 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 apriest at once, for by St. Paul I will not dine until I have seen hishead of!'

Lord Hastings was hurried to the green by the Tower chapel, and therebeheaded 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 theprincipal citizens to attend him, told them that Lord Hastings and therest had designed to murder both himself and the Duke if Buckingham, whostood by his side, if he had not providentially discovered their design. He requested them to be so obliging as to inform their fellow-citizens ofthe truth of what he said, and issued a proclamation (prepared and neatlycopied out beforehand) to the same effect. 

On the same day that the Duke did these things in the Tower, Sir RichardRatcliffe, the boldest and most undaunted of his men, went down toPontefract; arrested Lord Rivers, Lord Gray, and two other gentlemen; andpublicly executed them on the scaffold, without any trial, for havingintended the Duke's death. Three days afterwards the Duke, not to losetime, went down the river to Westminster in his barge, attended by diversbishops, lords, and soldiers, and demanded that the Queen should deliverher 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 lateKing, confiscated her property, and got her sentenced to do publicpenance in the streets by walking in a scanty dress, with bare feet, andcarrying a lighted candle, to St. Paul's Cathedral, through the mostcrowded part of the City. 

Having now all things ready for his own advancement, he caused a friar topreach a sermon at the cross which stood in front of St. Paul'sCathedral, in which he dwelt upon the profligate manners of the lateKing, and upon the late shame of Jane Shore, and hinted that the princeswere not his children. 'Whereas, good people, ' said the friar, whosename was SHAW, 'my Lord the Protector, the noble Duke of Gloucester, thatsweet prince, the pattern of all the noblest virtues, is the perfectimage and express likeness of his father. ' There had been a little plotbetween the Duke and the friar, that the Duke should appear in the crowdat this moment, when it was expected that the people would cry 'Long liveKing 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 notcome together, and the people only laughed, and the friar sneaked offashamed. 

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 inthe Lord Protector's behalf. A few dirty men, who had been hired andstationed there for the purpose, crying when he had done, 'God save KingRichard!' 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 andcitizens to Bayard Castle, by the river, where Richard then was, and readan address, humbly entreating him to accept the Crown of England. Richard, who looked down upon them out of a window and pretended to be ingreat uneasiness and alarm, assured them there was nothing he desiredless, and that his deep affection for his nephews forbade him to think ofit. To this the Duke of Buckingham replied, with pretended warmth, thatthe free people of England would never submit to his nephew's rule, andthat if Richard, who was the lawful heir, refused the Crown, why thenthey must find some one else to wear it. The Duke of Gloucesterreturned, that since he used that strong language, it became his painfulduty to think no more of himself, and to accept the Crown. 

Upon that, the people cheered and dispersed; and the Duke of Gloucesterand the Duke of Buckingham passed a pleasant evening, talking over theplay they had just acted with so much success, and every word of whichthey had prepared together. 

CHAPTER XXV--ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE THIRD

King Richard the Third was up betimes in the morning, and went toWestminster Hall. In the Hall was a marble seat, upon which he sathimself down between two great noblemen, and told the people that hebegan the new reign in that place, because the first duty of a sovereignwas to administer the laws equally to all, and to maintain justice. Hethen mounted his horse and rode back to the City, where he was receivedby 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 beenrather ashamed of themselves in secret, I think, for being suchpoor-spirited knaves. 

The new King and his Queen were soon crowned with a great deal of showand noise, which the people liked very much; and then the King set forthon a royal progress through his dominions. He was crowned a second timeat York, in order that the people might have show and noise enough; andwherever he went was received with shouts of rejoicing--from a good manypeople 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 ithas been imitated since, by other usurpers, in other progresses throughother dominions. 

While he was on this journey, King Richard stayed a week at Warwick. Andfrom Warwick he sent instructions home for one of the wickedest murdersthat ever was done--the murder of the two young princes, his nephews, whowere 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 aletter, 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 lovedthem--sent John Green back again, riding and spurring along the dustyroads, 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 JAMESTYRREL, his master of the horse, and to him gave authority to takecommand of the Tower, whenever he would, for twenty-four hours, and tokeep all the keys of the Tower during that space of time. Tyrrel, wellknowing what was wanted, looked about him for two hardened ruffians, andchose JOHN DIGHTON, one of his own grooms, and MILES FOREST, who was amurderer by trade. Having secured these two assistants, he went, upon aday in August, to the Tower, showed his authority from the King, took thecommand for four-and-twenty hours, and obtained possession of the keys. And when the black night came he went creeping, creeping, like a guiltyvillain as he was, up the dark, stone winding stairs, and along the darkstone passages, until he came to the door of the room where the two youngprinces, having said their prayers, lay fast asleep, clasped in eachother's arms. And while he watched and listened at the door, he sent inthose evil demons, John Dighton and Miles Forest, who smothered the twoprinces with the bed and pillows, and carried their bodies down thestairs, and buried them under a great heap of stones at the staircasefoot. And when the day came, he gave up the command of the Tower, andrestored the keys, and hurried away without once looking behind him; andSir 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 arenever true, and you will not be surprised to learn that the Duke ofBuckingham soon turned against King Richard, and joined a greatconspiracy that was formed to dethrone him, and to place the crown uponits rightful owner's head. Richard had meant to keep the murder secret;but when he heard through his spies that this conspiracy existed, andthat many lords and gentlemen drank in secret to the healths of the twoyoung princes in the Tower, he made it known that they were dead. Theconspirators, though thwarted for a moment, soon resolved to set up forthe crown against the murderous Richard, HENRY Earl of Richmond, grandsonof Catherine: that widow of Henry the Fifth who married Owen Tudor. Andas Henry was of the house of Lancaster, they proposed that he shouldmarry the Princess Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the late King, nowthe heiress of the house of York, and thus by uniting the rival familiesput an end to the fatal wars of the Red and White Roses. All beingsettled, a time was appointed for Henry to come over from Brittany, andfor a great rising against Richard to take place in several parts ofEngland at the same hour. On a certain day, therefore, in October, therevolt took place; but unsuccessfully. Richard was prepared, Henry wasdriven 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 aParliament and getting some money. So, a Parliament was called, and itflattered and fawned upon him as much as he could possibly desire, anddeclared 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 what it would, thePrincess Elizabeth was remembered by people as the heiress of the houseof York; and having accurate information besides, of its being designedby the conspirators to marry her to Henry of Richmond, he felt that itwould 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 atWestminster, where the late King's widow and her daughter still were, andbesought them to come to Court: where (he swore by anything andeverything) they should be safely and honourably entertained. They came, accordingly, but had scarcely been at Court a month when his son diedsuddenly--or was poisoned--and his plan was crushed to pieces. 

In this extremity, King Richard, always active, thought, 'I must makeanother plan. ' And he made the plan of marrying the Princess Elizabethhimself, although she was his niece. There was one difficulty in theway: his wife, the Queen Anne, was alive. But, he knew (remembering hisnephews) how to remove that obstacle, and he made love to the PrincessElizabeth, telling her he felt perfectly confident that the Queen woulddie 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 theQueen did not die, she expressed her impatient opinion that she was toolong about it. However, King Richard was not so far out in hisprediction, but, that she died in March--he took good care of that--andthen 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 theKing's chief counsellors, RATCLIFFE and CATESBY, would by no meansundertake to propose it, and the King was even obliged to declare inpublic 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 anotherParliament, lest his crimes should be denounced there; and for want ofmoney, he was obliged to get Benevolences from the citizens, whichexasperated them all against him. It was said too, that, being strickenby his conscience, he dreamed frightful dreams, and started up in thenight-time, wild with terror and remorse. Active to the last, throughall this, he issued vigorous proclamations against Henry of Richmond andall his followers, when he heard that they were coming against him with aFleet from France; and took the field as fierce and savage as a wildboar--the animal represented on his shield. 

Henry of Richmond landed with six thousand men at Milford Haven, and cameon against King Richard, then encamped at Leicester with an army twice asgreat, through North Wales. On Bosworth Field the two armies met; andRichard, looking along Henry's ranks, and seeing them crowded with theEnglish nobles who had abandoned him, turned pale when he beheld thepowerful 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 thethickest of the fight. He was riding hither and thither, laying abouthim in all directions, when he observed the Earl of Northumberland--oneof his few great allies--to stand inactive, and the main body of histroops to hesitate. At the same moment, his desperate glance caughtHenry of Richmond among a little group of his knights. Riding hard athim, and crying 'Treason!' he killed his standard-bearer, fiercelyunhorsed another gentleman, and aimed a powerful stroke at Henry himself, to cut him down. But, Sir William Stanley parried it as it fell, andbefore Richard could raise his arm again, he was borne down in a press ofnumbers, unhorsed, and killed. Lord Stanley picked up the crown, allbruised and trampled, and stained with blood, and put it upon Richmond'shead, amid loud and rejoicing cries of 'Long live King Henry!'

That night, a horse was led up to the church of the Grey Friars atLeicester; across whose back was tied, like some worthless sack, a nakedbody brought there for burial. It was the body of the last of thePlantagenet line, King Richard the Third, usurper and murderer, slain atthe battle of Bosworth Field in the thirty-second year of his age, aftera 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 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. 

CHAPTER XXVII--ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH, CALLED BLUFF KING HAL ANDBURLY KING HARRY

PART THE FIRST

We now come to King Henry the Eighth, whom it has been too much thefashion to call 'Bluff King Hal, ' and 'Burly King Harry, ' and other finenames; but whom I shall take the liberty to call, plainly, one of themost detestable villains that ever drew breath. You will be able tojudge, long before we come to the end of his life, whether he deservesthe character. 

He was just eighteen years of age when he came to the throne. Peoplesaid 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 inlater life (as we know from the likenesses of him, painted by the famousHANS HOLBEIN), and it is not easy to believe that so bad a character canever have been veiled under a prepossessing appearance. 

He was anxious to make himself popular; and the people, who had longdisliked the late King, were very willing to believe that he deserved tobe so. He was extremely fond of show and display, and so were they. Therefore there was great rejoicing when he married the PrincessCatherine, and when they were both crowned. And the King fought attournaments and always came off victorious--for the courtiers took careof that--and there was a general outcry that he was a wonderful man. Empson, Dudley, and their supporters were accused of a variety of crimesthey had never committed, instead of the offences of which they reallyhad been guilty; and they were pilloried, and set upon horses with theirfaces to the tails, and knocked about and beheaded, to the satisfactionof the people, and the enrichment of the King. 

The Pope, so indefatigable in getting the world into trouble, had mixedhimself up in a war on the continent of Europe, occasioned by thereigning Princes of little quarrelling states in Italy having at varioustimes married into other Royal families, and so led to _their_ claiming ashare in those petty Governments. The King, who discovered that he wasvery fond of the Pope, sent a herald to the King of France, to say thathe must not make war upon that holy personage, because he was the fatherof all Christians. As the French King did not mind this relationship inthe least, and also refused to admit a claim King Henry made to certainlands in France, war was declared between the two countries. Not toperplex this story with an account of the tricks and designs of all thesovereigns who were engaged in it, it is enough to say that England madea blundering alliance with Spain, and got stupidly taken in by thatcountry; which made its own terms with France when it could and leftEngland in the lurch. SIR EDWARD HOWARD, a bold admiral, son of the Earlof Surrey, distinguished himself by his bravery against the French inthis business; but, unfortunately, he was more brave than wise, for, skimming into the French harbour of Brest with only a few row-boats, heattempted (in revenge for the defeat and death of SIR THOMAS KNYVETT, another bold English admiral) to take some strong French ships, welldefended with batteries of cannon. The upshot was, that he was left onboard of one of them (in consequence of its shooting away from his ownboat), with not more than about a dozen men, and was thrown into the seaand drowned: though not until he had taken from his breast his gold chainand gold whistle, which were the signs of his office, and had cast theminto the sea to prevent their being made a boast of by the enemy. Afterthis defeat--which was a great one, for Sir Edward Howard was a man ofvalour and fame--the King took it into his head to invade France inperson; first executing that dangerous Earl of Suffolk whom his fatherhad left in the Tower, and appointing Queen Catherine to the charge ofhis kingdom in his absence. He sailed to Calais, where he was joined byMAXIMILIAN, Emperor of Germany, who pretended to be his soldier, and whotook 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 besuccessful enough in sham fights; but his idea of real battles chieflyconsisted in pitching silken tents of bright colours that wereignominiously blown down by the wind, and in making a vast display ofgaudy flags and golden curtains. Fortune, however, favoured him betterthan he deserved; for, after much waste of time in tent pitching, flagflying, gold curtaining, and other such masquerading, he gave the Frenchbattle at a place called Guinegate: where they took such an unaccountablepanic, and fled with such swiftness, that it was ever afterwards calledby the English the Battle of Spurs. Instead of following up hisadvantage, 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 takenpart against him in this war. The Earl of Surrey, as the Englishgeneral, advanced to meet him when he came out of his own dominions andcrossed the river Tweed. The two armies came up with one another whenthe Scottish King had also crossed the river Till, and was encamped uponthe last of the Cheviot Hills, called the Hill of Flodden. Along theplain below it, the English, when the hour of battle came, advanced. TheScottish army, which had been drawn up in five great bodies, then camesteadily down in perfect silence. So they, in their turn, advanced tomeet the English army, which came on in one long line; and they attackedit with a body of spearmen, under LORD HOME. At first they had the bestof it; but the English recovered themselves so bravely, and fought withsuch valour, that, when the Scottish King had almost made his way up tothe Royal Standard, he was slain, and the whole Scottish power routed. Ten thousand Scottish men lay dead that day on Flodden Field; and amongthem, numbers of the nobility and gentry. For a long time afterwards, the Scottish peasantry used to believe that their King had not beenreally killed in this battle, because no Englishman had found an ironbelt he wore about his body as a penance for having been an unnatural andundutiful son. But, whatever became of his belt, the English had hissword and dagger, and the ring from his finger, and his body too, coveredwith wounds. There is no doubt of it; for it was seen and recognised byEnglish gentlemen who had known the Scottish King well. 

When King Henry was making ready to renew the war in France, the FrenchKing was contemplating peace. His queen, dying at this time, heproposed, though he was upwards of fifty years old, to marry King Henry'ssister, the Princess Mary, who, besides being only sixteen, was betrothedto the Duke of Suffolk. As the inclinations of young Princesses were notmuch considered in such matters, the marriage was concluded, and the poorgirl was escorted to France, where she was immediately left as the FrenchKing's bride, with only one of all her English attendants. That one wasa pretty young girl named ANNE BOLEYN, niece of the Earl of Surrey, whohad been made Duke of Norfolk, after the victory of Flodden Field. AnneBoleyn'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, waspreparing for many years of happiness, and she was looking forward, Idare say, to many years of misery, when he died within three months, andleft her a young widow. The new French monarch, FRANCIS THE FIRST, seeing how important it was to his interests that she should take for hersecond husband no one but an Englishman, advised her first lover, theDuke of Suffolk, when King Henry sent him over to France to fetch herhome, to marry her. The Princess being herself so fond of that Duke, asto tell him that he must either do so then, or for ever lose her, theywere wedded; and Henry afterwards forgave them. In making interest withthe King, the Duke of Suffolk had addressed his most powerful favouriteand adviser, THOMAS WOLSEY--a name very famous in history for its riseand downfall. 

Wolsey was the son of a respectable butcher at Ipswich, in Suffolk andreceived so excellent an education that he became a tutor to the familyof the Marquis of Dorset, who afterwards got him appointed one of thelate King's chaplains. On the accession of Henry the Eighth, he waspromoted and taken into great favour. He was now Archbishop of York; thePope had made him a Cardinal besides; and whoever wanted influence inEngland or favour with the King--whether he were a foreign monarch or anEnglish nobleman--was obliged to make a friend of the great CardinalWolsey. 

He was a gay man, who could dance and jest, and sing and drink; and thosewere the roads to so much, or rather so little, of a heart as King Henryhad. 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 whichconsisted in finding artful excuses and pretences for almost any wrongthing, and in arguing that black was white, or any other colour. Thiskind of learning pleased the King too. For many such reasons, theCardinal was high in estimation with the King; and, being a man of fargreater ability, knew as well how to manage him, as a clever keeper mayknow how to manage a wolf or a tiger, or any other cruel and uncertainbeast, that may turn upon him and tear him any day. Never had there beenseen in England such state as my Lord Cardinal kept. His wealth wasenormous; equal, it was reckoned, to the riches of the Crown. Hispalaces were as splendid as the King's, and his retinue was eight hundredstrong. He held his Court, dressed out from top to toe in flamingscarlet; and his very shoes were golden, set with precious stones. Hisfollowers rode on blood horses; while he, with a wonderful affectation ofhumility in the midst of his great splendour, ambled on a mule with a redvelvet saddle and bridle and golden stirrups. 

Through the influence of this stately priest, a grand meeting wasarranged to take place between the French and English Kings in France;but on ground belonging to England. A prodigious show of friendship andrejoicing was to be made on the occasion; and heralds were sent toproclaim with brazen trumpets through all the principal cities of Europe, that, on a certain day, the Kings of France and England, as companionsand brothers in arms, each attended by eighteen followers, would hold atournament against all knights who might choose to come. 

CHARLES, the new Emperor of Germany (the old one being dead), wanted toprevent too cordial an alliance between these sovereigns, and came overto England before the King could repair to the place of meeting; and, besides making an agreeable impression upon him, secured Wolsey'sinterest by promising that his influence should make him Pope when thenext vacancy occurred. On the day when the Emperor left England, theKing and all the Court went over to Calais, and thence to the place ofmeeting, between Ardres and Guisnes, commonly called the Field of theCloth of Gold. Here, all manner of expense and prodigality was lavishedon the decorations of the show; many of the knights and gentlemen beingso superbly dressed that it was said they carried their whole estatesupon their shoulders. 

There were sham castles, temporary chapels, fountains running wine, greatcellars full of wine free as water to all comers, silk tents, gold laceand foil, gilt lions, and such things without end; and, in the midst ofall, the rich Cardinal out-shone and out-glittered all the noblemen andgentlemen assembled. After a treaty made between the two Kings with asmuch solemnity as if they had intended to keep it, the lists--ninehundred feet long, and three hundred and twenty broad--were opened forthe tournament; the Queens of France and England looking on with greatarray of lords and ladies. Then, for ten days, the two sovereigns foughtfive combats every day, and always beat their polite adversaries; thoughthey _do_ write that the King of England, being thrown in a wrestle oneday 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 storybelonging to this Field of the Cloth of Gold, showing how the Englishwere distrustful of the French, and the French of the English, untilFrancis rode alone one morning to Henry's tent; and, going in before hewas out of bed, told him in joke that he was his prisoner; and how Henryjumped out of bed and embraced Francis; and how Francis helped Henry todress, and warmed his linen for him; and how Henry gave Francis asplendid jewelled collar, and how Francis gave Henry, in return, a costlybracelet. All this and a great deal more was so written about, and sungabout, 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 ofthe war between England and France, in which the two Royal companions andbrothers in arms longed very earnestly to damage one another. But, before it broke out again, the Duke of Buckingham was shamefully executedon Tower Hill, on the evidence of a discharged servant--really fornothing, except the folly of having believed in a friar of the name ofHOPKINS, who had pretended to be a prophet, and who had mumbled andjumbled out some nonsense about the Duke's son being destined to be verygreat in the land. It was believed that the unfortunate Duke had givenoffence to the great Cardinal by expressing his mind freely about theexpense and absurdity of the whole business of the Field of the Cloth ofGold. At any rate, he was beheaded, as I have said, for nothing. Andthe people who saw it done were very angry, and cried out that it was thework of 'the butcher's son!'

The new war was a short one, though the Earl of Surrey invaded Franceagain, and did some injury to that country. It ended in another treatyof peace between the two kingdoms, and in the discovery that the Emperorof Germany was not such a good friend to England in reality, as hepretended to be. Neither did he keep his promise to Wolsey to make himPope, though the King urged him. Two Popes died in pretty quicksuccession; but the foreign priests were too much for the Cardinal, andkept him out of the post. So the Cardinal and King together found outthat the Emperor of Germany was not a man to keep faith with; broke off aprojected marriage between the King's daughter MARY, Princess of Wales, and that sovereign; and began to consider whether it might not be well tomarry the young lady, either to Francis himself, or to his eldest son. 

There now arose at Wittemberg, in Germany, the great leader of the mightychange in England which is called The Reformation, and which set thepeople free from their slavery to the priests. This was a learnedDoctor, named MARTIN LUTHER, who knew all about them, for he had been apriest, and even a monk, himself. The preaching and writing of Wickliffehad set a number of men thinking on this subject; and Luther, finding oneday to his great surprise, that there really was a book called the NewTestament which the priests did not allow to be read, and which containedtruths that they suppressed, began to be very vigorous against the wholebody, from the Pope downward. It happened, while he was yet onlybeginning his vast work of awakening the nation, that an impudent fellownamed TETZEL, a friar of very bad character, came into his neighbourhoodselling what were called Indulgences, by wholesale, to raise money forbeautifying the great Cathedral of St. Peter's, at Rome. Whoever boughtan Indulgence of the Pope was supposed to buy himself off from thepunishment of Heaven for his offences. Luther told the people that theseIndulgences were worthless bits of paper, before God, and that Tetzel andhis masters were a crew of impostors in selling them. 

The King and the Cardinal were mightily indignant at this presumption;and the King (with the help of SIR THOMAS MORE, a wise man, whom heafterwards 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 titleof Defender of the Faith. The King and the Cardinal also issued flamingwarnings to the people not to read Luther's books, on pain ofexcommunication. But they did read them for all that; and the rumour ofwhat was in them spread far and wide. 

When this great change was thus going on, the King began to show himselfin his truest and worst colours. Anne Boleyn, the pretty little girl whohad gone abroad to France with his sister, was by this time grown up tobe very beautiful, and was one of the ladies in attendance on QueenCatherine. Now, Queen Catherine was no longer young or handsome, and itis likely that she was not particularly good-tempered; having been alwaysrather melancholy, and having been made more so by the deaths of four ofher children when they were very young. So, the King fell in love withthe fair Anne Boleyn, and said to himself, 'How can I be best rid of myown troublesome wife whom I am tired of, and marry Anne?'

{Catherine was old, so he fell in love with Anne Boleyn: p0. Jpg}

You recollect that Queen Catherine had been the wife of Henry's brother. What does the King do, after thinking it over, but calls his favouritepriests about him, and says, O! his mind is in such a dreadful state, andhe is so frightfully uneasy, because he is afraid it was not lawful forhim to marry the Queen! Not one of those priests had the courage to hintthat it was rather curious he had never thought of that before, and thathis mind seemed to have been in a tolerably jolly condition during agreat many years, in which he certainly had not fretted himself thin;but, they all said, Ah! that was very true, and it was a seriousbusiness; and perhaps the best way to make it right, would be for hisMajesty to be divorced! The King replied, Yes, he thought that would bethe best way, certainly; so they all went to work. 

If I were to relate to you the intrigues and plots that took place in theendeavour to get this divorce, you would think the History of England themost tiresome book in the world. So I shall say no more, than that aftera vast deal of negotiation and evasion, the Pope issued a commission toCardinal Wolsey and CARDINAL CAMPEGGIO (whom he sent over from Italy forthe purpose), to try the whole case in England. It is supposed--and Ithink with reason--that Wolsey was the Queen's enemy, because she hadreproved him for his proud and gorgeous manner of life. But, he did notat first know that the King wanted to marry Anne Boleyn; and when he didknow it, he even went down on his knees, in the endeavour to dissuadehim. 

The Cardinals opened their court in the Convent of the Black Friars, nearto where the bridge of that name in London now stands; and the King andQueen, that they might be near it, took up their lodgings at theadjoining palace of Bridewell, of which nothing now remains but a badprison. On the opening of the court, when the King and Queen were calledon to appear, that poor ill-used lady, with a dignity and firmness andyet with a womanly affection worthy to be always admired, went andkneeled at the King's feet, and said that she had come, a stranger, tohis dominions; that she had been a good and true wife to him for twentyyears; and that she could acknowledge no power in those Cardinals to trywhether she should be considered his wife after all that time, or shouldbe put away. With that, she got up and left the court, and would neverafterwards come back to it. 

The King pretended to be very much overcome, and said, O! my lords andgentlemen, what a good woman she was to be sure, and how delighted hewould be to live with her unto death, but for that terrible uneasiness inhis mind which was quite wearing him away! So, the case went on, andthere was nothing but talk for two months. Then Cardinal Campeggio, who, on behalf of the Pope, wanted nothing so much as delay, adjourned it fortwo more months; and before that time was elapsed, the Pope himselfadjourned it indefinitely, by requiring the King and Queen to come toRome and have it tried there. But by good luck for the King, word wasbrought to him by some of his people, that they had happened to meet atsupper, THOMAS CRANMER, a learned Doctor of Cambridge, who had proposedto urge the Pope on, by referring the case to all the learned doctors andbishops, here and there and everywhere, and getting their opinions thatthe King's marriage was unlawful. The King, who was now in a hurry tomarry Anne Boleyn, thought this such a good idea, that he sent forCranmer, post haste, and said to LORD ROCHFORT, Anne Boleyn's father, 'Take this learned Doctor down to your country-house, and there let himhave a good room for a study, and no end of books out of which to provethat I may marry your daughter. ' Lord Rochfort, not at all reluctant, made the learned Doctor as comfortable as he could; and the learnedDoctor went to work to prove his case. All this time, the King and AnneBoleyn were writing letters to one another almost daily, full ofimpatience 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 thishelp. It was worse for him that he had tried to dissuade the King frommarrying 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 theparty of the Queen that was, and the hatred of the party of the Queenthat was to be, he fell suddenly and heavily. Going down one day to theCourt of Chancery, where he now presided, he was waited upon by the Dukesof Norfolk and Suffolk, who told him that they brought an order to him toresign 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 nextday came back with a letter from him, on reading which, the Cardinalsubmitted. An inventory was made out of all the riches in his palace atYork Place (now Whitehall), and he went sorrowfully up the river, in hisbarge, to Putney. An abject man he was, in spite of his pride; for beingovertaken, riding out of that place towards Esher, by one of the King'schamberlains who brought him a kind message and a ring, he alighted fromhis 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 entertainhim, cut a far better figure than he; for, when the Cardinal said to thechamberlain that he had nothing to send to his lord the King as apresent, but that jester who was a most excellent one, it took six strongyeomen to remove the faithful fool from his master. 

The once proud Cardinal was soon further disgraced, and wrote the mostabject letters to his vile sovereign; who humbled him one day andencouraged him the next, according to his humour, until he was at lastordered to go and reside in his diocese of York. He said he was toopoor; but I don't know how he made that out, for he took a hundred andsixty 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 ayear, and showed himself so improved by his misfortunes, and was so mildand so conciliating, that he won all hearts. And indeed, even in hisproud days, he had done some magnificent things for learning andeducation. At last, he was arrested for high treason; and, coming slowlyon his journey towards London, got as far as Leicester. Arriving atLeicester Abbey after dark, and very ill, he said--when the monks cameout at the gate with lighted torches to receive him--that he had come tolay his bones among them. He had indeed; for he was taken to a bed, fromwhich he never rose again. His last words were, 'Had I but served God asdiligently as I have served the King, He would not have given me over, inmy grey hairs. Howbeit, this is my just reward for my pains anddiligence, not regarding my service to God, but only my duty to myprince. ' The news of his death was quickly carried to the King, who wasamusing himself with archery in the garden of the magnificent Palace atHampton Court, which that very Wolsey had presented to him. The greatestemotion his royal mind displayed at the loss of a servant so faithful andso ruined, was a particular desire to lay hold of fifteen hundred poundswhich the Cardinal was reported to have hidden somewhere. 

The opinions concerning the divorce, of the learned doctors and bishopsand others, being at last collected, and being generally in the King'sfavour, were forwarded to the Pope, with an entreaty that he would nowgrant it. The unfortunate Pope, who was a timid man, was half distractedbetween his fear of his authority being set aside in England if he didnot do as he was asked, and his dread of offending the Emperor ofGermany, who was Queen Catherine's nephew. In this state of mind hestill evaded and did nothing. Then, THOMAS CROMWELL, who had been one ofWolsey's faithful attendants, and had remained so even in his decline, advised the King to take the matter into his own hands, and make himselfthe 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 asmany people as they pleased, for holding Luther's opinions. You mustunderstand that Sir Thomas More, the wise man who had helped the Kingwith his book, had been made Chancellor in Wolsey's place. But, as hewas truly attached to the Church as it was even in its abuses, he, inthis state of things, resigned. 

Being now quite resolved to get rid of Queen Catherine, and to marry AnneBoleyn without more ado, the King made Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury, and directed Queen Catherine to leave the Court. She obeyed; but repliedthat wherever she went, she was Queen of England still, and would remainso, to the last. The King then married Anne Boleyn privately; and thenew Archbishop of Canterbury, within half a year, declared his marriagewith Queen Catherine void, and crowned Anne Boleyn Queen. 

She might have known that no good could ever come from such wrong, andthat the corpulent brute who had been so faithless and so cruel to hisfirst wife, could be more faithless and more cruel to his second. Shemight have known that, even when he was in love with her, he had been amean and selfish coward, running away, like a frightened cur, from hersociety and her house, when a dangerous sickness broke out in it, andwhen she might easily have taken it and died, as several of the householddid. But, Anne Boleyn arrived at all this knowledge too late, and boughtit at a dear price. Her bad marriage with a worse man came to itsnatural end. Its natural end was not, as we shall too soon see, anatural 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 theKing's marriage, and fumed exceedingly. Many of the English monks andfriars, seeing that their order was in danger, did the same; some evendeclaimed against the King in church before his face, and were not to bestopped until he himself roared out 'Silence!' The King, not much theworse for this, took it pretty quietly; and was very glad when his Queengave birth to a daughter, who was christened ELIZABETH, and declaredPrincess of Wales as her sister Mary had already been. 

One of the most atrocious features of this reign was that Henry theEighth was always trimming between the reformed religion and theunreformed one; so that the more he quarrelled with the Pope, the more ofhis own subjects he roasted alive for not holding the Pope's opinions. Thus, an unfortunate student named John Frith, and a poor simple tailornamed Andrew Hewet who loved him very much, and said that whatever JohnFrith believed _he_ believed, were burnt in Smithfield--to show what acapital Christian the King was. 

But, these were speedily followed by two much greater victims, Sir ThomasMore, and John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester. The latter, who was agood and amiable old man, had committed no greater offence than believingin Elizabeth Barton, called the Maid of Kent--another of those ridiculouswomen who pretended to be inspired, and to make all sorts of heavenlyrevelations, though they indeed uttered nothing but evil nonsense. Forthis offence--as it was pretended, but really for denying the King to bethe supreme Head of the Church--he got into trouble, and was put inprison; but, even then, he might have been suffered to die naturally(short work having been made of executing the Kentish Maid and herprincipal followers), but that the Pope, to spite the King, resolved tomake him a cardinal. Upon that the King made a ferocious joke to theeffect that the Pope might send Fisher a red hat--which is the way theymake a cardinal--but he should have no head on which to wear it; and hewas tried with all unfairness and injustice, and sentenced to death. Hedied like a noble and virtuous old man, and left a worthy name behindhim. The King supposed, I dare say, that Sir Thomas More would befrightened 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 Kingwas not the rightful Head of the Church, he positively refused to saythat he was. For this crime he too was tried and sentenced, after havingbeen in prison a whole year. When he was doomed to death, and came awayfrom his trial with the edge of the executioner's axe turned towardshim--as was always done in those times when a state prisoner came to thathopeless pass--he bore it quite serenely, and gave his blessing to hisson, who pressed through the crowd in Westminster Hall and kneeled downto receive it. But, when he got to the Tower Wharf on his way back tohis prison, and his favourite daughter, MARGARET ROPER, a very goodwoman, rushed through the guards again and again, to kiss him and to weepupon his neck, he was overcome at last. He soon recovered, and nevermore showed any feeling but cheerfulness and courage. When he was goingup the steps of the scaffold to his death, he said jokingly to theLieutenant of the Tower, observing that they were weak and shook beneathhis tread, 'I pray you, master Lieutenant, see me safe up; and, for mycoming 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 ofthe way; for that, at least, has never committed any treason. ' Then hishead was struck off at a blow. These two executions were worthy of KingHenry the Eighth. Sir Thomas More was one of the most virtuous men inhis 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 hiswife. 

When the news of these two murders got to Rome, the Pope raged againstthe murderer more than ever Pope raged since the world began, andprepared a Bull, ordering his subjects to take arms against him anddethrone him. The King took all possible precautions to keep thatdocument out of his dominions, and set to work in return to suppress agreat 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 carriedon through some few years to its entire completion. There is no doubtthat many of these religious establishments were religious in nothing butin name, and were crammed with lazy, indolent, and sensual monks. Thereis no doubt that they imposed upon the people in every possible way; thatthey had images moved by wires, which they pretended were miraculouslymoved by Heaven; that they had among them a whole tun measure full ofteeth, all purporting to have come out of the head of one saint, who mustindeed have been a very extraordinary person with that enormous allowanceof grinders; that they had bits of coal which they said had fried SaintLawrence, and bits of toe-nails which they said belonged to other famoussaints; penknives, and boots, and girdles, which they said belonged toothers; and that all these bits of rubbish were called Relics, and adoredby the ignorant people. But, on the other hand, there is no doubteither, that the King's officers and men punished the good monks with thebad; did great injustice; demolished many beautiful things and manyvaluable libraries; destroyed numbers of paintings, stained glasswindows, fine pavements, and carvings; and that the whole court wereravenously greedy and rapacious for the division of this great spoilamong them. The King seems to have grown almost mad in the ardour ofthis pursuit; for he declared Thomas a Becket a traitor, though he hadbeen dead so many years, and had his body dug up out of his grave. Hemust have been as miraculous as the monks pretended, if they had told thetruth, for he was found with one head on his shoulders, and they hadshown another as his undoubted and genuine head ever since his death; ithad brought them vast sums of money, too. The gold and jewels on hisshrine filled two great chests, and eight men tottered as they carriedthem away. How rich the monasteries were you may infer from the factthat, when they were all suppressed, one hundred and thirty thousandpounds a year--in those days an immense sum--came to the Crown. 

These things were not done without causing great discontent among thepeople. The monks had been good landlords and hospitable entertainers ofall travellers, and had been accustomed to give away a great deal ofcorn, and fruit, and meat, and other things. In those days it wasdifficult to change goods into money, in consequence of the roads beingvery few and very bad, and the carts, and waggons of the worstdescription; and they must either have given away some of the good thingsthey possessed in enormous quantities, or have suffered them to spoil andmoulder. So, many of the people missed what it was more agreeable to getidly than to work for; and the monks who were driven out of their homesand wandered about encouraged their discontent; and there were, consequently, great risings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. These wereput down by terrific executions, from which the monks themselves did notescape, 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 makeit plainer, and to get back to the King's domestic affairs. 

The unfortunate Queen Catherine was by this time dead; and the King wasby this time as tired of his second Queen as he had been of his first. Ashe 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 howwicked deeds are punished, and how bitterly and self-reproachfully theQueen must now have thought of her own rise to the throne! The new fancywas a LADY JANE SEYMOUR; and the King no sooner set his mind on her, thanhe resolved to have Anne Boleyn's head. So, he brought a number ofcharges against Anne, accusing her of dreadful crimes which she had nevercommitted, and implicating in them her own brother and certain gentlemenin her service: among whom one Norris, and Mark Smeaton a musician, arebest remembered. As the lords and councillors were as afraid of the Kingand as subservient to him as the meanest peasant in England was, theybrought in Anne Boleyn guilty, and the other unfortunate persons accusedwith her, guilty too. Those gentlemen died like men, with the exceptionof Smeaton, who had been tempted by the King into telling lies, which hecalled confessions, and who had expected to be pardoned; but who, I amvery 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 beenmonstrously persecuted and foully slandered; and had received no justice. But her spirit rose with her afflictions; and, after having in vain triedto soften the King by writing an affecting letter to him which stillexists, 'from her doleful prison in the Tower, ' she resigned herself todeath. She said to those about her, very cheerfully, that she had heardsay the executioner was a good one, and that she had a little neck (shelaughed and clasped it with her hands as she said that), and would soonbe out of her pain. And she _was_ soon out of her pain, poor creature, on the Green inside the Tower, and her body was flung into an old box andput away in the ground under the chapel. 

There is a story that the King sat in his palace listening very anxiouslyfor the sound of the cannon which was to announce this new murder; andthat, when he heard it come booming on the air, he rose up in greatspirits and ordered out his dogs to go a-hunting. He was bad enough todo it; but whether he did it or not, it is certain that he married JaneSeymour the very next day. 

I have not much pleasure in recording that she lived just long enough togive birth to a son who was christened EDWARD, and then to die of afever: 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 thatwould assuredly have fallen on the neck of Jane Seymour, if she had livedmuch longer. 

Cranmer had done what he could to save some of the Church property forpurposes of religion and education; but, the great families had been sohungry to get hold of it, that very little could be rescued for suchobjects. Even MILES COVERDALE, who did the people the inestimableservice of translating the Bible into English (which the unreformedreligion never permitted to be done), was left in poverty while the greatfamilies clutched the Church lands and money. The people had been toldthat when the Crown came into possession of these funds, it would not benecessary to tax them; but they were taxed afresh directly afterwards. Itwas fortunate for them, indeed, that so many nobles were so greedy forthis wealth; since, if it had remained with the Crown, there might havebeen no end to tyranny for hundreds of years. One of the most activewriters on the Church's side against the King was a member of his ownfamily--a sort of distant cousin, REGINALD POLE by name--who attacked himin the most violent manner (though he received a pension from him all thetime), and fought for the Church with his pen, day and night. As he wasbeyond the King's reach--being in Italy--the King politely invited himover to discuss the subject; but he, knowing better than to come, andwisely staying where he was, the King's rage fell upon his brother LordMontague, the Marquis of Exeter, and some other gentlemen: who were triedfor high treason in corresponding with him and aiding him--which theyprobably did--and were all executed. The Pope made Reginald Pole acardinal; but, so much against his will, that it is thought he evenaspired in his own mind to the vacant throne of England, and had hopes ofmarrying the Princess Mary. His being made a high priest, however, putan end to all that. His mother, the venerable Countess of Salisbury--whowas, unfortunately for herself, within the tyrant's reach--was the lastof his relatives on whom his wrath fell. When she was told to lay hergrey head upon the block, she answered the executioner, 'No! My headnever committed treason, and if you want it, you shall seize it. ' So, she ran round and round the scaffold with the executioner striking ather, and her grey hair bedabbled with blood; and even when they held herdown upon the block she moved her head about to the last, resolved to beno party to her own barbarous murder. All this the people bore, as theyhad borne everything else. 

Indeed they bore much more; for the slow fires of Smithfield werecontinually burning, and people were constantly being roasted todeath--still to show what a good Christian the King was. He defied thePope and his Bull, which was now issued, and had come into England; buthe burned innumerable people whose only offence was that they differedfrom the Pope's religious opinions. There was a wretched man namedLAMBERT, among others, who was tried for this before the King, and withwhom six bishops argued one after another. When he was quite exhausted(as well he might be, after six bishops), he threw himself on the King'smercy; 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 nationalspirit seems to have been banished from the kingdom at this time. Thevery people who were executed for treason, the very wives and friends ofthe 'bluff' King, spoke of him on the scaffold as a good prince, and agentle prince--just as serfs in similar circumstances have been known todo, under the Sultan and Bashaws of the East, or under the fierce oldtyrants of Russia, who poured boiling and freezing water on themalternately, 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 onewhom he might choose to call a traitor. But the worst measure theypassed was an Act of Six Articles, commonly called at the time 'the whipwith 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 theRomish party, had not the power. As one of the articles declared thatpriests should not marry, and as he was married himself, he sent his wifeand children into Germany, and began to tremble at his danger; none theless because he was, and had long been, the King's friend. This whip ofsix strings was made under the King's own eye. It should never beforgotten of him how cruelly he supported the worst of the Popishdoctrines when there was nothing to be got by opposing them. 

This amiable monarch now thought of taking another wife. He proposed tothe French King to have some of the ladies of the French Court exhibitedbefore him, that he might make his Royal choice; but the French Kinganswered that he would rather not have his ladies trotted out to be shownlike horses at a fair. He proposed to the Dowager Duchess of Milan, whoreplied that she might have thought of such a match if she had had twoheads; but, that only owning one, she must beg to keep it safe. At lastCromwell represented that there was a Protestant Princess inGermany--those who held the reformed religion were called Protestants, because their leaders had Protested against the abuses and impositions ofthe unreformed Church--named ANNE OF CLEVES, who was beautiful, and wouldanswer the purpose admirably. The King said was she a large woman, because he must have a fat wife? 'O yes, ' said Cromwell; 'she was verylarge, just the thing. ' On hearing this the King sent over his famouspainter, Hans Holbein, to take her portrait. Hans made her out to be sogood-looking that the King was satisfied, and the marriage was arranged. But, whether anybody had paid Hans to touch up the picture; or whetherHans, like one or two other painters, flattered a princess in theordinary way of business, I cannot say: all I know is, that when Annecame over and the King went to Rochester to meet her, and first saw herwithout her seeing him, he swore she was 'a great Flanders mare, ' andsaid he would never marry her. Being obliged to do it now matters hadgone so far, he would not give her the presents he had prepared, andwould never notice her. He never forgave Cromwell his part in theaffair. His downfall dates from that time. 

It was quickened by his enemies, in the interests of the unreformedreligion, putting in the King's way, at a state dinner, a niece of theDuke of Norfolk, CATHERINE HOWARD, a young lady of fascinating manners, though small in stature and not particularly beautiful. Falling in lovewith her on the spot, the King soon divorced Anne of Cleves after makingher the subject of much brutal talk, on pretence that she had beenpreviously betrothed to some one else--which would never do for one ofhis dignity--and married Catherine. It is probable that on his weddingday, of all days in the year, he sent his faithful Cromwell to thescaffold, and had his head struck off. He further celebrated theoccasion by burning at one time, and causing to be drawn to the fire onthe same hurdles, some Protestant prisoners for denying the Pope'sdoctrines, and some Roman Catholic prisoners for denying his ownsupremacy. Still the people bore it, and not a gentleman in Englandraised 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 Kinghad falsely attributed to his second wife Anne Boleyn; so, again thedreadful axe made the King a widower, and this Queen passed away as somany in that reign had passed away before her. As an appropriate pursuitunder the circumstances, Henry then applied himself to superintending thecomposition of a religious book called 'A necessary doctrine for anyChristian Man. ' He must have been a little confused in his mind, Ithink, at about this period; for he was so false to himself as to be trueto some one: that some one being Cranmer, whom the Duke of Norfolk andothers 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 findhimself, next day, accused of treason, to show it to the council board. This Cranmer did to the confusion of his enemies. I suppose the Kingthought he might want him a little longer. 

He married yet once more. Yes, strange to say, he found in Englandanother woman who would become his wife, and she was CATHERINE PARR, widow of Lord Latimer. She leaned towards the reformed religion; and itis some comfort to know, that she tormented the King considerably byarguing a variety of doctrinal points with him on all possible occasions. She had very nearly done this to her own destruction. After one of theseconversations the King in a very black mood actually instructed GARDINER, one of his Bishops who favoured the Popish opinions, to draw a bill ofaccusation against her, which would have inevitably brought her to thescaffold where her predecessors had died, but that one of her friendspicked up the paper of instructions which had been dropped in the palace, and gave her timely notice. She fell ill with terror; but managed theKing so well when he came to entrap her into further statements--bysaying that she had only spoken on such points to divert his mind and toget some information from his extraordinary wisdom--that he gave her akiss and called her his sweetheart. And, when the Chancellor came nextday actually to take her to the Tower, the King sent him about hisbusiness, and honoured him with the epithets of a beast, a knave, and afool. So near was Catherine Parr to the block, and so narrow was herescape!

There was war with Scotland in this reign, and a short clumsy war withFrance 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 moreof what happened abroad. 

A few more horrors, and this reign is over. There was a lady, ANNEASKEW, in Lincolnshire, who inclined to the Protestant opinions, andwhose husband being a fierce Catholic, turned her out of his house. Shecame to London, and was considered as offending against the six articles, and was taken to the Tower, and put upon the rack--probably because itwas 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 nomore; and then two priests who were present actually pulled off theirrobes, and turned the wheels of the rack with their own hands, so rendingand twisting and breaking her that she was afterwards carried to the firein 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, andhis son the Earl of Surrey, or they gave him some offence, but heresolved to pull _them_ down, to follow all the rest who were gone. Theson was tried first--of course for nothing--and defended himself bravely;but of course he was found guilty, and of course he was executed. Thenhis father was laid hold of, and left for death too. 

But the King himself was left for death by a Greater King, and the earthwas 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 wasdreadful to approach him. When he was found to be dying, Cranmer wassent for from his palace at Croydon, and came with all speed, but foundhim 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, becausethe Reformation was achieved in his time. But the mighty merit of itlies with other men and not with him; and it can be rendered none theworse by this monster's crimes, and none the better by any defence ofthem. The plain truth is, that he was a most intolerable ruffian, adisgrace to human nature, and a blot of blood and grease upon the Historyof England. 

CHAPTER XXIX--ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SIXTH

Henry the Eighth had made a will, appointing a council of sixteen togovern the kingdom for his son while he was under age (he was now onlyten years old), and another council of twelve to help them. The mostpowerful of the first council was the EARL OF HERTFORD, the young King'suncle, who lost no time in bringing his nephew with great state up toEnfield, and thence to the Tower. It was considered at the time astriking proof of virtue in the young King that he was sorry for hisfather'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 executorsto fulfil whatever promises he had made. Some of the court wonderingwhat these might be, the Earl of Hertford and the other noblemeninterested, said that they were promises to advance and enrich _them_. So, the Earl of Hertford made himself DUKE OF SOMERSET, and made hisbrother EDWARD SEYMOUR a baron; and there were various similarpromotions, all very agreeable to the parties concerned, and verydutiful, no doubt, to the late King's memory. To be more dutiful still, they made themselves rich out of the Church lands, and were verycomfortable. The new Duke of Somerset caused himself to be declaredPROTECTOR of the kingdom, and was, indeed, the King. 

As young Edward the Sixth had been brought up in the principles of theProtestant religion, everybody knew that they would be maintained. ButCranmer, to whom they were chiefly entrusted, advanced them steadily andtemperately. 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 Kingengaged in marriage to the young Queen of Scotland, in order to preventthat princess from making an alliance with any foreign power; but, as alarge party in Scotland were unfavourable to this plan, he invaded thatcountry. His excuse for doing so was, that the Border men--that is, theScotch who lived in that part of the country where England and Scotlandjoined--troubled the English very much. But there were two sides to thisquestion; for the English Border men troubled the Scotch too; and, through many long years, there were perpetual border quarrels which gaverise to numbers of old tales and songs. However, the Protector invadedScotland; and ARRAN, the Scottish Regent, with an army twice as large ashis, advanced to meet him. They encountered on the banks of the riverEsk, within a few miles of Edinburgh; and there, after a little skirmish, the Protector made such moderate proposals, in offering to retire if theScotch would only engage not to marry their princess to any foreignprince, that the Regent thought the English were afraid. But in this hemade a horrible mistake; for the English soldiers on land, and theEnglish sailors on the water, so set upon the Scotch, that they broke andfled, and more than ten thousand of them were killed. It was a dreadfulbattle, for the fugitives were slain without mercy. The ground for fourmiles, all the way to Edinburgh, was strewn 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; butin 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 whoseappearance and country they were exceedingly astonished. 

A Parliament was called when Somerset came back, and it repealed the whipwith six strings, and did one or two other good things; though itunhappily retained the punishment of burning for those people who did notmake believe to believe, in all religious matters, what the Governmenthad declared that they must and should believe. It also made a foolishlaw (meant to put down beggars), that any man who lived idly and loiteredabout for three days together, should be burned with a hot iron, made aslave, and wear an iron fetter. But this savage absurdity soon came toan 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 thenobles, on the right hand of the throne. Many other noblemen, who onlywanted to be as proud if they could get a chance, became his enemies ofcourse; and it is supposed that he came back suddenly from Scotlandbecause he had received news that his brother, LORD SEYMOUR, was becomingdangerous to him. This lord was now High Admiral of England; a veryhandsome man, and a great favourite with the Court ladies--even with theyoung Princess Elizabeth, who romped with him a little more than youngprincesses in these times do with any one. He had married CatherineParr, the late King's widow, who was now dead; and, to strengthen hispower, he secretly supplied the young King with money. He may even haveengaged with some of his brother's enemies in a plot to carry the boyoff. On these and other accusations, at any rate, he was confined in theTower, impeached, and found guilty; his own brother's namebeing--unnatural and sad to tell--the first signed to the warrant of hisexecution. He was executed on Tower Hill, and died denying his treason. One of his last proceedings in this world was to write two letters, oneto the Princess Elizabeth, and one to the Princess Mary, which a servantof his took charge of, and concealed in his shoe. These letters aresupposed to have urged them against his brother, and to revenge hisdeath. What they truly contained is not known; but there is no doubtthat he had, at one time, obtained great influence over the PrincessElizabeth. 

All this while, the Protestant religion was making progress. The imageswhich the people had gradually come to worship, were removed from thechurches; the people were informed that they need not confess themselvesto priests unless they chose; a common prayer-book was drawn up in theEnglish language, which all could understand, and many other improvementswere made; still moderately. For Cranmer was a very moderate man, andeven restrained the Protestant clergy from violently abusing theunreformed religion--as they very often did, and which was not a goodexample. But the people were at this time in great distress. Therapacious nobility who had come into possession of the Church lands, werevery bad landlords. They enclosed great quantities of ground for thefeeding of sheep, which was then more profitable than the growing ofcrops; and this increased the general distress. So the people, who stillunderstood little of what was going on about them, and still readilybelieved what the homeless monks told them--many of whom had been theirgood friends in their better days--took it into their heads that all thiswas owing to the reformed religion, and therefore rose, in many parts ofthe country. 

The most powerful risings were in Devonshire and Norfolk. In Devonshire, the rebellion was so strong that ten thousand men united within a fewdays, and even laid siege to Exeter. But LORD RUSSELL, coming to theassistance of the citizens who defended that town, defeated the rebels;and, not only hanged the Mayor of one place, but hanged the vicar ofanother from his own church steeple. What with hanging and killing bythe sword, four thousand of the rebels are supposed to have fallen inthat one county. In Norfolk (where the rising was more against theenclosure of open lands than against the reformed religion), the popularleader 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 matchfor the gentleman, since he soon got the people on his side, andestablished himself near Norwich with quite an army. There was a largeoak-tree in that place, on a spot called Moushold Hill, which Ket namedthe Tree of Reformation; and under its green boughs, he and his men sat, in the midsummer weather, holding courts of justice, and debating affairsof state. They were even impartial enough to allow some rather tiresomepublic speakers to get up into this Tree of Reformation, and point outtheir errors to them, in long discourses, while they lay listening (notalways without some grumbling and growling) in the shade below. At last, one sunny July day, a herald appeared below the tree, and proclaimed Ketand all his men traitors, unless from that moment they dispersed and wenthome: in which case they were to receive a pardon. But, Ket and his menmade light of the herald and became stronger than ever, until the Earl ofWarwick went after them with a sufficient force, and cut them all topieces. A few were hanged, drawn, and quartered, as traitors, and theirlimbs 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 ofReformation; and so, for the time, that tree may be said to have witheredaway. 

The Protector, though a haughty man, had compassion for the realdistresses of the common people, and a sincere desire to help them. Buthe was too proud and too high in degree to hold even their favoursteadily; and many of the nobles always envied and hated him, becausethey were as proud and not as high as he. He was at this time building agreat Palace in the Strand: to get the stone for which he blew up churchsteeples with gunpowder, and pulled down bishops' houses: thus makinghimself still more disliked. At length, his principal enemy, the Earl ofWarwick--Dudley by name, and the son of that Dudley who had made himselfso odious with Empson, in the reign of Henry the Seventh--joined withseven other members of the Council against him, formed a separateCouncil; and, becoming stronger in a few days, sent him to the Towerunder twenty-nine articles of accusation. After being sentenced by theCouncil to the forfeiture of all his offices and lands, he was liberatedand pardoned, on making a very humble submission. He was even taken backinto the Council again, after having suffered this fall, and married hisdaughter, LADY ANNE SEYMOUR, to Warwick's eldest son. But such areconciliation was little likely to last, and did not outlive a year. Warwick, having got himself made Duke of Northumberland, and havingadvanced the more important of his friends, then finished the history bycausing the Duke of Somerset and his friend LORD GREY, and others, to bearrested for treason, in having conspired to seize and dethrone the King. They were also accused of having intended to seize the new Duke ofNorthumberland, with his friends LORD NORTHAMPTON and LORD PEMBROKE; tomurder them if they found need; and to raise the City to revolt. Allthis the fallen Protector positively denied; except that he confessed tohaving spoken of the murder of those three noblemen, but having neverdesigned it. He was acquitted of the charge of treason, and found guiltyof the other charges; so when the people--who remembered his having beentheir friend, now that he was disgraced and in danger, saw him come outfrom his trial with the axe turned from him--they thought he wasaltogether acquitted, and sent up a loud shout of joy. 

But the Duke of Somerset was ordered to be beheaded on Tower Hill, ateight o'clock in the morning, and proclamations were issued bidding thecitizens 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 sadfaces and sad hearts, saw the once powerful Protector ascend the scaffoldto lay his head upon the dreadful block. While he was yet saying hislast words to them with manly courage, and telling them, in particular, how it comforted him, at that pass, to have assisted in reforming thenational religion, a member of the Council was seen riding up onhorseback. They again thought that the Duke was saved by his bringing areprieve, and again shouted for joy. But the Duke himself told them theywere mistaken, and laid down his head and had it struck off at a blow. 

Many of the bystanders rushed forward and steeped their handkerchiefs inhis blood, as a mark of their affection. He had, indeed, been capable ofmany good acts, and one of them was discovered after he was no more. TheBishop of Durham, a very good man, had been informed against to theCouncil, when the Duke was in power, as having answered a treacherousletter proposing a rebellion against the reformed religion. As theanswer could not be found, he could not be declared guilty; but it wasnow discovered, hidden by the Duke himself among some private papers, inhis regard for that good man. The Bishop lost his office, and wasdeprived of his possessions. 

It is not very pleasant to know that while his uncle lay in prison undersentence of death, the young King was being vastly entertained by plays, and dances, and sham fights: but there is no doubt of it, for he kept ajournal himself. It is pleasanter to know that not a single RomanCatholic was burnt in this reign for holding that religion; though twowretched victims suffered for heresy. One, a woman named JOAN BOCHER, for professing some opinions that even she could only explain inunintelligible jargon. The other, a Dutchman, named VON PARIS, whopractised as a surgeon in London. Edward was, to his credit, exceedinglyunwilling to sign the warrant for the woman's execution: shedding tearsbefore he did so, and telling Cranmer, who urged him to do it (thoughCranmer really would have spared the woman at first, but for her owndetermined obstinacy), that the guilt was not his, but that of the manwho so strongly urged the dreadful act. We shall see, too soon, whetherthe time ever came when Cranmer is likely to have remembered this withsorrow and remorse. 

Cranmer and RIDLEY (at first Bishop of Rochester, and afterwards Bishopof London) were the most powerful of the clergy of this reign. Otherswere imprisoned and deprived of their property for still adhering to theunreformed religion; the most important among whom were GARDINER Bishopof Winchester, HEATH Bishop of Worcester, DAY Bishop of Chichester, andBONNER that Bishop of London who was superseded by Ridley. The PrincessMary, who inherited her mother's gloomy temper, and hated the reformedreligion as connected with her mother's wrongs and sorrows--she knewnothing else about it, always refusing to read a single book in which itwas truly described--held by the unreformed religion too, and was theonly person in the kingdom for whom the old Mass was allowed to beperformed; nor would the young King have made that exception even in herfavour, but for the strong persuasions of Cranmer and Ridley. He alwaysviewed it with horror; and when he fell into a sickly condition, afterhaving been very ill, first of the measles and then of the small-pox, hewas greatly troubled in mind to think that if he died, and she, the nextheir to the throne, succeeded, the Roman Catholic religion would be setup 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 withthe Protestants, was sure to be disgraced. Now, the Duchess of Suffolkwas descended from King Henry the Seventh; and, if she resigned whatlittle or no right she had, in favour of her daughter LADY JANE GREY, that would be the succession to promote the Duke's greatness; becauseLORD GUILFORD DUDLEY, one of his sons, was, at this very time, newlymarried to her. So, he worked upon the King's fears, and persuaded himto set aside both the Princess Mary and the Princess Elizabeth, andassert his right to appoint his successor. Accordingly the young Kinghanded to the Crown lawyers a writing signed half a dozen times over byhimself, appointing Lady Jane Grey to succeed to the Crown, and requiringthem to have his will made out according to law. They were much againstit at first, and told the King so; but the Duke of Northumberland--beingso violent about it that the lawyers even expected him to beat them, andhotly declaring that, stripped to his shirt, he would fight any man insuch a quarrel--they yielded. Cranmer, also, at first hesitated;pleading that he had sworn to maintain the succession of the Crown to thePrincess Mary; but, he was a weak man in his resolutions, and afterwardssigned the document with the rest of the council. 

It was completed none too soon; for Edward was now sinking in a rapiddecline; and, by way of making him better, they handed him over to awoman-doctor who pretended to be able to cure it. He speedily got worse. On the sixth of July, in the year one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, he died, very peaceably and piously, praying God, with his lastbreath, to protect the reformed religion. 

This King died in the sixteenth year of his age, and in the seventh ofhis reign. It is difficult to judge what the character of one so youngmight afterwards have become among so many bad, ambitious, quarrellingnobles. But, he was an amiable boy, of very good abilities, and hadnothing coarse or cruel or brutal in his disposition--which in the son ofsuch a father is rather surprising. 

CHAPTER XXX--ENGLAND UNDER MARY

The Duke of Northumberland was very anxious to keep the young King'sdeath a secret, in order that he might get the two Princesses into hispower. But, the Princess Mary, being informed of that event as she wason 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 itwas he who sent her warning of what had happened. 

As the secret could not be kept, the Duke of Northumberland and thecouncil sent for the Lord Mayor of London and some of the aldermen, andmade a merit of telling it to them. Then, they made it known to thepeople, 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, andclever. 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 shefainted. On recovering, she expressed her sorrow for the young King'sdeath, and said that she knew she was unfit to govern the kingdom; butthat if she must be Queen, she prayed God to direct her. She was then atSion House, near Brentford; and the lords took her down the river instate to the Tower, that she might remain there (as the custom was) untilshe 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 dislikingthe Duke of Northumberland. They were not put into a better humour bythe Duke's causing a vintner's servant, one Gabriel Pot, to be taken upfor expressing his dissatisfaction among the crowd, and to have his earsnailed to the pillory, and cut off. Some powerful men among the nobilitydeclared on Mary's side. They raised troops to support her cause, hadher proclaimed Queen at Norwich, and gathered around her at the castle ofFramlingham, which belonged to the Duke of Norfolk. For, she was notconsidered so safe as yet, but that it was best to keep her in a castleon the sea-coast, from whence she might be sent abroad, if necessary. 

The Council would have despatched Lady Jane's father, the Duke ofSuffolk, as the general of the army against this force; but, as Lady Janeimplored that her father might remain with her, and as he was known to bebut a weak man, they told the Duke of Northumberland that he must takethe command himself. He was not very ready to do so, as he mistrustedthe Council much; but there was no help for it, and he set forth with aheavy heart, observing to a lord who rode beside him through Shoreditchat the head of the troops, that, although the people pressed in greatnumbers to look at them, they were terribly silent. 

And his fears for himself turned out to be well founded. While he waswaiting at Cambridge for further help from the Council, the Council tookit into their heads to turn their backs on Lady Jane's cause, and to takeup the Princess Mary's. This was chiefly owing to the before-mentionedEarl of Arundel, who represented to the Lord Mayor and aldermen, in asecond interview with those sagacious persons, that, as for himself, hedid not perceive the Reformed religion to be in much danger--which LordPembroke backed by flourishing his sword as another kind of persuasion. The Lord Mayor and aldermen, thus enlightened, said there could be nodoubt that the Princess Mary ought to be Queen. So, she was proclaimedat 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--littlethinking, poor wretches, what other bonfires would soon be blazing inQueen Mary's name. 

After a ten days' dream of royalty, Lady Jane Grey resigned the Crownwith great willingness, saying that she had only accepted it in obedienceto her father and mother; and went gladly back to her pleasant house bythe river, and her books. Mary then came on towards London; and atWanstead in Essex, was joined by her half-sister, the Princess Elizabeth. They passed through the streets of London to the Tower, and there the newQueen met some eminent prisoners then confined in it, kissed them, andgave them their liberty. Among these was that Gardiner, Bishop ofWinchester, who had been imprisoned in the last reign for holding to theunreformed religion. Him she soon made chancellor. 

The Duke of Northumberland had been taken prisoner, and, together withhis son and five others, was quickly brought before the Council. He, notunnaturally, asked that Council, in his defence, whether it was treasonto obey orders that had been issued under the great seal; and, if itwere, whether they, who had obeyed them too, ought to be his judges? Butthey made light of these points; and, being resolved to have him out ofthe way, soon sentenced him to death. He had risen into power upon thedeath 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 itwere only in a mouse's hole; and, when he ascended the scaffold to bebeheaded on Tower Hill, addressed the people in a miserable way, sayingthat he had been incited by others, and exhorting them to return to theunreformed religion, which he told them was his faith. There seemsreason to suppose that he expected a pardon even then, in return for thisconfession; but it matters little whether he did or not. His head wasstruck off. 

Mary was now crowned Queen. She was thirty-seven years of age, short andthin, wrinkled in the face, and very unhealthy. But she had a greatliking for show and for bright colours, and all the ladies of her Courtwere magnificently dressed. She had a great liking too for old customs, without much sense in them; and she was oiled in the oldest way, andblessed in the oldest way, and done all manner of things to in the oldestway, at her coronation. I hope they did her good. 

She soon began to show her desire to put down the Reformed religion, andput up the unreformed one: though it was dangerous work as yet, thepeople being something wiser than they used to be. They even cast ashower of stones--and among them a dagger--at one of the royal chaplainswho attacked the Reformed religion in a public sermon. But the Queen andher priests went steadily on. Ridley, the powerful bishop of the lastreign, was seized and sent to the Tower. LATIMER, also celebrated amongthe Clergy of the last reign, was likewise sent to the Tower, and Cranmerspeedily followed. Latimer was an aged man; and, as his guards took himthrough Smithfield, he looked round it, and said, 'This is a place thathath long groaned for me. ' For he knew well, what kind of bonfires wouldsoon be burning. Nor was the knowledge confined to him. The prisonswere fast filled with the chief Protestants, who were there left rottingin darkness, hunger, dirt, and separation from their friends; many, whohad time left them for escape, fled from the kingdom; and the dullest ofthe people began, now, to see what was coming. 

It came on fast. A Parliament was got together; not without strongsuspicion of unfairness; and they annulled the divorce, formerlypronounced by Cranmer between the Queen's mother and King Henry theEighth, and unmade all the laws on the subject of religion that had beenmade in the last King Edward's reign. They began their proceedings, inviolation 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 declaredguilty of treason, Lady Jane Grey for aspiring to the Crown; her husband, for being her husband; and Cranmer, for not believing in the massaforesaid. They then prayed the Queen graciously to choose a husband forherself, as soon as might be. 

Now, the question who should be the Queen's husband had given rise to agreat deal of discussion, and to several contending parties. Some saidCardinal Pole was the man--but the Queen was of opinion that he was _not_the man, he being too old and too much of a student. Others said thatthe gallant young COURTENAY, whom the Queen had made Earl of Devonshire, was the man--and the Queen thought so too, for a while; but she changedher mind. At last it appeared that PHILIP, PRINCE OF SPAIN, wascertainly the man--though certainly not the people's man; for theydetested the idea of such a marriage from the beginning to the end, andmurmured that the Spaniard would establish in England, by the aid offoreign soldiers, the worst abuses of the Popish religion, and even theterrible Inquisition itself. 

These discontents gave rise to a conspiracy for marrying young Courtenayto the Princess Elizabeth, and setting them up, with popular tumults allover the kingdom, against the Queen. This was discovered in time byGardiner; but in Kent, the old bold county, the people rose in their oldbold way. SIR THOMAS WYAT, a man of great daring, was their leader. Heraised his standard at Maidstone, marched on to Rochester, establishedhimself in the old castle there, and prepared to hold out against theDuke 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 allfor Elizabeth, and not at all for Mary. They declared, under the castlewalls, for Wyat; the Duke retreated; and Wyat came on to Deptford, at thehead of fifteen thousand men. 

But these, in their turn, fell away. When he came to Southwark, therewere only two thousand left. Not dismayed by finding the London citizensin arms, and the guns at the Tower ready to oppose his crossing the riverthere, Wyat led them off to Kingston-upon-Thames, intending to cross thebridge that he knew to be in that place, and so to work his way round toLudgate, one of the old gates of the City. He found the bridge brokendown, but mended it, came across, and bravely fought his way up FleetStreet to Ludgate Hill. Finding the gate closed against him, he foughthis way back again, sword in hand, to Temple Bar. Here, beingoverpowered, he surrendered himself, and three or four hundred of his menwere taken, besides a hundred killed. Wyat, in a moment of weakness (andperhaps of torture) was afterwards made to accuse the Princess Elizabethas his accomplice to some very small extent. But his manhood soonreturned to him, and he refused to save his life by making any more falseconfessions. He was quartered and distributed in the usual brutal way, and from fifty to a hundred of his followers were hanged. The rest wereled out, with halters round their necks, to be pardoned, and to make aparade of crying out, 'God save Queen Mary!'

In the danger of this rebellion, the Queen showed herself to be a womanof courage and spirit. She disdained to retreat to any place of safety, and went down to the Guildhall, sceptre in hand, and made a gallantspeech to the Lord Mayor and citizens. But on the day after Wyat'sdefeat, she did the most cruel act, even of her cruel reign, in signingthe warrant for the execution of Lady Jane Grey. 

They tried to persuade Lady Jane to accept the unreformed religion; butshe steadily refused. On the morning when she was to die, she saw fromher window the bleeding and headless body of her husband brought back ina 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 shouldbe overpowered and not make a good end, so, she even now showed aconstancy and calmness that will never be forgotten. She came up to thescaffold with a firm step and a quiet face, and addressed the bystandersin a steady voice. They were not numerous; for she was too young, tooinnocent and fair, to be murdered before the people on Tower Hill, as herhusband had just been; so, the place of her execution was within theTower itself. She said that she had done an unlawful act in taking whatwas Queen Mary's right; but that she had done so with no bad intent, andthat she died a humble Christian. She begged the executioner to despatchher quickly, and she asked him, 'Will you take my head off before I layme down?' He answered, 'No, Madam, ' and then she was very quiet whilethey bandaged her eyes. Being blinded, and unable to see the block onwhich she was to lay her young head, she was seen to feel about for itwith her hands, and was heard to say, confused, 'O what shall I do! Whereis it?' Then they guided her to the right place, and the executionerstruck off her head. You know too well, now, what dreadful deeds theexecutioner did in England, through many, many years, and how his axedescended on the hateful block through the necks of some of the bravest, wisest, and best in the land. But it never struck so cruel and so vile ablow as this. 

The father of Lady Jane soon followed, but was little pitied. QueenMary's next object was to lay hold of Elizabeth, and this was pursuedwith great eagerness. Five hundred men were sent to her retired house atAshridge, 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, theirleaders followed her lady into her bedchamber, whence she was brought outbetimes next morning, and put into a litter to be conveyed to London. Shewas so weak and ill, that she was five days on the road; still, she wasso resolved to be seen by the people that she had the curtains of thelitter opened; and so, very pale and sickly, passed through the streets. She wrote to her sister, saying she was innocent of any crime, and askingwhy she was made a prisoner; but she got no answer, and was ordered tothe Tower. They took her in by the Traitor's Gate, to which sheobjected, but in vain. One of the lords who conveyed her offered tocover her with his cloak, as it was raining, but she put it away fromher, proudly and scornfully, and passed into the Tower, and sat down in acourt-yard on a stone. They besought her to come in out of the wet; butshe answered that it was better sitting there, than in a worse place. Atlength she went to her apartment, where she was kept a prisoner, thoughnot so close a prisoner as at Woodstock, whither she was afterwardsremoved, and where she is said to have one day envied a milkmaid whom sheheard singing in the sunshine as she went through the green fields. Gardiner, than whom there were not many worse men among the fierce andsullen priests, cared little to keep secret his stern desire for herdeath: being used to say that it was of little service to shake off theleaves, and lop the branches of the tree of heresy, if its root, the hopeof heretics, were left. He failed, however, in his benevolent design. Elizabeth was, at length, released; and Hatfield House was assigned toher as a residence, under the care of one SIR THOMAS POPE. 

It would seem that Philip, the Prince of Spain, was a main cause of thischange in Elizabeth's fortunes. He was not an amiable man, being, on thecontrary, proud, overbearing, and gloomy; but he and the Spanish lordswho came over with him, assuredly did discountenance the idea of doingany violence to the Princess. It may have been mere prudence, but wewill hope it was manhood and honour. The Queen had been expecting herhusband with great impatience, and at length he came, to her great joy, though he never cared much for her. They were married by Gardiner, atWinchester, and there was more holiday-making among the people; but theyhad their old distrust of this Spanish marriage, in which even theParliament shared. Though the members of that Parliament were far fromhonest, and were strongly suspected to have been bought with Spanishmoney, they would pass no bill to enable the Queen to set aside thePrincess Elizabeth and appoint her own successor. 

Although Gardiner failed in this object, as well as in the darker one ofbringing the Princess to the scaffold, he went on at a great pace in therevival of the unreformed religion. A new Parliament was packed, inwhich there were no Protestants. Preparations were made to receiveCardinal Pole in England as the Pope's messenger, bringing his holydeclaration that all the nobility who had acquired Church property, should keep it--which was done to enlist their selfish interest on thePope's side. Then a great scene was enacted, which was the triumph ofthe Queen's plans. Cardinal Pole arrived in great splendour and dignity, and was received with great pomp. The Parliament joined in a petitionexpressive of their sorrow at the change in the national religion, andpraying him to receive the country again into the Popish Church. Withthe Queen sitting on her throne, and the King on one side of her, and theCardinal on the other, and the Parliament present, Gardiner read thepetition aloud. The Cardinal then made a great speech, and was soobliging as to say that all was forgotten and forgiven, and that thekingdom was solemnly made Roman Catholic again. 

Everything was now ready for the lighting of the terrible bonfires. TheQueen having declared to the Council, in writing, that she would wishnone of her subjects to be burnt without some of the Council beingpresent, and that she would particularly wish there to be good sermons atall 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 theburnings, the Chancellor Gardiner opened a High Court at Saint MaryOvery, 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. Hooperwas tried first for being married, though a priest, and for not believingin the mass. He admitted both of these accusations, and said that themass was a wicked imposition. Then they tried Rogers, who said the same. Next morning the two were brought up to be sentenced; and then Rogerssaid 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. Tothis the inhuman Gardiner replied, that she was not his wife. 'Yea, butshe is, my lord, ' said Rogers, 'and she hath been my wife these eighteenyears. ' His request was still refused, and they were both sent toNewgate; all those who stood in the streets to sell things, being orderedto put out their lights that the people might not see them. But, thepeople stood at their doors with candles in their hands, and prayed forthem as they went by. Soon afterwards, Rogers was taken out of jail tobe burnt in Smithfield; and, in the crowd as he went along, he saw hispoor 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 outto take his last journey, and was made to wear a hood over his face thathe might not be known by the people. But, they did know him for allthat, down in his own part of the country; and, when he came nearGloucester, they lined the road, making prayers and lamentations. Hisguards took him to a lodging, where he slept soundly all night. At nineo'clock next morning, he was brought forth leaning on a staff; for he hadtaken cold in prison, and was infirm. The iron stake, and the iron chainwhich was to bind him to it, were fixed up near a great elm-tree in apleasant open place before the cathedral, where, on peaceful Sundays, hehad been accustomed to preach and to pray, when he was bishop ofGloucester. This tree, which had no leaves then, it being February, wasfilled with people; and the priests of Gloucester College were lookingcomplacently on from a window, and there was a great concourse ofspectators in every spot from which a glimpse of the dreadful sight couldbe beheld. When the old man kneeled down on the small platform at thefoot of the stake, and prayed aloud, the nearest people were observed tobe so attentive to his prayers that they were ordered to stand fartherback; for it did not suit the Romish Church to have those Protestantwords heard. His prayers concluded, he went up to the stake and wasstripped to his shirt, and chained ready for the fire. One of his guardshad such compassion on him that, to shorten his agonies, he tied somepackets of gunpowder about him. Then they heaped up wood and straw andreeds, and set them all alight. But, unhappily, the wood was green anddamp, 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 scorchedand roasted and smoked, as the fire rose and sank; and all that time theysaw him, as he burned, moving his lips in prayer, and beating his breastwith one hand, even after the other was burnt away and had fallen off. 

Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, were taken to Oxford to dispute with acommission of priests and doctors about the mass. They were shamefullytreated; and it is recorded that the Oxford scholars hissed and howledand groaned, and misconducted themselves in an anything but a scholarlyway. The prisoners were taken back to jail, and afterwards tried in St. Mary's Church. They were all found guilty. On the sixteenth of themonth of October, Ridley and Latimer were brought out, to make another ofthe dreadful bonfires. 

The scene of the suffering of these two good Protestant men was in theCity ditch, near Baliol College. On coming to the dreadful spot, theykissed the stakes, and then embraced each other. And then a learneddoctor got up into a pulpit which was placed there, and preached a sermonfrom 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 menalive, 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 notallowed. When Latimer was stripped, it appeared that he had dressedhimself under his other clothes, in a new shroud; and, as he stood in itbefore 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 nowstood upright and handsome, in the knowledge that he was dying for a justand a great cause. Ridley's brother-in-law was there with bags ofgunpowder; and when they were both chained up, he tied them round theirbodies. Then, a light was thrown upon the pile to fire it. 'Be of goodcomfort, Master Ridley, ' said Latimer, at that awful moment, 'and playthe man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, inEngland, as I trust shall never be put out. ' And then he was seen tomake motions with his hands as if he were washing them in the flames, andto stroke his aged face with them, and was heard to cry, 'Father ofHeaven, receive my soul!' He died quickly, but the fire, after havingburned the legs of Ridley, sunk. There he lingered, chained to the ironpost, and crying, 'O! I cannot burn! O! for Christ's sake let the firecome unto me!' And still, when his brother-in-law had heaped on morewood, he was heard through the blinding smoke, still dismally crying, 'O!I cannot burn, I cannot burn!' At last, the gunpowder caught fire, andended his miseries. 

Five days after this fearful scene, Gardiner went to his tremendousaccount before God, for the cruelties he had so much assisted incommitting. 

Cranmer remained still alive and in prison. He was brought out again inFebruary, for more examining and trying, by Bonner, Bishop of London:another man of blood, who had succeeded to Gardiner's work, even in hislifetime, when Gardiner was tired of it. Cranmer was now degraded as apriest, and left for death; but, if the Queen hated any one on earth, shehated him, and it was resolved that he should be ruined and disgraced tothe utmost. There is no doubt that the Queen and her husband personallyurged on these deeds, because they wrote to the Council, urging them tobe active in the kindling of the fearful fires. As Cranmer was known notto 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 friarsvisited him, played at bowls with him, showed him various attentions, talked persuasively with him, gave him money for his prison comforts, andinduced 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 betterself, and made a glorious end. 

After prayers and a sermon, Dr. Cole, the preacher of the day (who hadbeen one of the artful priests about Cranmer in prison), required him tomake a public confession of his faith before the people. This, Cole did, expecting that he would declare himself a Roman Catholic. 'I will make aprofession 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 awritten prayer and read it aloud. That done, he kneeled and said theLord's Prayer, all the people joining; and then he arose again and toldthem that he believed in the Bible, and that in what he had latelywritten, he had written what was not the truth, and that, because hisright hand had signed those papers, he would burn his right hand firstwhen he came to the fire. As for the Pope, he did refuse him anddenounce him as the enemy of Heaven. Hereupon the pious Dr. Cole criedout 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 hastilytook off his own clothes to make ready for the flames. And he stoodbefore the people with a bald head and a white and flowing beard. He wasso firm now when the worst was come, that he again declared against hisrecantation, and was so impressive and so undismayed, that a certainlord, who was one of the directors of the execution, called out to themen to make haste! When the fire was lighted, Cranmer, true to hislatest word, stretched out his right hand, and crying out, 'This handhath offended!' held it among the flames, until it blazed and burnedaway. His heart was found entire among his ashes, and he left at last amemorable name in English history. Cardinal Pole celebrated the day bysaying his first mass, and next day he was made Archbishop of Canterburyin Cranmer's place. 

The Queen's husband, who was now mostly abroad in his own dominions, andgenerally made a coarse jest of her to his more familiar courtiers, wasat 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 ithappened that the King of France, at this very time, aided a descent uponthe English coast. Hence, war was declared, greatly to Philip'ssatisfaction; and the Queen raised a sum of money with which to carry iton, by every unjustifiable means in her power. It met with no profitablereturn, for the French Duke of Guise surprised Calais, and the Englishsustained a complete defeat. The losses they met with in France greatlymortified 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 towrite that the Queen took it, and the hour of her death came. 'When I amdead and my body is opened, ' she said to those around those around her, 'ye shall find CALAIS written on my heart. ' I should have thought, ifanything were written on it, they would have found the words--JANE GREY, HOOPER, ROGERS, RIDLEY, LATIMER, CRANMER, AND THREE HUNDRED PEOPLE BURNTALIVE WITHIN FOUR YEARS OF MY WICKED REIGN, INCLUDING SIXTY WOMEN ANDFORTY LITTLE CHILDREN. But it is enough that their deaths were writtenin 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 QUEENMARY, she will ever be justly remembered with horror and detestation inGreat Britain. Her memory has been held in such abhorrence that somewriters have arisen in later years to take her part, and to show that shewas, upon the whole, quite an amiable and cheerful sovereign! 'By theirfruits ye shall know them, ' said OUR SAVIOUR. The stake and the firewere the fruits of this reign, and you will judge this Queen by nothingelse. 

CHAPTER XXXI--ENGLAND UNDER ELIZABETH

There was great rejoicing all over the land when the Lords of the Councilwent down to Hatfield, to hail the Princess Elizabeth as the new Queen ofEngland. Weary of the barbarities of Mary's reign, the people lookedwith hope and gladness to the new Sovereign. The nation seemed to wakefrom a horrible dream; and Heaven, so long hidden by the smoke of thefires that roasted men and women to death, appeared to brighten oncemore. 

Queen Elizabeth was five-and-twenty years of age when she rode throughthe streets of London, from the Tower to Westminster Abbey, to becrowned. Her countenance was strongly marked, but on the whole, commanding and dignified; her hair was red, and her nose something toolong and sharp for a woman's. She was not the beautiful creature hercourtiers made out; but she was well enough, and no doubt looked all thebetter for coming after the dark and gloomy Mary. She was well educated, but a roundabout writer, and rather a hard swearer and coarse talker. Shewas clever, but cunning and deceitful, and inherited much of her father'sviolent temper. I mention this now, because she has been so over-praisedby one party, and so over-abused by another, that it is hardly possibleto understand the greater part of her reign without first understandingwhat kind of woman she really was. 

She began her reign with the great advantage of having a very wise andcareful Minister, SIR WILLIAM CECIL, whom she afterwards made LORDBURLEIGH. Altogether, the people had greater reason for rejoicing thanthey usually had, when there were processions in the streets; and theywere 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 moreto the purpose) the Corporation dutifully presented the young Queen withthe sum of a thousand marks in gold--so heavy a present, that she wasobliged to take it into her carriage with both hands. The coronation wasa great success; and, on the next day, one of the courtiers presented apetition to the new Queen, praying that as it was the custom to releasesome prisoners on such occasions, she would have the goodness to releasethe four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and also the ApostleSaint Paul, who had been for some time shut up in a strange language sothat the people could not get at them. 

To this, the Queen replied that it would be better first to inquire ofthemselves whether they desired to be released or not; and, as a means offinding out, a great public discussion--a sort of religioustournament--was appointed to take place between certain champions of thetwo religions, in Westminster Abbey. You may suppose that it was soonmade pretty clear to common sense, that for people to benefit by whatthey repeat or read, it is rather necessary they should understandsomething about it. Accordingly, a Church Service in plain English wassettled, and other laws and regulations were made, completelyestablishing the great work of the Reformation. The Romish bishops andchampions were not harshly dealt with, all things considered; and theQueen's Ministers were both prudent and merciful. 

The one great trouble of this reign, and the unfortunate cause of thegreater part of such turmoil and bloodshed as occurred in it, was MARYSTUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. We will try to understand, in as few words aspossible, who Mary was, what she was, and how she came to be a thorn inthe royal pillow of Elizabeth. 

She was the daughter of the Queen Regent of Scotland, MARY OF GUISE. Shehad been married, when a mere child, to the Dauphin, the son and heir ofthe King of France. The Pope, who pretended that no one could rightfullywear the crown of England without his gracious permission, was stronglyopposed to Elizabeth, who had not asked for the said gracious permission. And as Mary Queen of Scots would have inherited the English crown inright of her birth, supposing the English Parliament not to have alteredthe succession, the Pope himself, and most of the discontented who werefollowers of his, maintained that Mary was the rightful Queen of England, and Elizabeth the wrongful Queen. Mary being so closely connected withFrance, and France being jealous of England, there was far greater dangerin this than there would have been if she had had no alliance with thatgreat 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, andthe Pope was disposed to help them by doing all the mischief he could. 

Now, the reformed religion, under the guidance of a stern and powerfulpreacher, named JOHN KNOX, and other such men, had been making fierceprogress in Scotland. It was still a half savage country, where therewas a great deal of murdering and rioting continually going on; and theReformers, instead of reforming those evils as they should have done, went to work in the ferocious old Scottish spirit, laying churches andchapels waste, pulling down pictures and altars, and knocking about theGrey Friars, and the Black Friars, and the White Friars, and the friarsof all sorts of colours, in all directions. This obdurate and harshspirit of the Scottish Reformers (the Scotch have always been rather asullen and frowning people in religious matters) put up the blood of theRomish 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 legsagain; of conquering that country first, and England afterwards; and socrushing the Reformation all to pieces. The Scottish Reformers, who hadformed a great league which they called The Congregation of the Lord, secretly represented to Elizabeth that, if the reformed religion got theworst of it with them, it would be likely to get the worst of it inEngland too; and thus, Elizabeth, though she had a high notion of therights of Kings and Queens to do anything they liked, sent an army toScotland to support the Reformers, who were in arms against theirsovereign. All these proceedings led to a treaty of peace at Edinburgh, under which the French consented to depart from the kingdom. By aseparate treaty, Mary and her young husband engaged to renounce theirassumed title of King and Queen of England. But this treaty they neverfulfilled. 

It happened, soon after matters had got to this state, that the youngFrench King died, leaving Mary a young widow. She was then invited byher Scottish subjects to return home and reign over them; and as she wasnot now happy where she was, she, after a little time, complied. 

Elizabeth had been Queen three years, when Mary Queen of Scots embarkedat Calais for her own rough, quarrelling country. As she came out of theharbour, 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 quitedark. When she went to bed, she directed to be called at daybreak, ifthe French coast were still visible, that she might behold it for thelast time. As it proved to be a clear morning, this was done, and sheagain wept for the country she was leaving, and said many times, 'Farewell, France! Farewell, France! I shall never see thee again!' Allthis was long remembered afterwards, as sorrowful and interesting in afair young princess of nineteen. Indeed, I am afraid it gradually came, together with her other distresses, to surround her with greater sympathythan she deserved. 

When she came to Scotland, and took up her abode at the palace ofHolyrood in Edinburgh, she found herself among uncouth strangers and wilduncomfortable customs very different from her experiences in the court ofFrance. The very people who were disposed to love her, made her headache when she was tired out by her voyage, with a serenade of discordantmusic--a fearful concert of bagpipes, I suppose--and brought her and hertrain home to her palace on miserable little Scotch horses that appearedto be half starved. Among the people who were not disposed to love her, she found the powerful leaders of the Reformed Church, who were bitterupon her amusements, however innocent, and denounced music and dancing asworks of the devil. John Knox himself often lectured her, violently andangrily, and did much to make her life unhappy. All these reasonsconfirmed her old attachment to the Romish religion, and caused her, there is no doubt, most imprudently and dangerously both for herself andfor England too, to give a solemn pledge to the heads of the RomishChurch that if she ever succeeded to the English crown, she would set upthat religion again. In reading her unhappy history, you must alwaysremember this; and also that during her whole life she was constantly putforward against the Queen, in some form or other, by the Romish party. 

That Elizabeth, on the other hand, was not inclined to like her, ispretty certain. Elizabeth was very vain and jealous, and had anextraordinary dislike to people being married. She treated LadyCatherine Grey, sister of the beheaded Lady Jane, with such shamefulseverity, for no other reason than her being secretly married, that shedied and her husband was ruined; so, when a second marriage for Marybegan to be talked about, probably Elizabeth disliked her more. Not thatElizabeth wanted suitors of her own, for they started up from Spain, Austria, Sweden, and England. Her English lover at this time, and onewhom she much favoured too, was LORD ROBERT DUDLEY, Earl ofLeicester--himself secretly married to AMY ROBSART, the daughter of anEnglish gentleman, whom he was strongly suspected of causing to bemurdered, down at his country seat, Cumnor Hall in Berkshire, that hemight be free to marry the Queen. Upon this story, the great writer, SIRWALTER SCOTT, has founded one of his best romances. But if Elizabethknew how to lead her handsome favourite on, for her own vanity andpleasure, she knew how to stop him for her own pride; and his love, andall the other proposals, came to nothing. The Queen always declared ingood set speeches, that she would never be married at all, but would liveand die a Maiden Queen. It was a very pleasant and meritoriousdeclaration, I suppose; but it has been puffed and trumpeted so much, that I am rather tired of it myself. 

Divers princes proposed to marry Mary, but the English court had reasonsfor being jealous of them all, and even proposed as a matter of policythat she should marry that very Earl of Leicester who had aspired to bethe husband of Elizabeth. At last, LORD DARNLEY, son of the Earl ofLennox, and himself descended from the Royal Family of Scotland, wentover with Elizabeth's consent to try his fortune at Holyrood. He was atall simpleton; and could dance and play the guitar; but I know ofnothing else he could do, unless it were to get very drunk, and eatgluttonously, and make a contemptible spectacle of himself in many meanand vain ways. However, he gained Mary's heart, not disdaining in thepursuit of his object to ally himself with one of her secretaries, DAVIDRIZZIO, who had great influence with her. He soon married the Queen. This marriage does not say much for her, but what followed will presentlysay less. 

Mary's brother, the EARL OF MURRAY, and head of the Protestant party inScotland, had opposed this marriage, partly on religious grounds, andpartly perhaps from personal dislike of the very contemptible bridegroom. When it had taken place, through Mary's gaining over to it the morepowerful of the lords about her, she banished Murray for his pains; and, when he and some other nobles rose in arms to support the reformedreligion, she herself, within a month of her wedding day, rode againstthem in armour with loaded pistols in her saddle. Driven out ofScotland, they presented themselves before Elizabeth--who called themtraitors in public, and assisted them in private, according to her craftynature. 

Mary had been married but a little while, when she began to hate herhusband, who, in his turn, began to hate that David Rizzio, with whom hehad 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 RUTHVENand three other lords to get rid of him by murder. This wicked agreementthey made in solemn secrecy upon the first of March, fifteen hundred andsixty-six, and on the night of Saturday the ninth, the conspirators werebrought by Darnley up a private staircase, dark and steep, into a rangeof rooms where they knew that Mary was sitting at supper with her sister, Lady Argyle, and this doomed man. When they went into the room, Darnleytook the Queen round the waist, and Lord Ruthven, who had risen from abed of sickness to do this murder, came in, gaunt and ghastly, leaning ontwo men. Rizzio ran behind the Queen for shelter and protection. 'Lethim 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 willthat he remain here. ' They then set upon him, struggled with him, overturned the table, dragged him out, and killed him with fifty-sixstabs. 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 thetall idiot to abandon the conspirators and fly with her to Dunbar. There, he issued a proclamation, audaciously and falsely denying that he had anyknowledge of the late bloody business; and there they were joined by theEARL BOTHWELL and some other nobles. With their help, they raised eightthousand men; returned to Edinburgh, and drove the assassins intoEngland. Mary soon afterwards gave birth to a son--still thinking ofrevenge. 

That she should have had a greater scorn for her husband after his latecowardice and treachery than she had had before, was natural enough. There is little doubt that she now began to love Bothwell instead, and toplan with him means of getting rid of Darnley. Bothwell had such powerover her that he induced her even to pardon the assassins of Rizzio. Thearrangements for the Christening of the young Prince were entrusted tohim, and he was one of the most important people at the ceremony, wherethe child was named JAMES: Elizabeth being his godmother, though notpresent on the occasion. A week afterwards, Darnley, who had left Maryand 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 toapprehend that this was merely a show and a pretence, and that she knewwhat was doing, when Bothwell within another month proposed to one of thelate conspirators against Rizzio, to murder Darnley, 'for that it was theQueen's mind that he should be taken away. ' It is certain that on thatvery day she wrote to her ambassador in France, complaining of him, andyet 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, shesucceeded to her heart's content; for she induced him to go back with herto Edinburgh, and to occupy, instead of the palace, a lone house outsidethe city called the Kirk of Field. Here, he lived for about a week. OneSunday 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 celebrationof the marriage of one of her favourite servants. At two o'clock in themorning the city was shaken by a great explosion, and the Kirk of Fieldwas blown to atoms. 

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 thiscrime came to be so clumsily and strangely committed, it is impossible todiscover. The deceitful character of Mary, and the deceitful characterof Elizabeth, have rendered almost every part of their joint historyuncertain and obscure. But, I fear that Mary was unquestionably a partyto her husband's murder, and that this was the revenge she hadthreatened. The Scotch people universally believed it. Voices cried outin the streets of Edinburgh in the dead of the night, for justice on themurderess. Placards were posted by unknown hands in the public placesdenouncing 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 indignationof the people knew no bounds. The women particularly are described ashaving been quite frantic against the Queen, and to have hooted and criedafter her in the streets with terrific vehemence. 

Such guilty unions seldom prosper. This husband and wife had livedtogether but a month, when they were separated for ever by the successesof a band of Scotch nobles who associated against them for the protectionof the young Prince: whom Bothwell had vainly endeavoured to lay hold of, and whom he would certainly have murdered, if the EARL OF MAR, in whosehands the boy was, had not been firmly and honourably faithful to histrust. Before this angry power, Bothwell fled abroad, where he died, aprisoner and mad, nine miserable years afterwards. Mary being found bythe associated lords to deceive them at every turn, was sent a prisonerto Lochleven Castle; which, as it stood in the midst of a lake, couldonly be approached by boat. Here, one LORD LINDSAY, who was so much of abrute that the nobles would have done better if they had chosen a meregentleman for their messenger, made her sign her abdication, and appointMurray, Regent of Scotland. Here, too, Murray saw her in a sorrowing andhumbled state. 

She had better have remained in the castle of Lochleven, dull prison asit was, with the rippling of the lake against it, and the moving shadowsof the water on the room walls; but she could not rest there, and morethan once tried to escape. The first time she had nearly succeeded, dressed in the clothes of her own washer-woman, but, putting up her handto prevent one of the boatmen from lifting her veil, the men suspectedher, seeing how white it was, and rowed her back again. A short timeafterwards, her fascinating manners enlisted in her cause a boy in theCastle, called the little DOUGLAS, who, while the family were at supper, stole the keys of the great gate, went softly out with the Queen, lockedthe gate on the outside, and rowed her away across the lake, sinking thekeys as they went along. On the opposite shore she was met by anotherDouglas, and some few lords; and, so accompanied, rode away on horsebackto Hamilton, where they raised three thousand men. Here, she issued aproclamation declaring that the abdication she had signed in her prisonwas illegal, and requiring the Regent to yield to his lawful Queen. Beinga steady soldier, and in no way discomposed although he was without anarmy, Murray pretended to treat with her, until he had collected a forceabout half equal to her own, and then he gave her battle. In one quarterof an hour he cut down all her hopes. She had another weary ride onhorse-back of sixty long Scotch miles, and took shelter at DundrennanAbbey, whence she fled for safety to Elizabeth's dominions. 

Mary Queen of Scots came to England--to her own ruin, the trouble of thekingdom, and the misery and death of many--in the year one thousand fivehundred and sixty-eight. How she left it and the world, nineteen yearsafterwards, we have now to see. 

SECOND PART

When Mary Queen of Scots arrived in England, without money and evenwithout any other clothes than those she wore, she wrote to Elizabeth, representing herself as an innocent and injured piece of Royalty, andentreating her assistance to oblige her Scottish subjects to take herback again and obey her. But, as her character was already known inEngland to be a very different one from what she made it out to be, shewas told in answer that she must first clear herself. Made uneasy bythis condition, Mary, rather than stay in England, would have gone toSpain, or to France, or would even have gone back to Scotland. But, asher doing either would have been likely to trouble England afresh, it wasdecided that she should be detained here. She first came to Carlisle, and, after that, was moved about from castle to castle, as was considerednecessary; but England she never left again. 

After trying very hard to get rid of the necessity of clearing herself, Mary, advised by LORD HERRIES, her best friend in England, agreed toanswer the charges against her, if the Scottish noblemen who made themwould attend to maintain them before such English noblemen as Elizabethmight appoint for that purpose. Accordingly, such an assembly, under thename of a conference, met, first at York, and afterwards at HamptonCourt. In its presence Lord Lennox, Darnley's father, openly chargedMary with the murder of his son; and whatever Mary's friends may now sayor write in her behalf, there is no doubt that, when her brother Murrayproduced against her a casket containing certain guilty letters andverses which he stated to have passed between her and Bothwell, shewithdrew from the inquiry. Consequently, it is to be supposed that shewas then considered guilty by those who had the best opportunities ofjudging of the truth, and that the feeling which afterwards arose in herbehalf 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 againstElizabeth, conceived a strong idea that he would like to marry the Queenof Scots--though he was a little frightened, too, by the letters in thecasket. This idea being secretly encouraged by some of the noblemen ofElizabeth's court, and even by the favourite Earl of Leicester (becauseit was objected to by other favourites who were his rivals), Maryexpressed her approval of it, and the King of France and the King ofSpain 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 becareful what sort of pillow he was going to lay his head upon. ' He madea humble reply at the time; but turned sulky soon afterwards, and, beingconsidered dangerous, was sent to the Tower. 

Thus, from the moment of Mary's coming to England she began to be thecentre of plots and miseries. 

A rise of the Catholics in the north was the next of these, and it wasonly checked by many executions and much bloodshed. It was followed by agreat conspiracy of the Pope and some of the Catholic sovereigns ofEurope to depose Elizabeth, place Mary on the throne, and restore theunreformed religion. It is almost impossible to doubt that Mary knew andapproved of this; and the Pope himself was so hot in the matter that heissued a bull, in which he openly called Elizabeth the 'pretended Queen'of England, excommunicated her, and excommunicated all her subjects whoshould continue to obey her. A copy of this miserable paper got intoLondon, and was found one morning publicly posted on the Bishop ofLondon's gate. A great hue and cry being raised, another copy was foundin the chamber of a student of Lincoln's Inn, who confessed, being putupon the rack, that he had received it from one JOHN FELTON, a richgentleman who lived across the Thames, near Southwark. This John Felton, being put upon the rack too, confessed that he had posted the placard onthe Bishop's gate. For this offence he was, within four days, taken toSt. Paul's Churchyard, and there hanged and quartered. As to the Pope'sbull, the people by the reformation having thrown off the Pope, did notcare much, you may suppose, for the Pope's throwing off them. It was amere 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 ofNorfolk was released. It would have been well for him if he had keptaway from the Tower evermore, and from the snares that had taken himthere. But, even while he was in that dismal place he corresponded withMary, and as soon as he was out of it, he began to plot again. Beingdiscovered in correspondence with the Pope, with a view to a rising inEngland which should force Elizabeth to consent to his marriage with Maryand to repeal the laws against the Catholics, he was re-committed to theTower and brought to trial. He was found guilty by the unanimous verdictof the Lords who tried him, and was sentenced to the block. 

It is very difficult to make out, at this distance of time, and betweenopposite accounts, whether Elizabeth really was a humane woman, ordesired to appear so, or was fearful of shedding the blood of people ofgreat name who were popular in the country. Twice she commanded andcountermanded the execution of this Duke, and it did not take place untilfive months after his trial. The scaffold was erected on Tower Hill, andthere 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 thejustice of his sentence, and was much regretted by the people. 

Although Mary had shrunk at the most important time from disproving herguilt, she was very careful never to do anything that would admit it. Allsuch proposals as were made to her by Elizabeth for her release, requiredthat admission in some form or other, and therefore came to nothing. Moreover, both women being artful and treacherous, and neither evertrusting the other, it was not likely that they could ever make anagreement. So, the Parliament, aggravated by what the Pope had done, made new and strong laws against the spreading of the Catholic religionin England, and declared it treason in any one to say that the Queen andher successors were not the lawful sovereigns of England. It would havedone more than this, but for Elizabeth's moderation. 

Since the Reformation, there had come to be three great sects ofreligious people--or people who called themselves so--in England; that isto say, those who belonged to the Reformed Church, those who belonged tothe Unreformed Church, and those who were called the Puritans, becausethey said that they wanted to have everything very pure and plain in allthe Church service. These last were for the most part an uncomfortablepeople, who thought it highly meritorious to dress in a hideous manner, talk through their noses, and oppose all harmless enjoyments. But theywere powerful too, and very much in earnest, and they were one and allthe determined enemies of the Queen of Scots. The Protestant feeling inEngland was further strengthened by the tremendous cruelties to whichProtestants were exposed in France and in the Netherlands. Scores ofthousands of them were put to death in those countries with every crueltythat can be imagined, and at last, in the autumn of the year one thousandfive hundred and seventy-two, one of the greatest barbarities evercommitted in the world took place at Paris. 

It is called in history, THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW, because ittook place on Saint Bartholomew's Eve. The day fell on Saturday thetwenty-third of August. On that day all the great leaders of theProtestants (who were there called HUGUENOTS) were assembled together, for the purpose, as was represented to them, of doing honour to themarriage of their chief, the young King of Navarre, with the sister ofCHARLES THE NINTH: a miserable young King who then occupied the Frenchthrone. This dull creature was made to believe by his mother and otherfierce Catholics about him that the Huguenots meant to take his life; andhe was persuaded to give secret orders that, on the tolling of a greatbell, they should be fallen upon by an overpowering force of armed men, and slaughtered wherever they could be found. When the appointed hourwas close at hand, the stupid wretch, trembling from head to foot, wastaken into a balcony by his mother to see the atrocious work begun. Themoment the bell tolled, the murderers broke forth. During all that nightand the two next days, they broke into the houses, fired the houses, shotand stabbed the Protestants, men, women, and children, and flung theirbodies into the streets. They were shot at in the streets as they passedalong, and their blood ran down the gutters. Upwards of ten thousandProtestants were killed in Paris alone; in all France four or five timesthat number. To return thanks to Heaven for these diabolical murders, the Pope and his train actually went in public procession at Rome, and asif this were not shame enough for them, they had a medal struck tocommemorate the event. But, however comfortable the wholesale murderswere to these high authorities, they had not that soothing effect uponthe doll-King. I am happy to state that he never knew a moment's peaceafterwards; that he was continually crying out that he saw the Huguenotscovered with blood and wounds falling dead before him; and that he diedwithin a year, shrieking and yelling and raving to that degree, that ifall the Popes who had ever lived had been rolled into one, they would nothave afforded His guilty Majesty the slightest consolation. 

When the terrible news of the massacre arrived in England, it made apowerful impression indeed upon the people. If they began to run alittle wild against the Catholics at about this time, this fearful reasonfor it, coming so soon after the days of bloody Queen Mary, must beremembered in their excuse. The Court was not quite so honest as thepeople--but perhaps it sometimes is not. It received the Frenchambassador, with all the lords and ladies dressed in deep mourning, andkeeping a profound silence. Nevertheless, a proposal of marriage whichhe had made to Elizabeth only two days before the eve of SaintBartholomew, on behalf of the Duke of Alencon, the French King's brother, a boy of seventeen, still went on; while on the other hand, in her usualcrafty way, the Queen secretly supplied the Huguenots with money andweapons. 

I must say that for a Queen who made all those fine speeches, of which Ihave confessed myself to be rather tired, about living and dying a MaidenQueen, Elizabeth was 'going' to be married pretty often. Besides alwayshaving some English favourite or other whom she by turns encouraged andswore at and knocked about--for the maiden Queen was very free with herfists--she held this French Duke off and on through several years. Whenhe at last came over to England, the marriage articles were actuallydrawn up, and it was settled that the wedding should take place in sixweeks. The Queen was then so bent upon it, that she prosecuted a poorPuritan named STUBBS, and a poor bookseller named PAGE, for writing andpublishing a pamphlet against it. Their right hands were chopped off forthis crime; and poor Stubbs--more loyal than I should have been myselfunder the circumstances--immediately pulled off his hat with his lefthand, and cried, 'God save the Queen!' Stubbs was cruelly treated; forthe marriage never took place after all, though the Queen pledged herselfto the Duke with a ring from her own finger. He went away, no betterthan he came, when the courtship had lasted some ten years altogether;and he died a couple of years afterwards, mourned by Elizabeth, whoappears 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 werevery busy in England, and who were much dreaded. These were the JESUITS(who were everywhere in all sorts of disguises), and the SEMINARYPRIESTS. The people had a great horror of the first, because they wereknown to have taught that murder was lawful if it were done with anobject 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, andwere most unmercifully executed. Those who sheltered them in theirhouses often suffered heavily for what was an act of humanity; and therack, that cruel torture which tore men's limbs asunder, was constantlykept going. What these unhappy men confessed, or what was ever confessedby any one under that agony, must always be received with great doubt, asit is certain that people have frequently owned to the most absurd andimpossible crimes to escape such dreadful suffering. But I cannot doubtit to have been proved by papers, that there were many plots, both amongthe Jesuits, and with France, and with Scotland, and with Spain, for thedestruction of Queen Elizabeth, 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, asI have said, good reasons for it. When the massacre of Saint Bartholomewwas yet fresh in their recollection, a great Protestant Dutch hero, thePRINCE OF ORANGE, was shot by an assassin, who confessed that he had beenkept and trained for the purpose in a college of Jesuits. The Dutch, inthis surprise and distress, offered to make Elizabeth their sovereign, but she declined the honour, and sent them a small army instead, underthe command of the Earl of Leicester, who, although a capital Courtfavourite, was not much of a general. He did so little in Holland, thathis campaign there would probably have been forgotten, but for itsoccasioning the death of one of the best writers, the best knights, andthe best gentlemen, of that or any age. This was SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, whowas 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, whensome water, for which he had eagerly asked, was handed to him. But hewas so good and gentle even then, that seeing a poor badly wounded commonsoldier lying on the ground, looking at the water with longing eyes, hesaid, 'Thy necessity is greater than mine, ' and gave it up to him. Thistouching action of a noble heart is perhaps as well known as any incidentin history--is as famous far and wide as the blood-stained Tower ofLondon, with its axe, and block, and murders out of number. Sodelightful is an act of true humanity, and so glad are mankind toremember it. 

At home, intelligence of plots began to thicken every day. I suppose thepeople never did live under such continual terrors as those by which theywere possessed now, of Catholic risings, and burnings, and poisonings, and I don't know what. Still, we must always remember that they livednear and close to awful realities of that kind, and that with theirexperience it was not difficult to believe in any enormity. Thegovernment had the same fear, and did not take the best means ofdiscovering the truth--for, besides torturing the suspected, it employedpaid spies, who will always lie for their own profit. It even made someof the conspiracies it brought to light, by sending false letters todisaffected people, inviting them to join in pretended plots, which theytoo readily did. 

But, one great real plot was at length discovered, and it ended thecareer of Mary, Queen of Scots. A seminary priest named BALLARD, and aSpanish soldier named SAVAGE, set on and encouraged by certain Frenchpriests, imparted a design to one ANTONY BABINGTON--a gentleman offortune in Derbyshire, who had been for some time a secret agent ofMary's--for murdering the Queen. Babington then confided the scheme tosome other Catholic gentlemen who were his friends, and they joined in itheartily. They were vain, weak-headed young men, ridiculously confident, and preposterously proud of their plan; for they got a gimcrack paintingmade, of the six choice spirits who were to murder Elizabeth, withBabington in an attitude for the centre figure. Two of their number, however, one of whom was a priest, kept Elizabeth's wisest minister, SIRFRANCIS WALSINGHAM, acquainted with the whole project from the first. Theconspirators were completely deceived to the final point, when Babingtongave Savage, because he was shabby, a ring from his finger, and somemoney from his purse, wherewith to buy himself new clothes in which tokill the Queen. Walsingham, having then full evidence against the wholeband, and two letters of Mary's besides, resolved to seize them. Suspecting something wrong, they stole out of the city, one by one, andhid themselves in St. John's Wood, and other places which really werehiding places then; but they were all taken, and all executed. When theywere seized, a gentleman was sent from Court to inform Mary of the fact, and of her being involved in the discovery. Her friends have complainedthat she was kept in very hard and severe custody. It does not appearvery likely, for she was going out a hunting that very morning. 

Queen Elizabeth had been warned long ago, by one in France who had goodinformation of what was secretly doing, that in holding Mary alive, sheheld 'the wolf who would devour her. ' The Bishop of London had, morelately, 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 wrote a little note home fromHolland, recommending that she should be quietly poisoned; that noblefavourite having accustomed his mind, it is possible, to remedies of thatnature. His black advice, however, was disregarded, and she was broughtto trial at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire, before a tribunal offorty, composed of both religions. There, and in the Star Chamber atWestminster, the trial lasted a fortnight. She defended herself withgreat ability, but could only deny the confessions that had been made byBabington and others; could only call her own letters, produced againsther by her own secretaries, forgeries; and, in short, could only denyeverything. She was found guilty, and declared to have incurred thepenalty of death. The Parliament met, approved the sentence, and prayedthe Queen to have it executed. The Queen replied that she requested themto consider whether no means could be found of saving Mary's life withoutendangering her own. The Parliament rejoined, No; and the citizensilluminated their houses and lighted bonfires, in token of their joy thatall these plots and troubles were to be ended by the death of the Queenof Scots. 

{Mary Queen of Scots Reading the death warrant: p240. Jpg}

She, feeling sure that her time was now come, wrote a letter to the Queenof England, making three entreaties; first, that she might be buried inFrance; secondly, that she might not be executed in secret, but beforeher servants and some others; thirdly, that after her death, her servantsshould not be molested, but should be suffered to go home with thelegacies she left them. It was an affecting letter, and Elizabeth shedtears over it, but sent no answer. Then came a special ambassador fromFrance, and another from Scotland, to intercede for Mary's life; and thenthe nation began to clamour, more and more, for her death. 

What the real feelings or intentions of Elizabeth were, can never beknown now; but I strongly suspect her of only wishing one thing more thanMary's death, and that was to keep free of the blame of it. On the firstof February, one thousand five hundred and eighty-seven, Lord Burleighhaving drawn out the warrant for the execution, the Queen sent to thesecretary DAVISON to bring it to her, that she might sign it: which shedid. Next day, when Davison told her it was sealed, she angrily askedhim why such haste was necessary? Next day but one, she joked about it, and swore a little. Again, next day but one, she seemed to complain thatit was not yet done, but still she would not be plain with those abouther. So, on the seventh, the Earls of Kent and Shrewsbury, with theSheriff of Northamptonshire, came with the warrant to Fotheringay, totell 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, slept for somehours, and then arose and passed the remainder of the night sayingprayers. In the morning she dressed herself in her best clothes; and, ateight o'clock when the sheriff came for her to her chapel, took leave ofher 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 ofher 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 andcovered with black; and where the executioner from the Tower, and hisassistant, stood, dressed in black velvet. The hall was full of people. While the sentence was being read she sat upon a stool; and, when it wasfinished, she again denied her guilt, as she had done before. The Earlof Kent and the Dean of Peterborough, in their Protestant zeal, made somevery unnecessary speeches to her; to which she replied that she died inthe Catholic religion, and they need not trouble themselves about thatmatter. When her head and neck were uncovered by the executioners, shesaid that she had not been used to be undressed by such hands, or beforeso much company. Finally, one of her women fastened a cloth over herface, and she laid her neck upon the block, and repeated more than oncein Latin, 'Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit!' Some say herhead 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 thefalse hair she had long worn was seen to be as grey as that of a woman ofseventy, though she was at that time only in her forty-sixth year. Allher beauty was gone. 

But she was beautiful enough to her little dog, who cowered under herdress, frightened, when she went upon the scaffold, and who lay downbeside her headless body when all her earthly sorrows were over. 

THIRD PART

On its being formally made known to Elizabeth that the sentence had beenexecuted on the Queen of Scots, she showed the utmost grief and rage, drove her favourites from her with violent indignation, and sent Davisonto the Tower; from which place he was only released in the end by payingan immense fine which completely ruined him. Elizabeth not only over-acted her part in making these pretences, but most basely reduced topoverty one of her faithful servants for no other fault than obeying hercommands. 

James, King of Scotland, Mary's son, made a show likewise of being veryangry on the occasion; but he was a pensioner of England to the amount offive 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 soontook it quietly. 

Philip, King of Spain, however, threatened to do greater things than everhad been done yet, to set up the Catholic religion and punish ProtestantEngland. Elizabeth, hearing that he and the Prince of Parma were makinggreat preparations for this purpose, in order to be beforehand with themsent out ADMIRAL DRAKE (a famous navigator, who had sailed about theworld, and had already brought great plunder from Spain) to the port ofCadiz, where he burnt a hundred vessels full of stores. This great lossobliged the Spaniards to put off the invasion for a year; but it was nonethe 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 inmaking ready to resist this great force. All the men between sixteenyears old and sixty, were trained and drilled; the national fleet ofships (in number only thirty-four at first) was enlarged by publiccontributions and by private ships, fitted out by noblemen; the city ofLondon, of its own accord, furnished double the number of ships and menthat it was required to provide; and, if ever the national spirit was upin England, it was up all through the country to resist the Spaniards. Some of the Queen's advisers were for seizing the principal EnglishCatholics, 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, whicha parent would not believe of her own children--rejected the advice, andonly confined a few of those who were the most suspected, in the fens inLincolnshire. The great body of Catholics deserved this confidence; forthey behaved most loyally, nobly, and bravely. 

So, with all England firing up like one strong, angry man, and with bothsides of the Thames fortified, and with the soldiers under arms, and withthe sailors in their ships, the country waited for the coming of theproud Spanish fleet, which was called THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA. The Queenherself, riding in armour on a white horse, and the Earl of Essex and theEarl of Leicester holding her bridal rein, made a brave speech to thetroops at Tilbury Fort opposite Gravesend, which was received with suchenthusiasm as is seldom known. Then came the Spanish Armada into theEnglish Channel, sailing along in the form of a half moon, of such greatsize that it was seven miles broad. But the English were quickly uponit, and woe then to all the Spanish ships that dropped a little out ofthe half moon, for the English took them instantly! And it soon appearedthat the great Armada was anything but invincible, for on a summer night, bold Drake sent eight blazing fire-ships right into the midst of it. Interrible consternation the Spaniards tried to get out to sea, and sobecame dispersed; the English pursued them at a great advantage; a stormcame on, and drove the Spaniards among rocks and shoals; and the swiftend of the Invincible fleet was, that it lost thirty great ships and tenthousand men, and, defeated and disgraced, sailed home again. Beingafraid to go by the English Channel, it sailed all round Scotland andIreland; some of the ships getting cast away on the latter coast in badweather, the Irish, who were a kind of savages, plundered those vesselsand killed their crews. So ended this great attempt to invade andconquer England. And I think it will be a long time before any otherinvincible fleet coming to England with the same object, will fare muchbetter than the Spanish Armada. 

Though the Spanish king had had this bitter taste of English bravery, hewas 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 theEnglish throne. But the Earl of Essex, SIR WALTER RALEIGH, SIR THOMASHOWARD, and some other distinguished leaders, put to sea from Plymouth, entered the port of Cadiz once more, obtained a complete victory over theshipping assembled there, and got possession of the town. In obedienceto the Queen's express instructions, they behaved with great humanity;and the principal loss of the Spaniards was a vast sum of money whichthey had to pay for ransom. This was one of many gallant achievements onthe sea, effected in this reign. Sir Walter Raleigh himself, aftermarrying 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 Walsingham, whom Lord Burleigh was soon to follow. The principal favourite was theEARL OF ESSEX, a spirited and handsome man, a favourite with the peopletoo 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 orno, and he was very urgent for war. He also tried hard to have his ownway in the appointment of a deputy to govern in Ireland. One day, whilethis question was in dispute, he hastily took offence, and turned hisback upon the Queen; as a gentle reminder of which impropriety, the Queengave him a tremendous box on the ear, and told him to go to the devil. Hewent 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 seemedto be blended together. The Irish were still perpetually quarrelling andfighting among themselves, and he went over to Ireland as LordLieutenant, to the great joy of his enemies (Sir Walter Raleigh among therest), who were glad to have so dangerous a rival far off. Not being byany means successful there, and knowing that his enemies would takeadvantage of that circumstance to injure him with the Queen, he came homeagain, though against her orders. The Queen being taken by surprise whenhe appeared before her, gave him her hand to kiss, and he wasoverjoyed--though it was not a very lovely hand by this time--but in thecourse of the same day she ordered him to confine himself to his room, and two or three days afterwards had him taken into custody. With thesame sort of caprice--and as capricious an old woman she now was, as everwore a crown or a head either--she sent him broth from her own table onhis falling ill from anxiety, and cried about him. 

He was a man who could find comfort and occupation in his books, and hedid so for a time; not the least happy time, I dare say, of his life. Butit happened unfortunately for him, that he held a monopoly in sweetwines: which means that nobody could sell them without purchasing hispermission. This right, which was only for a term, expiring, he appliedto have it renewed. The Queen refused, with the rather strongobservation--but she _did_ make strong observations--that an unruly beastmust be stinted in his food. Upon this, the angry Earl, who had beenalready deprived of many offices, thought himself in danger of completeruin, and turned against the Queen, whom he called a vain old woman whohad grown as crooked in her mind as she had in her figure. Theseuncomplimentary expressions the ladies of the Court immediately snappedup and carried to the Queen, whom they did not put in a better tempter, you may believe. The same Court ladies, when they had beautiful darkhair of their own, used to wear false red hair, to be like the Queen. Sothey were not very high-spirited ladies, however high in rank. 

The worst object of the Earl of Essex, and some friends of his who usedto meet at LORD SOUTHAMPTON'S house, was to obtain possession of theQueen, and oblige her by force to dismiss her ministers and change herfavourites. On Saturday the seventh of February, one thousand sixhundred and one, the council suspecting this, summoned the Earl to comebefore them. He, pretending to be ill, declined; it was then settledamong his friends, that as the next day would be Sunday, when many of thecitizens usually assembled at the Cross by St. Paul's Cathedral, heshould make one bold effort to induce them to rise and follow him to thePalace. 

So, on the Sunday morning, he and a small body of adherents started outof his house--Essex House by the Strand, with steps to the river--havingfirst shut up in it, as prisoners, some members of the council who cameto examine him--and hurried into the City with the Earl at their headcrying 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 wereno citizens there. In the meantime the prisoners at Essex House had beenreleased by one of the Earl's own friends; he had been promptlyproclaimed a traitor in the City itself; and the streets were barricadedwith carts and guarded by soldiers. The Earl got back to his house bywater, with difficulty, and after an attempt to defend his house againstthe troops and cannon by which it was soon surrounded, gave himself upthat night. He was brought to trial on the nineteenth, and found guilty;on the twenty-fifth, he was executed on Tower Hill, where he died, atthirty-four years old, both courageously and penitently. His step-fathersuffered with him. His enemy, Sir Walter Raleigh, stood near thescaffold 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 ofScots, the Queen had commanded, and countermanded, and again commanded, the execution. It is probable that the death of her young and gallantfavourite in the prime of his good qualities, was never off her mindafterwards, but she held out, the same vain, obstinate and capriciouswoman, for another year. Then she danced before her Court on a stateoccasion--and cut, I should think, a mighty ridiculous figure, doing soin an immense ruff, stomacher and wig, at seventy years old. For anotheryear still, she held out, but, without any more dancing, and as a moody, sorrowful, broken creature. At last, on the tenth of March, one thousandsix hundred and three, having been ill of a very bad cold, and made worseby 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 herconsciousness, 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 upagain. There she lay for ten days, on cushions on the floor, without anyfood, until the Lord Admiral got her into bed at last, partly bypersuasions and partly by main force. When they asked her who shouldsucceed her, she replied that her seat had been the seat of Kings, andthat 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 libertyof asking whom she meant; to which she replied, 'Whom should I mean, butour cousin of Scotland!' This was on the twenty-third of March. Theyasked her once again that day, after she was speechless, whether she wasstill in the same mind? She struggled up in bed, and joined her handsover 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-fifthyear of her reign. 

That reign had been a glorious one, and is made for ever memorable by thedistinguished men who flourished in it. Apart from the great voyagers, statesmen, and scholars, whom it produced, the names of BACON, SPENSER, and SHAKESPEARE, will always be remembered with pride and veneration bythe 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 Englishenterprise and spirit in general. It was a great reign for theProtestant religion and for the Reformation which made England free. TheQueen was very popular, and in her progresses, or journeys about herdominions, was everywhere received with the liveliest joy. I think thetruth is, that she was not half so good as she has been made out, and nothalf so bad as she has been made out. She had her fine qualities, butshe was coarse, capricious, and treacherous, and had all the faults of anexcessively vain young woman long after she was an old one. On thewhole, 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 thesefive-and-forty years in the general manner of living; but cock-fighting, bull-baiting, and bear-baiting, were still the national amusements; and acoach was so rarely seen, and was such an ugly and cumbersome affair whenit was seen, that even the Queen herself, on many high occasions, rode onhorseback on a pillion behind the Lord Chancellor. 

CHAPTER XXXII--ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST

'Our cousin of Scotland' was ugly, awkward, and shuffling both in mindand person. His tongue was much too large for his mouth, his legs weremuch too weak for his body, and his dull goggle-eyes stared and rolledlike an idiot's. He was cunning, covetous, wasteful, idle, drunken, greedy, dirty, cowardly, a great swearer, and the most conceited man onearth. His figure--what is commonly called rickety from hisbirth--presented a most ridiculous appearance, dressed in thick paddedclothes, as a safeguard against being stabbed (of which he lived incontinual fear), of a grass-green colour from head to foot, with ahunting-horn dangling at his side instead of a sword, and his hat andfeather sticking over one eye, or hanging on the back of his head, as hehappened to toss it on. He used to loll on the necks of his favouritecourtiers, and slobber their faces, and kiss and pinch their cheeks; andthe greatest favourite he ever had, used to sign himself in his lettersto his royal master, His Majesty's 'dog and slave, ' and used to addresshis 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 inall manner of argument. He wrote some of the most wearisome treatisesever read--among others, a book upon witchcraft, in which he was a devoutbeliever--and thought himself a prodigy of authorship. He thought, andwrote, and said, that a king had a right to make and unmake what laws hepleased, and ought to be accountable to nobody on earth. This is theplain, true character of the personage whom the greatest men about thecourt praised and flattered to that degree, that I doubt if there beanything much more shameful in the annals of human nature. 

He came to the English throne with great ease. The miseries of adisputed succession had been felt so long, and so dreadfully, that he wasproclaimed within a few hours of Elizabeth's death, and was accepted bythe nation, even without being asked to give any pledge that he wouldgovern well, or that he would redress crying grievances. He took a monthto come from Edinburgh to London; and, by way of exercising his newpower, hanged a pickpocket on the journey without any trial, and knightedeverybody he could lay hold of. He made two hundred knights before hegot to his palace in London, and seven hundred before he had been in itthree months. He also shovelled sixty-two new peers into the House ofLords--and there was a pretty large sprinkling of Scotchmen among them, you may believe. 

His Sowship's prime Minister, CECIL (for I cannot do better than call hismajesty what his favourite called him), was the enemy of Sir WalterRaleigh, and also of Sir Walter's political friend, LORD COBHAM; and hisSowship's first trouble was a plot originated by these two, and enteredinto by some others, with the old object of seizing the King and keepinghim in imprisonment until he should change his ministers. There wereCatholic 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 hehad a design against both, after pretending to be friendly to each; thisdesign being to have only one high and convenient form of the Protestantreligion, which everybody should be bound to belong to, whether theyliked it or not. This plot was mixed up with another, which may or maynot have had some reference to placing on the throne, at some time, theLADY ARABELLA STUART; whose misfortune it was, to be the daughter of theyounger brother of his Sowship's father, but who was quite innocent ofany part in the scheme. Sir Walter Raleigh was accused on the confessionof Lord Cobham--a miserable creature, who said one thing at one time, andanother thing at another time, and could be relied upon in nothing. Thetrial of Sir Walter Raleigh lasted from eight in the morning until nearlymidnight; he defended himself with such eloquence, genius, and spiritagainst all accusations, and against the insults of COKE, the Attorney-General--who, according to the custom of the time, foully abused him--thatthose who went there detesting the prisoner, came away admiring him, anddeclaring that anything so wonderful and so captivating was never heard. He was found guilty, nevertheless, and sentenced to death. Execution wasdeferred, and he was taken to the Tower. The two Catholic priests, lessfortunate, were executed with the usual atrocity; and Lord Cobham and twoothers were pardoned on the scaffold. His Sowship thought it wonderfullyknowing in him to surprise the people by pardoning these three at thevery block; but, blundering, and bungling, as usual, he had very nearlyoverreached himself. For, the messenger on horseback who brought thepardon, came so late, that he was pushed to the outside of the crowd, andwas obliged to shout and roar out what he came for. The miserable Cobhamdid not gain much by being spared that day. He lived, both as a prisonerand a beggar, utterly despised, and miserably poor, for thirteen years, and then died in an old outhouse belonging to one of his former servants. 

This plot got rid of, and Sir Walter Raleigh safely shut up in the Tower, his Sowship held a great dispute with the Puritans on their presenting apetition to him, and had it all his own way--not so very wonderful, as hewould talk continually, and would not hear anybody else--and filled theBishops with admiration. It was comfortably settled that there was to beonly one form of religion, and that all men were to think exactly alike. But, although this was arranged two centuries and a half ago, andalthough the arrangement was supported by much fining and imprisonment, Ido 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 wantedto control him. When he called his first Parliament after he had beenking a year, he accordingly thought he would take pretty high ground withthem, and told them that he commanded them 'as an absolute king. ' TheParliament thought those strong words, and saw the necessity of upholdingtheir authority. His Sowship had three children: Prince Henry, PrinceCharles, and the Princess Elizabeth. It would have been well for one ofthese, and we shall too soon see which, if he had learnt a little wisdomconcerning Parliaments from his father's obstinacy. 

Now, the people still labouring under their old dread of the Catholicreligion, this Parliament revived and strengthened the severe lawsagainst it. And this so angered ROBERT CATESBY, a restless Catholicgentleman of an old family, that he formed one of the most desperate andterrible designs ever conceived in the mind of man; no less a scheme thanthe Gunpowder Plot. 

His object was, when the King, lords, and commons, should be assembled atthe next opening of Parliament, to blow them up, one and all, with agreat mine of gunpowder. The first person to whom he confided thishorrible idea was THOMAS WINTER, a Worcestershire gentleman who hadserved in the army abroad, and had been secretly employed in Catholicprojects. While Winter was yet undecided, and when he had gone over tothe Netherlands, to learn from the Spanish Ambassador there whether therewas any hope of Catholics being relieved through the intercession of theKing of Spain with his Sowship, he found at Ostend a tall, dark, daringman, whom he had known when they were both soldiers abroad, and whosename was GUIDO--or GUY--FAWKES. Resolved to join the plot, he proposedit to this man, knowing him to be the man for any desperate deed, andthey two came back to England together. Here, they admitted two otherconspirators; THOMAS PERCY, related to the Earl of Northumberland, andJOHN WRIGHT, his brother-in-law. All these met together in a solitaryhouse in the open fields which were then near Clement's Inn, now aclosely blocked-up part of London; and when they had all taken a greatoath of secrecy, Catesby told the rest what his plan was. They then wentup-stairs into a garret, and received the Sacrament from FATHER GERARD, aJesuit, who is said not to have known actually of the Gunpowder Plot, butwho, I think, must have had his suspicions that there was somethingdesperate afoot. 

Percy was a Gentleman Pensioner, and as he had occasional duties toperform about the Court, then kept at Whitehall, there would be nothingsuspicious in his living at Westminster. So, having looked well abouthim, and having found a house to let, the back of which joined theParliament House, he hired it of a person named FERRIS, for the purposeof undermining the wall. Having got possession of this house, theconspirators hired another on the Lambeth side of the Thames, which theyused as a storehouse for wood, gunpowder, and other combustible matters. These were to be removed at night (and afterwards were removed), bit bybit, to the house at Westminster; and, that there might be some trustyperson to keep watch over the Lambeth stores, they admitted anotherconspirator, 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 themeantime dispersed to avoid observation, met in the house at Westminster, and began to dig. They had laid in a good stock of eatables, to avoidgoing in and out, and they dug and dug with great ardour. But, the wallbeing tremendously thick, and the work very severe, they took into theirplot CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT, a younger brother of John Wright, that theymight have a new pair of hands to help. And Christopher Wright fell tolike a fresh man, and they dug and dug by night and by day, and Fawkesstood sentinel all the time. And if any man's heart seemed to fail himat all, Fawkes said, 'Gentlemen, we have abundance of powder and shothere, and there is no fear of our being taken alive, even if discovered. 'The same Fawkes, who, in the capacity of sentinel, was always prowlingabout, soon picked up the intelligence that the King had prorogued theParliament again, from the seventh of February, the day first fixed upon, until the third of October. When the conspirators knew this, they agreedto separate until after the Christmas holidays, and to take no notice ofeach other in the meanwhile, and never to write letters to one another onany account. So, the house in Westminster was shut up again, and Isuppose the neighbours thought that those strange-looking men who livedthere so gloomily, and went out so seldom, were gone away to have a merryChristmas somewhere. 

It was the beginning of February, sixteen hundred and five, when Catesbymet his fellow-conspirators again at this Westminster house. He had nowadmitted three more; JOHN GRANT, a Warwickshire gentleman of a melancholytemper, who lived in a doleful house near Stratford-upon-Avon, with afrowning wall all round it, and a deep moat; ROBERT WINTER, eldestbrother of Thomas; and Catesby's own servant, THOMAS BATES, who, Catesbythought, had had some suspicion of what his master was about. Thesethree had all suffered more or less for their religion in Elizabeth'stime. And now, they all began to dig again, and they dug and dug bynight and by day. 

They found it dismal work alone there, underground, with such a fearfulsecret on their minds, and so many murders before them. They were filledwith wild fancies. Sometimes, they thought they heard a great belltolling, deep down in the earth under the Parliament 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 overtheir heads, as they dug and sweated in their mine. Every man stoppedand looked aghast at his neighbour, wondering what had happened, whenthat bold prowler, Fawkes, who had been out to look, came in and toldthem that it was only a dealer in coals who had occupied a cellar underthe Parliament House, removing his stock in trade to some other place. Upon this, the conspirators, who with all their digging and digging hadnot 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 fagotsand coals. Then they all dispersed again till September, when thefollowing new conspirators were admitted; SIR EDWARD BAYNHAM, ofGloucestershire; SIR EVERARD DIGBY, of Rutlandshire; AMBROSE ROOKWOOD, ofSuffolk; FRANCIS TRESHAM, of Northamptonshire. Most of these were rich, and were to assist the plot, some with money and some with horses onwhich the conspirators were to ride through the country and rouse theCatholics after the Parliament should be blown into air. 

Parliament being again prorogued from the third of October to the fifthof November, and the conspirators being uneasy lest their design shouldhave been found out, Thomas Winter said he would go up into the House ofLords on the day of the prorogation, and see how matters looked. Nothingcould be better. The unconscious Commissioners were walking about andtalking to one another, just over the six-and-thirty barrels ofgunpowder. He came back and told the rest so, and they went on withtheir 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 matchthe train that was to explode the powder. A number of Catholic gentlemennot in the secret, were invited, on pretence of a hunting party, to meetSir Everard Digby at Dunchurch on the fatal day, that they might be readyto act together. And now all was ready. 

But, now, the great wickedness and danger which had been all along at thebottom of this wicked plot, began to show itself. As the fifth ofNovember drew near, most of the conspirators, remembering that they hadfriends and relations who would be in the House of Lords that day, feltsome natural relenting, and a wish to warn them to keep away. They werenot much comforted by Catesby's declaring that in such a cause he wouldblow up his own son. LORD MOUNTEAGLE, Tresham's brother-in-law, wascertain to be in the house; and when Tresham found that he could notprevail upon the rest to devise any means of sparing their friends, hewrote a mysterious letter to this lord and left it at his lodging in thedusk, urging him to keep away from the opening of Parliament, 'since Godand man had concurred to punish the wickedness of the times. ' Itcontained the words 'that the Parliament should receive a terrible blow, and yet should not see who hurt them. ' And it added, 'the danger ispast, as soon as you have burnt the letter. '

The ministers and courtiers made out that his Sowship, by a directmiracle from Heaven, found out what this letter meant. The truth is, that they were not long (as few men would be) in finding out forthemselves; and it was decided to let the conspirators alone, until thevery day before the opening of Parliament. That the conspirators hadtheir fears, is certain; for, Tresham himself said before them all, thatthey 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 LordMounteagle. However, they were all firm; and Fawkes, who was a man ofiron, 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 LordChamberlain and Lord Mounteagle threw open the door and looked in. 'Whoare you, friend?' said they. 'Why, ' said Fawkes, 'I am Mr. Percy'sservant, and am looking after his store of fuel here. ' 'Your master haslaid in a pretty good store, ' they returned, and shut the door, and wentaway. Fawkes, upon this, posted off to the other conspirators to tellthem all was quiet, and went back and shut himself up in the dark, blackcellar again, where he heard the bell go twelve o'clock and usher in thefifth of November. About two hours afterwards, he slowly opened thedoor, and came out to look about him, in his old prowling way. He wasinstantly seized and bound, by a party of soldiers under SIR THOMASKNEVETT. He had a watch upon him, some touchwood, some tinder, some slowmatches; and there was a dark lantern with a candle in it, lighted, behind the door. He had his boots and spurs on--to ride to the ship, Isuppose--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 certainlywould 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), askedhim how he could have the heart to intend to destroy so many innocentpeople? 'Because, ' said Guy Fawkes, 'desperate diseases need desperateremedies. ' To a little Scotch favourite, with a face like a terrier, whoasked him (with no particular wisdom) why he had collected so muchgunpowder, he replied, because he had meant to blow Scotchmen back toScotland, and it would take a deal of powder to do that. Next day he wascarried to the Tower, but would make no confession. Even after beinghorribly tortured, he confessed nothing that the Government did notalready know; though he must have been in a fearful state--as hissignature, still preserved, in contrast with his natural hand-writingbefore 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 unmadethem, and died of an illness that was heavy upon him. Rookwood, who hadstationed relays of his own horses all the way to Dunchurch, did notmount to escape until the middle of the day, when the news of the plotwas all over London. On the road, he came up with the two Wrights, Catesby, and Percy; and they all galloped together into Northamptonshire. Thence to Dunchurch, where they found the proposed party assembled. Finding, however, that there had been a plot, and that it had beendiscovered, the party disappeared in the course of the night, and leftthem alone with Sir Everard Digby. Away they all rode again, throughWarwickshire and Worcestershire, to a house called Holbeach, on theborders of Staffordshire. They tried to raise the Catholics on theirway, but were indignantly driven off by them. All this time they werehotly pursued by the sheriff of Worcester, and a fast increasingconcourse of riders. At last, resolving to defend themselves atHolbeach, they shut themselves up in the house, and put some wet powderbefore the fire to dry. But it blew up, and Catesby was singed andblackened, and almost killed, and some of the others were sadly hurt. Still, knowing that they must die, they resolved to die there, and withonly their swords in their hands appeared at the windows to be shot at bythe sheriff and his assistants. Catesby said to Thomas Winter, afterThomas 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 shotthrough the body by two bullets from one gun. John Wright, andChristopher Wright, and Percy, were also shot. Rookwood and Digby weretaken: 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 suchof the other conspirators as were left alive, came on. They were allfound guilty, all hanged, drawn, and quartered: some, in St. Paul'sChurchyard, on the top of Ludgate-hill; some, before the ParliamentHouse. A Jesuit priest, named HENRY GARNET, to whom the dreadful designwas said to have been communicated, was taken and tried; and two of hisservants, as well as a poor priest who was taken with him, were torturedwithout mercy. He himself was not tortured, but was surrounded in theTower by tamperers and traitors, and so was made unfairly to convicthimself out of his own mouth. He said, upon his trial, that he had doneall he could to prevent the deed, and that he could not make public whathad been told him in confession--though I am afraid he knew of the plotin other ways. He was found guilty and executed, after a manful defence, and the Catholic Church made a saint of him; some rich and powerfulpersons, who had had nothing to do with the project, were fined andimprisoned for it by the Star Chamber; the Catholics, in general, who hadrecoiled with horror from the idea of the infernal contrivance, wereunjustly put under more severe laws than before; and this was the end ofthe Gunpowder Plot. 

SECOND PART

His Sowship would pretty willingly, I think, have blown the House ofCommons into the air himself; for, his dread and jealousy of it knew nobounds all through his reign. When he was hard pressed for money he wasobliged to order it to meet, as he could get no money without it; andwhen it asked him first to abolish some of the monopolies in necessariesof life which were a great grievance to the people, and to redress otherpublic wrongs, he flew into a rage and got rid of it again. At one timehe wanted it to consent to the Union of England with Scotland, andquarrelled about that. At another time it wanted him to put down a mostinfamous Church abuse, called the High Commission Court, and hequarrelled with it about that. At another time it entreated him not tobe quite so fond of his archbishops and bishops who made speeches in hispraise too awful to be related, but to have some little consideration forthe poor Puritan clergy who were persecuted for preaching in their ownway, and not according to the archbishops and bishops; and theyquarrelled about that. In short, what with hating the House of Commons, and pretending not to hate it; and what with now sending some of itsmembers who opposed him, to Newgate or to the Tower, and now telling therest that they must not presume to make speeches about the public affairswhich could not possibly concern them; and what with cajoling, andbullying, and fighting, and being frightened; the House of Commons wasthe plague of his Sowship's existence. It was pretty firm, however, inmaintaining its rights, and insisting that the Parliament should make thelaws, and not the King by his own single proclamations (which he triedhard to do); and his Sowship was so often distressed for money, inconsequence, that he sold every sort of title and public office as ifthey were merchandise, and even invented a new dignity called aBaronetcy, 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--occupied his Sowshippretty well. The rest of his time he chiefly passed in hugging andslobbering 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 morefamous one, was ROBERT CARR, or KER (for it is not certain which was hisright name), who came from the Border country, and whom he soon madeVISCOUNT ROCHESTER, and afterwards, EARL OF SOMERSET. The way in whichhis Sowship doted on this handsome young man, is even more odious tothink of, than the way in which the really great men of Englandcondescended to bow down before him. The favourite's great friend was acertain SIR THOMAS OVERBURY, who wrote his love-letters for him, andassisted him in the duties of his many high places, which his ownignorance prevented him from discharging. But this same Sir Thomashaving just manhood enough to dissuade the favourite from a wickedmarriage with the beautiful Countess of Essex, who was to get a divorcefrom her husband for the purpose, the said Countess, in her rage, got SirThomas put into the Tower, and there poisoned him. Then the favouriteand this bad woman were publicly married by the King's pet bishop, withas much to-do and rejoicing, as if he had been the best man, and she thebest woman, upon the face of the earth. 

But, after a longer sunshine than might have been expected--of sevenyears or so, that is to say--another handsome young man started up andeclipsed the EARL OF SOMERSET. This was GEORGE VILLIERS, the youngestson of a Leicestershire gentleman: who came to Court with all the Parisfashions on him, and could dance as well as the best mountebank that everwas 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 oncediscovered that the Earl and Countess of Somerset had not deserved allthose great promotions and mighty rejoicings, and they were separatelytried for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, and for other crimes. But, the King was so afraid of his late favourite's publicly telling somedisgraceful things he knew of him--which he darkly threatened to do--thathe was even examined with two men standing, one on either side of him, each with a cloak in his hand, ready to throw it over his head and stophis mouth if he should break out with what he had it in his power totell. So, a very lame affair was purposely made of the trial, and hispunishment 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 eachother some years. 

While these events were in progress, and while his Sowship was makingsuch an exhibition of himself, from day to day and from year to year, asis not often seen in any sty, three remarkable deaths took place inEngland. The first was that of the Minister, Robert Cecil, Earl ofSalisbury, who was past sixty, and had never been strong, being deformedfrom his birth. He said at last that he had no wish to live; and noMinister need have had, with his experience of the meanness andwickedness of those disgraceful times. The second was that of the LadyArabella Stuart, who alarmed his Sowship mightily, by privately marryingWILLIAM SEYMOUR, son of LORD BEAUCHAMP, who was a descendant of KingHenry the Seventh, and who, his Sowship thought, might consequentlyincrease 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 thrustinto a boat to be confined at Durham. She escaped in a man's dress toget away in a French ship from Gravesend to France, but unhappily missedher husband, who had escaped too, and was soon taken. She went ravingmad 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 apromising young prince, and greatly liked; a quiet, well-conducted youth, of whom two very good things are known: first, that his father wasjealous of him; secondly, that he was the friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, languishing through all those years in the Tower, and often said that noman but his father would keep such a bird in such a cage. On theoccasion of the preparations for the marriage of his sister the PrincessElizabeth with a foreign prince (and an unhappy marriage it turned out), he came from Richmond, where he had been very ill, to greet his newbrother-in-law, at the palace at Whitehall. There he played a great gameat tennis, in his shirt, though it was very cold weather, and was seizedwith an alarming illness, and died within a fortnight of a putrid fever. For this young prince Sir Walter Raleigh wrote, in his prison in theTower, the beginning of a History of the World: a wonderful instance howlittle his Sowship could do to confine a great man's mind, however longhe might imprison his body. 

And this mention of Sir Walter Raleigh, who had many faults, but whonever showed so many merits as in trouble and adversity, may bring me atonce to the end of his sad story. After an imprisonment in the Tower oftwelve long years, he proposed to resume those old sea voyages of his, and to go to South America in search of gold. His Sowship, dividedbetween his wish to be on good terms with the Spaniards through whoseterritory Sir Walter must pass (he had long had an idea of marryingPrince Henry to a Spanish Princess), and his avaricious eagerness to gethold of the gold, did not know what to do. But, in the end, he set SirWalter free, taking securities for his return; and Sir Walter fitted outan expedition at his own coast and, on the twenty-eighth of March, onethousand six hundred and seventeen, sailed away in command of one of itsships, which he ominously called the Destiny. The expedition failed; thecommon men, not finding the gold they had expected, mutinied; a quarrelbroke out between Sir Walter and the Spaniards, who hated him for oldsuccesses of his against them; and he took and burnt a little town calledSAINT THOMAS. For this he was denounced to his Sowship by the SpanishAmbassador as a pirate; and returning almost broken-hearted, with hishopes and fortunes shattered, his company of friends dispersed, and hisbrave son (who had been one of them) killed, he was taken--through thetreachery 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, SirWalter Raleigh was tried as unfairly, and with as many lies and evasionsas the judges and law officers and every other authority in Church andState habitually practised under such a King. After a great deal ofprevarication on all parts but his own, it was declared that he must dieunder his former sentence, now fifteen years old. So, on thetwenty-eighth of October, one thousand six hundred and eighteen, he wasshut up in the Gate House at Westminster to pass his late night on earth, and there he took leave of his good and faithful lady who was worthy tohave lived in better days. At eight o'clock next morning, after acheerful breakfast, and a pipe, and a cup of good wine, he was taken toOld Palace Yard in Westminster, where the scaffold was set up, and whereso many people of high degree were assembled to see him die, that it wasa matter of some difficulty to get him through the crowd. He behavedmost nobly, but if anything lay heavy on his mind, it was that Earl ofEssex, whose head he had seen roll off; and he solemnly said that he hadhad no hand in bringing him to the block, and that he had shed tears forhim when he died. As the morning was very cold, the Sheriff said, wouldhe come down to a fire for a little space, and warm himself? But SirWalter 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 hisshaking fit would come upon him if he were still alive, and his enemiesmight then suppose that he trembled for fear. With that, he kneeled andmade a very beautiful and Christian prayer. Before he laid his head uponthe block he felt the edge of the axe, and said, with a smile upon hisface, that it was a sharp medicine, but would cure the worst disease. When he was bent down ready for death, he said to the executioner, finding that he hesitated, 'What dost thou fear? Strike, man!' So, theaxe came down and struck his head off, in the sixty-sixth year of hisage. 

The new favourite got on fast. He was made a viscount, he was made Dukeof Buckingham, he was made a marquis, he was made Master of the Horse, hewas made Lord High Admiral--and the Chief Commander of the gallantEnglish forces that had dispersed the Spanish Armada, was displaced tomake room for him. He had the whole kingdom at his disposal, and hismother sold all the profits and honours of the State, as if she had kepta shop. He blazed all over with diamonds and other precious stones, fromhis hatband and his earrings to his shoes. Yet he was an ignorantpresumptuous, swaggering compound of knave and fool, with nothing but hisbeauty and his dancing to recommend him. This is the gentleman whocalled himself his Majesty's dog and slave, and called his Majesty YourSowship. His Sowship called him STEENIE; it is supposed, because thatwas a nickname for Stephen, and because St. Stephen was generallyrepresented in pictures as a handsome saint. 

His Sowship was driven sometimes to his wits'-end by his trimming betweenthe general dislike of the Catholic religion at home, and his desire towheedle and flatter it abroad, as his only means of getting a richprincess for his son's wife: a part of whose fortune he might cram intohis greasy pockets. Prince Charles--or as his Sowship called him, BabyCharles--being now PRINCE OF WALES, the old project of a marriage withthe Spanish King's daughter had been revived for him; and as she couldnot marry a Protestant without leave from the Pope, his Sowship himselfsecretly and meanly wrote to his Infallibility, asking for it. Thenegotiation for this Spanish marriage takes up a larger space in greatbooks, than you can imagine, but the upshot of it all is, that when ithad been held off by the Spanish Court for a long time, Baby Charles andSteenie set off in disguise as Mr. Thomas Smith and Mr. John Smith, tosee the Spanish Princess; that Baby Charles pretended to be desperatelyin love with her, and jumped off walls to look at her, and made aconsiderable fool of himself in a good many ways; that she was calledPrincess of Wales and that the whole Spanish Court believed Baby Charlesto be all but dying for her sake, as he expressly told them he was; thatBaby Charles and Steenie came back to England, and were received with asmuch rapture as if they had been a blessing to it; that Baby Charles hadactually fallen in love with HENRIETTA MARIA, the French King's sister, whom he had seen in Paris; that he thought it a wonderfully fine andprincely thing to have deceived the Spaniards, all through; and that heopenly said, with a chuckle, as soon as he was safe and sound at homeagain, that the Spaniards were great fools to have believed him. 

Like most dishonest men, the Prince and the favourite complained that thepeople whom they had deluded were dishonest. They made suchmisrepresentations of the treachery of the Spaniards in this business ofthe Spanish match, that the English nation became eager for a war withthem. Although the gravest Spaniards laughed at the idea of his Sowshipin a warlike attitude, the Parliament granted money for the beginning ofhostilities, and the treaties with Spain were publicly declared to be atan end. The Spanish ambassador in London--probably with the help of thefallen favourite, the Earl of Somerset--being unable to obtain speechwith his Sowship, slipped a paper into his hand, declaring that he was aprisoner in his own house, and was entirely governed by Buckingham andhis creatures. The first effect of this letter was that his Sowshipbegan to cry and whine, and took Baby Charles away from Steenie, and wentdown to Windsor, gabbling all sorts of nonsense. The end of it was thathis Sowship hugged his dog and slave, and said he was quite satisfied. 

He had given the Prince and the favourite almost unlimited power tosettle 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 Catholicsin England should exercise their religion freely, and should never berequired to take any oath contrary thereto. In return for this, and forother concessions much less to be defended, Henrietta Maria was to becomethe Prince's wife, and was to bring him a fortune of eight hundredthousand 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'sillness, on Sunday the twenty-seventh of March, one thousand six hundredand 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 theadulation that was lavished on this King, and the vice and corruptionthat such a barefaced habit of lying produced in his court. It is muchto be doubted whether one man of honour, and not utterly self-disgraced, kept his place near James the First. Lord Bacon, that able and wisephilosopher, as the First Judge in the Kingdom in this reign, became apublic spectacle of dishonesty and corruption; and in his base flatteryof his Sowship, and in his crawling servility to his dog and slave, disgraced himself even more. But, a creature like his Sowship set upon athrone 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 ofhis age. Unlike his father, he was usually amiable in his privatecharacter, and grave and dignified in his bearing; but, like his father, he had monstrously exaggerated notions of the rights of a king, and wasevasive, 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, tobring Henrietta Maria from Paris to be his Queen; upon which occasionBuckingham--with his usual audacity--made love to the young Queen ofAustria, and was very indignant indeed with CARDINAL RICHELIEU, theFrench Minister, for thwarting his intentions. The English people werevery well disposed to like their new Queen, and to receive her with greatfavour when she came among them as a stranger. But, she held theProtestant religion in great dislike, and brought over a crowd ofunpleasant priests, who made her do some very ridiculous things, andforced themselves upon the public notice in many disagreeable ways. Hence, the people soon came to dislike her, and she soon came to dislikethem; and she did so much all through this reign in setting the King (whowas dotingly fond of her) against his subjects, that it would have beenbetter for him if she had never been born. 

Now, you are to understand that King Charles the First--of his owndetermination to be a high and mighty King not to be called to account byanybody, and urged on by his Queen besides--deliberately set himself toput his Parliament down and to put himself up. You are also tounderstand, that even in pursuit of this wrong idea (enough in itself tohave ruined any king) he never took a straight course, but always took acrooked one. 

He was bent upon war with Spain, though neither the House of Commons northe people were quite clear as to the justice of that war, now that theybegan to think a little more about the story of the Spanish match. Butthe King rushed into it hotly, raised money by illegal means to meet itsexpenses, and encountered a miserable failure at Cadiz, in the very firstyear of his reign. An expedition to Cadiz had been made in the hope ofplunder, but as it was not successful, it was necessary to get a grant ofmoney from the Parliament; and when they met, in no very complyinghumour, the King told them, 'to make haste to let him have it, or itwould be the worse for themselves. ' Not put in a more complying humourby this, they impeached the King's favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, asthe cause (which he undoubtedly was) of many great public grievances andwrongs. The King, to save him, dissolved the Parliament without gettingthe money he wanted; and when the Lords implored him to consider andgrant a little delay, he replied, 'No, not one minute. ' He then began toraise money for himself by the following means among others. 

He levied certain duties called tonnage and poundage which had not beengranted by the Parliament, and could lawfully be levied by no otherpower; he called upon the seaport towns to furnish, and to pay all thecost for three months of, a fleet of armed ships; and he required thepeople to unite in lending him large sums of money, the repayment ofwhich was very doubtful. If the poor people refused, they were pressedas soldiers or sailors; if the gentry refused, they were sent to prison. Five gentlemen, named SIR THOMAS DARNEL, JOHN CORBET, WALTER EARL, JOHNHEVENINGHAM, and EVERARD HAMPDEN, for refusing were taken up by a warrantof the King's privy council, and were sent to prison without any causebut the King's pleasure being stated for their imprisonment. Then thequestion came to be solemnly tried, whether this was not a violation ofMagna Charta, and an encroachment by the King on the highest rights ofthe English people. His lawyers contended No, because to encroach uponthe rights of the English people would be to do wrong, and the King coulddo no wrong. The accommodating judges decided in favour of this wickednonsense; and here was a fatal division between the King and the people. 

For all this, it became necessary to call another Parliament. Thepeople, sensible of the danger in which their liberties were, chose forit those who were best known for their determined opposition to the King;but still the King, quite blinded by his determination to carryeverything before him, addressed them when they met, in a contemptuousmanner, and just told them in so many words that he had only called themtogether because he wanted money. The Parliament, strong enough andresolute enough to know that they would lower his tone, cared little forwhat he said, and laid before him one of the great documents of history, which is called the PETITION OF RIGHT, requiring that the free men ofEngland should no longer be called upon to lend the King money, andshould 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'sspecial mandate or warrant, it being contrary to their rights andliberties and the laws of their country. At first the King returned ananswer to this petition, in which he tried to shirk it altogether; but, the House of Commons then showing their determination to go on with theimpeachment of Buckingham, the King in alarm returned an answer, givinghis consent to all that was required of him. He not only afterwardsdeparted 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 publishinghis first answer and not his second--merely that the people might supposethat the Parliament had not got the better of him. 

That pestilent Buckingham, to gratify his own wounded vanity, had by thistime involved the country in war with France, as well as with Spain. Forsuch miserable causes and such miserable creatures are wars sometimesmade! But he was destined to do little more mischief in this world. Onemorning, as he was going out of his house to his carriage, he turned tospeak to a certain Colonel FRYER who was with him; and he was violentlystabbed with a knife, which the murderer left sticking in his heart. Thishappened in his hall. He had had angry words up-stairs, just before, with some French gentlemen, who were immediately suspected by hisservants, and had a close escape from being set upon and killed. In themidst of the noise, the real murderer, who had gone to the kitchen andmight 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 himas a curse to the country. He had aimed his blow well, for Buckinghamhad 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 thismurder, though it was a plain case enough, one would think. He had comeseventy miles to do it, he told them, and he did it for the reason he haddeclared; if they put him upon the rack, as that noble MARQUIS OF DORSETwhom he saw before him, had the goodness to threaten, he gave thatmarquis warning, that he would accuse _him_ as his accomplice! The Kingwas unpleasantly anxious to have him racked, nevertheless; but as thejudges now found out that torture was contrary to the law of England--itis a pity they did not make the discovery a little sooner--John Feltonwas simply executed for the murder he had done. A murder it undoubtedlywas, and not in the least to be defended: though he had freed Englandfrom one of the most profligate, contemptible, and base court favouritesto whom it has ever yielded. 

A very different man now arose. This was SIR THOMAS WENTWORTH, aYorkshire gentleman, who had sat in Parliament for a long time, and whohad favoured arbitrary and haughty principles, but who had gone over tothe people's side on receiving offence from Buckingham. The King, muchwanting such a man--for, besides being naturally favourable to the King'scause, he had great abilities--made him first a Baron, and then aViscount, and gave him high employment, and won him most completely. 

A Parliament, however, was still in existence, and was _not_ 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 chiefinstruments, and called upon the Speaker to put them to the vote. Tothis the Speaker answered, 'he was commanded otherwise by the King, ' andgot up to leave the chair--which, according to the rules of the House ofCommons would have obliged it to adjourn without doing anything more--whentwo members, named Mr. HOLLIS and Mr. VALENTINE, held him down. A sceneof great confusion arose among the members; and while many swords weredrawn and flashing about, the King, who was kept informed of all that wasgoing on, told the captain of his guard to go down to the House and forcethe doors. The resolutions were by that time, however, voted, and theHouse adjourned. Sir John Eliot and those two members who had held theSpeaker down, were quickly summoned before the council. As they claimedit to be their privilege not to answer out of Parliament for anythingthey had said in it, they were committed to the Tower. The King thenwent down and dissolved the Parliament, in a speech wherein he mademention of these gentlemen as 'Vipers'--which did not do him much goodthat ever I have heard of. 

As they refused to gain their liberty by saying they were sorry for whatthey had done, the King, always remarkably unforgiving, never overlookedtheir offence. When they demanded to be brought up before the court ofKing's Bench, he even resorted to the meanness of having them moved aboutfrom prison to prison, so that the writs issued for that purpose shouldnot legally find them. At last they came before the court and weresentenced to heavy fines, and to be imprisoned during the King'spleasure. When Sir John Eliot's health had quite given way, and he solonged for change of air and scene as to petition for his release, theKing sent back the answer (worthy of his Sowship himself) that thepetition was not humble enough. When he sent another petition by hisyoung son, in which he pathetically offered to go back to prison when hishealth was restored, if he might be released for its recovery, the Kingstill disregarded it. When he died in the Tower, and his childrenpetitioned to be allowed to take his body down to Cornwall, there to layit among the ashes of his forefathers, the King returned for answer, 'LetSir John Eliot's body be buried in the church of that parish where hedied. ' All this was like a very little King indeed, I think. 

And now, for twelve long years, steadily pursuing his design of settinghimself up and putting the people down, the King called no Parliament;but ruled without one. If twelve thousand volumes were written in hispraise (as a good many have been) it would still remain a fact, impossible to be denied, that for twelve years King Charles the Firstreigned in England unlawfully and despotically, seized upon his subjects'goods and money at his pleasure, and punished according to his unbridledwill all who ventured to oppose him. It is a fashion with some people tothink that this King's career was cut short; but I must say myself that Ithink he ran a pretty long one. 

WILLIAM LAUD, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the King's right-hand man inthe 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 twothings sometimes go together in very different quantities--though aProtestant, held opinions so near those of the Catholics, that the Popewanted to make a Cardinal of him, if he would have accepted that favour. He looked upon vows, robes, lighted candles, images, and so forth, asamazingly important in religious ceremonies; and he brought in animmensity of bowing and candle-snuffing. He also regarded archbishopsand bishops as a sort of miraculous persons, and was inveterate in thelast degree against any who thought otherwise. Accordingly, he offeredup thanks to Heaven, and was in a state of much pious pleasure, when aScotch clergyman, named LEIGHTON, was pilloried, whipped, branded in thecheek, and had one of his ears cut off and one of his nostrils slit, forcalling bishops trumpery and the inventions of men. He originated on aSunday morning the prosecution of WILLIAM PRYNNE, a barrister who was ofsimilar 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 wasimprisoned for life. He highly approved of the punishment of DOCTORBASTWICK, a physician; who was also fined a thousand pounds; and whoafterwards had _his_ ears cut off, and was imprisoned for life. Thesewere gentle methods of persuasion, some will tell you: I think, they wererather calculated to be alarming to the people. 

In the money part of the putting down of the people's liberties, the Kingwas equally gentle, as some will tell you: as I think, equally alarming. He levied those duties of tonnage and poundage, and increased them as hethought fit. He granted monopolies to companies of merchants on theirpaying him for them, notwithstanding the great complaints that had, foryears and years, been made on the subject of monopolies. He fined thepeople for disobeying proclamations issued by his Sowship in directviolation of law. He revived the detested Forest laws, and took privateproperty to himself as his forest right. Above all, he determined tohave what was called Ship Money; that is to say, money for the support ofthe fleet--not only from the seaports, but from all the counties ofEngland: having found out that, in some ancient time or other, all thecounties paid it. The grievance of this ship money being somewhat toostrong, JOHN CHAMBERS, a citizen of London, refused to pay his part ofit. For this the Lord Mayor ordered John Chambers to prison, and forthat 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, agentleman of Buckinghamshire, who had sat among the 'vipers' in the Houseof Commons when there was such a thing, and who had been the bosom friendof Sir John Eliot. This case was tried before the twelve judges in theCourt of Exchequer, and again the King's lawyers said it was impossiblethat ship money could be wrong, because the King could do no wrong, however hard he tried--and he really did try very hard during thesetwelve 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 hethought), by making Hampden the most popular man in England; wherematters were getting to that height now, that many honest Englishmencould not endure their country, and sailed away across the seas to founda colony in Massachusetts Bay in America. It is said that Hampdenhimself and his relation OLIVER CROMWELL were going with a company ofsuch voyagers, and were actually on board ship, when they were stopped bya proclamation, prohibiting sea captains to carry out such passengerswithout the royal license. But O! it would have been well for the Kingif he had let them go! This was the state of England. If Laud had beena madman just broke loose, he could not have done more mischief than hedid in Scotland. In his endeavours (in which he was seconded by theKing, then in person in that part of his dominions) to force his ownideas of bishops, and his own religious forms and ceremonies upon theScotch, he roused that nation to a perfect frenzy. They formed a solemnleague, which they called The Covenant, for the preservation of their ownreligious forms; they rose in arms throughout the whole country; theysummoned all their men to prayers and sermons twice a day by beat ofdrum; they sang psalms, in which they compared their enemies to all theevil spirits that ever were heard of; and they solemnly vowed to smitethem with the sword. At first the King tried force, then treaty, then aScottish Parliament which did not answer at all. Then he tried the EARLOF STRAFFORD, formerly Sir Thomas Wentworth; who, as LORD WENTWORTH, hadbeen governing Ireland. He, too, had carried it with a very high handthere, though to the benefit and prosperity of that country. 

Strafford and Laud were for conquering the Scottish people by force ofarms. Other lords who were taken into council, recommended that aParliament should at last be called; to which the King unwillinglyconsented. So, on the thirteenth of April, one thousand six hundred andforty, that then strange sight, a Parliament, was seen at Westminster. Itis called the Short Parliament, for it lasted a very little while. Whilethe members were all looking at one another, doubtful who would dare tospeak, MR. PYM arose and set forth all that the King had done unlawfullyduring the past twelve years, and what was the position to which Englandwas reduced. This great example set, other members took courage andspoke the truth freely, though with great patience and moderation. TheKing, a little frightened, sent to say that if they would grant him acertain sum on certain terms, no more ship money should be raised. Theydebated the matter for two days; and then, as they would not give him allhe asked without promise or inquiry, he dissolved them. 

But they knew very well that he must have a Parliament now; and he beganto make that discovery too, though rather late in the day. Wherefore, onthe twenty-fourth of September, being then at York with an army collectedagainst the Scottish people, but his own men sullen and discontented likethe 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 anotherParliament to assemble on the third of November. The soldiers of theCovenant had now forced their way into England and had taken possessionof the northern counties, where the coals are got. As it would never doto be without coals, and as the King's troops could make no head againstthe Covenanters so full of gloomy zeal, a truce was made, and a treatywith Scotland was taken into consideration. Meanwhile the northerncounties paid the Covenanters to leave the coals alone, and keep quiet. 

We have now disposed of the Short Parliament. We have next to see whatmemorable things were done by the Long one. 

SECOND PART

The Long Parliament assembled on the third of November, one thousand sixhundred and forty-one. That day week the Earl of Strafford arrived fromYork, very sensible that the spirited and determined men who formed thatParliament were no friends towards him, who had not only deserted thecause of the people, but who had on all occasions opposed himself totheir 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 theEarl of Strafford as a traitor. He was immediately taken into custodyand fell from his proud height. 

It was the twenty-second of March before he was brought to trial inWestminster Hall; where, although he was very ill and suffered greatpain, he defended himself with such ability and majesty, that it wasdoubtful whether he would not get the best of it. But on the thirteenthday of the trial, Pym produced in the House of Commons a copy of somenotes of a council, found by young SIR HARRY VANE in a red velvet cabinetbelonging to his father (Secretary Vane, who sat at the council-tablewith the Earl), in which Strafford had distinctly told the King that hewas free from all rules and obligations of government, and might do withhis people whatever he liked; and in which he had added--'You have anarmy 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 meantEngland or Scotland; but the Parliament contended that he meant England, and this was treason. At the same sitting of the House of Commons it wasresolved to bring in a bill of attainder declaring the treason to havebeen committed: in preference to proceeding with the trial byimpeachment, which would have required the treason to be proved. 

So, a bill was brought in at once, was carried through the House ofCommons by a large majority, and was sent up to the House of Lords. Whileit was still uncertain whether the House of Lords would pass it and theKing consent to it, Pym disclosed to the House of Commons that the Kingand Queen had both been plotting with the officers of the army to bringup the soldiers and control the Parliament, and also to introduce twohundred 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 ofa 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 theadmission of the two hundred men into the Tower, and they would have gotin too, but for the refusal of the governor--a sturdy Scotchman of thename of BALFOUR--to admit them. These matters being made public, greatnumbers of people began to riot outside the Houses of Parliament, and tocry out for the execution of the Earl of Strafford, as one of the King'schief instruments against them. The bill passed the House of Lords whilethe people were in this state of agitation, and was laid before the Kingfor his assent, together with another bill declaring that the Parliamentthen assembled should not be dissolved or adjourned without their ownconsent. The King--not unwilling to save a faithful servant, though hehad no great attachment for him--was in some doubt what to do; but hegave his consent to both bills, although he in his heart believed thatthe bill against the Earl of Strafford was unlawful and unjust. The Earlhad written to him, telling him that he was willing to die for his sake. But he had not expected that his royal master would take him at his wordquite so readily; for, when he heard his doom, he laid his hand upon hisheart, and said, 'Put not your trust in Princes!'

The King, who never could be straightforward and plain, through onesingle day or through one single sheet of paper, wrote a letter to theLords, and sent it by the young Prince of Wales, entreating them toprevail with the Commons that 'that unfortunate man should fulfil thenatural course of his life in a close imprisonment. ' In a postscript tothe very same letter, he added, 'If he must die, it were charity toreprieve 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 TowerHill. 

Archbishop Laud, who had been so fond of having people's ears cropped offand their noses slit, was now confined in the Tower too; and when theEarl went by his window to his death, he was there, at his request, togive 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 hethought it would be an admirable thing to have Mr. Hampden publiclywhipped for refusing to pay the ship money. However, those high andmighty doings were over now, and the Earl went his way to death withdignity and heroism. The governor wished him to get into a coach at theTower gate, for fear the people should tear him to pieces; but he said itwas 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 pulledoff his hat to them as he passed along. They were profoundly quiet. Hemade a speech on the scaffold from some notes he had prepared (the paperwas found lying there after his head was struck off), and one blow of theaxe killed him, in the forty-ninth year of his age. 

This bold and daring act, the Parliament accompanied by other famousmeasures, all originating (as even this did) in the King's having sogrossly and so long abused his power. The name of DELINQUENTS wasapplied to all sheriffs and other officers who had been concerned inraising the ship money, or any other money, from the people, in anunlawful manner; the Hampden judgment was reversed; the judges who haddecided against Hampden were called upon to give large securities thatthey would take such consequences as Parliament might impose upon them;and one was arrested as he sat in High Court, and carried off to prison. Laud was impeached; the unfortunate victims whose ears had been croppedand whose noses had been slit, were brought out of prison in triumph; anda bill was passed declaring that a Parliament should be called everythird year, and that if the King and the King's officers did not call it, the people should assemble of themselves and summon it, as of their ownright and power. Great illuminations and rejoicings took place over allthese things, and the country was wildly excited. That the Parliamenttook advantage of this excitement and stirred them up by every means, there is no doubt; but you are always to remember those twelve longyears, during which the King had tried so hard whether he really could doany wrong or not. 

All this time there was a great religious outcry against the right of theBishops to sit in Parliament; to which the Scottish people particularlyobjected. The English were divided on this subject, and, partly on thisaccount and partly because they had had foolish expectations that theParliament would be able to take off nearly all the taxes, numbers ofthem sometimes wavered and inclined towards the King. 

I believe myself, that if, at this or almost any other period of hislife, the King could have been trusted by any man not out of his senses, he might have saved himself and kept his throne. But, on the Englisharmy being disbanded, he plotted with the officers again, as he had donebefore, and established the fact beyond all doubt by putting hissignature of approval to a petition against the Parliamentary leaders, which was drawn up by certain officers. When the Scottish army wasdisbanded, he went to Edinburgh in four days--which was going very fastat that time--to plot again, and so darkly too, that it is difficult todecide what his whole object was. Some suppose that he wanted to gainover the Scottish Parliament, as he did in fact gain over, by presentsand favours, many Scottish lords and men of power. Some think that hewent to get proofs against the Parliamentary leaders in England of theirhaving treasonably invited the Scottish people to come and help them. With whatever object he went to Scotland, he did little good by going. Atthe instigation of the EARL OF MONTROSE, a desperate man who was then inprison 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 about it; were, or feigned to be, muchalarmed for themselves; and wrote to the EARL OF ESSEX, the commander-in-chief, for a guard to protect them. 

It is not absolutely proved that the King plotted in Ireland besides, butit is very probable that he did, and that the Queen did, and that he hadsome wild hope of gaining the Irish people over to his side by favouringa rise among them. Whether or no, they did rise in a most brutal andsavage rebellion; in which, encouraged by their priests, they committedsuch atrocities upon numbers of the English, of both sexes and of allages, as nobody could believe, but for their being related on oath by eye-witnesses. Whether one hundred thousand or two hundred thousandProtestants were murdered in this outbreak, is uncertain; but, that itwas as ruthless and barbarous an outbreak as ever was known among anysavage people, is certain. 

The King came home from Scotland, determined to make a great struggle forhis lost power. He believed that, through his presents and favours, Scotland would take no part against him; and the Lord Mayor of Londonreceived him with such a magnificent dinner that he thought he must havebecome 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 theParliament to a celebrated paper put forth by Pym and Hampden and therest, called 'THE REMONSTRANCE, ' which set forth all the illegal actsthat the King had ever done, but politely laid the blame of them on hisbad advisers. Even when it was passed and presented to him, the Kingstill thought himself strong enough to discharge Balfour from his commandin the Tower, and to put in his place a man of bad character; to whom theCommons instantly objected, and whom he was obliged to abandon. At thistime, the old outcry about the Bishops became louder than ever, and theold Archbishop of York was so near being murdered as he went down to theHouse of Lords--being laid hold of by the mob and violently knockedabout, in return for very foolishly scolding a shrill boy who was yelpingout 'No Bishops!'--that he sent for all the Bishops who were in town, andproposed to them to sign a declaration that, as they could no longerwithout danger to their lives attend their duty in Parliament, theyprotested against the lawfulness of everything done in their absence. This they asked the King to send to the House of Lords, which he did. Then the House of Commons impeached the whole party of Bishops and sentthem off to the Tower:

Taking no warning from this; but encouraged by there being a moderateparty in the Parliament who objected to these strong measures, the King, on the third of January, one thousand six hundred and forty-two, took therashest step that ever was taken by mortal man. 

Of his own accord and without advice, he sent the Attorney-General to theHouse of Lords, to accuse of treason certain members of Parliament who aspopular leaders were the most obnoxious to him; LORD KIMBOLTON, SIRARTHUR HASELRIG, DENZIL HOLLIS, JOHN PYM (they used to call him King Pym, he possessed such power and looked so big), JOHN HAMPDEN, and WILLIAMSTRODE. The houses of those members he caused to be entered, and theirpapers to be sealed up. At the same time, he sent a messenger to theHouse of Commons demanding to have the five gentlemen who were members ofthat House immediately produced. To this the House replied that theyshould appear as soon as there was any legal charge against them, andimmediately adjourned. 

Next day, the House of Commons send into the City to let the Lord Mayorknow that their privileges are invaded by the King, and that there is nosafety for anybody or anything. Then, when the five members are gone outof the way, down comes the King himself, with all his guard and from twoto three hundred gentlemen and soldiers, of whom the greater part werearmed. These he leaves in the hall; and then, with his nephew at hisside, goes into the House, takes off his hat, and walks up to theSpeaker'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 forthose 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 servantof 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, beatenfrom that time evermore, replies that he will seek them himself, for theyhave committed treason; and goes out, with his hat in his hand, amid someaudible murmurs from the members. 

No words can describe the hurry that arose out of doors when all this wasknown. The five members had gone for safety to a house inColeman-street, in the City, where they were guarded all night; andindeed the whole city watched in arms like an army. At ten o'clock inthe morning, the King, already frightened at what he had done, came tothe Guildhall, with only half a dozen lords, and made a speech to thepeople, hoping they would not shelter those whom he accused of treason. Next day, he issued a proclamation for the apprehension of the fivemembers; but the Parliament minded it so little that they made greatarrangements for having them brought down to Westminster in great state, five days afterwards. The King was so alarmed now at his own imprudence, if not for his own safety, that he left his palace at Whitehall, and wentaway with his Queen and children to Hampton Court. 

It was the eleventh of May, when the five members were carried in stateand triumph to Westminster. They were taken by water. The river couldnot be seen for the boats on it; and the five members were hemmed in bybarges 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 theircommander, SKIPPON, marched to be ready to assist the little fleet. Beyond them, came a crowd who choked the streets, roaring incessantlyabout the Bishops and the Papists, and crying out contemptuously as theypassed Whitehall, 'What has become of the King?' With this great noiseoutside the House of Commons, and with great silence within, Mr. Pym roseand informed the House of the great kindness with which they had beenreceived in the City. Upon that, the House called the sheriffs in andthanked them, and requested the train-bands, under their commanderSkippon, to guard the House of Commons every day. Then, came fourthousand men on horseback out of Buckinghamshire, offering their servicesas a guard too, and bearing a petition to the King, complaining of theinjury that had been done to Mr. Hampden, who was their county man andmuch beloved and honoured. 

When the King set off for Hampton Court, the gentlemen and soldiers whohad been with him followed him out of town as far asKingston-upon-Thames; next day, Lord Digby came to them from the King atHampton Court, in his coach and six, to inform them that the Kingaccepted their protection. This, the Parliament said, was making waragainst the kingdom, and Lord Digby fled abroad. The Parliament thenimmediately applied themselves to getting hold of the military power ofthe country, well knowing that the King was already trying hard to use itagainst them, and that he had secretly sent the Earl of Newcastle toHull, to secure a valuable magazine of arms and gunpowder 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 billclaiming the right (which up to this time had belonged to the King) ofappointing the Lord Lieutenants of counties, who commanded these train-bands; also, of having all the forts, castles, and garrisons in thekingdom, put into the hands of such governors as they, the Parliament, could confide in. It also passed a law depriving the Bishops of theirvotes. The King gave his assent to that bill, but would not abandon theright of appointing the Lord Lieutenants, though he said he was willingto appoint such as might be suggested to him by the Parliament. When theEarl of Pembroke asked him whether he would not give way on that questionfor a time, he said, 'By God! not for one hour!' and upon this he and theParliament went to war. 

His young daughter was betrothed to the Prince of Orange. On pretence oftaking her to the country of her future husband, the Queen was alreadygot safely away to Holland, there to pawn the Crown jewels for money toraise an army on the King's side. The Lord Admiral being sick, the Houseof Commons now named the Earl of Warwick to hold his place for a year. The King named another gentleman; the House of Commons took its own way, and the Earl of Warwick became Lord Admiral without the King's consent. The Parliament sent orders down to Hull to have that magazine removed toLondon; the King went down to Hull to take it himself. The citizenswould not admit him into the town, and the governor would not admit himinto the castle. The Parliament resolved that whatever the two Housespassed, 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 Kingprotested against this, and gave notice that these ordinances were not tobe obeyed. The King, attended by the majority of the House of Peers, andby many members of the House of Commons, established himself at York. TheChancellor went to him with the Great Seal, and the Parliament made a newGreat Seal. The Queen sent over a ship full of arms and ammunition, andthe King issued letters to borrow money at high interest. The Parliamentraised twenty regiments of foot and seventy-five troops of horse; and thepeople willingly aided them with their money, plate, jewellery, andtrinkets--the married women even with their wedding-rings. Every memberof Parliament who could raise a troop or a regiment in his own part ofthe country, dressed it according to his taste and in his own colours, and commanded it. Foremost among them all, OLIVER CROMWELL raised atroop of horse--thoroughly in earnest and thoroughly well armed--whowere, perhaps, the best soldiers that ever were seen. 

In some of their proceedings, this famous Parliament passed the bounds ofprevious law and custom, yielded to and favoured riotous assemblages ofthe people, and acted tyrannically in imprisoning some who differed fromthe popular leaders. But again, you are always to remember that thetwelve years during which the King had had his own wilful way, had gonebefore; 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 betweenKing Charles the First and the Long Parliament, which lasted nearly fouryears, and a full account of which would fill many large books. It was asad thing that Englishmen should once more be fighting against Englishmenon English ground; but, it is some consolation to know that on both sidesthere was great humanity, forbearance, and honour. The soldiers of theParliament were far more remarkable for these good qualities than thesoldiers of the King (many of whom fought for mere pay without muchcaring for the cause); but those of the nobility and gentry who were onthe King's side were so brave, and so faithful to him, that their conductcannot but command our highest admiration. Among them were great numbersof Catholics, who took the royal side because the Queen was so stronglyof their persuasion. 

The King might have distinguished some of these gallant spirits, if hehad been as generous a spirit himself, by giving them the command of hisarmy. Instead of that, however, true to his old high notions of royalty, he entrusted it to his two nephews, PRINCE RUPERT and PRINCE MAURICE, whowere of royal blood and came over from abroad to help him. It might havebeen better for him if they had stayed away; since Prince Rupert was animpetuous, hot-headed fellow, whose only idea was to dash into battle atall times and seasons, and lay about him. 

The general-in-chief of the Parliamentary army was the Earl of Essex, agentleman of honour and an excellent soldier. A little while before thewar broke out, there had been some rioting at Westminster between certainofficious law students and noisy soldiers, and the shopkeepers and theirapprentices, and the general people in the streets. At that time theKing's friends called the crowd, Roundheads, because the apprentices woreshort hair; the crowd, in return, called their opponents Cavaliers, meaning that they were a blustering set, who pretended to be verymilitary. These two words now began to be used to distinguish the twosides in the civil war. The Royalists also called the Parliamentary menRebels 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 hadagain gone over to the King and was besieged by the Parliamentary troops. Upon this, the King proclaimed the Earl of Essex and the officers servingunder him, traitors, and called upon his loyal subjects to meet him inarms at Nottingham on the twenty-fifth of August. But his loyal subjectscame about him in scanty numbers, and it was a windy, gloomy day, and theRoyal Standard got blown down, and the whole affair was very melancholy. The chief engagements after this, took place in the vale of the Red Horsenear Banbury, at Brentford, at Devizes, at Chalgrave Field (where Mr. Hampden was so sorely wounded while fighting at the head of his men, thathe died within a week), at Newbury (in which battle LORD FALKLAND, one ofthe best noblemen on the King's side, was killed), at Leicester, atNaseby, at Winchester, at Marston Moor near York, at Newcastle, and inmany other parts of England and Scotland. These battles were attendedwith various successes. At one time, the King was victorious; at anothertime, the Parliament. But almost all the great and busy towns wereagainst the King; and when it was considered necessary to fortify London, all ranks of people, from labouring men and women, up to lords andladies, worked hard together with heartiness and good will. The mostdistinguished leaders on the Parliamentary side were HAMPDEN, SIR THOMASFAIRFAX, and, above all, OLIVER CROMWELL, and his son-in-law IRETON. 

During the whole of this war, the people, to whom it was very expensiveand irksome, and to whom it was made the more distressing by almost everyfamily being divided--some of its members attaching themselves to oneside and some to the other--were over and over again most anxious forpeace. So were some of the best men in each cause. Accordingly, treaties of peace were discussed between commissioners from theParliament and the King; at York, at Oxford (where the King held a littleParliament of his own), and at Uxbridge. But they came to nothing. Inall these negotiations, and in all his difficulties, the King showedhimself at his best. He was courageous, cool, self-possessed, andclever; but, the old taint of his character was always in him, and he wasnever for one single moment to be trusted. Lord Clarendon, thehistorian, one of his highest admirers, supposes that he had unhappilypromised the Queen never to make peace without her consent, and that thismust often be taken as his excuse. He never kept his word from night tomorning. He signed a cessation of hostilities with the blood-stainedIrish rebels for a sum of money, and invited the Irish regiments over, tohelp him against the Parliament. In the battle of Naseby, his cabinetwas seized and was found to contain a correspondence with the Queen, inwhich he expressly told her that he had deceived the Parliament--amongrel Parliament, he called it now, as an improvement on his old termof vipers--in pretending to recognise it and to treat with it; and fromwhich it further appeared that he had long been in secret treaty with theDuke of Lorraine for a foreign army of ten thousand men. Disappointed inthis, he sent a most devoted friend of his, the EARL OF GLAMORGAN, toIreland, to conclude a secret treaty with the Catholic powers, to sendhim an Irish army of ten thousand men; in return for which he was tobestow great favours on the Catholic religion. And, when this treaty wasdiscovered in the carriage of a fighting Irish Archbishop who was killedin one of the many skirmishes of those days, he basely denied anddeserted his attached friend, the Earl, on his being charged with hightreason; and--even worse than this--had left blanks in the secretinstructions he gave him with his own kingly hand, expressly that hemight thus save himself. 

At last, on the twenty-seventh day of April, one thousand six hundred andforty-six, the King found himself in the city of Oxford, so surrounded bythe Parliamentary army who were closing in upon him on all sides that hefelt 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 aservant and put upon a horse with a cloak strapped behind him, and rodeout of the town behind one of his own faithful followers, with aclergyman of that country who knew the road well, for a guide. He rodetowards 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 beeninvited over to help the Parliamentary army, and had a large force thenin 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 Scottishgeneral-in-chief, who treated him as an honourable prisoner. Negotiationsbetween the Parliament on the one hand and the Scottish authorities onthe other, as to what should be done with him, lasted until the followingFebruary. Then, when the King had refused to the Parliament theconcession of that old militia point for twenty years, and had refused toScotland the recognition of its Solemn League and Covenant, Scotland gota handsome sum for its army and its help, and the King into the bargain. He was taken, by certain Parliamentary commissioners appointed to receivehim, to one of his own houses, called Holmby House, near Althorpe, inNorthamptonshire. 

While the Civil War was still in progress, John Pym died, and was buriedwith great honour in Westminster Abbey--not with greater honour than hedeserved, for the liberties of Englishmen owe a mighty debt to Pym andHampden. The war was but newly over when the Earl of Essex died, of anillness brought on by his having overheated himself in a stag hunt inWindsor Forest. He, too, was buried in Westminster Abbey, with greatstate. I wish it were not necessary to add that Archbishop Laud diedupon the scaffold when the war was not yet done. His trial lasted in allnearly a year, and, it being doubtful even then whether the chargesbrought against him amounted to treason, the odious old contrivance ofthe worst kings was resorted to, and a bill of attainder was brought inagainst him. He was a violently prejudiced and mischievous person; hadhad strong ear-cropping and nose-splitting propensities, as you know; andhad done a world of harm. But he died peaceably, and like a brave oldman. 

FOURTH PART

When the Parliament had got the King into their hands, they became veryanxious to get rid of their army, in which Oliver Cromwell had begun toacquire great power; not only because of his courage and high abilities, but because he professed to be very sincere in the Scottish sort ofPuritan religion that was then exceedingly popular among the soldiers. They were as much opposed to the Bishops as to the Pope himself; and thevery privates, drummers, and trumpeters, had such an inconvenient habitof starting up and preaching long-winded discourses, that I would nothave belonged to that army on any account. 

So, the Parliament, being far from sure but that the army might begin topreach and fight against them now it had nothing else to do, proposed todisband the greater part of it, to send another part to serve in Irelandagainst the rebels, and to keep only a small force in England. But, thearmy would not consent to be broken up, except upon its own conditions;and, when the Parliament showed an intention of compelling it, it actedfor itself in an unexpected manner. A certain cornet, of the name ofJOICE, arrived at Holmby House one night, attended by four hundredhorsemen, went into the King's room with his hat in one hand and a pistolin the other, and told the King that he had come to take him away. TheKing was willing enough to go, and only stipulated that he should bepublicly required to do so next morning. Next morning, accordingly, heappeared on the top of the steps of the house, and asked Comet Joicebefore his men and the guard set there by the Parliament, what authorityhe had for taking him away? To this Cornet Joice replied, 'The authorityof the army. ' 'Have you a written commission?' said the King. Joice, pointing to his four hundred men on horseback, replied, 'That is mycommission. ' 'Well, ' said the King, smiling, as if he were pleased, 'Inever before read such a commission; but it is written in fair andlegible characters. This is a company of as handsome proper gentlemen asI have seen a long while. ' He was asked where he would like to live, andhe said at Newmarket. So, to Newmarket he and Cornet Joice and the fourhundred horsemen rode; the King remarking, in the same smiling way, thathe 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. Hesaid as much to Fairfax when that general, Oliver Cromwell, and Ireton, went to persuade him to return to the custody of the Parliament. Hepreferred to remain as he was, and resolved to remain as he was. Andwhen the army moved nearer and nearer London to frighten the Parliamentinto yielding to their demands, they took the King with them. It was adeplorable thing that England should be at the mercy of a great body ofsoldiers with arms in their hands; but the King certainly favoured themat this important time of his life, as compared with the more lawfulpower that tried to control him. It must be added, however, that theytreated him, as yet, more respectfully and kindly than the Parliament haddone. They allowed him to be attended by his own servants, to besplendidly entertained at various houses, and to see his children--atCavesham House, near Reading--for two days. Whereas, the Parliament hadbeen rather hard with him, and had only allowed him to ride out and playat bowls. 

It is much to be believed that if the King could have been trusted, evenat this time, he might have been saved. Even Oliver Cromwell expresslysaid that he did believe that no man could enjoy his possessions inpeace, unless the King had his rights. He was not unfriendly towards theKing; he had been present when he received his children, and had beenmuch affected by the pitiable nature of the scene; he saw the King often;he frequently walked and talked with him in the long galleries andpleasant gardens of the Palace at Hampton Court, whither he was nowremoved; 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; andthe moment he was encouraged to join them he began to be cool to his newfriends, the army, and to tell the officers that they could not possiblydo without him. At the very time, too, when he was promising to makeCromwell and Ireton noblemen, if they would help him up to his oldheight, he was writing to the Queen that he meant to hang them. Theyboth afterwards declared that they had been privately informed that sucha letter would be found, on a certain evening, sewed up in a saddle whichwould be taken to the Blue Boar in Holborn to be sent to Dover; and thatthey went there, disguised as common soldiers, and sat drinking in theinn-yard until a man came with the saddle, which they ripped up withtheir knives, and therein found the letter. I see little reason to doubtthe story. It is certain that Oliver Cromwell told one of the King'smost faithful followers that the King could not be trusted, and that hewould 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 lettinghim know that there was a plot with a certain portion of the army toseize him. I believe that, in fact, he sincerely wanted the King toescape 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; forsome of the troops were so mutinous against him, and against those whoacted with him at this time, that he found it necessary to have one manshot at the head of his regiment to overawe the rest. 

The King, when he received Oliver's warning, made his escape from HamptonCourt; after some indecision and uncertainty, he went to CarisbrookeCastle in the Isle of Wight. At first, he was pretty free there; but, even there, he carried on a pretended treaty with the Parliament, whilehe was really treating with commissioners from Scotland to send an armyinto England to take his part. When he broke off this treaty with theParliament (having settled with Scotland) and was treated as a prisoner, his treatment was not changed too soon, for he had plotted to escape thatvery 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. Theagreement he had made with the Scottish Commissioners was not favourableenough to the religion of that country to please the Scottish clergy; andthey preached against it. The consequence was, that the army raised inScotland and sent over, was too small to do much; and that, although itwas helped by a rising of the Royalists in England and by good soldiersfrom Ireland, it could make no head against the Parliamentary army undersuch men as Cromwell and Fairfax. The King's eldest son, the Prince ofWales, came over from Holland with nineteen ships (a part of the Englishfleet having gone over to him) to help his father; but nothing came ofhis voyage, and he was fain to return. The most remarkable event of thissecond civil war was the cruel execution by the Parliamentary General, ofSIR CHARLES LUCAS and SIR GEORGE LISLE, two grand Royalist generals, whohad bravely defended Colchester under every disadvantage of famine anddistress for nearly three months. When Sir Charles Lucas was shot, SirGeorge Lisle kissed his body, and said to the soldiers who were to shoothim, '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 asmile, 'but I have been nearer to you, my friends, many a time, and youhave missed me. '

The Parliament, after being fearfully bullied by the army--who demandedto have seven members whom they disliked given up to them--had voted thatthey would have nothing more to do with the King. On the conclusion, however, of this second civil war (which did not last more than sixmonths), they appointed commissioners to treat with him. The King, thenso far released again as to be allowed to live in a private house atNewport in the Isle of Wight, managed his own part of the negotiationwith a sense that was admired by all who saw him, and gave up, in theend, all that was asked of him--even yielding (which he had steadilyrefused, so far) to the temporary abolition of the bishops, and thetransfer of their church land to the Crown. Still, with his old fatalvice upon him, when his best friends joined the commissioners inbeseeching him to yield all those points as the only means of savinghimself from the army, he was plotting to escape from the island; he washolding 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 boldlyled by Hollis, voted that the King's concessions were sufficient groundfor settling the peace of the kingdom. Upon that, COLONEL RICH andCOLONEL PRIDE went down to the House of Commons with a regiment of horsesoldiers and a regiment of foot; and Colonel Pride, standing in the lobbywith 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 intocustody. This proceeding was afterwards called by the people, for ajoke, 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, thearmy had now reduced the House of Commons to some fifty or so. Thesesoon voted that it was treason in a king to make war against hisparliament and his people, and sent an ordinance up to the House of Lordsfor the King's being tried as a traitor. The House of Lords, thensixteen in number, to a man rejected it. Thereupon, the Commons made anordinance of their own, that they were the supreme government of thecountry, and would bring the King to trial. 

The King had been taken for security to a place called Hurst Castle: alonely house on a rock in the sea, connected with the coast of Hampshireby a rough road two miles long at low water. Thence, he was ordered tobe removed to Windsor; thence, after being but rudely used there, andhaving none but soldiers to wait upon him at table, he was brought up toSt. James's Palace in London, and told that his trial was appointed fornext day. 

On Saturday, the twentieth of January, one thousand six hundred and forty-nine, this memorable trial began. The House of Commons had settled thatone hundred and thirty-five persons should form the Court, and these weretaken from the House itself, from among the officers of the army, andfrom among the lawyers and citizens. JOHN BRADSHAW, serjeant-at-law, wasappointed president. The place was Westminster Hall. At the upper end, in a red velvet chair, sat the president, with his hat (lined with platesof iron for his protection) on his head. The rest of the Court sat onside benches, also wearing their hats. The King's seat was covered withvelvet, like that of the president, and was opposite to it. He wasbrought from St. James's to Whitehall, and from Whitehall he came bywater to his trial. 

When he came in, he looked round very steadily on the Court, and on thegreat number of spectators, and then sat down: presently he got up andlooked round again. On the indictment 'against Charles Stuart, for hightreason, ' being read, he smiled several times, and he denied theauthority of the Court, saying that there could be no parliament withouta House of Lords, and that he saw no House of Lords there. Also, thatthe King ought to be there, and that he saw no King in the King's rightplace. Bradshaw replied, that the Court was satisfied with itsauthority, and that its authority was God's authority and the kingdom's. He then adjourned the Court to the following Monday. On that day, thetrial was resumed, and went on all the week. When the Saturday came, asthe King passed forward to his place in the Hall, some soldiers andothers cried for 'justice!' and execution on him. That day, too, Bradshaw, like an angry Sultan, wore a red robe, instead of the blackrobe he had worn before. The King was sentenced to death that day. Ashe went out, one solitary soldier said, 'God bless you, Sir!' For this, his officer struck him. The King said he thought the punishment exceededthe offence. The silver head of his walking-stick had fallen off whilehe leaned upon it, at one time of the trial. The accident seemed todisturb 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, sayingthat as the time of his execution might be nigh, he wished he might beallowed to see his darling children. It was granted. On the Monday hewas taken back to St. James's; and his two children then in England, thePRINCESS ELIZABETH thirteen years old, and the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER nineyears old, were brought to take leave of him, from Sion House, nearBrentford. It was a sad and touching scene, when he kissed and fondledthose poor children, and made a little present of two diamond seals tothe Princess, and gave them tender messages to their mother (who littledeserved them, for she had a lover of her own whom she married soonafterwards), and told them that he died 'for the laws and liberties ofthe land. ' I am bound to say that I don't think he did, but I dare sayhe believed so. 

There were ambassadors from Holland that day, to intercede for theunhappy King, whom you and I both wish the Parliament had spared; butthey got no answer. The Scottish Commissioners interceded too; so didthe Prince of Wales, by a letter in which he offered as the next heir tothe throne, to accept any conditions from the Parliament; so did theQueen, by letter likewise. 

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 penin his hand to put his signature to it, he drew his pen across the faceof one of the commissioners, who was standing near, and marked it withink. That commissioner had not signed his own name yet, and the storyadds that when he came to do it he marked Cromwell's face with ink in thesame way. 

The King slept well, untroubled by the knowledge that it was his lastnight on earth, and rose on the thirtieth of January, two hours beforeday, and dressed himself carefully. He put on two shirts lest he shouldtremble with the cold, and had his hair very carefully combed. Thewarrant had been directed to three officers of the army, COLONEL HACKER, COLONEL HUNKS, and COLONEL PHAYER. At ten o'clock, the first of thesecame to the door and said it was time to go to Whitehall. The King, whohad always been a quick walker, walked at his usual speed through thePark, 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 ownbedroom, 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 bellsstruck twelve at noon (for he had to wait, through the scaffold not beingready), he took the advice of the good BISHOP JUXON who was with him, andate a little bread and drank a glass of claret. Soon after he had takenthis refreshment, Colonel Hacker came to the chamber with the warrant inhis hand, and called for Charles Stuart. 

And then, through the long gallery of Whitehall Palace, which he hadoften 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 theBanqueting House, through which he emerged upon the scaffold, which washung with black. He looked at the two executioners, who were dressed inblack and masked; he looked at the troops of soldiers on horseback and onfoot, and all looked up at him in silence; he looked at the vast array ofspectators, filling up the view beyond, and turning all their faces uponhim; he looked at his old Palace of St. James's; and he looked at theblock. He seemed a little troubled to find that it was so low, andasked, 'if there were no place higher?' Then, to those upon thescaffold, he said, 'that it was the Parliament who had begun the war, andnot he; but he hoped they might be guiltless too, as ill instruments hadgone between them. In one respect, ' he said, 'he suffered justly; andthat was because he had permitted an unjust sentence to be executed onanother. ' In this he referred to the Earl of Strafford. 

He was not at all afraid to die; but he was anxious to die easily. Whensome one touched the axe while he was speaking, he broke off and calledout, 'Take heed of the axe! take heed of the axe!' He also said toColonel Hacker, 'Take care that they do not put me to pain. ' He told theexecutioner, 'I shall say but very short prayers, and then thrust out myhands'--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 God on my side. ' Thebishop told him that he had but one stage more to travel in this wearyworld, and that, though it was a turbulent and troublesome stage, it wasa short one, and would carry him a great way--all the way from earth toHeaven. The King's last word, as he gave his cloak and the George--thedecoration from his breast--to the bishop, was, 'Remember!' He thenkneeled down, laid his head on the block, spread out his hands, and wasinstantly killed. One universal groan broke from the crowd; and thesoldiers, who had sat on their horses and stood in their ranks immovableas 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 hiscareer as Strafford had fallen in his, perished Charles the First. Withall my sorrow for him, I cannot agree with him that he died 'the martyrof the people;' for the people had been martyrs to him, and to his ideasof a King's rights, long before. Indeed, I am afraid that he was but abad 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 wasexecuted, the House of Commons passed an act declaring it treason in anyone to proclaim the Prince of Wales--or anybody else--King of England. Soon afterwards, it declared that the House of Lords was useless anddangerous, and ought to be abolished; and directed that the late King'sstatue should be taken down from the Royal Exchange in the City and otherpublic places. Having laid hold of some famous Royalists who had escapedfrom prison, and having beheaded the DUKE OF HAMILTON, LORD HOLLAND, andLORD CAPEL, in Palace Yard (all of whom died very courageously), theythen appointed a Council of State to govern the country. It consisted offorty-one members, of whom five were peers. Bradshaw was made president. The House of Commons also re-admitted members who had opposed the King'sdeath, 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 themand the Parliament; and now the common soldiers began to take that officeupon themselves. The regiments under orders for Ireland mutinied; onetroop of horse in the city of London seized their own flag, and refusedto obey orders. For this, the ringleader was shot: which did not mendthe matter, for, both his comrades and the people made a public funeralfor him, and accompanied the body to the grave with sound of trumpets andwith a gloomy procession of persons carrying bundles of rosemary steepedin blood. Oliver was the only man to deal with such difficulties asthese, and he soon cut them short by bursting at midnight into the townof Burford, near Salisbury, where the mutineers were sheltered, takingfour hundred of them prisoners, and shooting a number of them by sentenceof court-martial. The soldiers soon found, as all men did, that Oliverwas 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 theKing's execution, it proclaimed the Prince of Wales King Charles theSecond, on condition of his respecting the Solemn League and Covenant. Charles was abroad at that time, and so was Montrose, from whose help hehad hopes enough to keep him holding on and off with commissioners fromScotland, just as his father might have done. These hopes were soon atan end; for, Montrose, having raised a few hundred exiles in Germany, andlanded with them in Scotland, found that the people there, instead ofjoining him, deserted the country at his approach. He was soon takenprisoner and carried to Edinburgh. There he was received with everypossible insult, and carried to prison in a cart, his officers going twoand two before him. He was sentenced by the Parliament to be hanged on agallows thirty feet high, to have his head set on a spike in Edinburgh, and his limbs distributed in other places, according to the old barbarousmanner. He said he had always acted under the Royal orders, and onlywished he had limbs enough to be distributed through Christendom, that itmight be the more widely known how loyal he had been. He went to thescaffold 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 Charlesabandoned his memory, and denied that he had ever given him orders torise in his behalf. O the family failing was strong in that Charlesthen!

Oliver had been appointed by the Parliament to command the army inIreland, where he took a terrible vengeance for the sanguinary rebellion, and made tremendous havoc, particularly in the siege of Drogheda, whereno quarter was given, and where he found at least a thousand of theinhabitants shut up together in the great church: every one of whom waskilled by his soldiers, usually known as OLIVER'S IRONSIDES. There werenumbers of friars and priests among them, and Oliver gruffly wrote homein his despatch that these were 'knocked on the head' like the rest. 

But, Charles having got over to Scotland where the men of the SolemnLeague and Covenant led him a prodigiously dull life and made him veryweary with long sermons and grim Sundays, the Parliament called theredoubtable Oliver home to knock the Scottish men on the head for settingup that Prince. Oliver left his son-in-law, Ireton, as general inIreland in his stead (he died there afterwards), and he imitated theexample of his father-in-law with such good will that he brought thecountry to subjection, and laid it at the feet of the Parliament. In theend, they passed an act for the settlement of Ireland, generallypardoning all the common people, but exempting from this grace such ofthe wealthier sort as had been concerned in the rebellion, or in anykilling of Protestants, or who refused to lay down their arms. Greatnumbers of Irish were got out of the country to serve under Catholicpowers abroad, and a quantity of land was declared to have been forfeitedby past offences, and was given to people who had lent money to theParliament early in the war. These were sweeping measures; but, ifOliver Cromwell had had his own way fully, and had stayed in Ireland, hewould have done more yet. 

However, as I have said, the Parliament wanted Oliver for Scotland; so, home Oliver came, and was made Commander of all the Forces of theCommonwealth of England, and in three days away he went with sixteenthousand 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 theIronsides, and would be beaten in an open fight. Therefore they said, 'If we live quiet in our trenches in Edinburgh here, and if all thefarmers come into the town and desert the country, the Ironsides will bedriven 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 whatthey knew nothing about, and would perpetually preach long sermonsexhorting the soldiers to come out and fight, the soldiers got it intheir 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 tenthousand prisoners. 

To gratify the Scottish Parliament, and preserve their favour, Charleshad signed a declaration they laid before him, reproaching the memory ofhis father and mother, and representing himself as a most religiousPrince, to whom the Solemn League and Covenant was as dear as life. Hemeant no sort of truth in this, and soon afterwards galloped away onhorseback to join some tiresome Highland friends, who were alwaysflourishing dirks and broadswords. He was overtaken and induced toreturn; but this attempt, which was called 'The Start, ' did him just somuch service, that they did not preach quite such long sermons at himafterwards as they had done before. 

On the first of January, one thousand six hundred and fifty-one, theScottish people crowned him at Scone. He immediately took the chiefcommand of an army of twenty thousand men, and marched to Stirling. Hishopes were heightened, I dare say, by the redoubtable Oliver being ill ofan ague; but Oliver scrambled out of bed in no time, and went to workwith such energy that he got behind the Royalist army and cut it off fromall communication with Scotland. There was nothing for it then, but togo on to England; so it went on as far as Worcester, where the mayor andsome of the gentry proclaimed King Charles the Second straightway. Hisproclamation, however, was of little use to him, for very few Royalistsappeared; and, on the very same day, two people were publicly beheaded onTower Hill for espousing his cause. Up came Oliver to Worcester too, atdouble quick speed, and he and his Ironsides so laid about them in thegreat battle which was fought there, that they completely beat theScottish men, and destroyed the Royalist army; though the Scottish menfought so gallantly that it took five hours to do. 

The escape of Charles after this battle of Worcester did him good servicelong afterwards, for it induced many of the generous English people totake a romantic interest in him, and to think much better of him than heever deserved. He fled in the night, with not more than sixty followers, to the house of a Catholic lady in Staffordshire. There, for his greatersafety, the whole sixty left him. He cropped his hair, stained his faceand hands brown as if they were sunburnt, put on the clothes of alabouring countryman, and went out in the morning with his axe in hishand, accompanied by four wood-cutters who were brothers, and another manwho was their brother-in-law. These good fellows made a bed for himunder a tree, as the weather was very bad; and the wife of one of thembrought him food to eat; and the old mother of the four brothers came andfell down on her knees before him in the wood, and thanked God that hersons were engaged in saving his life. At night, he came out of theforest and went on to another house which was near the river Severn, withthe 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 with hay, for some time, he cameout of his place, attended by COLONEL CARELESS, a Catholic gentleman whohad met him there, and with whom he lay hid, all next day, up in theshady branches of a fine old oak. It was lucky for the King that it wasSeptember-time, and that the leaves had not begun to fall, since he andthe Colonel, perched up in this tree, could catch glimpses of thesoldiers riding about below, and could hear the crash in the wood as theywent 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 thetroopers while he was there, went with LORD WILMOT, another of his goodfriends, to a place called Bentley, where one MISS LANE, a Protestantlady, had obtained a pass to be allowed to ride through the guards to seea relation of hers near Bristol. Disguised as a servant, he rode in thesaddle before this young lady to the house of SIR JOHN WINTER, while LordWilmot rode there boldly, like a plain country gentleman, with dogs athis heels. It happened that Sir John Winter's butler had been servant inRichmond 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 foundto carry him abroad, it was planned that he should go--still travellingwith Miss Lane as her servant--to another house, at Trent near Sherbornein Dorsetshire; and then Miss Lane and her cousin, MR. LASCELLES, who hadgone on horseback beside her all the way, went home. I hope Miss Lanewas 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 MissLane. 

When Charles, lonely for the loss of Miss Lane, was safe at Trent, a shipwas hired at Lyme, the master of which engaged to take two gentlemen toFrance. In the evening of the same day, the King--now riding as servantbefore another young lady--set off for a public-house at a place calledCharmouth, 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 toBridport; and, coming to the inn there, found the stable-yard full ofsoldiers who were on the look-out for Charles, and who talked about himwhile they drank. He had such presence of mind, that he led the horsesof his party through the yard as any other servant might have done, andsaid, '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 andsaid to him, 'Why, I was formerly servant to Mr. Potter at Exeter, andsurely I have sometimes seen you there, young man?' He certainly had, for Charles had lodged there. His ready answer was, 'Ah, I did live withhim once; but I have no time to talk now. We'll have a pot of beertogether when I come back. '

From this dangerous place he returned to Trent, and lay there concealedseveral days. Then he escaped to Heale, near Salisbury; where, in thehouse of a widow lady, he was hidden five days, until the master of acollier lying off Shoreham in Sussex, undertook to convey a 'gentleman'to France. On the night of the fifteenth of October, accompanied by twocolonels and a merchant, the King rode to Brighton, then a little fishingvillage, 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 notonly he, but the landlord and landlady also. Before he went away, thelandlord came behind his chair, kissed his hand, and said he hoped tolive 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 anddrinking, at which the King was a first-rate hand; so, the captainassured him that he would stand by him, and he did. It was agreed thatthe captain should pretend to sail to Deal, and that Charles shouldaddress the sailors and say he was a gentleman in debt who was runningaway from his creditors, and that he hoped they would join him inpersuading the captain to put him ashore in France. As the King actedhis part very well indeed, and gave the sailors twenty shillings todrink, they begged the captain to do what such a worthy gentleman asked. He pretended to yield to their entreaties, and the King got safe toNormandy. 

Ireland being now subdued, and Scotland kept quiet by plenty of forts andsoldiers put there by Oliver, the Parliament would have gone on quietlyenough, as far as fighting with any foreign enemy went, but for gettinginto trouble with the Dutch, who in the spring of the year one thousandsix hundred and fifty-one sent a fleet into the Downs under their ADMIRALVAN TROMP, to call upon the bold English ADMIRAL BLAKE (who was therewith half as many ships as the Dutch) to strike his flag. Blake fired araging broadside instead, and beat off Van Tromp; who, in the autumn, came back again with seventy ships, and challenged the bold Blake--whostill 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 atnight. What does Van Tromp upon this, but goes cruising and boastingabout the Channel, between the North Foreland and the Isle of Wight, witha great Dutch broom tied to his masthead, as a sign that he could andwould sweep the English of the sea! Within three months, Blake loweredhis tone though, and his broom too; for, he and two other boldcommanders, DEAN and MONK, fought him three whole days, took twenty-threeof his ships, shivered his broom to pieces, and settled his business. 

Things were no sooner quiet again, than the army began to complain to theParliament that they were not governing the nation properly, and to hintthat they thought they could do it better themselves. Oliver, who hadnow 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 ownParliamentary friends, at his lodgings in Whitehall, to consider the bestway of getting rid of the Parliament. It had now lasted just as manyyears as the King's unbridled power had lasted, before it came intoexistence. The end of the deliberation was, that Oliver went down to theHouse in his usual plain black dress, with his usual grey worstedstockings, but with an unusual party of soldiers behind him. These lasthe left in the lobby, and then went in and sat down. Presently he gotup, made the Parliament a speech, told them that the Lord had done withthem, stamped his foot and said, 'You are no Parliament. Bring them in!Bring them in!' At this signal the door flew open, and the soldiersappeared. 'This is not honest, ' said Sir Harry Vane, one of the members. 'Sir Harry Vane!' cried Cromwell; 'O, Sir Harry Vane! The Lord deliverme from Sir Harry Vane!' Then he pointed out members one by one, andsaid this man was a drunkard, and that man a dissipated fellow, and thatman a liar, and so on. Then he caused the Speaker to be walked out ofhis chair, told the guard to clear the House, called the mace upon thetable--which is a sign that the House is sitting--'a fool's bauble, ' andsaid, 'here, carry it away!' Being obeyed in all these orders, hequietly locked the door, put the key in his pocket, walked back toWhitehall again, and told his friends, who were still assembled there, what he had done. 

They formed a new Council of State after this extraordinary proceeding, and got a new Parliament together in their own way: which Oliver himselfopened in a sort of sermon, and which he said was the beginning of aperfect heaven upon earth. In this Parliament there sat a well-knownleather-seller, who had taken the singular name of Praise God Barebones, and from whom it was called, for a joke, Barebones's Parliament, thoughits general name was the Little Parliament. As it soon appeared that itwas not going to put Oliver in the first place, it turned out to be notat all like the beginning of heaven upon earth, and Oliver said it reallywas not to be borne with. So he cleared off that Parliament in much thesame way as he had disposed of the other; and then the council ofofficers decided that he must be made the supreme authority of thekingdom, under the title of the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. 

So, on the sixteenth of December, one thousand six hundred andfifty-three, a great procession was formed at Oliver's door, and he cameout in a black velvet suit and a big pair of boots, and got into hiscoach and went down to Westminster, attended by the judges, and the lordmayor, and the aldermen, and all the other great and wonderful personagesof the country. There, in the Court of Chancery, he publicly acceptedthe office of Lord Protector. Then he was sworn, and the City sword washanded to him, and the seal was handed to him, and all the other thingswere handed to him which are usually handed to Kings and Queens on stateoccasions. When Oliver had handed them all back, he was quite made andcompletely finished off as Lord Protector; and several of the Ironsidespreached about it at great length, all the evening. 

SECOND PART

Oliver Cromwell--whom the people long called OLD NOLL--in accepting theoffice of Protector, had bound himself by a certain paper which washanded to him, called 'the Instrument, ' to summon a Parliament, consisting of between four and five hundred members, in the election ofwhich neither the Royalists nor the Catholics were to have any share. Hehad also pledged himself that this Parliament should not be dissolvedwithout its own consent until it had sat five months. 

When this Parliament met, Oliver made a speech to them of three hourslong, very wisely advising them what to do for the credit and happinessof the country. To keep down the more violent members, he required themto sign a recognition of what they were forbidden by 'the Instrument' todo; which was, chiefly, to take the power from one single person at thehead of the state or to command the army. Then he dismissed them to goto work. With his usual vigour and resolution he went to work himselfwith some frantic preachers--who were rather overdoing their sermons incalling him a villain and a tyrant--by shutting up their chapels, andsending a few of them off to prison. 

There was not at that time, in England or anywhere else, a man so able togovern the country as Oliver Cromwell. Although he ruled with a stronghand, and levied a very heavy tax on the Royalists (but not until theyhad plotted against his life), he ruled wisely, and as the timesrequired. He caused England to be so respected abroad, that I wish somelords and gentlemen who have governed it under kings and queens in laterdays would have taken a leaf out of Oliver Cromwell's book. He sent boldAdmiral Blake to the Mediterranean Sea, to make the Duke of Tuscany paysixty thousand pounds for injuries he had done to British subjects, andspoliation he had committed on English merchants. He further despatchedhim and his fleet to Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, to have every Englishship and every English man delivered up to him that had been taken bypirates in those parts. All this was gloriously done; and it began to bethoroughly well known, all over the world, that England was governed by aman in earnest, who would not allow the English name to be insulted orslighted anywhere. 

These were not all his foreign triumphs. He sent a fleet to sea againstthe 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 lastedall day long. Dean was killed in this fight; but Monk, who commanded inthe same ship with him, threw his cloak over his body, that the sailorsmight not know of his death, and be disheartened. Nor were they. TheEnglish broadsides so exceedingly astonished the Dutch that they sheeredoff at last, though the redoubtable Van Tromp fired upon them with hisown guns for deserting their flag. Soon afterwards, the two fleetsengaged again, off the coast of Holland. There, the valiant Van Trompwas shot through the heart, and the Dutch gave in, and peace was made. 

Further than this, Oliver resolved not to bear the domineering andbigoted conduct of Spain, which country not only claimed a right to allthe gold and silver that could be found in South America, and treated theships of all other countries who visited those regions, as pirates, butput English subjects into the horrible Spanish prisons of theInquisition. So, Oliver told the Spanish ambassador that English shipsmust be free to go wherever they would, and that English merchants mustnot be thrown into those same dungeons, no, not for the pleasure of allthe priests in Spain. To this, the Spanish ambassador replied that thegold and silver country, and the Holy Inquisition, were his King's twoeyes, neither of which he could submit to have put out. Very well, saidOliver, then he was afraid he (Oliver) must damage those two eyesdirectly. 

So, another fleet was despatched under two commanders, PENN and VENABLES, for Hispaniola; where, however, the Spaniards got the better of thefight. Consequently, the fleet came home again, after taking Jamaica onthe way. Oliver, indignant with the two commanders who had not done whatbold Admiral Blake would have done, clapped them both into prison, declared war against Spain, and made a treaty with France, in virtue ofwhich it was to shelter the King and his brother the Duke of York nolonger. Then, he sent a fleet abroad under bold Admiral Blake, whichbrought the King of Portugal to his senses--just to keep its hand in--andthen engaged a Spanish fleet, sunk four great ships, and took two more, laden with silver to the value of two millions of pounds: which dazzlingprize was brought from Portsmouth to London in waggons, with the populaceof all the towns and villages through which the waggons passed, shoutingwith all their might. After this victory, bold Admiral Blake sailed awayto the port of Santa Cruz to cut off the Spanish treasure-ships comingfrom Mexico. There, he found them, ten in number, with seven others totake care of them, and a big castle, and seven batteries, all roaring andblazing away at him with great guns. Blake cared no more for great gunsthan 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 flagflying at his masthead. This was the last triumph of this greatcommander, who had sailed and fought until he was quite worn out. Hedied, as his successful ship was coming into Plymouth Harbour amidst thejoyful acclamations of the people, and was buried in state in WestminsterAbbey. Not to lie there, long. 

Over and above all this, Oliver found that the VAUDOIS, or Protestantpeople of the valleys of Lucerne, were insolently treated by the Catholicpowers, and were even put to death for their religion, in an audaciousand bloody manner. Instantly, he informed those powers that this was athing which Protestant England would not allow; and he speedily carriedhis point, through the might of his great name, and established theirright to worship God in peace after their own harmless manner. 

Lastly, his English army won such admiration in fighting with the Frenchagainst the Spaniards, that, after they had assaulted the town of Dunkirktogether, the French King in person gave it up to the English, that itmight 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 disappointedRepublicans. He had a difficult game to play, for the Royalists werealways ready to side with either party against him. The 'King over thewater, ' too, as Charles was called, had no scruples about plotting withany one against his life; although there is reason to suppose that hewould willingly have married one of his daughters, if Oliver would havehad 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 agrievous trouble to him through all this part of his career; and who cameand went between the discontented in England and Spain, and Charles whoput himself in alliance with Spain on being thrown off by France. Thisman died in prison at last; but not until there had been very seriousplots between the Royalists and Republicans, and an actual rising of themin England, when they burst into the city of Salisbury, on a Sundaynight, seized the judges who were going to hold the assizes there nextday, and would have hanged them but for the merciful objections of themore temperate of their number. Oliver was so vigorous and shrewd thathe soon put this revolt down, as he did most other conspiracies; and itwas well for one of its chief managers--that same Lord Wilmot who hadassisted in Charles's flight, and was now EARL OF ROCHESTER--that he madehis escape. Oliver seemed to have eyes and ears everywhere, and securedsuch sources of information as his enemies little dreamed of. There wasa chosen body of six persons, called the Sealed Knot, who were in theclosest and most secret confidence of Charles. One of the foremost ofthese very men, a SIR RICHARD WILLIS, reported to Oliver everything thatpassed among them, and had two hundred a year for it. 

MILES SYNDARCOMB, also of the old army, was another conspirator againstthe Protector. He and a man named CECIL, bribed one of his Life Guardsto let them have good notice when he was going out--intending to shoothim 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, theygot into the chapel in Whitehall, with a basketful of combustibles, whichwere to explode by means of a slow match in six hours; then, in the noiseand confusion of the fire, they hoped to kill Oliver. But, the LifeGuardsman himself disclosed this plot; and they were seized, and Milesdied (or killed himself in prison) a little while before he was orderedfor execution. A few such plotters Oliver caused to be beheaded, a fewmore to be hanged, and many more, including those who rose in armsagainst him, to be sent as slaves to the West Indies. If he were rigid, he was impartial too, in asserting the laws of England. When aPortuguese nobleman, the brother of the Portuguese ambassador, killed aLondon 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 inLondon. 

One of Oliver's own friends, the DUKE OF OLDENBURGH, in sending him apresent of six fine coach-horses, was very near doing more to please theRoyalists than all the plotters put together. One day, Oliver went withhis coach, drawn by these six horses, into Hyde Park, to dine with hissecretary and some of his other gentlemen under the trees there. Afterdinner, being merry, he took it into his head to put his friends insideand 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, andOliver fell upon the coach-pole and narrowly escaped being shot by hisown pistol, which got entangled with his clothes in the harness, and wentoff. He was dragged some distance by the foot, until his foot came outof the shoe, and then he came safely to the ground under the broad bodyof the coach, and was very little the worse. The gentlemen inside wereonly bruised, and the discontented people of all parties were muchdisappointed. 

The rest of the history of the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell is ahistory of his Parliaments. His first one not pleasing him at all, hewaited until the five months were out, and then dissolved it. The nextwas better suited to his views; and from that he desired to get--if hecould with safety to himself--the title of King. He had had this in hismind some time: whether because he thought that the English people, beingmore used to the title, were more likely to obey it; or whether becausehe really wished to be a king himself, and to leave the succession tothat title in his family, is far from clear. He was already as high, inEngland and in all the world, as he would ever be, and I doubt if hecared for the mere name. However, a paper, called the 'Humble Petitionand Advice, ' was presented to him by the House of Commons, praying him totake a high title and to appoint his successor. That he would have takenthe title of King there is no doubt, but for the strong opposition of thearmy. This induced him to forbear, and to assent only to the otherpoints of the petition. Upon which occasion there was another grand showin Westminster Hall, when the Speaker of the House of Commons formallyinvested him with a purple robe lined with ermine, and presented him witha splendidly bound Bible, and put a golden sceptre in his hand. The nexttime the Parliament met, he called a House of Lords of sixty members, asthe petition gave him power to do; but as that Parliament did not pleasehim either, and would not proceed to the business of the country, hejumped into a coach one morning, took six Guards with him, and sent themto the right-about. I wish this had been a warning to Parliaments toavoid 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 CLAYPOLE (who hadlately lost her youngest son), lay very ill, and his mind was greatlytroubled, because he loved her dearly. Another of his daughters wasmarried to LORD FALCONBERG, another to the grandson of the Earl ofWarwick, and he had made his son RICHARD one of the Members of the UpperHouse. He was very kind and loving to them all, being a good father anda good husband; but he loved this daughter the best of the family, andwent down to Hampton Court to see her, and could hardly be induced tostir from her sick room until she died. Although his religion had beenof a gloomy kind, his disposition had been always cheerful. He had beenfond of music in his home, and had kept open table once a week for allofficers of the army not below the rank of captain, and had alwayspreserved in his house a quiet, sensible dignity. He encouraged men ofgenius and learning, and loved to have them about him. MILTON was one ofhis great friends. He was good humoured too, with the nobility, whosedresses and manners were very different from his; and to show them whatgood information he had, he would sometimes jokingly tell them when theywere his guests, where they had last drunk the health of the 'King overthe 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 ofheavy State affairs, and had often gone in fear of his life. He was illof the gout and ague; and when the death of his beloved child came uponhim in addition, he sank, never to raise his head again. He told hisphysicians on the twenty-fourth of August that the Lord had assured himthat he was not to die in that illness, and that he would certainly getbetter. This was only his sick fancy, for on the third of September, which was the anniversary of the great battle of Worcester, and the dayof the year which he called his fortunate day, he died, in the sixtiethyear of his age. He had been delirious, and had lain insensible somehours, but he had been overheard to murmur a very good prayer the daybefore. The whole country lamented his death. If you want to know thereal worth of Oliver Cromwell, and his real services to his country, youcan hardly do better than compare England under him, with England underCHARLES THE SECOND. 

He had appointed his son Richard to succeed him, and after there hadbeen, at Somerset House in the Strand, a lying in state more splendidthan sensible--as all such vanities after death are, I think--Richardbecame Lord Protector. He was an amiable country gentleman, but had noneof his father's great genius, and was quite unfit for such a post in sucha storm of parties. Richard's Protectorate, which only lasted a year anda half, is a history of quarrels between the officers of the army and theParliament, and between the officers among themselves; and of a growingdiscontent among the people, who had far too many long sermons and fartoo few amusements, and wanted a change. At last, General Monk got thearmy well into his own hands, and then in pursuance of a secret plan heseems to have entertained from the time of Oliver's death, declared forthe King's cause. He did not do this openly; but, in his place in theHouse of Commons, as one of the members for Devonshire, stronglyadvocated the proposals of one SIR JOHN GREENVILLE, who came to the Housewith a letter from Charles, dated from Breda, and with whom he hadpreviously been in secret communication. There had been plots andcounterplots, and a recall of the last members of the Long Parliament, and an end of the Long Parliament, and risings of the Royalists that weremade too soon; and most men being tired out, and there being no one tohead the country now great Oliver was dead, it was readily agreed towelcome Charles Stuart. Some of the wiser and better members said--whatwas most true--that in the letter from Breda, he gave no real promise togovern well, and that it would be best to make him pledge himselfbeforehand as to what he should be bound to do for the benefit of thekingdom. Monk said, however, it would be all right when he came, and hecould not come too soon. 

So, everybody found out all in a moment that the country _must_ beprosperous and happy, having another Stuart to condescend to reign overit; and there was a prodigious firing off of guns, lighting of bonfires, ringing of bells, and throwing up of caps. The people drank the King'shealth by thousands in the open streets, and everybody rejoiced. Downcame the Arms of the Commonwealth, up went the Royal Arms instead, andout came the public money. Fifty thousand pounds for the King, tenthousand pounds for his brother the Duke of York, five thousand poundsfor his brother the Duke of Gloucester. Prayers for these graciousStuarts were put up in all the churches; commissioners were sent toHolland (which suddenly found out that Charles was a great man, and thatit loved him) to invite the King home; Monk and the Kentish grandees wentto Dover, to kneel down before him as he landed. He kissed and embracedMonk, made him ride in the coach with himself and his brothers, came onto London amid wonderful shoutings, and passed through the army atBlackheath on the twenty-ninth of May (his birthday), in the year onethousand six hundred and sixty. Greeted by splendid dinners under tents, by flags and tapestry streaming from all the houses, by delighted crowdsin all the streets, by troops of noblemen and gentlemen in rich dresses, by City companies, train-bands, drummers, trumpeters, the great LordMayor, and the majestic Aldermen, the King went on to Whitehall. Onentering it, he commemorated his Restoration with the joke that it reallywould 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 hisheart. 

CHAPTER XXXV--ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND, CALLED THE MERRY MONARCH

There never were such profligate times in England as under Charles theSecond. Whenever you see his portrait, with his swarthy, ill-lookingface and great nose, you may fancy him in his Court at Whitehall, surrounded by some of the very worst vagabonds in the kingdom (thoughthey were lords and ladies), drinking, gambling, indulging in viciousconversation, and committing every kind of profligate excess. It hasbeen a fashion to call Charles the Second 'The Merry Monarch. ' Let metry to give you a general idea of some of the merry things that weredone, in the merry days when this merry gentleman sat upon his merrythrone, in merry England. 

The first merry proceeding was--of course--to declare that he was one ofthe greatest, the wisest, and the noblest kings that ever shone, like theblessed sun itself, on this benighted earth. The next merry and pleasantpiece of business was, for the Parliament, in the humblest manner, togive him one million two hundred thousand pounds a year, and to settleupon him for life that old disputed tonnage and poundage which had beenso bravely fought for. Then, General Monk being made EARL OF ALBEMARLE, and a few other Royalists similarly rewarded, the law went to work to seewhat was to be done to those persons (they were called Regicides) who hadbeen concerned in making a martyr of the late King. Ten of these weremerrily executed; that is to say, six of the judges, one of the council, Colonel Hacker and another officer who had commanded the Guards, and HUGHPETERS, a preacher who had preached against the martyr with all hisheart. These executions were so extremely merry, that every horriblecircumstance which Cromwell had abandoned was revived with appallingcruelty. The hearts of the sufferers were torn out of their livingbodies; their bowels were burned before their faces; the executioner cutjokes to the next victim, as he rubbed his filthy hands together, thatwere reeking with the blood of the last; and the heads of the dead weredrawn on sledges with the living to the place of suffering. Still, evenso merry a monarch could not force one of these dying men to say that hewas sorry for what he had done. Nay, the most memorable thing said amongthem was, that if the thing were to do again they would do it. 

Sir Harry Vane, who had furnished the evidence against Strafford, and wasone of the most staunch of the Republicans, was 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 hehad meant to say to the people were torn away from him, and the drums andtrumpets were ordered to sound lustily and drown his voice; for, thepeople had been so much impressed by what the Regicides had calmly saidwith their last breath, that it was the custom now, to have the drums andtrumpets always under the scaffold, ready to strike up. Vane said nomore than this: 'It is a bad cause which cannot bear the words of a dyingman:' and bravely died. 

These merry scenes were succeeded by another, perhaps even merrier. Onthe anniversary of the late King's death, the bodies of Oliver 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 thenbeheaded. Imagine the head of Oliver Cromwell set upon a pole to bestared at by a brutal crowd, not one of whom would have dared to look theliving Oliver in the face for half a moment! Think, after you have readthis reign, what England was under Oliver Cromwell who was torn out ofhis grave, and what it was under this merry monarch who sold it, like amerry Judas, over and over again. 

Of course, the remains of Oliver's wife and daughter were not to bespared either, though they had been most excellent women. The baseclergy of that time gave up their bodies, which had been buried in theAbbey, and--to the eternal disgrace of England--they were thrown into apit, together with the mouldering bones of Pym and of the brave and boldold Admiral Blake. 

The clergy acted this disgraceful part because they hoped to get thenonconformists, or dissenters, thoroughly put down in this reign, and tohave but one prayer-book and one service for all kinds of people, nomatter what their private opinions were. This was pretty well, I think, for a Protestant Church, which had displaced the Romish Church becausepeople 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, inwhich the extremest opinions of Archbishop Laud were not forgotten. AnAct was passed, too, preventing any dissenter from holding any officeunder any corporation. So, the regular clergy in their triumph were soonas merry as the King. The army being by this time disbanded, and theKing crowned, everything was to go on easily for evermore. 

I must say a word here about the King's family. He had not been longupon the throne when his brother the Duke of Gloucester, and his sisterthe PRINCESS OF ORANGE, died within a few months of each other, of small-pox. His remaining sister, the PRINCESS HENRIETTA, married the DUKE OFORLEANS, the brother of LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH, King of France. Hisbrother JAMES, DUKE OF YORK, was made High Admiral, and by-and-by becamea Catholic. He was a gloomy, sullen, bilious sort of man, with aremarkable partiality for the ugliest women in the country. He married, under very discreditable circumstances, ANNE HYDE, the daughter of LORDCLARENDON, then the King's principal Minister--not at all a delicateminister either, but doing much of the dirty work of a very dirty palace. It became important now that the King himself should be married; anddivers foreign Monarchs, not very particular about the character of theirson-in-law, proposed their daughters to him. The KING OF PORTUGALoffered his daughter, CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA, and fifty thousand pounds:in addition to which, the French King, who was favourable to that match, offered a loan of another fifty thousand. The King of Spain, on theother hand, offered any one out of a dozen of Princesses, and other hopesof gain. But the ready money carried the day, and Catherine came over instate to her merry marriage. 

The whole Court was a great flaunting crowd of debauched men andshameless women; and Catherine's merry husband insulted and outraged herin every possible way, until she consented to receive those worthlesscreatures as her very good friends, and to degrade herself by theircompanionship. A MRS. PALMER, whom the King made LADY CASTLEMAINE, andafterwards DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND, was one of the most powerful of the badwomen about the Court, and had great influence with the King nearly allthrough his reign. Another merry lady named MOLL DAVIES, a dancer at thetheatre, was afterwards her rival. So was NELL GWYN, first an orangegirl and then an actress, who really had good in her, and of whom one ofthe worst things I know is, that actually she does seem to have been fondof 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 createdDUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH, became the DUKE OF RICHMOND. Upon the whole it isnot so bad a thing to be a commoner. 

The Merry Monarch was so exceedingly merry among these merry ladies, andsome equally merry (and equally infamous) lords and gentlemen, that hesoon got through his hundred thousand pounds, and then, by way of raisinga little pocket-money, made a merry bargain. He sold Dunkirk to theFrench King for five millions of livres. When I think of the dignity towhich Oliver Cromwell raised England in the eyes of foreign powers, andwhen I think of the manner in which he gained for England this veryDunkirk, I am much inclined to consider that if the Merry Monarch hadbeen made to follow his father for this action, he would have receivedhis 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 tothe Parliament, from Breda, he did expressly promise that all sincerereligious opinions should be respected. Yet he was no sooner firm in hispower than he consented to one of the worst Acts of Parliament everpassed. Under this law, every minister who should not give his solemnassent to the Prayer-Book by a certain day, was declared to be a ministerno longer, and to be deprived of his church. The consequence of this wasthat some two thousand honest men were taken from their congregations, and reduced to dire poverty and distress. It was followed by anotheroutrageous law, called the Conventicle Act, by which any person above theage of sixteen who was present at any religious service not according tothe 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 alonefilled the prisons, which were then most dreadful dungeons, tooverflowing. 

The Covenanters in Scotland had already fared no better. A baseParliament, usually known as the Drunken Parliament, in consequence ofits principal members being seldom sober, had been got together to makelaws against the Covenanters, and to force all men to be of one mind inreligious matters. The MARQUIS OF ARGYLE, relying on the King's honour, had given himself up to him; but, he was wealthy, and his enemies wantedhis wealth. He was tried for treason, on the evidence of some privateletters in which he had expressed opinions--as well he might--morefavourable to the government of the late Lord Protector than of thepresent merry and religious King. He was executed, as were two men ofmark among the Covenanters; and SHARP, a traitor who had once been thefriend of the Presbyterians and betrayed them, was 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 awar with the Dutch; principally because they interfered with an Africancompany, established with the two objects of buying gold-dust and slaves, of which the Duke of York was a leading member. After some preliminaryhostilities, the said Duke sailed to the coast of Holland with a fleet ofninety-eight vessels of war, and four fire-ships. This engaged with theDutch fleet, of no fewer than one hundred and thirteen ships. In thegreat battle between the two forces, the Dutch lost eighteen ships, fouradmirals, and seven thousand men. But, the English on shore were in nomood of exultation when they heard the news. 

For, this was the year and the time of the Great Plague in London. Duringthe winter of one thousand six hundred and sixty-four it had beenwhispered about, that some few people had died here and there of thedisease called the Plague, in some of the unwholesome suburbs aroundLondon. News was not published at that time as it is now, and somepeople believed these rumours, and some disbelieved them, and they weresoon forgotten. But, in the month of May, one thousand six hundred andsixty-five, it began to be said all over the town that the disease hadburst out with great violence in St. Giles's, and that the people weredying in great numbers. This soon turned out to be awfully true. Theroads out of London were choked up by people endeavouring to escape fromthe infected city, and large sums were paid for any kind of conveyance. The disease soon spread so fast, that it was necessary to shut up thehouses in which sick people were, and to cut them off from communicationwith the living. Every one of these houses was marked on the outside ofthe door with a red cross, and the words, Lord, have mercy upon us! Thestreets were all deserted, grass grew in the public ways, and there was adreadful silence in the air. When night came on, dismal rumblings usedto be heard, and these were the wheels of the death-carts, attended bymen with veiled faces and holding cloths to their mouths, who rangdoleful bells and cried in a loud and solemn voice, 'Bring out yourdead!' The corpses put into these carts were buried by torchlight ingreat pits; no service being performed over them; all men being afraid tostay for a moment on the brink of the ghastly graves. In the generalfear, children ran away from their parents, and parents from theirchildren. Some who were taken ill, died alone, and without any help. Some were stabbed or strangled by hired nurses who robbed them of alltheir 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 andfrenzy flung themselves into the river. 

These were not all the horrors of the time. The wicked and dissolute, inwild desperation, sat in the taverns singing roaring songs, and werestricken as they drank, and went out and died. The fearful andsuperstitious persuaded themselves that they saw supernaturalsights--burning swords in the sky, gigantic arms and darts. Otherspretended that at nights vast crowds of ghosts walked round and round thedismal pits. One madman, naked, and carrying a brazier full of burningcoals upon his head, stalked through the streets, crying out that he wasa Prophet, commissioned to denounce the vengeance of the Lord on wickedLondon. Another always went to and fro, exclaiming, 'Yet forty days, andLondon shall be destroyed!' A third awoke the echoes in the dismalstreets, by night and by day, and made the blood of the sick run cold, bycalling out incessantly, in a deep hoarse voice, 'O, the great anddreadful God!'

Through the months of July and August and September, the Great Plagueraged more and more. Great fires were lighted in the streets, in thehope of stopping the infection; but there was a plague of rain too, andit beat the fires out. At last, the winds which usually arise at thattime of the year which is called the equinox, when day and night are ofequal length all over the world, began to blow, and to purify thewretched town. The deaths began to decrease, the red crosses slowly todisappear, the fugitives to return, the shops to open, pale frightenedfaces to be seen in the streets. The Plague had been in every part ofEngland, but in close and unwholesome London it had killed one hundredthousand people. 

All this time, the Merry Monarch was as merry as ever, and as worthlessas ever. All this time, the debauched lords and gentlemen and theshameless ladies danced and gamed and drank, and loved and hated oneanother, 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 theFive Mile Act, expressly directed against those poor ministers who, inthe time of the Plague, had manfully come back to comfort the unhappypeople. This infamous law, by forbidding them to teach in any school, orto come within five miles of any city, town, or village, doomed them tostarvation and death. 

The fleet had been at sea, and healthy. The King of France was now inalliance with the Dutch, though his navy was chiefly employed in lookingon while the English and Dutch fought. The Dutch gained one victory; andthe English gained another and a greater; and Prince Rupert, one of theEnglish admirals, was out in the Channel one windy night, looking for theFrench Admiral, with the intention of giving him something more to dothan he had had yet, when the gale increased to a storm, and blew himinto Saint Helen's. That night was the third of September, one thousandsix 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 whichthe Monument now stands as a remembrance of those raging flames. Itspread and spread, and burned and burned, for three days. The nightswere lighter than the days; in the daytime there was an immense cloud ofsmoke, and in the night-time there was a great tower of fire mounting upinto the sky, which lighted the whole country landscape for ten milesround. Showers of hot ashes rose into the air and fell on distantplaces; flying sparks carried the conflagration to great distances, andkindled it in twenty new spots at a time; church steeples fell down withtremendous crashes; houses crumbled into cinders by the hundred and thethousand. The summer had been intensely hot and dry, the streets werevery narrow, and the houses mostly built of wood and plaster. Nothingcould stop the tremendous fire, but the want of more houses to burn; nordid it stop until the whole way from the Tower to Temple Bar was adesert, composed of the ashes of thirteen thousand houses and eighty-ninechurches. 

This was a terrible visitation at the time, and occasioned great loss andsuffering to the two hundred thousand burnt-out people, who were obligedto lie in the fields under the open night sky, or in hastily-made huts ofmud and straw, while the lanes and roads were rendered impassable bycarts which had broken down as they tried to save their goods. But theFire was a great blessing to the City afterwards, for it arose from itsruins very much improved--built more regularly, more widely, more cleanlyand carefully, and therefore much more healthily. It might be far morehealthy than it is, but there are some people in it still--even now, atthis time, nearly two hundred years later--so selfish, so pig-headed, andso ignorant, that I doubt if even another Great Fire would warm them upto do their duty. 

The Catholics were accused of having wilfully set London in flames; onepoor Frenchman, who had been mad for years, even accused himself ofhaving with his own hand fired the first house. There is no reasonabledoubt, however, that the fire was accidental. An inscription on theMonument long attributed it to the Catholics; but it is removed now, andwas always a malicious and stupid untruth. 

SECOND PART

That the Merry Monarch might be very merry indeed, in the merry timeswhen his people were suffering under pestilence and fire, he drank andgambled and flung away among his favourites the money which theParliament had voted for the war. The consequence of this was that thestout-hearted English sailors were merrily starving of want, and dying inthe 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 theywould to the English coast for six whole weeks. Most of the Englishships that could have prevented them had neither powder nor shot onboard; in this merry reign, public officers made themselves as merry asthe King did with the public money; and when it was entrusted to them tospend in national defences or preparations, they put it into their ownpockets with the merriest grace in the world. 

Lord Clarendon had, by this time, run as long a course as is usuallyallotted to the unscrupulous ministers of bad kings. He was impeached byhis political opponents, but unsuccessfully. The King then commanded himto withdraw from England and retire to France, which he did, afterdefending himself in writing. He was no great loss at home, and diedabroad some seven years afterwards. 

There then came into power a ministry called the Cabal Ministry, becauseit was composed of LORD CLIFFORD, the EARL OF ARLINGTON, the DUKE OFBUCKINGHAM (a great rascal, and the King's most powerful favourite), LORDASHLEY, and the DUKE OF LAUDERDALE, C. A. B. A. L. As the French weremaking conquests in Flanders, the first Cabal proceeding was to make atreaty with the Dutch, for uniting with Spain to oppose the French. Itwas no sooner made than the Merry Monarch, who always wanted to get moneywithout being accountable to a Parliament for his expenditure, apologisedto the King of France for having had anything to do with it, andconcluded a secret treaty with him, making himself his infamous pensionerto the amount of two millions of livres down, and three millions more ayear; and engaging to desert that very Spain, to make war against thosevery Dutch, and to declare himself a Catholic when a convenient timeshould arrive. This religious king had lately been crying to hisCatholic brother on the subject of his strong desire to be a Catholic;and now he merrily concluded this treasonable conspiracy against thecountry he governed, by undertaking to become one as soon as he safelycould. For all of which, though he had had ten merry heads instead ofone, 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 hadbeen known, they were kept very quiet, and war was declared by France andEngland against the Dutch. But, a very uncommon man, afterwards mostimportant to English history and to the religion and liberty of thisland, arose among them, and for many long years defeated the wholeprojects of France. This was WILLIAM OF NASSAU, PRINCE OF ORANGE, son ofthe last Prince of Orange of the same name, who married the daughter ofCharles the First of England. He was a young man at this time, only justof age; but he was brave, cool, intrepid, and wise. His father had beenso detested that, upon his death, the Dutch had abolished the authorityto which this son would have otherwise succeeded (Stadtholder it wascalled), and placed the chief power in the hands of JOHN DE WITT, whoeducated this young prince. Now, the Prince became very popular, andJohn de Witt's brother CORNELIUS was sentenced to banishment on a falseaccusation of conspiring to kill him. John went to the prison where hewas, to take him away to exile, in his coach; and a great mob whocollected on the occasion, then and there cruelly murdered both thebrothers. This left the government in the hands of the Prince, who wasreally the choice of the nation; and from this time he exercised it withthe greatest vigour, against the whole power of France, under its famousgenerals CONDE and TURENNE, and in support of the Protestant religion. Itwas full seven years before this war ended in a treaty of peace made atNimeguen, and its details would occupy a very considerable space. It isenough to say that William of Orange established a famous character withthe whole world; and that the Merry Monarch, adding to and improving onhis former baseness, bound himself to do everything the King of Franceliked, and nothing the King of France did not like, for a pension of onehundred thousand pounds a year, which was afterwards doubled. Besidesthis, the King of France, by means of his corrupt ambassador--who wroteaccounts of his proceedings in England, which are not always to bebelieved, I think--bought our English members of Parliament, as he wantedthem. So, in point of fact, during a considerable portion of this merryreign, 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 royaluncle little thought so) through that very William, Prince of Orange. Hecame 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, andwhy it is never to be forgotten. 

This daughter was a Protestant, but her mother died a Catholic. She andher sister ANNE, also a Protestant, were the only survivors of eightchildren. Anne afterwards married GEORGE, PRINCE OF DENMARK, brother tothe King of that country. 

Lest you should do the Merry Monarch the injustice of supposing that hewas even good humoured (except when he had everything his own way), orthat he was high spirited and honourable, I will mention here what wasdone to a member of the House of Commons, SIR JOHN COVENTRY. He made aremark in a debate about taxing the theatres, which gave the Kingoffence. The King agreed with his illegitimate son, who had been bornabroad, and whom he had made DUKE OF MONMOUTH, to take the followingmerry vengeance. To waylay him at night, fifteen armed men to one, andto slit his nose with a penknife. Like master, like man. The King'sfavourite, the Duke of Buckingham, was strongly suspected of setting onan assassin to murder the DUKE OF ORMOND as he was returning home from adinner; and that Duke's spirited son, LORD OSSORY, was so persuaded ofhis guilt, that he said to him at Court, even as he stood beside theKing, 'My lord, I know very well that you are at the bottom of this lateattempt upon my father. But I give you warning, if he ever come to aviolent end, his blood shall be upon you, and wherever I meet you I willpistol you! I will do so, though I find you standing behind the King'schair; and I tell you this in his Majesty's presence, that you may bequite sure of my doing what I threaten. ' Those were merry times indeed. 

There was a fellow named BLOOD, who was seized for making, with twocompanions, an audacious attempt to steal the crown, the globe, andsceptre, from the place where the jewels were kept in the Tower. Thisrobber, who was a swaggering ruffian, being taken, declared that he wasthe man who had endeavoured to kill the Duke of Ormond, and that he hadmeant to kill the King too, but was overawed by the majesty of hisappearance, when he might otherwise have done it, as he was bathing atBattersea. The King being but an ill-looking fellow, I don't believe aword of this. Whether he was flattered, or whether he knew thatBuckingham had really set Blood on to murder the Duke, is uncertain. Butit is quite certain that he pardoned this thief, gave him an estate offive hundred a year in Ireland (which had had the honour of giving himbirth), and presented him at Court to the debauched lords and theshameless ladies, who made a great deal of him--as I have no doubt theywould have made of the Devil himself, if the King had introduced him. 

Infamously pensioned as he was, the King still wanted money, andconsequently was obliged to call Parliaments. In these, the great objectof the Protestants was to thwart the Catholic Duke of York, who married asecond time; his new wife being a young lady only fifteen years old, theCatholic sister of the DUKE OF MODENA. In this they were seconded by theProtestant Dissenters, though to their own disadvantage: since, toexclude Catholics from power, they were even willing to excludethemselves. The King's object was to pretend to be a Protestant, whilehe was really a Catholic; to swear to the bishops that he was devoutlyattached to the English Church, while he knew he had bargained it away tothe King of France; and by cheating and deceiving them, and all who wereattached to royalty, to become despotic and be powerful enough to confesswhat a rascal he was. Meantime, the King of France, knowing his merrypensioner well, intrigued with the King's opponents in Parliament, aswell 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 theKing in pretending to share their alarms, led to some very terribleresults. A certain DR. TONGE, a dull clergyman in the City, fell intothe hands of a certain TITUS OATES, a most infamous character, whopretended to have acquired among the Jesuits abroad a knowledge of agreat plot for the murder of the King, and the re-establishment if theCatholic religion. Titus Oates, being produced by this unlucky Dr. Tongeand solemnly examined before the council, contradicted himself in athousand ways, told the most ridiculous and improbable stories, andimplicated COLEMAN, the Secretary of the Duchess of York. Now, althoughwhat he charged against Coleman was not true, and although you and I knowvery well that the real dangerous Catholic plot was that one with theKing of France of which the Merry Monarch was himself the head, therehappened to be found among Coleman's papers, some letters, in which hedid praise the days of Bloody Queen Mary, and abuse the Protestantreligion. This was great good fortune for Titus, as it seemed to confirmhim; but better still was in store. SIR EDMUNDBURY GODFREY, themagistrate who had first examined him, being unexpectedly found dead nearPrimrose Hill, was confidently believed to have been killed by theCatholics. I think there is no doubt that he had been melancholy mad, and that he killed himself; but he had a great Protestant funeral, andTitus was called the Saver of the Nation, and received a pension oftwelve hundred pounds a year. 

As soon as Oates's wickedness had met with this success, up startedanother villain, named WILLIAM BEDLOE, who, attracted by a reward of fivehundred pounds offered for the apprehension of the murderers of Godfrey, came forward and charged two Jesuits and some other persons with havingcommitted it at the Queen's desire. Oates, going into partnership withthis new informer, had the audacity to accuse the poor Queen herself ofhigh treason. Then appeared a third informer, as bad as either of thetwo, and accused a Catholic banker named STAYLEY of having said that theKing was the greatest rogue in the world (which would not have been farfrom the truth), and that he would kill him with his own hand. Thisbanker, being at once tried and executed, Coleman and two others weretried and executed. Then, a miserable wretch named PRANCE, a Catholicsilversmith, being accused by Bedloe, was tortured into confessing thathe had taken part in Godfrey's murder, and into accusing three other menof having committed it. Then, five Jesuits were accused by Oates, Bedloe, and Prance together, and were all found guilty, and executed onthe same kind of contradictory and absurd evidence. The Queen'sphysician and three monks were next put on their trial; but Oates andBedloe 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 strongagainst the Duke of York, that James consented to obey a written orderfrom his brother, and to go with his family to Brussels, provided thathis rights should never be sacrificed in his absence to the Duke ofMonmouth. The House of Commons, not satisfied with this as the Kinghoped, passed a bill to exclude the Duke from ever succeeding to thethrone. In return, the King dissolved the Parliament. He had desertedhis old favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, who was now in the opposition. 

To give any sufficient idea of the miseries of Scotland in this merryreign, would occupy a hundred pages. Because the people would not havebishops, 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 peasantsfor deserting the churches; sons were hanged up at their fathers' doorsfor refusing to disclose where their fathers were concealed; wives weretortured to death for not betraying their husbands; people were taken outof their fields and gardens, and shot on the public roads without trial;lighted matches were tied to the fingers of prisoners, and a mosthorrible torment called the Boot was invented, and constantly applied, which ground and mashed the victims' legs with iron wedges. Witnesseswere tortured as well as prisoners. All the prisons were full; all thegibbets were heavy with bodies; murder and plunder devastated the wholecountry. In spite of all, the Covenanters were by no means to be draggedinto the churches, and persisted in worshipping God as they thoughtright. A body of ferocious Highlanders, turned upon them from themountains of their own country, had no greater effect than the Englishdragoons under GRAHAME OF CLAVERHOUSE, the most cruel and rapacious ofall their enemies, whose name will ever be cursed through the length andbreadth of Scotland. Archbishop Sharp had ever aided and abetted allthese outrages. But he fell at last; for, when the injuries of theScottish people were at their height, he was seen, in his coach-and-sixcoming across a moor, by a body of men, headed by one JOHN BALFOUR, whowere waiting for another of their oppressors. Upon this they cried outthat Heaven had delivered him into their hands, and killed him with manywounds. If ever a man deserved such a death, I think Archbishop Sharpdid. 

It made a great noise directly, and the Merry Monarch--strongly suspectedof having goaded the Scottish people on, that he might have an excuse fora greater army than the Parliament were willing to give him--sent downhis son, the Duke of Monmouth, as commander-in-chief, with instructionsto attack the Scottish rebels, or Whigs as they were called, whenever hecame up with them. Marching with ten thousand men from Edinburgh, hefound them, in number four or five thousand, drawn up at Bothwell Bridge, by the Clyde. They were soon dispersed; and Monmouth showed a morehumane character towards them, than he had shown towards that Member ofParliament whose nose he had caused to be slit with a penknife. But theDuke of Lauderdale was their bitter foe, and sent Claverhouse to finishthem. 

As the Duke of York became more and more unpopular, the Duke of Monmouthbecame more and more popular. It would have been decent in the latternot to have voted in favour of the renewed bill for the exclusion ofJames from the throne; but he did so, much to the King's amusement, whoused to sit in the House of Lords by the fire, hearing the debates, whichhe said were as good as a play. The House of Commons passed the bill bya large majority, and it was carried up to the House of Lords by LORDRUSSELL, one of the best of the leaders on the Protestant side. It wasrejected there, chiefly because the bishops helped the King to get rid ofit; and the fear of Catholic plots revived again. There had been anothergot up, by a fellow out of Newgate, named DANGERFIELD, which is morefamous than it deserves to be, under the name of the MEAL-TUB PLOT. Thisjail-bird having been got out of Newgate by a MRS. CELLIER, a Catholicnurse, had turned Catholic himself, and pretended that he knew of a plotamong the Presbyterians against the King's life. This was very pleasantto the Duke of York, who hated the Presbyterians, who returned thecompliment. He gave Dangerfield twenty guineas, and sent him to the Kinghis brother. But Dangerfield, breaking down altogether in his charge, and being sent back to Newgate, almost astonished the Duke out of hisfive senses by suddenly swearing that the Catholic nurse had put thatfalse design into his head, and that what he really knew about, was, aCatholic plot against the King; the evidence of which would be found insome papers, concealed in a meal-tub in Mrs. Cellier's house. There theywere, of course--for he had put them there himself--and so the tub gavethe name to the plot. But, the nurse was acquitted on her trial, and itcame to nothing. 

Lord Ashley, of the Cabal, was now Lord Shaftesbury, and was strongagainst the succession of the Duke of York. The House of Commons, aggravated to the utmost extent, as we may well suppose, by suspicions ofthe King's conspiracy with the King of France, made a desperate point ofthe exclusion, still, and were bitter against the Catholics generally. Sounjustly bitter were they, I grieve to say, that they impeached thevenerable Lord Stafford, a Catholic nobleman seventy years old, of adesign to kill the King. The witnesses were that atrocious Oates and twoother birds of the same feather. He was found guilty, on evidence quiteas foolish as it was false, and was beheaded on Tower Hill. The peoplewere opposed to him when he first appeared upon the scaffold; but, whenhe had addressed them and shown them how innocent he was and how wickedlyhe was sent there, their better nature was aroused, and they said, 'Webelieve you, my Lord. God bless you, my Lord!'

The House of Commons refused to let the King have any money until heshould consent to the Exclusion Bill; but, as he could get it and did getit from his master the King of France, he could afford to hold them verycheap. He called a Parliament at Oxford, to which he went down with agreat show of being armed and protected as if he were in danger of hislife, and to which the opposition members also went armed and protected, alleging that they were in fear of the Papists, who were numerous amongthe King's guards. However, they went on with the Exclusion Bill, andwere so earnest upon it that they would have carried it again, if theKing had not popped his crown and state robes into a sedan-chair, bundledhimself into it along with them, hurried down to the chamber where theHouse of Lords met, and dissolved the Parliament. After which hescampered home, and the members of Parliament scampered home too, as fastas their legs could carry them. 

The Duke of York, then residing in Scotland, had, under the law whichexcluded Catholics from public trust, no right whatever to publicemployment. Nevertheless, he was openly employed as the King'srepresentative in Scotland, and there gratified his sullen and cruelnature to his heart's content by directing the dreadful cruelties againstthe Covenanters. There were two ministers named CARGILL and CAMERON whohad escaped from the battle of Bothwell Bridge, and who returned toScotland, and raised the miserable but still brave and unsubduedCovenanters afresh, under the name of Cameronians. As Cameron publiclyposted a declaration that the King was a forsworn tyrant, no mercy wasshown to his unhappy followers after he was slain in battle. The Duke ofYork, who was particularly fond of the Boot and derived great pleasurefrom having it applied, offered their lives to some of these people, ifthey would cry on the scaffold 'God save the King!' But their relations, friends, and countrymen, had been so barbarously tortured and murdered inthis merry reign, that they preferred to die, and did die. The Duke thenobtained his merry brother's permission to hold a Parliament in Scotland, which first, with most shameless deceit, confirmed the laws for securingthe Protestant religion against Popery, and then declared that nothingmust or should prevent the succession of the Popish Duke. After thisdouble-faced beginning, it established an oath which no human being couldunderstand, but which everybody was to take, as a proof that his religionwas the lawful religion. The Earl of Argyle, taking it with theexplanation that he did not consider it to prevent him from favouring anyalteration either in the Church or State which was not inconsistent withthe Protestant religion or with his loyalty, was tried for high treasonbefore a Scottish jury of which the MARQUIS OF MONTROSE was foreman, andwas found guilty. He escaped the scaffold, for that time, by gettingaway, in the disguise of a page, in the train of his daughter, LADYSOPHIA LINDSAY. It was absolutely proposed, by certain members of theScottish Council, that this lady should be whipped through the streets ofEdinburgh. But this was too much even for the Duke, who had themanliness then (he had very little at most times) to remark thatEnglishmen were not accustomed to treat ladies in that manner. In thosemerry times nothing could equal the brutal servility of the Scottishfawners, but the conduct of similar degraded beings in England. 

After the settlement of these little affairs, the Duke returned toEngland, and soon resumed his place at the Council, and his office ofHigh Admiral--all this by his brother's favour, and in open defiance ofthe law. It would have been no loss to the country, if he had beendrowned when his ship, in going to Scotland to fetch his family, struckon a sand-bank, and was lost with two hundred souls on board. But heescaped in a boat with some friends; and the sailors were so brave andunselfish, that, when they saw him rowing away, they gave three cheers, while they themselves were going down for ever. 

The Merry Monarch, having got rid of his Parliament, went to work to makehimself despotic, with all speed. Having had the villainy to order theexecution of OLIVER PLUNKET, BISHOP OF ARMAGH, falsely accused of a plotto establish Popery in that country by means of a French army--the verything this royal traitor was himself trying to do at home--and havingtried to ruin Lord Shaftesbury, and failed--he turned his hand tocontrolling the corporations all over the country; because, if he couldonly do that, he could get what juries he chose, to bring in perjuredverdicts, and could get what members he chose returned to Parliament. These merry times produced, and made Chief Justice of the Court of King'sBench, a drunken ruffian of the name of JEFFREYS; a red-faced, swollen, bloated, horrible creature, with a bullying, roaring voice, and a moresavage nature perhaps than was ever lodged in any human breast. Thismonster was the Merry Monarch's especial favourite, and he testified hisadmiration of him by giving him a ring from his own finger, which thepeople used to call Judge Jeffreys's Bloodstone. Him the King employedto go about and bully the corporations, beginning with London; or, asJeffreys himself elegantly called it, 'to give them a lick with the roughside of his tongue. ' And he did it so thoroughly, that they soon becamethe basest and most sycophantic bodies in the kingdom--except theUniversity of Oxford, which, in that respect, was quite pre-eminent andunapproachable. 

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 someothers, used to hold a council together after the dissolution of theParliament, arranging what it might be necessary to do, if the Kingcarried his Popish plot to the utmost height. Lord Shaftesbury havingbeen much the most violent of this party, brought two violent men intotheir secrets--RUMSEY, who had been a soldier in the Republican army; andWEST, a lawyer. These two knew an old officer of CROMWELL'S, calledRUMBOLD, who had married a maltster's widow, and so had come intopossession of a solitary dwelling called the Rye House, near Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire. Rumbold said to them what a capital place this houseof his would be from which to shoot at the King, who often passed theregoing to and fro from Newmarket. They liked the idea, and entertainedit. But, one of their body gave information; and they, together withSHEPHERD a wine merchant, Lord Russell, Algernon Sidney, LORD ESSEX, LORDHOWARD, and Hampden, were all arrested. 

Lord Russell might have easily escaped, but scorned to do so, beinginnocent of any wrong; Lord Essex might have easily escaped, but scornedto do so, lest his flight should prejudice Lord Russell. But it weighedupon his mind that he had brought into their council, Lord Howard--whonow turned a miserable traitor--against a great dislike Lord Russell hadalways had of him. He could not bear the reflection, and destroyedhimself before Lord Russell was brought to trial at the Old Bailey. 

He knew very well that he had nothing to hope, having always been manfulin the Protestant cause against the two false brothers, the one on thethrone, and the other standing next to it. He had a wife, one of thenoblest and best of women, who acted as his secretary on his trial, whocomforted him in his prison, who supped with him on the night before hedied, and whose love and virtue and devotion have made her nameimperishable. Of course, he was found guilty, and was sentenced to bebeheaded in Lincoln's Inn-fields, not many yards from his own house. Whenhe had parted from his children on the evening before his death, his wifestill stayed with him until ten o'clock at night; and when their finalseparation in this world was over, and he had kissed her many times, hestill 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. ' Atmidnight he went to bed, and slept till four; even when his servantcalled him, he fell asleep again while his clothes were being made ready. He rode to the scaffold in his own carriage, attended by two famousclergymen, TILLOTSON and BURNET, and sang a psalm to himself very softly, as he went along. He was as quiet and as steady as if he had been goingout for an ordinary ride. After saying that he was surprised to see sogreat a crowd, he laid down his head upon the block, as if upon thepillow of his bed, and had it struck off at the second blow. His noblewife was busy for him even then; for that true-hearted lady printed andwidely circulated his last words, of which he had given her a copy. Theymade the blood of all the honest men in England boil. 

The University of Oxford distinguished itself on the very same day bypretending to believe that the accusation against Lord Russell was true, and by calling the King, in a written paper, the Breath of their Nostrilsand the Anointed of the Lord. This paper the Parliament afterwardscaused to be burned by the common hangman; which I am sorry for, as Iwish it had been framed and glazed and hung up in some public place, as amonument of baseness for the scorn of mankind. 

Next, came the trial of Algernon Sidney, at which Jeffreys presided, likea great crimson toad, sweltering and swelling with rage. 'I pray God, Mr. Sidney, ' said this Chief Justice of a merry reign, after passingsentence, 'to work in you a temper fit to go to the other world, for Isee you are not fit for this. ' 'My lord, ' said the prisoner, composedlyholding out his arm, 'feel my pulse, and see if I be disordered. I thankHeaven I never was in better temper than I am now. ' Algernon Sidney wasexecuted on Tower Hill, on the seventh of December, one thousand sixhundred 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, andfor which God had so often and so wonderfully declared himself. '

The Duke of Monmouth had been making his uncle, the Duke of York, veryjealous, by going about the country in a royal sort of way, playing atthe people's games, becoming godfather to their children, and eventouching for the King's evil, or stroking the faces of the sick to curethem--though, for the matter of that, I should say he did them about asmuch good as any crowned king could have done. His father had got him towrite a letter, confessing his having had a part in the conspiracy, forwhich Lord Russell had been beheaded; but he was ever a weak man, and assoon 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 andhad an interview with his father, unknown to his uncle. It would seemthat he was coming into the Merry Monarch's favour again, and that theDuke of York was sliding out of it, when Death appeared to the merrygalleries 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 ina fit of apoplexy. By the Wednesday his case was hopeless, and on theThursday he was told so. As he made a difficulty about taking thesacrament from the Protestant Bishop of Bath, the Duke of York got allwho 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'ssake, brother, do!' The Duke smuggled in, up the back stairs, disguisedin a wig and gown, a priest named HUDDLESTON, who had saved the King'slife after the battle of Worcester: telling him that this worthy man inthe 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 thenext day, which was Friday, the sixth. Two of the last things he saidwere of a human sort, and your remembrance will give him the full benefitof them. When the Queen sent to say she was too unwell to attend him andto ask his pardon, he said, 'Alas! poor woman, _she_ beg _my_ pardon! Ibeg hers with all my heart. Take back that answer to her. ' And he alsosaid, in reference to Nell Gwyn, 'Do not let poor Nelly starve. '

He died in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and the twenty-fifth of hisreign. 

CHAPTER XXXVI--ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE SECOND

King James the Second was a man so very disagreeable, that even the bestof historians has favoured his brother Charles, as becoming, bycomparison, quite a pleasant character. The one object of his shortreign was to re-establish the Catholic religion in England; and this hedoggedly pursued with such a stupid obstinacy, that his career very sooncame to a close. 

The first thing he did, was, to assure his council that he would make ithis endeavour to preserve the Government, both in Church and State, as itwas by law established; and that he would always take care to defend andsupport the Church. Great public acclamations were raised over this fairspeech, and a great deal was said, from the pulpits and elsewhere, aboutthe word of a King which was never broken, by credulous people who littlesupposed that he had formed a secret council for Catholic affairs, ofwhich a mischievous Jesuit, called FATHER PETRE, was one of the chiefmembers. 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 hiscontemptible character, he was always jealous of making some show ofbeing independent of the King of France, while he pocketed his money. As--notwithstanding his publishing two papers in favour of Popery (andnot 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 himselfattending mass--the Parliament was very obsequious, and granted him alarge sum of money, he began his reign with a belief that he could dowhat 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 besidesbeing very heavily fined, was sentenced to stand twice in the pillory, tobe whipped from Aldgate to Newgate one day, and from Newgate to Tyburntwo days afterwards, and to stand in the pillory five times a year aslong as he lived. This fearful sentence was actually inflicted on therascal. Being unable to stand after his first flogging, he was draggedon a sledge from Newgate to Tyburn, and flogged as he was drawn along. Hewas so strong a villain that he did not die under the torture, but livedto be afterwards pardoned and rewarded, though not to be ever believed inany more. Dangerfield, the only other one of that crew left alive, wasnot so fortunate. He was almost killed by a whipping from Newgate toTyburn, and, as if that were not punishment enough, a ferocious barristerof Gray's Inn gave him a poke in the eye with his cane, which caused hisdeath; for which the ferocious barrister was deservedly tried andexecuted. 

As soon as James was on the throne, Argyle and Monmouth went fromBrussels to Rotterdam, and attended a meeting of Scottish exiles heldthere, to concert measures for a rising in England. It was agreed thatArgyle should effect a landing in Scotland, and Monmouth in England; andthat 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 menbeing taken prisoners at the Orkney Islands, the Government became awareof his intention, and was able to act against him with such vigour as toprevent his raising more than two or three thousand Highlanders, althoughhe sent a fiery cross, by trusty messengers, from clan to clan and fromglen to glen, as the custom then was when those wild people were to beexcited by their chiefs. As he was moving towards Glasgow with his smallforce, he was betrayed by some of his followers, taken, and carried, withhis 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 legsshould have been pounded with his old favourite the boot. However, theboot was not applied; he was simply beheaded, and his head was set uponthe top of Edinburgh Jail. One of those Englishmen who had been assignedto him was that old soldier Rumbold, the master of the Rye House. He wassorely wounded, and within a week after Argyle had suffered with greatcourage, was brought up for trial, lest he should die and disappoint theKing. He, too, was executed, after defending himself with great spirit, and saying that he did not believe that God had made the greater part ofmankind to carry saddles on their backs and bridles in their mouths, andto be ridden by a few, booted and spurred for the purpose--in which Ithoroughly agree with Rumbold. 

The Duke of Monmouth, partly through being detained and partly throughidling his time away, was five or six weeks behind his friend when helanded at Lyme, in Dorset: having at his right hand an unlucky noblemancalled LORD GREY OF WERK, who of himself would have ruined a far morepromising expedition. He immediately set up his standard in the market-place, and proclaimed the King a tyrant, and a Popish usurper, and I knownot what else; charging him, not only with what he had done, which wasbad enough, but with what neither he nor anybody else had done, such assetting fire to London, and poisoning the late King. Raising some fourthousand men by these means, he marched on to Taunton, where there weremany Protestant dissenters who were strongly opposed to the Catholics. Here, both the rich and poor turned out to receive him, ladies waved awelcome to him from all the windows as he passed along the streets, flowers were strewn in his way, and every compliment and honour thatcould be devised was showered upon him. Among the rest, twenty youngladies came forward, in their best clothes, and in their brightestbeauty, 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 toBridgewater. But, here the Government troops, under the EARL OFFEVERSHAM, were close at hand; and he was so dispirited at finding thathe made but few powerful friends after all, that it was a questionwhether he should disband his army and endeavour to escape. It wasresolved, at the instance of that unlucky Lord Grey, to make a nightattack on the King's army, as it lay encamped on the edge of a morasscalled Sedgemoor. The horsemen were commanded by the same unlucky lord, who was not a brave man. He gave up the battle almost at the firstobstacle--which was a deep drain; and although the poor countrymen, whohad turned out for Monmouth, fought bravely with scythes, poles, pitchforks, and such poor weapons as they had, they were soon dispersedby the trained soldiers, and fled in all directions. When the Duke ofMonmouth himself fled, was not known in the confusion; but the unluckyLord Grey was taken early next day, and then another of the party wastaken, who confessed that he had parted from the Duke only four hoursbefore. 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 pocketwhich he had gathered in the fields to eat. The only other articles hehad upon him were a few papers and little books: one of the latter beinga strange jumble, in his own writing, of charms, songs, recipes, andprayers. He was completely broken. He wrote a miserable letter to theKing, beseeching and entreating to be allowed to see him. When he wastaken to London, and conveyed bound into the King's presence, he crawledto him on his knees, and made a most degrading exhibition. As Jamesnever forgave or relented towards anybody, he was not likely to softentowards the issuer of the Lyme proclamation, so he told the suppliant toprepare for death. 

On the fifteenth of July, one thousand six hundred and eighty-five, thisunfortunate 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 withgazers. He had seen his wife, the daughter of the Duke of Buccleuch, inthe Tower, and had talked much of a lady whom he loved far better--theLADY HARRIET WENTWORTH--who was one of the last persons he remembered inthis life. Before laying down his head upon the block he felt the edgeof the axe, and told the executioner that he feared it was not sharpenough, and that the axe was not heavy enough. On the executionerreplying that it was of the proper kind, the Duke said, 'I pray you havea care, and do not use me so awkwardly as you used my Lord Russell. ' Theexecutioner, made nervous by this, and trembling, struck once and merelygashed him in the neck. Upon this, the Duke of Monmouth raised his headand looked the man reproachfully in the face. Then he struck twice, andthen thrice, and then threw down the axe, and cried out in a voice ofhorror that he could not finish that work. The sheriffs, however, threatening him with what should be done to himself if he did not, hetook it up again and struck a fourth time and a fifth time. Then thewretched head at last fell off, and James, Duke of Monmouth, was dead, inthe thirty-sixth year of his age. He was a showy, graceful man, withmany popular qualities, and had found much favour in the open hearts ofthe English. 

The atrocities, committed by the Government, which followed this Monmouthrebellion, form the blackest and most lamentable page in English history. The poor peasants, having been dispersed with great loss, and theirleaders having been taken, one would think that the implacable King mighthave been satisfied. But no; he let loose upon them, among otherintolerable monsters, a COLONEL KIRK, who had served against the Moors, and whose soldiers--called by the people Kirk's lambs, because they borea lamb upon their flag, as the emblem of Christianity--were worthy oftheir leader. The atrocities committed by these demons in human shapeare far too horrible to be related here. It is enough to say, thatbesides most ruthlessly murdering and robbing them, and ruining them bymaking them buy their pardons at the price of all they possessed, it wasone of Kirk's favourite amusements, as he and his officers sat drinkingafter dinner, and toasting the King, to have batches of prisoners hangedoutside the windows for the company's diversion; and that when their feetquivered in the convulsions of death, he used to swear that they shouldhave music to their dancing, and would order the drums to beat and thetrumpets to play. The detestable King informed him, as an acknowledgmentof these services, that he was 'very well satisfied with hisproceedings. ' But the King's great delight was in the proceedings ofJeffreys, now a peer, who went down into the west, with four otherjudges, to try persons accused of having had any share in the rebellion. The King pleasantly called this 'Jeffreys's campaign. ' The people downin that part of the country remember it to this day as The Bloody Assize. 

It began at Winchester, where a poor deaf old lady, MRS. ALICIA LISLE, the widow of one of the judges of Charles the First (who had beenmurdered abroad by some Royalist assassins), was charged with havinggiven shelter in her house to two fugitives from Sedgemoor. Three timesthe jury refused to find her guilty, until Jeffreys bullied andfrightened them into that false verdict. When he had extorted it fromthem, he said, 'Gentlemen, if I had been one of you, and she had been myown mother, I would have found her guilty;'--as I dare say he would. Hesentenced her to be burned alive, that very afternoon. The clergy of thecathedral and some others interfered in her favour, and she was beheadedwithin a week. As a high mark of his approbation, the King made JeffreysLord Chancellor; and he then went on to Dorchester, to Exeter, toTaunton, and to Wells. It is astonishing, when we read of the enormousinjustice and barbarity of this beast, to know that no one struck himdead on the judgment-seat. It was enough for any man or woman to beaccused 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 uponthe instant, and hanged; and this so terrified the prisoners in generalthat they mostly pleaded guilty at once. At Dorchester alone, in thecourse of a few days, Jeffreys hanged eighty people; besides whipping, transporting, imprisoning, and selling as slaves, great numbers. Heexecuted, in all, two hundred and fifty, or three hundred. 

These executions took place, among the neighbours and friends of thesentenced, in thirty-six towns and villages. Their bodies were mangled, steeped in caldrons of boiling pitch and tar, and hung up by theroadsides, in the streets, over the very churches. The sight and smellof heads and limbs, the hissing and bubbling of the infernal caldrons, and the tears and terrors of the people, were dreadful beyond alldescription. One rustic, who was forced to steep the remains in theblack pot, was ever afterwards called 'Tom Boilman. ' The hangman hasever since been called Jack Ketch, because a man of that name wenthanging and hanging, all day long, in the train of Jeffreys. You willhear much of the horrors of the great French Revolution. Many andterrible they were, there is no doubt; but I know of nothing worse, doneby the maddened people of France in that awful time, than was done by thehighest judge in England, with the express approval of the King ofEngland, in The Bloody Assize. 

Nor was even this all. Jeffreys was as fond of money for himself as ofmisery for others, and he sold pardons wholesale to fill his pockets. TheKing ordered, at one time, a thousand prisoners to be given to certain ofhis favourites, in order that they might bargain with them for theirpardons. The young ladies of Taunton who had presented the Bible, werebestowed upon the maids of honour at court; and those precious ladiesmade very hard bargains with them indeed. When The Bloody Assize was atits most dismal height, the King was diverting himself with horse-racesin the very place where Mrs. Lisle had been executed. When Jeffreys haddone his worst, and came home again, he was particularly complimented inthe Royal Gazette; and when the King heard that through drunkenness andraging he was very ill, his odious Majesty remarked that such another mancould not easily be found in England. Besides all this, a former sheriffof London, named CORNISH, was hanged within sight of his own house, afteran abominably conducted trial, for having had a share in the Rye HousePlot, on evidence given by Rumsey, which that villain was obliged toconfess was directly opposed to the evidence he had given on the trial ofLord Russell. And on the very same day, a worthy widow, named ELIZABETHGAUNT, was burned alive at Tyburn, for having sheltered a wretch whohimself gave evidence against her. She settled the fuel about herselfwith her own hands, so that the flames should reach her quickly: andnobly said, with her last breath, that she had obeyed the sacred commandof 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 unhappysubjects, the King not unnaturally thought that he could do whatever hewould. So, he went to work to change the religion of the country withall possible speed; and what he did was this. 

He first of all tried to get rid of what was called the Test Act--whichprevented the Catholics from holding public employments--by his own powerof dispensing with the penalties. He tried it in one case, and, elevenof the twelve judges deciding in his favour, he exercised it in threeothers, 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 tofavour England with an ambassador, which the Pope (who was a sensible manthen) rather unwillingly did. He flourished Father Petre before the eyesof the people on all possible occasions. He favoured the establishmentof convents in several parts of London. He was delighted to have thestreets, and even the court itself, filled with Monks and Friars in thehabits of their orders. He constantly endeavoured to make Catholics ofthe Protestants about him. He held private interviews, which he called'closetings, ' with those Members of Parliament who held offices, topersuade them to consent to the design he had in view. When they did notconsent, they were removed, or resigned of themselves, and their placeswere given to Catholics. He displaced Protestant officers from the army, by every means in his power, and got Catholics into their places too. Hetried the same thing with the corporations, and also (though not sosuccessfully) with the Lord Lieutenants of counties. To terrify thepeople into the endurance of all these measures, he kept an army offifteen thousand men encamped on Hounslow Heath, where mass was openlyperformed in the General's tent, and where priests went among thesoldiers endeavouring to persuade them to become Catholics. Forcirculating a paper among those men advising them to be true to theirreligion, a Protestant clergyman, named JOHNSON, the chaplain of the lateLord Russell, was actually sentenced to stand three times in the pillory, and was actually whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. He dismissed his ownbrother-in-law from his Council because he was a Protestant, and made aPrivy Councillor of the before-mentioned Father Petre. He handed Irelandover to RICHARD TALBOT, EARL OF TYRCONNELL, a worthless, dissolute knave, who played the same game there for his master, and who played the deepergame for himself of one day putting it under the protection of the FrenchKing. In going to these extremities, every man of sense and judgmentamong the Catholics, from the Pope to a porter, knew that the King was amere bigoted fool, who would undo himself and the cause he sought toadvance; but he was deaf to all reason, and, happily for England everafterwards, went tumbling off his throne in his own blind way. 

A spirit began to arise in the country, which the besotted blundererlittle expected. He first found it out in the University of Cambridge. Having made a Catholic a dean at Oxford without any opposition, he triedto make a monk a master of arts at Cambridge: which attempt theUniversity resisted, and defeated him. He then went back to hisfavourite Oxford. On the death of the President of Magdalen College, hecommanded that there should be elected to succeed him, one MR. ANTHONYFARMER, whose only recommendation was, that he was of the King'sreligion. The University plucked up courage at last, and refused. TheKing substituted another man, and it still refused, resolving to stand byits own election of a MR. HOUGH. The dull tyrant, upon this, punishedMr. Hough, and five-and-twenty more, by causing them to be expelled anddeclared incapable of holding any church preferment; then he proceeded towhat he supposed to be his highest step, but to what was, in fact, hislast plunge head-foremost in his tumble off his throne. 

He had issued a declaration that there should be no religious tests orpenal laws, in order to let in the Catholics more easily; but theProtestant dissenters, unmindful of themselves, had gallantly joined theregular church in opposing it tooth and nail. The King and Father Petrenow resolved to have this read, on a certain Sunday, in all the churches, and to order it to be circulated for that purpose by the bishops. Thelatter took counsel with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was indisgrace; and they resolved that the declaration should not be read, andthat they would petition the King against it. The Archbishop himselfwrote out the petition, and six bishops went into the King's bedchamberthe same night to present it, to his infinite astonishment. Next day wasthe Sunday fixed for the reading, and it was only read by two hundredclergymen out of ten thousand. The King resolved against all advice toprosecute the bishops in the Court of King's Bench, and within threeweeks they were summoned before the Privy Council, and committed to theTower. As the six bishops were taken to that dismal place, by water, thepeople who were assembled in immense numbers fell upon their knees, andwept for them, and prayed for them. When they got to the Tower, theofficers and soldiers on guard besought them for their blessing. Whilethey were confined there, the soldiers every day drank to their releasewith loud shouts. When they were brought up to the Court of King's Benchfor their trial, which the Attorney-General said was for the high offenceof censuring the Government, and giving their opinion about affairs ofstate, they were attended by similar multitudes, and surrounded by athrong of noblemen and gentlemen. When the jury went out at seveno'clock at night to consider of their verdict, everybody (except theKing) 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 theycame into court next morning, after resisting the brewer all night, andgave a verdict of not guilty, such a shout rose up in Westminster Hall asit had never heard before; and it was passed on among the people away toTemple Bar, and away again to the Tower. It did not pass only to theeast, 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 mightyroar, asked in alarm what it was, and was told that it was 'nothing butthe acquittal of the bishops, ' he said, in his dogged way, 'Call you thatnothing? 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 Idoubt 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 boththe King's daughters were Protestants) determined the EARLS OFSHREWSBURY, DANBY, and DEVONSHIRE, LORD LUMLEY, the BISHOP OF LONDON, ADMIRAL RUSSELL, and COLONEL SIDNEY, to invite the Prince of Orange overto England. The Royal Mole, seeing his danger at last, made, in hisfright, many great concessions, besides raising an army of forty thousandmen; but the Prince of Orange was not a man for James the Second to copewith. His preparations were extraordinarily vigorous, and his mind wasresolved. 

For a fortnight after the Prince was ready to sail for England, a greatwind from the west prevented the departure of his fleet. Even when thewind lulled, and it did sail, it was dispersed by a storm, and wasobliged to put back to refit. At last, on the first of November, onethousand six hundred and eighty-eight, the Protestant east wind, as itwas long called, began to blow; and on the third, the people of Dover andthe people of Calais saw a fleet twenty miles long sailing gallantly by, between the two places. On Monday, the fifth, it anchored at Torbay inDevonshire, and the Prince, with a splendid retinue of officers and men, marched into Exeter. But the people in that western part of the countryhad suffered so much in The Bloody Assize, that they had lost heart. Fewpeople joined him; and he began to think of returning, and publishing theinvitation he had received from those lords, as his justification forhaving come at all. At this crisis, some of the gentry joined him; theRoyal army began to falter; an engagement was signed, by which all whoset their hand to it declared that they would support one another indefence of the laws and liberties of the three Kingdoms, of theProtestant religion, and of the Prince of Orange. From that time, thecause received no check; the greatest towns in England began, one afteranother, to declare for the Prince; and he knew that it was all safe withhim when the University of Oxford offered to melt down its plate, if hewanted any money. 

By this time the King was running about in a pitiable way, touchingpeople 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 toPortsmouth, Father Petre went off like a shot to France, and there was ageneral and swift dispersal of all the priests and friars. One afteranother, the King's most important officers and friends deserted him andwent over to the Prince. In the night, his daughter Anne fled fromWhitehall 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 hissaddle. 'God help me, ' cried the miserable King: 'my very children haveforsaken me!' In his wildness, after debating with such lords as were inLondon, whether he should or should not call a Parliament, and afternaming three of them to negotiate with the Prince, he resolved to fly toFrance. 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 ofthe ninth of December. 

At one o'clock on the morning of the eleventh, the King, who had, in themeantime, received a letter from the Prince of Orange, stating hisobjects, got out of bed, told LORD NORTHUMBERLAND who lay in his room notto open the door until the usual hour in the morning, and went down theback stairs (the same, I suppose, by which the priest in the wig and gownhad come up to his brother) and crossed the river in a small boat:sinking the great seal of England by the way. Horses having beenprovided, he rode, accompanied by SIR EDWARD HALES, to Feversham, wherehe embarked in a Custom House Hoy. The master of this Hoy, wanting moreballast, ran into the Isle of Sheppy to get it, where the fishermen andsmugglers crowded about the boat, and informed the King of theirsuspicions that he was a 'hatchet-faced Jesuit. ' As they took his moneyand would not let him go, he told them who he was, and that the Prince ofOrange wanted to take his life; and he began to scream for a boat--andthen to cry, because he had lost a piece of wood on his ride which hecalled a fragment of Our Saviour's cross. He put himself into the handsof the Lord Lieutenant of the county, and his detention was made known tothe Prince of Orange at Windsor--who, only wanting to get rid of him, andnot caring where he went, so that he went away, was very muchdisconcerted that they did not let him go. However, there was nothingfor it but to have him brought back, with some state in the way of LifeGuards, to Whitehall. 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 hisflight, and had taken it into their heads that the Irish part of the armywere going to murder the Protestants. Therefore, they set the bells aringing, and lighted watch-fires, and burned Catholic Chapels, and lookedabout in all directions for Father Petre and the Jesuits, while thePope's ambassador was running away in the dress of a footman. They foundno Jesuits; but a man, who had once been a frightened witness beforeJeffreys in court, saw a swollen, drunken face looking through a windowdown at Wapping, which he well remembered. The face was in a sailor'sdress, but he knew it to be the face of that accursed judge, and heseized him. The people, to their lasting honour, did not tear him topieces. After knocking him about a little, they took him, in the basestagonies of terror, to the Lord Mayor, who sent him, at his own shriekingpetition, to the Tower for safety. There, he died. 

Their bewilderment continuing, the people now lighted bonfires and maderejoicings, as if they had any reason to be glad to have the King backagain. But, his stay was very short, for the English guards were removedfrom Whitehall, Dutch guards were marched up to it, and he was told byone 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 hewould rather go to Rochester. He thought himself very cunning in this, as he meant to escape from Rochester to France. The Prince of Orange andhis friends knew that, perfectly well, and desired nothing more. So, hewent to Gravesend, in his royal barge, attended by certain lords, andwatched by Dutch troops, and pitied by the generous people, who were farmore forgiving than he had ever been, when they saw him in hishumiliation. On the night of the twenty-third of December, not even thenunderstanding that everybody wanted to get rid of him, he went out, absurdly, through his Rochester garden, down to the Medway, and got awayto France, where he rejoined the Queen. 

There had been a council in his absence, of the lords, and theauthorities of London. When the Prince came, on the day after the King'sdeparture, he summoned the Lords to meet him, and soon afterwards, allthose who had served in any of the Parliaments of King Charles theSecond. It was finally resolved by these authorities that the throne wasvacant by the conduct of King James the Second; that it was inconsistentwith the safety and welfare of this Protestant kingdom, to be governed bya Popish prince; that the Prince and Princess of Orange should be Kingand Queen during their lives and the life of the survivor of them; andthat their children should succeed them, if they had any. That if theyhad none, the Princess Anne and her children should succeed; that if shehad 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 Whitehall, boundthemselves to these conditions. The Protestant religion was establishedin 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 whichsucceeded the famous Revolution of one thousand six hundred and eighty-eight, would neither be easily related nor easily understood in such abook as this. 

William and Mary reigned together, five years. After the death of hisgood wife, William occupied the throne, alone, for seven years longer. During his reign, on the sixteenth of September, one thousand sevenhundred and one, the poor weak creature who had once been James theSecond of England, died in France. In the meantime he had done hisutmost (which was not much) to cause William to be assassinated, and toregain his lost dominions. James's son was declared, by the French King, the rightful King of England; and was called in France THE CHEVALIERSAINT GEORGE, and in England THE PRETENDER. Some infatuated people inEngland, and particularly in Scotland, took up the Pretender's cause fromtime to time--as if the country had not had Stuarts enough!--and manylives were sacrificed, and much misery was occasioned. King William diedon Sunday, the seventh of March, one thousand seven hundred and two, ofthe consequences of an accident occasioned by his horse stumbling withhim. He was always a brave, patriotic Prince, and a man of remarkableabilities. His manner was cold, and he made but few friends; but he hadtruly 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 reignedtwelve years. In her reign, in the month of May, one thousand sevenhundred and seven, the Union between England and Scotland was effected, and the two countries were incorporated under the name of GREAT BRITAIN. Then, from the year one thousand seven hundred and fourteen to the yearone thousand, eight hundred and thirty, reigned the four GEORGES. 

It was in the reign of George the Second, one thousand seven hundred andforty-five, that the Pretender did his last mischief, and made his lastappearance. Being an old man by that time, he and the Jacobites--as hisfriends were called--put forward his son, CHARLES EDWARD, known as theyoung Chevalier. The Highlanders of Scotland, an extremely troublesomeand 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 which many gallant and devoted gentlemen lost their lives. It was ahard matter for Charles Edward to escape abroad again, with a high priceon his head; but the Scottish people were extraordinarily faithful tohim, and, after undergoing many romantic adventures, not unlike those ofCharles the Second, he escaped to France. A number of charming storiesand delightful songs arose out of the Jacobite feelings, and belong tothe Jacobite times. Otherwise I think the Stuarts were a public nuisancealtogether. 

It was in the reign of George the Third that England lost North America, by persisting in taxing her without her own consent. That immensecountry, made independent under WASHINGTON, and left to itself, becamethe United States; one of the greatest nations of the earth. In thesetimes in which I write, it is honourably remarkable for protecting itssubjects, wherever they may travel, with a dignity and a determinationwhich is a model for England. Between you and me, England has ratherlost ground in this respect since the days of Oliver Cromwell. 

The Union of Great Britain with Ireland--which had been getting on veryill by itself--took place in the reign of George the Third, on the secondof July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight. 

WILLIAM THE FOURTH succeeded George the Fourth, in the year one thousandeight hundred and thirty, and reigned seven years. QUEEN VICTORIA, hisniece, the only child of the Duke of Kent, the fourth son of George theThird, came to the throne on the twentieth of June, one thousand eighthundred and thirty-seven. She was married to PRINCE ALBERT of Saxe Gothaon the tenth of February, one thousand eight hundred and forty. She isvery good, and much beloved. So I end, like the crier, with

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!