The Life of Cardinal Wolsey :: POEMS. BY GEORGE CAVENDISH.

POEMS. BY GEORGE CAVENDISH.

The Poems of George Cavendish, which accompany the Life of Wolsey in the Original Autograph Manuscript, consist of a series of Visions upon the Fortunes and Fall of the most eminent Persons of his time.

The reader is here presented with the Prologue; the Legend of Wolsey; and the Author’s Address to his Book; with two stanzas from a long Epitaph on Queen Mary. This specimen, it is presumed, will be deemed sufficient to convey an idea of the style of Cavendish in verse. It should be remembered, that the Mirror for Magistrates, which subsequently became so popular, had not then been given to the world. Cavendish, therefore, may have formed his plan from Lydgate’s Fall of Princes. Traces of the same kind of versification, which is evidently intended to depend more on rhythmical cadence than the number of feet in the verse, will be found in Skelton, in Stephen Hawes, Nicholas Grimoald, and other contributors to Tottel’s Miscellany of Songes and Sonnettes. In the MS. copy there is no punctuation; but instead we have the mark of the pause or cÆsura in the middle and occasionally at the end of the line; as may be remarked in the example on the plate of fac-similes.

PROLOUG DE L’AUCTOR G. C.

In the monyth of June, I lyeng sole alon

Under the umber[246] of an oke with bowes pendant,

Whan Phebus in Gemynys had his course overgon

And entered Cancer, a sygne retrogradant,

In a mean measure his beams radyant,

Approaching Leo, than mused I in mynd

Of fykkellness of Fortune and the course of kynd[247];

How some are by fortune exalted to riches,

And often such as most unworthy be;

And some oppressed in langor and sykness,

Some wayling, lakkyng welthe, by wretched povertie;

Some in bayle and bondage, and some at libertie:

With other moo gystes[248] of fortune varyable;

Some pleasant, some mean, and some onprofitable.

But after dewe serche and better advisement,

I knewe by Reason that oonly God above

Rewlithe thos thyngs, as is most convenyent,

The same devysing to man for his behove[249];

Wherefore Dame Reason did me persuade, and move

To be content with my small estate,

And in this matter no more to vestigate.

Whan I had debated all thyng in my mynd,

I well considered myne obscure blyndness;

So that non excuse could I see or fynd,

But that my tyme I spent in idelnes;

For this me thought, and trew it is doughtles,

That since I ame a reasonable creature,

I owght my reason and wytt to put in ure[250].

Than of what matter myght I devise to wright,

To use my tyme and wytte to excercyse,

Sithe most men have no pleasour or delight

In any history, without it sownd to vice:

Alass! shold I than, that ame not young attise

With lewed ballatts, faynt harts to synne,

Or flatter estatts[251] some favor of them to wynne.

What than shall I wright? the noble doughtyness

Of estatts that used is now a dayes?

I shall than lak matter; for gredy covetousnes

Of vayne riches, whiche hathe stopt all the wayes

Of worthy chyvallry, that now dayly sore dekayes:

And yet thoughe some behave them nobly,

Yet some ther be that dayly doth the contrarye.

For some lovyth meat fynne and delicious,

And some baudye[252] brothes, as their educasion hath be;

So some lovethe virtue, and some tales vicious:

Sewerly suche tales get ye non of me,

But to eschewe all ociosite,

Of Fortune’s fykellnes hereafter shall I wright,

How greatest estatts she overthrowyth by myght.

Thoughe I onworthe this tragedy do begyne,

Of pardon I pray the reders in meke wyse;

And to correct where they se fault therein,

Reputing it for lak of connyng exercyse.

The cause that moved me to this enterprise

Especyally was that all estatts myght see

What it is to trust to Fortune’s mutabylitie.

With pen and ynke I toke this work in hand,

Redy to wright the deadly dole and whofull playnt

Of them whose fall the world doth understand;

Which for feare made my heart to faynt:

I must wright playn; colours have I none to paynt;

But termes rude their dolours to compile;

An wofull playnt must have an wofull style.

To whome therefore for helpe shall I nowe call?

Alas! Caliope my calling will utterly refuse;

For mornyng dities and woo of Fortune’s falle

Caliope dyd never in hir dyties use;

Wherefore to hir I might my self abuse:

Also the Musis that on Parnasus syng

Suche warblyng dole did never temper stryng.

Now to that Lord whose power is celestiall,

And gwydyth all thyng of sadnes and of blysse,

With humble voyce to the I crie and call,

That thou wouldest direct my sely[253] pen in this:

For, wantyng of thy helpe, no marvel thoughe I mysse;

And by thy grace, though my style be rude,

In sentence playne I may full well conclude.

Nowe by thy helpe this hystory I will begyn,

And from theffect varie nothing at all;

For if I shold, it ware to me great synne

To take uppon me a matter so substancyall,

So waytie, so necessarie, of fame perpetuall:

And thus to be short, oon began to speke

With deadly voyce, as thoughe his hart wold breke.

FINIS QUOD G. C.

LE HISTORYE
CARDINALIS EBORACENSIS.

O Fortune! (quoth he) shold I on the complayn,

Or of my negligence, that I susteyn this smart?

Thy doble visage hathe led me to this trayne;

For at my begynnyng thou dydst ay take my part,

Untill ambysion had puffed up my hart

With vainglory, honor, and usurped dignytie,

Forgettyng cleane my naturall mendycitie.

From povertie to plentie, which now I see is vayn,

A cardinal I was, and legate de latere,

A byshope and archbysshope, the more to crease my gayn

Chauncellor of Englond, Fortune by hir false flatterie

Dyd me advance, and gave me such auctorytie

That of hyghe and low I toke on me the charge,

All England to rewle, my power extendyd large.

Whan Fortune with favor had set me thus aloft,

I gathered me riches; suffisance could not content;

My fare was superfluous, my bed was fyne and soft;

To have my desiers I past not what I spent:

In yerthe, such abondaunce Fortune had me lent,

Yt was not in the world that I could well requier,

But Fortune strayt wayes did graunt me my desier.

My byldyngs somptious, the roffes with gold and byse[254]

Shone lyke the sone in myd day spere,

Craftely entaylled[255] as connyng could devise,

With images embossed, most lively did appere;

Expertest artificers that ware both farre and nere,

To beautyfie my howssys, I had them at my will:

Thus I wanted nought my pleasures to fullfill.

My galleries ware fayer both large and long,

To walke in them whan that it lyked me best;

My gardens sweet, enclosed with walles strong,

Embanked with benches to sytt and take my rest;

The knotts so enknotted, it cannot be exprest[256],

With arbors and alyes so pleasant and so dulce,

The pestylent ayers with flavors to repulse.

My chambers garnysht with arras fynne,

Importyng personages of the lyvelyest kynd:

And whan I was disposed in them to dynne,

My clothe of estate there ready did I fynd,

Furnysshed complett according to my mynd;

The subtyll perfumes of muske and sweet amber,

There wanted non to perfume all my chamber.

Plate of all sorts most curiously wrought,

Of facions new, I past not of[257] the old,

No vessell but sylver before me was brought,

Full of dayntes vyands, the some cannot be told;

I dranke my wynne alwayes in sylver and in gold:

And daylye to serve me, attendyng on my table,

Servaunts I had bothe worshipfull and honorable.

My crosses twayne of sylver long and greate,

That dayly byfore me ware carried hyghe,

Upon great horses, opynly in the strete,

And massie pillars gloriouse to the eye,

With pollaxes gylt that no man durst come nyghe

My presence, I was so pryncely to behold,

Ridyng on my mule trapped in sylver and gold.

My legantyne prerogatyve was myche to myn avayle,

By vertue wherof I had thys high preemynence:

All vacant benefices I did them strayt retaylle,

Presentyng than my clarke, as sone as I had intellygence:

I prevented the patron, ther vaylled[258] no resistence;

All bysshopes and prelates durst not oons denay,

They doughted so my power, they myght not dysobey.

Thus may you see how I to riches did attayne,

And with suffisaunce my mynd was not content;

Whan I had most, I rathest[259] wold complayne;

For lake of good, alas! how I was blent[260]!

Where shall my gatheryngs and good be spent?

Some oon, perchance, shall me thereof dyscharge,

Whom I most hate, and spend it owt at large[261].

Sytting in Jugement, parcyall ware my doomes;

I spared non estatte, of hyghe or low degree;

I preferred whom me lyst, exaltyng symple gromes

Above the nobles; I spared myche the spritualtie,

Not passyng myche on the temperaltie;

Promotyng such to so hyghe estate

As unto prynces wold boldly say chek-mate.

Oon to subdewe that did me always favor,

And in that place another to avaunce,

Ayenst all trewthe, I did my busy labor,

And, whilest I was workyng witty whiles in Fraunce,

I was at home supplanted, where I thought most assuraunce:

Thus who by fraud fraudelent is found,

Fraud to the defrauder will aye rebound.

Who workyth fraude often is disceyved;

As in a myrror, ye may behold in me;

For by disceyt, or I had it perceyved,

I was disceyved; a guerdon mete parde

For hyme that wold, ayenst all equite,

Dysceyve the innocent, that innocent was in deede;

Therefore Justice of Justice ayenst me must proceede.

For by my subtill dealyng thus it came to passe,

Cheafely disdayned, for whome I toke the payn;

And than to repent it was too late, alas!

My purpose I wold than have changed fayn;

But it wold not be, I was perceived playn:

Thus Venus the goddesse that called is of love

Spared not with spight to bryng me from above.

Alas! my soverayn Lord, thou didest me avaunce,

And settest me uppe in thys great pompe and pryde,

And gavest to me thy realme in governaunce;

Thy pryricely will why did I set aside,

And followed myn own, consideryng not the tyde,

How after a floode an ebbe comyth on a pace?

That to consider, in my tryhumphe I lakked grace.

Now fykkell Fortune torned bathe hir whele,

Or I it wyst[262], all sodenly, and down she did me cast;

Down was my bed, and upward went my hele,

My hold faylled me that I thought suer and fast;

I se by experience, hir favor doth not last;

For she full low now hath brought me under,

Though I on hir complayn, alas! it is no wonder.

I lost myne honor; my treasure was me beraft;

Fayn to avoyd, and quykly to geve place,

Symply to depart, for me nothing was laft,

Without penny or pound I lived a certyn space,

Untill my soverayn Lord extendyd to me his grace;

Who restored me sufficient, if I had byn content

To mayntayn myn estate, both of loud and rent.

Yet, notwithstanding, my corage was so hault,

Dispight of mine enemyes rubbed me on the gall,

Who conspyred together to take me with asault;

They travelled without triall to geve me a fall:

I therefore entendyd to trie my frends all;

To forrayn potentates wrott my letters playn,

Desireng their ayd, to restore me to favor againe.

Myn ennemyes, perceiving, caught thereof dysdayn,

Doughtyng the daynger, dreamed on the dought;

In councell consulting, my sewte to restrayn,

Accused me of treason, and brought it so about

That, travelling to my trial, or I could trie it owte,

Death with his dart strake me for the nons[263],

In Leicester, full lowe, where nowe lyeth my boons.

Loo, nowe you may see what it is to trust

In worldly vanyties that voydyth with the wynd;

For death in a moment consumeth all to dust:

No honor, no glory, that ever man cowld fynd,

But Tyme with hys tyme puttythe all out of mynd;

For Tyme in breafe tyme duskyth the hystory

Of them that long tyme lyved in glory.

Where is my tombe that I made for the nons,

Wrought of fynne copper, that cost many a pound,

To couche in my carion and my rotten boons?

All is but vayn-glory, now have I found,

And small to the purpose, when I am in the ground;

What doth it avaylle me, all that I have,

Seyng I ame deade and laved in my grave?

Farewell Hampton Court, whos founder I was;

Farewell Westminster Place, now a palace royall;

Farewell the Moore, let Tynnynainger[264] passe;

Farewell, in Oxford, my college cardynall;

Farewell, in Ipsewich, my schole gramaticall:

Yet oons farewell, I say, I shall you never see;

Your somptious byldyng, what now avayllethe me?

What avayllyth my great aboundance?

What is nowe left to helpe me in this case?

Nothing at all but dompe in the daunce,

Among deade men to tryppe on the trace:

And for my gay housis now have I this place

To lay in my karcas, wrapt in a sheete,

Knytt with a knott at my lied and my feete.

What avayleth now my feather bedds soft,

Sheets of Raynes[265], long, large, and wide,

And dyvers devyses of clothes chaynged oft;

Or vicious chapleyns walking by my syde,

Voyde of all vertue, fullfilled with pryde,

Which bathe caused me, by report of suche fame,

For ther myslyvyng to have an yll name.

This is my last complaynt, I can say you no more,

But farewell my servant that faythefull hathe be;

Note well these words, quod he, I pray the therfore,

And wright them thus playn, as I have told them the,

All which is trewe, thou knowest well, parde;

Thou faylledst me not, untill that I dyed,

And now I must depart, I maye no longer byde!

SPECIMEN
OF
AN EPITAPHE ON QUENE MARIE.
BY GEORGE CAVENDISH:
CONSISTING OF FIFTEEN STANZAS.

Discend from hevyn, O Muse Melpomene,

Thou mournfull goddesse, with thy sisters all,

Passe in your playnts the wofull Niobe,

Tome musyke to mone with teeres eternall,

Blake be your habetts, dyme, and funeral;

For deathe bathe bereft, to our great dolour,

Mary our mastres, our quene of honor.

Our quene of honor, compared aptly

To Veritas victrix, daughter of Tyme,

By God assisted, amased in armye,

When she a virgin cleare, without cryme,

By ryght, without might, did happely clyme

To the stage royal, just inheritor,

Proclaymed Mary our quene of honor.

TH’AUCTOR TO HIS BOOKE.

Crepe forthe, my boke, under the proteccion

Of suche as have bothe learnyng and eloquence;

Humbly submyttyng the to the correccion

Of worthy writers of virtuous excellence,

Besechyng all them, of ther benygn pacience

To take the meanyng, however the matter frame,

Of this thyn auctor, abasshed of his name.

For, first of all, whan I do behold

Of famous writers the goodly circumstance,

My quaking hand my penne unnethe can hold,

So dombe I ame of doctryn, lame of experience,

Stakeryng in style, onsavery of sentence,

Save oonly hope, that saithe withouten fayll,

That my well meanyng shall quytt my travayll.

Thus, not presumyng of learnyng ne eloquence,

Hope made me shove the boote from the shore;

Desyryng no thyng for my fare or expence,

But only good wyll; I aske no more:

And for[266] the hurt of envy that myght rore,

I shall set my shrowd[267] for my defence,

Under the mantell of well wyllyng audyence.

And principally this my work for to assist,

I humbly beseche that Lord that is eternall

To defend my penne that wrott this with my fist,

To be my savegard, my staffe, and my wall;

And consequently for feare least I shold fall

In the daynger of the learned[268] and honorable sort,

I pray them all my lamenes to support.

Least perchaunce the pleasaunt floode do faylle

Of witty writing or sugred eloquence,

Followe, therfore, good wyll at the boots taylle,

Me to preserve in the waves of ignorance,

Socoured by hope and gentill sufferance:

Nowe hale uppe, skuller; God graunt me wynd,

And Jhesu defend me to my lives end.

Whan thou, my boke, comest into the prease

Bothe of the wyse and learned multitude,

To excuse thyn auctor thou canst do no lesse,

Wantyng learnyng, and of utterance rude,

Which did never this enterprise entrude;

Trustyng either of wytt or learnyng,

But for an exercise, and non other thyng.

FINIE ET COMPILÉ LE XXIIIJ JOUR DE JUNIJ
? REGNOR PHILIPPI REX & REGINE MARIE IIIJ^TO. & V^TO.[269]
PER LE AUCTOR G. C.
Novus Rex, nova Lex: Nova sola Regina, probz pene ruina.

FINIS.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS.

[1] See the Life of Wolsey, page 102, where he speaks of King Philip now our sovereign lord.

[2] The Norfolk MS. is defective at the beginning, one leaf being lost, which contained a portion of the prologue; there is consequently no title to the work. It has a blank leaf at the place where the lacunÆ usually occur in the manuscript copies. The hand-writing is of the reign of Elizabeth, and the text corresponds very nearly with that of Dr. Wordsworth: the orthography is not the same. This MS. is in its original binding, and has the name of its ancient possessor, Henrie Farleigh, stamped on each cover. The other manuscript copy in my possession is carefully written, but apparently of more recent date; it has the following title in German text hand prefixed:

The Life of Master
Thomas Wolsey
Archbishoppe of Yorke
and Cardinall
written by
George Cavendish
his Gentleman Usher.

The same chasm is marked in this MS. as in the former, two pages and a half being left blank, but the imperfect passages at the conclusion of the hunt, and at the commencement of the relation concerning the libels on Wolsey, are completed by a few words as they now stand in Dr. Wordsworth’s text. The variations between these copies are chiefly literal; the orthography is in many respects different.

[3] Mr Hunter informs me that Clement Rossington the elder, who must be here alluded to, died in 1737. He acquired the manor of Dronfield by his marriage with Sarah Burton, sister and co-heir of Ralph Burton, of Dronfield, Esq. who died in 1714. The father of Ralph and Sarah Burton was Francis Burton, also of Dronfield, who was aged twenty-five at the visitation of Derbyshire, 1662, and the mother, Helen, daughter and heir of Cassibelan Burton, son of William Burton the distinguished antiquary and historian of Leicestershire. There is good reason to believe that the Rossingtons were not likely to purchase a book of this curiosity, and it is therefore more than probable that it once formed part of the library of William Burton, other books which had been his having descended to them.

[4] Vide pp. 181, 182, 183, and for another addition pp. 166, 167, 168; in the present edition the passages are included in brackets.

[5] Bound up in the same volume with the Life of Wolsey, in Mr. Heber’s copy, are the following tracts bearing upon the subject; of which a very limited impression appears to have been made, as they are all equally rare. Two Dialogues in the Elysian Fields between Cardinal Wolsey and Cardinal Ximenes, by Mr. Grove of Richmond. London, Printed for the Author by D. Leach, 1761. A Short Historical Account of Sir William Cavendish, Gentleman Usher to Cardinal Wolsey, and of his Lady Elizabeth (afterwards Countess of Shrewsbury) and their descendants. This has no title page. The Observations and Appendix to the Life of Wolsey appear to have been annexed, as the paging is continued. Six Appendices to a Short History of King Henry VIII. which he had previously published. These have no general title, and are separately paged. A Short Examination into some Reflections cast on the Memory of Cardinal Wolsey, by the Author of the Life of Sir Thomas More, in the Biographia Britannica. 1761. The Life of Robert Wolsey, of Ipswich, Gentleman, Father of the famous Cardinal. 1761. Grove has divided his edition into sections for the purpose of reference. His text has now nothing to recommend it, though it was then a laudable undertaking: he occasionally shows that he could not very well decipher his MS.; he puts hinnocrisse for hippocrass at p. 71, and at p. 76 peeres for speres, with many other palpable mistakes. Grove’s ingenuity, though not his ingenuousness, may be admired; for finding in his manuscript the work attributed to George Cavendish, he converts it to Gu. Cavendish, Gent. not to disturb his own historical account of Sir William Cavendish, in which he gives a circumstantial relation of the intimacy between Wolsey and Thomas Cavendish of the Exchequer, the father of Sir William, who, he says, placed him in the service of Wolsey, and of the growth of his fortunes in consequence, with a confidence and detail which is truly amusing.

[6] This manuscript is carefully written in a volume with other curious transcripts, and has marginal notes by the transcriber, who appears to have been a puritan, from his exclamations against pomp and ceremony. At the end he writes, “Copied forth by S. B. anno 1578, the first day of September.”

[7] Kippis’s Edit. vol. iii. p. 321.

[8] Vol. i. p. 302.

[9] Vol. i. p. 314.

[10] See the marginal references in the Biographia and the Peerages.

[11] Catalogue Harl. MSS. No. 428.

[12] Vol. ii. p. 51.

[13] In his ‘Ecclesiastical Biography; or, Lives of eminent Men connected with the History of Religion in England,’ 6 vols. 8vo. a useful and valuable collection, Dr. Wordsworth very properly rejected the parenthesis, “at which time it was apparent that he had poisoned himself,” which had been introduced into the printed copies without the authority of the manuscripts. The editor of the Censura Literaria once intimated his intention to prepare an edition of this work. (C. L. iii. 372.) How could the press of Lee Priory, of whose powers we have had so many favourable specimens, have been more worthily engaged than in producing a correct edition of this valuable piece of antiquarian lore,—except in favouring the public with more of its able director’s own feeling and beautiful essays?

[14] Vol. i. p. 321.

[15] The reader will bear in mind that this passage was written in 1814, when the writer could not, for obvious reasons, have been acquainted with the claims of Mr. Lloyd’s manuscript, to be considered as the original autograph of the author. I will here take occasion to observe that, to the manuscripts enumerated above, two more may be added, described in the preface to the Life, which are in the possession of the writer of this note. S. W. S.

[16] It appears by the Catalogus MSS. Anglie that there were two copies in the library of Dr. Henry Jones, rector of Sunningwell in Berks, both in folio: and a third also in folio among the MSS. of the Rev. Abraham De la Pryme, F. R. S. of Thorne in Yorkshire. There was a copy in the very curious library formed about the middle of the last century by Dr. Cox Macro at his house, Norton near St. Edmund’s Bury.

[17] See the ‘Royal and Noble Authors,’ p. 202, and Fasti Oxon. vol. ii. col. 706, ed. 1692.

[18] P. 102 in the present edition.

[19] In the Autograph MS. it stands—“and after Earl of Sussex,” v. p. 179 in the present edition.

[20] Milles’s Catalogue of Honour, p. 667.

[21]

A supposed anachronism explained.

The reader will, it is hoped, excuse the minuteness of this inquiry. We have enough to teach us to take nothing upon trust that has been said concerning this work: and some doubts have been expressed as to the period at which it was written, grounded on a passage near the conclusion. Cavendish tells us that when the Cardinal left the hospitable mansion of the Earl of Shrewsbury at Sheffield, on the borders of Yorkshire, “he took his journey with Master Kingston and the guard. And as soon as they espied their old master in such a lamentable estate, they lamented him with weeping eyes. Whom my lord took by the hands, and divers times, by the way, as he rode, he would talk with them, sometime with one, and sometime with another; at night he was lodged at a house of the Earl of Shrewsbury’s, called Hardwick Hall, very evil at ease. The next day he rode to Nottingham, and there lodged that night, more sicker, and the next day we rode to Leicester Abbey; and by the way he waxed so sick, that he was divers times likely to have fallen from his mule.” p. 536. This is an affecting picture. Shakspeare had undoubtedly seen these words, his portrait of the sick and dying Cardinal so closely resembling this. But in these words is this chronological difficulty. How is it that Hardwick Hall is spoken of as a house of the Earl of Shrewsbury’s in the reign of Henry VIII. or at least in the days of Queen Mary, when it was well known that the house of this name between Sheffield and Nottingham, in which the Countess of Shrewsbury spent her widowhood, a house described in the Anecdotes of Painting, and seen and admired by every curious traveller in Derbyshire, did not accrue to the possessions of any part of the Shrewsbury family till the marriage of an earl, who was grandson to the Cardinal’s host, with Elizabeth Hardwick, the widow of Sir William Cavendish, in the time of Queen Elizabeth? If I recollect right, this difficulty perplexed that learned Derbyshire antiquary Dr. Samuel Pegge, who has written somewhat at length on the question, whether the Cardinal met his death in consequence of having taken poison. See Gent. Mag. vol. xxv. p. 27, and vol. liii. p. 751. The editor of the Topographer proposes to correct the text by reading Wingfield in place of Hardwick; vol. ii. p. 79. The truth, however, is, that though the story is told to every visitor of Hardwick Hall, that “the great child of honour, Cardinal Wolsey,” slept there a few nights before his death; as is also the story, equally unfounded, that Mary Queen of Scots was confined there; it was another Hardwick which received the weary traveller for a night in this his last melancholy pilgrimage. This was Hardwick upon Line in Nottinghamshire, a place about as far to the south of Mansfield, as the Hardwick in Derbyshire, so much better known, is to the north-west. It is now gone to much decay, and is consequently omitted in many maps of the county. It is found in Speed. Here the Earl of Shrewsbury had a house in the time of Wolsey. Leland expressly mentions it. “The Erle [of Shrewsbury] hath a park and maner place or lodge yn it caullid Hardewike upon Line, a four miles from Newstede Abbay.” Itin. vol. v. fol. 94. p. 108. Both the Hardwicks became afterwards the property of the Cavendishes. Thoroton tells us that Sir Charles Cavendish, youngest son of Sir William, and father of William Duke of Newcastle, “had begun to build a great house in this lordship, on a hill by the forest side, near Annesley Woodhouse, when he was assaulted and wounded by Sir John Stanhope and his men, as he was viewing the work, which was therefore thought fit to be left off, some bloud being spilt in the quarrel, then very hot between the two families.” Throsby’s edit. vol. ii. p. 294.

[22] The reference is to Dr. Wordsworth’s text; the passage will be found at p. 77 of the present edition. The same strain of querulous complaint occurs in his prologue to the Metrical Visions:

How some are by fortune exalted to riches,

And often such as most unworthy be, &c.

Afterwards he checks himself, and calls Dame Reason to his aid:

But after dewe serche and better advisement,

I knew by Reason that oonly God above

Rewlithe thos thyngs, as is most convenyent,

The same devysing to man for his behove:

Wherefore Dame Reason did me persuade and move

To be content with my small estate,

And in this matter no more to vestigate.

Here we have decisive proof that the writer’s fortunes were not in the flourishing condition which marked those of Sir William Cavendish at this period, i. e. in the reign of Mary.

S. W. S.

[23]

John Wilson of Bromhead.

It formed part of the curious collection of manuscripts made by the late John Wilson, Esq. of Bromhead near Sheffield, in Yorkshire; a gentleman who spent a long life in collecting, and transcribing where he could not procure possession of the original, whatever might throw any light upon the descent of property, or on the history, language, or manners of our ancestors. He was the intimate friend and correspondent of Burton, Watson, Brooke, Beckwith, and indeed of all that generation of Yorkshire antiquaries which passed away with the late Mr. Beaumont of Whitley Beaumont. Mr. Wilson died in 1783. Cavendish’s library was not the best furnished apartment of his magnificent mansion. For the satisfaction of the gentle Bibliomaniac, I shall transcribe the brief catalogue of his books. “Chawcer, Froyssarte Cronicles, a boke of French and English.” They were kept in the new parler, where were also the pictor of our sov^reigne lord the kyng, the pyctor of the Frenche kyng and another of the Frenche quene: also ‘two other tables, one with towe anticke boys, & the other of a storye of the Byble.’ In ‘the lyttle parler’ was ‘a payntyd clothe with the pictor of Kyng Harry the VIII^th our sovereygne lord, & kyng Harry the VII^th & the VI^th, Edward the Forthe & Rychard the Third.’

[24] The authorities for this detail of the employments, rewards, and honours of Sir William Cavendish are to be found in the Biographia and the Peerages.

[25] Life and Times, &c. vol. iii. p. 98.

[26]

Mary, Countess of Northumberland.

Though little ceremony and probably as little time was used in patching up these nuptials. As might be expected, they were most unhappy. So we are told on the authority of the earl’s own letters in the very laboured account of the Percy family given in the edition of Collins’s Peerage, 1779; perhaps the best piece of family history in our language. “Henry the unthrifty,” Earl of Northumberland, died at Hackney in the prime of life, about ten or twelve years after he had consented to this marriage. Of this term but a very small part was spent in company of his lady. He lived long enough, however, not only to witness the destruction of all his own happiness, but the sad termination of Anne Boleyn’s life. In the admirable account of the Percy family, referred to above, no mention is made of the lady who, on these terms, consented to become Countess of Northumberland, in her long widowhood. She had a valuable grant of abbey lands and tythes, from which, probably, she derived her principal support. One letter of hers has fallen into my hands. It presents her in an amiable position. She is pleading in behalf of a poor man whose cattle had been impounded by one of Lady Cavendish’s agents. Its date and place is to the eye Wormhill[27]; but the running hand of that age, when not carefully written, is not to be depended on for representing proper names with perfect exactness, and the place may be Wreshill, which was a house of the Northumberland family. She died in 1572; and on the 17th of May her mortal remains were deposited in the vault made by her father in Sheffield church, where sleep so many of her noble relatives, some of them in monumental honours.

[27] In justice to the amiable author of this essay, who is extremely anxious to be accurate, I think it proper to apprise the reader that the note taken from the former edition of his work at p. 127 must be qualified by what is here stated. In a letter with which I have been favoured, he says, “I have looked again and again at the letter, and the word is certainly (if we may judge from the characters which the lady’s pen has formed) Wormhill: yet still I think it must have been intended for Wreshill, as I have met with nothing else to show that the lady had a house at Wormhill.” S. W. S.

[28] Broadgate in Leicestershire. See the Funeral Certificate. They were married on the 20th Aug. 1 Edw. VI., at two o’clock after midnight.

[29] Among the Wilson collection is a list of jewels presented to the Countess of Shrewsbury by the Queen of Scotland.

[30] See “Memoirs of the Peers of England during the Reign of James the First,” p. 19. Lodge’s “Illustrations,” &c. iii. 50-64, and Harl. MS. in Brit. Mus. No. 4836. fol. 325. and 6846. fol. 97.

[31] “Illustrations,” &c. Introd. p. 17.

[32]

Original Letter of Sir William Cavendish.

To Besse Cavendysh

my wyff.

Good Besse, haveing forgotten to wryght in my letters that you shuld pay Otewell Alayne eight pounds for certayne otys that we have bought of hym ov^r and above x^li that I have paid to hym in hand, I hertely pray you for that he is desyrus to receyve the rest at London, to pay hym uppon the sight hereof. You knowe my store and therefore I have appoyntyd hym to have it at yo^r hands. And thus faer you well. From Chattesworth the xiii^th of Aprell.

W. C.

[33] Ath. Oxon. vol. i. col. 569. ed. 1691.

[34]

Original title of the work.

None of the publishers of this work have given us the original title. I shall here transcribe it as it appears upon the manuscript in the Library of the College of Arms.

Thomas Wolsey, late Cardinall intituled
of S^t Cicile trans Tiberim presbyter and
Lord Chauncellar of England, his lyfe
and deathe, compiled by George
Cavendishe, his gentleman Usher.

[35] ArchÆologia, vol. xi. p. 50-62.

[36] See page 4.

[37] See Vincent’s Suffolk. MS. in Col. Arm. fol. 149, and compare with Morant’s Essex, vol. ii. p. 363, and with the account of the Cavendishes in the Peerages.

[38] See page 84.

[39] See p. 100.

[40] Vol. i. p. 106.

[41] Vol. i. p. 122. It is singular enough that in this edition the name of the Cardinal’s attendant and biographer, by a slip of the pen, is written George. See line 38. It is plain from the connexion that this must have been an unintended blunder into the truth. It was duly corrected in the later editions.

[42] Mr. Grove subsequently (in 1761) met with what he considered “an antient and curious manuscript copy written about one hundred and fifty years ago,” and from this he printed an edition in 8vo, with a preface and notes, the advertisement to which bears the above date. It appears to be one of the rarest of English books, and was probably never published: the copy with which I have been favoured by Richard Heber, Esq. M. P. having no title-page. There are other curious tracts in the volume on the subject of Wolsey, having separate titles bearing no bookseller’s name, but purporting to be printed for the Author by Dryden Leach, and all in 1761.

S. W. S.

[43] 4to, 1776, p. 116.

[44] The autograph MS. begins here.

[45] He was born in the year 1471. See Fiddes’s Life of Wolsey, p. 2. 1726. By some it has been said that his father was a butcher, but the foundation for this assertion is not known. The zealous biographer of the cardinal, Mr. Grove, made two successive journeys to Ipswich for the purpose of obtaining information respecting him, but the whole fruit of both expeditions was ascertaining the Christian name of Wolsey’s father, and that he was a man of some substance! He printed, however, what he calls “The Life of Robert Wolsey, of Ipswich, Gentleman,” in 1761! The will of Wolsey’s father was published by Dr. Fiddes, and for its curiosity I shall give it a place in the Appendix.

[46] The place was Lymington, in the Diocese of Bath and Wells. He was instituted October 10, A. D. 1500. Fiddes, p. 5.

[47] The tradition is, that Wolsey was set in the stocks by Sir Amyas Pawlet’s direction, for disorderly conduct at a fair where he had drunk to excess. The ground for this assertion is not known, but it seems to rest upon no earlier authority than that of Sir John Harrington. It may be remarked that Storer, in his metrical Life of Wolsey, represents him as the injured party:

“Wrong’d by a knight for no desert of mine.”

[48] September, 1501.

[49] Fiddes asserts that Sir John Nanfan was a Somersetshire gentleman. Nash, in his History of Worcestershire states, that the father and the son have been confounded, and that it was Sir Richard Nanfan, a gentleman of that county, who was captain of Calais about this time, i. e. circa 1503. His son’s name was Sir John; but it is evident that the words a very grave and ancient knight can only apply to Sir Richard.

[50] Place, or office.

[51] Wolsey had not only the address and good qualities necessary to the acquisition of such friends, but also retained them to the last. The affection of Bishop Fox is apparent in the last letter which he wrote to him; and Sir Thomas Lovell’s esteem was manifested to the close of his life, for he leaves him in his will “a standing cup of golde, and one hundred marks in golde.”

[52] This mission related to the intended treaty of marriage between Henry the Seventh, and the Duchess Dowager of Savoy.

[53] Shakspeare represents the cardinal as “Exceeding wise, fair spoken and persuading;” and one of the charges exhibited against him was, that “at the privy council he would have all the words to himself, and consumed the time with a fair tale!”

[54] Dispatch.

[55] Understanding.

[56] Wordsworth’s Ed.

[57] By passengers the reader will see by the context that the passage boats are meant. It was the usual phrase to signify a ferryman, and also his boat, from passager, Fr. Thus in Baret’s Alvearie, “A passenger, one that conveyeth over many, convector.”

[58] Thomas Storer, in his metrical Life of Wolsey, 1599, has the following stanza, in which the expedition Wolsey used on this occasion is not unpoetically alluded to:

“The Argonautic vessel never past

With swifter course along the Colchian main,

Than my small bark with fair and speedy blast

Convey’d me forth, and reconvey’d again;

Thrice had Arcturus driv’n his restless wain,

And heav’n’s bright lamp the day had thrice reviv’d

From first departure, till I last arriv’d.”

This poem was reprinted by Mr. Park in the Supplement to the Harleian Miscellany. There are extracts from it in the Retrospective Review, Vol. v. p. 275.

[59] He was collated Feb. 2. A. D. 1508. Le Neve’s Fasti. p. 146.

[60] These words follow in most of the manuscripts, but are probably an interpolation: “and mother afterwards of the queen’s highness, that now is, (whose virtuous life and godly disposition Jesu long preserve, and continue against the malignity of her corrupt enemies!)”

[61] This house merged to the crown by the attainder of Empson, and appears to have been a princely dwelling, for in the patent, an orchard and twelve gardens are enumerated as belonging to it. The grant bears date in 1510. It stood upon the ground which is now occupied by Salisbury Square and Dorset Street, its gardens reaching to the banks of the river.

[62] Who had. MS. L.

[63] Was. MS. L.

[64] Dr. Wordsworth has cited a passage from Sir Thomas More, in his Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, in which is a lively and characteristic picture, “designed, no doubt, to represent the cardinal at the head of his own table.” I could not refuse myself the pleasure of laying it before the reader.

“Anthony. I praye you, cosyn, tell on. Vincent. Whan I was fyrste in Almaine, uncle, it happed me to be somewhat favoured with a great manne of the churche, and a great state, one of the greatest in all that country there. And in dede whosoever might spende as muche as hee mighte in one thinge and other, were a ryght great estate in anye countrey of Christendom. But glorious was hee verye farre above all measure, and that was great pitie, for it dyd harme, and made him abuse many great gyftes that God hadde given him. Never was he saciate of hearinge his owne prayse.

So happed it one daye, that he had in a great audience made an oracion in a certayne matter, wherein he liked himselfe so well, that at his diner he sat, him thought, on thornes, tyll he might here how they that sat with hym at his borde, woulde commend it. And whan hee had sitte musing a while, devysing, as I thought after, uppon some pretty proper waye to bring it in withal, at the laste, for lacke of a better, lest he should have letted the matter too long, he brought it even blontly forth, and asked us al that satte at his bordes end (for at his owne messe in the middes there sat but himself alone) howe well we lyked his oracyon that he hadde made that daye. But in fayth Uncle, whan that probleme was once proponed, till it was full answered, no manne (I wene) eate one morsell of meate more. Every manne was fallen in so depe a studye, for the fyndynge of some exquisite prayse. For he that shoulde have brought oute but a vulgare and a common commendacion, woulde have thoughte himself shamed for ever. Than sayde we our sentences by rowe as wee sat, from the lowest unto the hyghest in good order, as it had bene a great matter of the comon weale, in a right solemne counsayle. Whan it came to my parte, I wyll not saye it, Uncle, for no boaste, mee thoughte, by oure Ladye, for my parte, I quytte my selfe metelye wel. And I lyked my selfe the better beecause mee thoughte my wordes beeinge but a straungyer, wente yet with some grace in the Almain tong wherein lettyng my latin alone me listed to shewe my cunnyng, and I hoped to be lyked the better, because I sawe that he that sate next mee, and should saie his sentence after mee, was an unlearned Prieste, for he could speake no latin at all. But whan he came furth for hys part with my Lordes commendation, the wyly Fox, hadde be so well accustomed in courte with the crafte of flattry that he wente beyonde me to farre.

And that might I see by hym, what excellence a right meane witte may come to in one crafte, that in al his whole life studyeth and busyeth his witte about no mo but that one. But I made after a solempne vowe unto my selfe, that if ever he and I were matched together at that boarde agayne: when we should fall to our flattrye, I would flatter in latin, that he should not contende with me no more. For though I could be contente to be out runne by an horse, yet would I no more abyde it to be out runne of an asse. But Uncle, here beganne nowe the game, he that sate hygheste, and was to speake, was a great beneficed man, and not a Doctour onely, but also somewhat learned in dede in the lawes of the Churche. A worlde it was to see howe he marked every mannes worde that spake before him. And it semed that every worde the more proper it was, the worse he liked it, for the cumbrance that he had to study out a better to passe it. The manne even swette with the laboure, so that he was faine in the while now and than to wipe his face. Howbeit in conclusion whan it came to his course, we that had spoken before him, hadde so taken up al among us before, that we hadde not lefte hym one wye worde to speake after.

Anthony. Alas good manne! amonge so manye of you, some good felow shold have lente hym one. Vincent. It needed not as happe was Uncle. For he found out such a shift, that in hys flatteryng he passed us all the mayny. Anthony. Why, what sayde he Cosyn? Vyncent. By our Ladye Uncle not one worde. But lyke as I trow Plinius telleth, that whan Appelles the Paynter in the table that he paynted of the sacryfyce and the death of Iphigenia, hadde in the makynge of the sorowefull countenances of the other noble menne of Greece that beehelde it, spente oute so much of his craft and hys cunnynge, that whan he came to make the countenance of King Agamemnon her father, whiche hee reserved for the laste, ... he could devise no maner of newe heavy chere and countenance—but to the intent that no man should see what maner countenance it was, that her father hadde, the paynter was fayne to paynte hym, holdyng his face in his handkercher. The like pageant in a maner plaide us there this good aunciente honourable flatterer. For whan he sawe that he coulde fynde no woordes of prayse, that woulde passe al that hadde bene spoken before all readye, the wyly Fox woulde speake never a word, but as he that were ravished unto heavenwarde with the wonder of the wisdom and eloquence that my Lordes Grace hadde uttered in that oracyon, he fette a long syghe with an Oh! from the bottome of hys breste, and helde uppe bothe hys handes, and lyfte uppe bothe his handes and lift uppe his head, and caste up his eyen into the welkin and wepte. Anthony. Forsooth Cosyn, he plaide his parte verye properlye. But was that greate Prelates oracion Cosyn, any thyng prayseworthye?” Sir Thomas More’s Works, p. 1221, 1222.

[65] i.e. haughty.

[66] June 1513.

[67] 100 crowns a day.

[68] “Heaven and happiness eternal is t? ??t??e???, that which is joined in issue, to which we are intituled, for which we plead, to which we have right; from whence by injury and treachery we have been ejected, and from whence by fine force we are kept out: for this we do clamare, by the Clergy, our Counsel, in the view of God and Angels.” Montague’s Diatribe upon Selden’s History of Tithes, p. 130. W.

[69] He was consecrated bishop of Lincoln, March 26, A. D. 1514. Le Neve’s Fasti, p. 141. W.

[70] Bambridge was poisoned (according to Stow) by Rinaldo da Modena, his chaplain, who was incited to the act by revenge, having suffered the indignity of a blow from the archbishop.

[71] Dr. Robert Barnes preached a Sermon on the 24th of December, 1525, at St. Edward’s Church in Cambridge, from which Sermon certain Articles were drawn out upon which he was soon after called to make answer before the Cardinal. Barnes has left behind him a description of this examination. The sixth of these Articles was as follows. “I wyll never beleeve that one man may be, by the lawe of God, a Byshop of two or three cities, yea of an whole countrey, for it is contrarye to St. Paule, which sayth, I have left thee behynde, to set in every citye a byshop.”

“I was brought afore my Lorde Cardinall into his Galary, (continues Dr. Barnes), and there hee reade all myne articles, tyll hee came to this, and there he stopped, and sayd, that this touched hym, and therefore hee asked me, if I thought it wronge, that one byshop shoulde have so many cityes underneath hym; unto whom I answered, that I could no farther go, than St. Paules texte, whych set in every cytye a byshop. Then asked hee mee, if I thought it now unright (seeing the ordinaunce of the Church) that one byshop should have so many cities. I aunswered that I knew none ordinaunce of the Church, as concerning this thinge, but St. Paules sayinge onelye. Nevertheles I did see a contrarye custom and practise in the world, but I know not the originall thereof. Then sayde hee, that in the Apostles tyme, there were dyvers cities, some seven myle, some six myle long, and over them was there set but one byshop, and of their suburbs also: so likewise now, a byshop hath but one citye to his cathedrall churche, and the country about is as suburbs unto it. Me thought this was farre fetched, but I durst not denye it.” Barnes’s Works, p. 210. A. D. 1573. W.

[72] This was not the first time in which this point of precedency had been contested. Edward III, in the sixth year of his reign, at a time when a similar debate was in agitation, having summoned a Parliament at York, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and all the other Prelates of his Province, declined giving their attendance, that the Metropolitan of all England might not be obliged to submit his Cross to that of York, in the Province of the latter. Fox, p. 387, 388. W.

[73] Wolsey, in his endeavours to obtain the purple pall, had relied much on the assistance of Adrian, Bishop of Bath, himself a cardinal, then the Pope’s collector in England, but residing at Rome, and acting by Polydore Vergil, his deputy. Adrian being either unable or unwilling to render the expected service, Wolsey, conceiving that he had been betrayed, seized upon the deputy collector, Polydore, and committed him to the Tower, where he remained, notwithstanding repeated remonstrances from the court of Rome, until the elevation of Wolsey to the cardinalate procured his liberty. This will account for the unfavourable light in which Wolsey is placed in Polydore Vergil’s History.

[74] “Not farre unlike to this was the receaving of the Cardinals hatte. Which when a ruffian had brought unto him to Westminster under his cloke, he clothed the messenger in rich aray, and sent him backe to Dover againe, and appoynted the Bishop of Canterbury to meet him, and then another company of Lordes and Gentles I wotte not how oft, ere it came to Westminster, where it was set on a cupborde and tapers about, so that the greatest Duke in the lande must make curtesie thereto: yea and to his empty seat he being away.” Tindal’s Works, p. 374. Fox’s Acts, p. 902. W.

[75] Dr. Fiddes and Mr. Grove remark, that this is a prejudiced statement of the case, and that Cavendish was misled by false information. It does not indeed appear that Wolsey used any indirect means to supersede Archbishop Warham, and the following passages in the correspondence of Sir Thomas More with Ammonius seem to prove the contrary. Sir Thomas says: “The Archbishop of Canterbury hath at length resigned the office of Chancellor, which burthen, as you know, he had strenuously endeavoured to lay down for some years; and the long wished for retreat being now obtained, he enjoys a most pleasant recess in his studies, with the agreeable reflection of having acquitted himself honourably in that high station. The Cardinal of York, by the Kings Orders, succeeds him; who discharges the duty of the post so conspicuously as to surpass the hopes of all, notwithstanding the great opinion they had of his other eminent qualities: and what was most rare, to give so much content and satisfaction after so excellent a predecessor.”

Ammonius, writing to Erasmus, says: “Your Archbishop, with the King’s good leave, has laid down his post, which that of York, after much importunity, has accepted of, and behaves most beautifully.”

[76] This is noticed by the satirist Roy, in his invective against Wolsey:

Before him rydeth two prestes stronge,

And they beare two crosses right longe,

Gapinge in every man’s face:

After them follow two lay-men secular,

And each of them holdinge a pillar

In their hondes, insteade of a mace.

Then followeth my lord on his mule

Trapped with gold, &c.

Dr. Wordsworth, misled by Anstis, has erroneously attributed this satire to Skelton, confounding it probably with that writer’s

“Why come ye not to court.”

See note at the end of the Life.

[77] Even so early as the reign of Henry III, the annual amount of the benefices in the hands of Italians, in this kingdom, was 70,000 marks; more than three times the value of the whole revenue of the crown. M. Paris, in Vit. Hen. III. Ann. 1252.

Wordsworth.

[78] These are termed under pastelers, in the more recent MSS.

[79] The Gospeller was the priest who read the Gospel. The Pisteller, the clerk who read the Epistle.

[80] Revestry, from the French Revestir; contractedly written Vestry.

[81] Those Lords that were placed in the great and privy chambers were Wards, and as such paid for their board and education. It will be seen below that he had a particular officer called “Instructor of his Wards.” Grove.

[82] Among whom, as we shall see below, was the eldest son of the Earl of Northumberland. This was according to a practice much more ancient than the time of Wolsey; agreeably to which, young men of the most exalted rank resided in the families of distinguished ecclesiastics, under the denomination of pages, but more probably for the purposes of education than of service. In this way Sir Thomas More was brought up under Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury; of whom he has given a very interesting character in his Utopia. From Fiddes’s Appendix to the Life of Wolsey, p. 19, it appears that the custom was at least as old as the time of Grosthed, Bishop of Lincoln, in the reign of Henry III, and that it continued for some time during the seventeenth century. In a paper, written by the Earl of Arundel, in the year 1620, and intitled Instructions for you my son William, how to behave yourself at Norwich, the earl charges him, “You shall in all things reverence, honour, and obey my Lord Bishop of Norwich, as you would do any of your parents: esteeminge whatsoever he shall tell or command you, as if your grandmother of Arundell, your mother, or myself should say it: and in all things esteem yourself as my lord’s page; a breeding, which youths of my house, far superior to you, were accustomed unto; as my grandfather of Norfolk, and his brother, my good uncle of Northampton, were both bredd as pages with bishopps.” See also Paul’s Life of Archbishop Whitgift, p. 97.

It is not out of place to mention, what we are told by Sir George Wheler in his Protestant Monastery, p. 158. A. D. 1698. “I have heard say, in the times no longer ago than King Charles I, that many noblemen’s and gentlemen’s houses in the country were like academies, where the gentlemen and women of lesser fortunes came for education with those of the family; among which number was the famous Sir Beaville Granville and his lady, father and mother of our present lord of Bath.” W.

[83] Dr. Wordsworth’s edition says one hundred and eighty. The manuscripts differ in stating the numbers, the edition of 1641 has eight hundred persons. And, in consequence, Wolsey has been so far misrepresented, by some writers, as to have it asserted that he kept eight hundred servants!

[84] At Bruges, “he was received with great solemnity, as belongeth unto so mighty a pillar of Christes church, and was saluted at the entring into the towne of a merry fellow which sayd, Salve rex regis tui, atque regni sui, Hayle both king of thy king, and also of his realme.” Tindal’s Works, p. 370, A. D. 1572.

[85] Liveries, are things ’livered, i. e. delivered out.

[86] Bread of the finest flour. A cast is a share or allotment.

[87] So our author, in his poetical legend, dwells upon this regal pomp of his master:

‘My crossis twayne of silver long and greate,

That dayly before me were carried hyghe,

Upon great horses opynly in the streett;

And massie pillers gloryouse to the eye,

With pollaxes gylt that no man durst come nyghe

My presence, I was so pryncely to behold;

Ridyng on my mule trapped in silver and in golde.’

See Appendix.

[88] The pillar, as well as the cross, was emblematical, and designed to imply, that the dignitary before whom it was carried was a pillar of the church. Dr. Barnes, who had good reason why these pillars should be uppermost in his thoughts, glances at this emblem, in the case of the cardinal, in the following words; “and yet it must bee true, because a pillar of the church hath spoken it.” Barnes’ Works, p. 210, A. D. 1572. See also Tindal’s Works, p. 370. W.

[89] It was made One of the Articles of Impeachment against him: “That by his outrageous Pride he had greatly shadowed a long season his Grace’s Honour.” Art. XLIV. Sir Thomas More, when Speaker of the House of Commons, noticing a complaint which had been made by the cardinal, that nothing could be said or done in that house, but it was presently spread abroad, and became the talk of every tavern or alehouse, “Masters, (says he) forasmuche as my lord cardinall latelie laied to our charges the lightnes of our tongues for things uttered out of this house, it shall not in my minde be amisse to receive him with all his pompe, with his maces, his pillers, pollaxes, his crosses, his hatt, and the greate seal too; to thintent, that if he finde the like fault with us heereafter, wee maie be the bolder from ourselves to laie the blame on those that his grace bringeth hither with him.” Roper’s Life of Sir Thomas More, p. 21, edit. 1817. Sir Thomas also, in his Apology, written in the year 1533, reflects severely upon the change introduced among the clergy, through the cardinall’s means, in the luxury and sumptuousness of their dress. Works, p. 892.

The pulpit likewise occasionally raised its voice against him. Doctor Barnes, who was burnt in Smithfield in the year 1541, preached at St. Edward’s Church in Cambridge, a sermon, for which he was called to appear before the cardinal. This was a part of their dialogue, as it is related in Fox: "What Master Doctor (said the cardinall) had you not a sufficient scope in the Scriptures to teach the people, but that my golden shoes, my pollaxes, my pillers, my golden cushions, my cross did so sore offend you, that you must make us ridiculum caput amongst the people? We were jolily that day laughed to scorne. Verely it was a sermon more fitter to be preached on a stage than in a pulpit; for at the last you said I weare a paire of redde gloves, I should say bloudie gloves (quoth you) that I should not be cold in the midst of my ceremonies. And Barnes answered, I spake nothing but the truth out of the Scriptures, according to my conscience, and according to the old doctors." Fox’s Acts, p. 1088. W.

The following curious passage from Doctor Barnes’s ‘Supplication to the King,’ printed by Myddelton, in 12mo, without date, is probably more correct than the exaggeration of the good old martyrologist. It opens to us, as Dr. Wordsworth justly remarks, some part of the philosophy upon which the cardinal defended the fitness of that pomp and state which he maintained.

“Theie have baculum pastolarem to take shepe with, but it is not like a shepeherdes hooke, for it is intricate and manifolde crooked, and turneth always in, so that it may be called a mase, for it hath neither beginning nor ending, and it is more like to knocke swine and wolves in the head with, than to take shepe. Theie have also pillers and pollaxes, and other ceremonies, which no doubte be but trifels and thinges of nought. I praye you what is the cause that you calle your staffe a shepeherdes staffe? You helpe no man with it? You comforte no man?—You lift up no man with it? But you have stryken downe kynges, and kyngedomes with it; and knocked in the head Dukes and Earls with it. Call you this a sheepeherdes staffe? There is a space in the shepeherdes staffe for the foote to come oute againe, but youre staffe turneth and windeth alwayes inwarde and never outewarde, signifieing that whatsoever he be that cometh within your daunger, that he shall neuer come oute againe. This exposition youre dedes do declare, let them be examined that you have had to do with; and let us see howe they have escaped youre shepeherdes hooke. But these be the articles for the which I must nedes be an heretike, never the less all the worlde may see how shamefully, that I have erred agaynst your holinesse in saying the truth. My Lord Cardinall reasoned with me in this article, all the other he passed over, saving this and the sixth article. Here did he aske, “if I thought it good and reasonable, that he shulde lay downe his pillers and pollaxes and coyne them?” Here is the heresye that is so abhomynable. I made him answere, that I thoughte it well done. “Than, (saide he), howe thynke you, were it better for me (being in the honour and dignitie that I am) to coyne my pillers and pollaxes and to give the money to five or sixe beggers; than for to maintaine the commenwelthe by them, as I do? Do you not recken (quod he) the commenwelthe better than fyve or sixe beggers?” To this I did answere that I rekened it more to the honour of God and to the salvation of his soule and also to the comforte of his poore bretheren that they were coyned and given in almes, and as for the commenwelthe dyd not hange of them, (where be they nowe?) for as his grace knewe, the commenwelthe was afore his grace, and must be when his grace is gone, and the pillers and pollaxes came with him, and should also go away with him. Notwithstanding yf the commenwelthe were in suche a condicion that it had nede of them, than might his grace so longe use them, or any other thinge in theyr stede, so long as the commenwelth neded them, Notwithstanding I sayd, thus muche dyd I not say in my sermon agaynst them, but all onely I dampned in my sermon the gorgeous pompe and pride of all exterior ornamentes. Than he sayde, “Well—you say very well.” But as well as it was said I am sure that these wordes made me an heretike, for if these wordes had not bene therein, mine adversaries durst never have shewed their faces against me. But now they knewe well that I could never be indifferently hearde. For if I had got the victorie than must all the Bishops and my Lord Cardinal have laid downe all their gorgeous ornamentes, for the which they had rather burne xx such heretikes as I am, as all the worlde knoweth. But God is mighty, and of me hath he shewed his power, for I dare say they never intended thing more in their lives, than they did to destroy me, and yet God, of his infinite mercy, hath saved me, agaynst all their violence: unto his Godly wisdome is the cause all onely knowne. The Byshop of London that was then, called Tunstal, after my departing out of prison, sayd unto a substancyal man, that I was not ded (for I dare say his conscience did not recken me such an heretike, that I wolde have killed myself, as the voyce wente, but yet wolde he have done it gladly of his charyte) but I was, saide he, in Amsterdam (where I had never been in my lyfe, as God knoweth, nor yet in the Countrey this ten yeares) and certaine men dyd there speake with me (said he) and he fained certaine wordes that they shulde say to me, and I to them, and added thereunto that the Lord Cardinal woulde have me againe or it shulde coste hym a greate somme of money, howe moche I do not clerelye remember. I have marvayle that my Lorde is not ashamed, thus shamefully and thus lordly to lye, althoughe he might doo it by auctoritie. And where my Lord Cardinal and he wold spend so moche money to have me agayne, I have great marvayle of it, What can they make of me? (I am now here, what say you to me?) I am a symple poore wretche, and worthe no mans money in the worlde (saving theirs) not the tenth peny that they will give for me, and to burne me or to destroye me, cannot so greatly profyt them. For when I am dead, the sunne, and the moone, the starres, and the element, water and fyre, ye and also stones shall defende this cause againste them rather than the verity shall perish.”

[90] Chambers, short guns, or cannon, standing upon their breeching without carriages, chiefly used for festive occasions; and having their name most probably from being little more than chambers for powder. It was by the discharge of these chambers in the play of Henry VIIIth. that the Globe Theatre was burnt in 1613. Shakspeare followed pretty closely the narrative of Cavendish.

[91] Mumchance appears to have been a game played with dice, at which silence was to be observed.

[92] Rounding, sometimes spelt rowning, i. e. whispering.

[93] “The king gave good testymony of his love to this lady, creating her in one day Marquesse of Pembroke (that I may use the words of the patent) for the nobylity of her stocke, excellency of her virtues and conditions, and other shewes of honesty and goodness worthyly to bee commended in her. And giving her a patent for a 1000 pounds yerely to maynteyne this honour with. She was the first woman, I read, to have honor given to her and her heyres male.”

Sir Roger Twysden’s MS. note.

[94] “Not above seven yeares of age, Anno 1514.” as appears from a fragment of this life with notes by Sir Roger Twysden, of which a few copies were printed in 1808, by Mr. Triphook, from whence also the following note is copied.

[95] “It should seeme by some that she served three in France successively; Mary of England maryed to Lewis the twelfth, an. 1514, with whome she went out of England, but Lewis dying the first of January following, and that Queene (being) to returne home, sooner than either Sir Thomas Bullen or some other of her frendes liked she should, she was preferred to Clauda, daughter to Lewis XII. and wife to Francis I. then Queene (it is likely upon the commendation of Mary the Dowager), who not long after dying, an. 1524, not yet weary of France she went to live with Marguerite, Dutchess of AlanÇon and Berry, a Lady much commended for her favor towards good letters, but never enough for the Protestant religion then in the infancy—from her, if I am not deceived, she first learnt the grounds of the Protestant religion; so that England may seem to owe some part of her happyness derived from that Lady.”

[96] This expression, unless the author himself were misinformed, must not be extended to imply an absolute precontract. Lord Herbert, in his Life of Henry VIII. p. 448, has published an original letter from this nobleman, then Earl of Northumberland, written in the year 1536, a short time before Q. Anne’s suffering, in which he denies any such contract, in the most solemn terms. This letter will be found in the Appendix. W.

I have placed this letter in the Appendix (Letter VIII) for the convenience of the reader.

[97] Geffrey Bollen, a gentlemen of Norfolk, Mayor of London, 1457, marryed one of the daughters and heyres of Thomas Lord Hoo and Hastings, by whome he had William Bolleyn (knight of the Bath at Richard 3ds coronation) who marryed the Earl of Ormonds daughter (he though of Ireland, sate in the English parliament above English Barons), by her he had Thomas Bollen, whome the Erle of Surrey after Duke of Norfolk chose for his son-in-law; of which marriage this Anne was born, 1507.

Note from Sir R. Twysden’s MS. Frag.

[98] This was the Lady Mary Talbot, daughter to George Earl of Shrewsbury, by whom he had no issue. "Though little ceremony, and probably as little time, was used in patching up these nuptials. As might be expected, they were most unhappy. So we are told, on the authority of the earl’s own letters, in the very laboured account of the Percy family given in Collins’ Peerage, ed. 1779, perhaps the best piece of family history in our language. “Henry, the unthrifty Earl of Northumberland, died at Hackney in the prime of life, about ten or twelve years after he had consented to this marriage. Of this term but a very small portion was spent in company of his lady. He lived long enough, however, not only to witness the destruction of his own happiness, but the sad termination of Anne Boleyn’s life. In the admirable account of the Percy family, referred to above, no mention is made of the lady who, on these terms, consented to become Countess of Northumberland, in her long widowhood. She sequestered herself from the world at Wormhill, on the banks of the Derbyshire Wye, amidst some of the sublimest scenery of the Peak. Wormhill is about eighteen miles from Sheffield, where Lady Northumberland’s father, brother, and nephew, successively Earls of Shrewsbury, spent the greater part of their lives.”

Who wrote Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey? p. 30.

The reader will be pleased to refer to the note as it now stands in Mr. Hunter’s Essay, prefixed to the present edition. He thinks that Wreshill, and not Wormhill, must be meant, as there is no other evidence to show that Lady Percy had a house at Wormhill.

[99] i. e. fumed. This metaphorical use of the word has not occurred to me elsewhere.

[100] The charms of Anne had also attracted Sir Thomas Wyatt, and some of his poems evidently allude to his passion; he was afterwards closely questioned as to the nature of his intimacy with her. A very curious narrative of some particulars relating to this attachment, from the pen of a descendant of the poet, has fortunately been preserved among the MS. collections of Lewis the antiquary. A few copies of this memoir were printed in 1817, but as it has still almost the rarity of a manuscript, I shall enrich my Appendix by reprinting it as a most curious and valuable document relating to this eventful period of our history.

[101] In the very interesting memoir of Anne Boleyn, by George Wyat, which the reader will find in the Appendix, the queen’s prudent conduct is mentioned, and the following anecdote related: ‘These things being well perceived of the queen, which she knew well to frame and work her advantage of, and therefore the oftener had her (i. e. Anne Boleyn) at cards with her, the rather also that the king might have the less her company, and the lady the more excuse to be from him, also she esteem herself the kindlier used, and yet withal the more to give the king occasion to see the nail upon her finger. And in this entertainment, of time they had a certain game, that I cannot name, then frequented, wherein dealing, the king and queen meeting they stopt; and the young lady’s hap was, much to stop at a king. Which the queen noting, said to her, playfully, My Lady Anne, you have good hap to stop at a king, but you are like others, you will have all or none.’

[102] Yet nothing can be more strong than her expressions of gratitude and affection to the cardinal at this period when his assistance was of importance to her views. Two letters of hers to the cardinal have been published by Burnet, I. 55, [see our Appendix, Letter XI.] in which she says: “all the days of my life I am most bound of all creatures next the king’s grace to love and serve your grace; of the which I beseech you never to doubt that ever I shall vary from this thought as long as any breath is in my body. And as touching your grace’s trouble with the sweat, I thank our Lord that them that I desired and prayed for are scaped, and that is the king and you. And as for the coming of the Legate, I desire that much, and if it be God’s pleasure, I pray him to send this matter shortly to a good end, and then I trust, my lord, to recompense part of your great pains.” In another letter she says: “I do know the great pains and troubles that you have taken for me, both day and night, is never like to be recompensed on my part, but al only in loving you next the king’s grace above all creatures living.” In a third letter, published by Fiddes, “I am bound in the mean time to owe you my service: and then look what thing in the world I can imagine to do you pleasure in, you shall find me the gladdest woman in the world to do it, and next unto the king’s grace, of one thing I make you full promise to be assured to have it, and that is my hearty love unfeignedly during my life.” It should seem, therefore, unless we suppose her to have been insincere in her expression of gratitude, that her animosity did not proceed from any displeasure at the rupture of the affair with Lord Percy; but from subsequent causes. She was probably worked upon by the cardinal’s enemies in the court.

[103] The name of this person was Giovanni Joacchino Passano, a Genoese; he was afterwards called Seigneur de Vaux. The emperor, it appears, was informed of his being in England, and for what purpose. The cardinal stated that Joacchino came over as a merchant, and that as soon as he discovered himself to be sent by the Lady Regent of France, he had made de Praet (the emperor’s ambassador) privy thereto, and likewise of the answer given to her proposals. The air of mystery which attached to this mission naturally created suspicion, and after a few months, De Praet, in his letters to the emperor, and to Margaret, the governess of the Netherlands, expressed his apprehension that all was not right, and the reasons for his surmises. His letters were intercepted by the cardinal, and read before the council. Charles and Margaret complained of this insult, and the cardinal explained as well as he could. At the same time protesting against the misrepresentation of De Praet, and assuring them that nothing could be further from his wish than that any disunion should arise between the king his master and the emperor; and notwithstanding the suspicious aspect of this transaction, his dispatches both immediately before and after this fracas strongly corroborate his assertions. [See additional note at the end of the Life.] Wolsey suspected that the Pope was inclined toward the cause of Francis, and reminded him, through the Bishop of Bath, of his obligations to Henry and Charles. The Pope had already taken the alarm, and had made terms with the French king, but had industriously concealed it from Wolsey, and at length urged in his excuse that he had no alternative. Joacchino was again in England upon a different mission, and was an eyewitness of the melancholy condition of the cardinal when his fortunes were reversed. He sympathised with him, and interested himself for him with Francis and the Queen Dowager, as appears by his letters published in Legrand, Histoire du Divorce de Henri VIII.

[104] Dr. Fiddes has justly observed, that Cavendish, in his account of these transactions, asserted some things not only without sufficient authority, but contrary to the evidence of documents which he has adduced. By these it appears, that if there was any delay in the supplies promised on the part of England it was purely accidental; and that the remissness of the emperor to furnish his quota was the principal cause of the extremity to which the Duke of Bourbon’s army was reduced. Cavendish is also wrong in his relation of the siege of Pavia and its consequences. The fact is, that the Duke of Bourbon did not command in the town, but marched at the head of the imperial army to relieve it; and the garrison did not sally out until the two armies were engaged. The demonstrations of joy with which the victory at Pavia was received in London is also an argument for the sincerity of Henry and the cardinal at this time. The story of the treaty between Henry and Francis, said to have been found in the tent of the latter after the victory, is also a mere fiction. In the spirit of a true son of the Apostolic Church, Cavendish deprecates every thing which might tend to bring the Pope into jeopardy; and he cannot help bearing hard even upon the cardinal, because he was thought indirectly the cause ‘of all this mischief.’ What is here said receives confirmation from some interesting letters of the cardinal in the Appendix to Galt’s Life of Wolsey, No. IV. V. VI. p. cxxxiv, &c. 4to edition, Lond. 1812.

[105] These intrigues, in which the cardinal bore so large a part, did not redound to the glory of his country. Our merry neighbours even then had begun to make our diplomatic inferiority the subject of their sport and ridicule. William Tindall, in his Practice of popish Prelates, referring to these events, tells us, “The Frenchmen of late dayes made a play or a disguising at Paris, in which the emperour daunsed with the pope and the French king, and weried them, the king of England sitting on a hye bench, and looking on. And when it was asked, why he daunsed not, it was answered, that he sate there, but to pay the minstrels their wages onely: as who should say, wee paid for all mens dauncing.” Tindall’s Works, p. 375. A. D. 1572. W.

[106] A brake here seems to signify a snare or trap. The word has much puzzled the commentators on Shakspeare (See Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 1). One of its antient significations was a sharp bit to break horses with. A farrier’s brake was a machine to confine or trammel the legs of unruly horses. An antient instrument of torture was also called a brake; and a thorny brake meant an intricate thicket of thorns. Shakerly Marmion, in his comedy of ‘Holland’s Leaguer’, evidently uses the word in the same sense with Cavendish:

“———-Her I’ll make

A stale to catch this courtier in a brake.”

[107] The 3d Day of July (1526), the Cardinal of Yorke passed through the City of London, with many lords and gentlemen, to the number of twelve hundred horse——The 11th day of May he took shipping at Dover, and landed at Calais the same day.

Grafton, p. 1150.

[108] Lanzen-Knechts, the name by which these bands of German mercenaries were then designated.

[109] Cavendish uses this word again in his poems:

“Wherin was found a certyn defuse clause

Wrested by craft to a male intente.” p. 139.

See Fox’s Acts, &c. p. 1769:

“Cook. Then answere me, What sayest thou to the blessed sacrament of the altar? Tell me:

“Jackson. I answered; it is a diffuse question, to aske me at the first dash, you promising to deliver me.” See also p. 1574. “Diffuse and difficult.”

It appears to have been used in the sense of obscure, but difficult is the reading of Grove’s edition. I find diffused explained by Cotgrave “diffus, espars, OBSCURE.” And in a Latin Greek and English Lexicon by R. Hutton, printed at London by H. Bynneman, 1583, the Latin adverb, obscure, is interpreted “darkely, obscurely, DIFFUSELY.”

[110] The great seal could not be carried out of the king’s dominions without violating the law; letters patent were passed to enable Dr. Taylor to hold it in his absence.

[111] Stradiots and Arbenois. These were light armed cavalry, said by Guicciardini to have been Greek mercenaries in the service of Venice, retaining their Greek name st?at??ta?. Arbenois is Albanians, Albanois, Fr. The following passage from Nicot Thresor de la Langue FranÇoise, ed. 1606. fol. will fully explain this:

“A prÉsent on apelle en particulier Albanois ces hommes de cheval armez À la lÉgÈre, autrement dit Stratiote, ou Stradiots (par la consonne moyenne), qui portent les chapeaux À haute testiÈre, desquels on se sert pour chevaux lÉgers, qui viennent dudit pays d’Albanie, dont les Papes se servent encore de ce temps És garnisons de plusieurs villes du Saint siÈge, Albani, olim EpirotÆ.”

[112] In like manner, we saw, a little above, that at Calais he gave “benediction and pardon.” From a letter to the cardinal, from Humfrey Monmouth, confined in the Tower on suspicion of heresy, we may gather what notion was entertained, even by comparatively enlightened men, of the efficacy of these pardons. "If I had broken most part of the Ten Commandments of God, being penitent and confessed (I should be forgiven) by reason of certain pardons that I have, the which my company and I had graunted, whan we were at Rome, going to Jerusalem, of the holy father the pope, a poena et a culpa, for certain times in the year: and that, I trust in God, I received at Easter last past. Furthermore I received, when your grace was last at Pawles, I trust in God, your pardon of a poena et a culpa; the which I believe verily, if I had done never so great offences, being penitent and confessed, and axing forgiveness, that I should have forgiveness." Strype’s Ecclesiast. Memor. vol. i. p. 248. Appendix. The cardinal had also a bull granted by Pope Leo Xth. A. D. 1518. to give in certain cases and conditions plenary remission from all sins. Fiddes, p. 48. Appendix. W.

[113] Among other distinguished honours conferred by Francis upon the Cardinal was the singular privilege of pardoning and releasing prisoners and delinquents confined in the towns through which he passed, in the same manner as the king himself was used to do: the only culprits excluded from the power of pardon given him by this patent were those guilty of the most capital crimes.

[114] i. e. Switzers. Cavendish revels in his subsequent description of the tall Scots who formed the French king’s body guard.

[115]

Whose mule if it should be sold

So gayly trapped with velvet and gold

And given to us for our schare,

I durst ensure the one thing

As for a competent lyvynge

This seven yeare we should not care.

Roy’s Satire.

In the picture of the Champs de drap d’or, which has been engraved by the Society of Antiquaries, the cardinal appears mounted on a richly caparisoned mule.

[116] A previous negotiation of a singular nature had been begun, for the Bishop of Bath writes to the cardinal in March, 1527, that "Francis is very desirous to have the Princess Mary, and to have her delivered into his hands as soon as the peace is concluded. Our king pretends her non age, and will have all, pension, &c., concluded first. The Queen Regent is earnest also for the present marriage: Saying there is no danger, for she herself was married at xi. And for this match there might be a device to satisfy both sides, saying the princess will be well toward xii by August. At that time both princes should meet at Calais with a small company and charge, there her son, after the marriage solemnized, might abide himself for an hour or less with my Lady Princess; she said the king her son was a man of honour and discretion, and would use no violence, especially the father and mother being so nigh; meaning, that conatus ad copulam cum illa, quÆ est proxima pubertati, prudentia supplente Ætatem, should make every thing sure that neither party should now vary. So the king her son might be assured of his wife, and King Henry carry back his daughter till she should be accounted more able, &c. This overture our ambassadors think very strange." Fiddes Collections, p. 176. The Bishop of Bath returned into England soon after the cardinal went on his mission, to relate to Henry the course adopted by the cardinal in treating with Francis, and also to explain to him certain devices concerning his own secret matters. Mr. Master’s Collections.

[117] Skinner explains this word, a curtain. It evidently signifies here an enclosed or divided space or seat, decorated with rich draperies or curtains. In another place we have a traverse of sarsenet, which confirms Skinner’s explanation.

[118] Grises, greeses, or steps, for it was spelt various ways according to the caprice of the writer, from the Latin gressus.

[119] The roodeloft was the place where the cross stood; it was generally placed over the passage out of the church into the chancel.

[120] The passage within brackets is not to be found in any of the more recent MSS., nor in Dr. Wordsworth’s edition.

[121] Erasmus, in a letter to Aleander, dwells with delight upon this custom:

"Quanquam si BritanniÆ dotes satis pernosses Fauste, nÆ tu alatis pedibus, huc accurreres; et si podagra tua non sineret, DÆdalum te fieri optares. Nam ut e pluribus unum quiddam attingam. Sunt hic nymphÆ divinis vultibus, blandae, faciles, et quas tu tuis CamÆnis facile anteponas. Est prÆterea mos nunquam satis laudatus: Sive quo venias omnium osculis exciperis; sive discedas aliquo, osculis demitteris: redis? redduntur suavia; venitur ad te? propinantur suavia: disceditur abs te? dividuntur basia: occuritur alicubi? basiatur affatim: denique, quocunque te moveas, suaviorum plena sunt omnia. QuÆ si tu, Fauste, gustasses semel quam sint mollicula, quam fragrantia, profecto cuperes non decennium solum, ut Solon fecit, sed ad mortem usque in Anglia peregrinari." Erasmi Epistol. p. 315, edit. 1642. “It becometh nat therefore the persones religious to folowe the maner of secular persones, that in theyr congresses and commune metyngs or departyng done use to kysse, take hands, or such other touchings, that good religious persones shulde utterly avoyde.” Whytford’s Pype of Perfection. fol. 213. b. A. D. 1532. W.

[122] This name is spelt Creeky and Crykky in the autograph MS. In Wordsworth’s edition it is Crokey. Grove has it Crockly, and two of the MSS. copies Crokir. I know not whether I have divined the true orthography, but there was a noble family of this name at the time.

[123] Evensong. “Which persons for their waiting befoir noon hath licence at afternoon to go about their own business from the saide noon to iij of the clocke that evensong begin.”

Northumberland Household Book, p. 310.

[124] The shalme, or shawm, was a wind instrument like a hautboy, with a swelling protuberance in the middle. In “Commenius’s Visible World,” translated by Hoole, 1659, the Latin word gingras is translated by shawn, and the form of the instrument is represented as below. Its proper name appears to have been shawme; it is derived from the Teutonic. Drayton mentions it as shrill-toned: ‘E’en from the shrillest shaum unto the cornamute.’

Polyolbion v. iv. p. 376.

[125] Now, Wordsworth’s edit. The passages within brackets which follow are not found in any other manuscript: a space almost always marking the deficiency of this relation, and the succeeding account of the libels of the French against the cardinal.

[126] Catherine ReneÉ, one of the daughters of Louis the Twelfth. It does not seem that this exposition of the cardinal’s views in regard to the union of Henry with this princess, in case of a divorce, were without foundation, for he persuaded himself that Henry’s passion for Anne Boleyn would soon subside, and thought this alliance a sure mode of perpetuating the peace and union between the sovereigns. The other part of the assertion was proved true by the subsequent treaty, in which it was agreed that the Princess Mary should marry either Francis, or the Duke of Orleans; the first if he should remain a widower until she was of sufficient age, the second if it seemed expedient that Francis should keep his faith to the emperor, and marry his sister Leonora, to whom he was contracted by the Treaty of Madrid. Hence the necessity of keeping these designs secret, and the cardinal’s anger at their developement.

[127] This passage stands in the ordinary MSS., and in Dr. Wordsworth’s edition, in the following abridged and confused manner. The transcribers of the MSS. appear to have been sensible that their copy was defective, for in several of them one or two blank leaves are here left.

“Now shortly after there were divers malicious practices pretended against us by the French, who by their theft somewhat impaired us: whereupon one of them, being a man I was well acquainted with, maintained a seditious untruth, openly divulged, and set forth by a subtle and traitorous subject of their realm, saying also that he doubted not, but the like had been attempted within the king of England his majesty’s dominions; but to see so open and manifest blasphemy to be openly punished, according to their traitorous deserts, notwithstanding I saw but small redress.”

[128] The twentieth of October, A. D. 1527. The embassadors were the MarÉchal de Montmorency, the Bishop of Bayonne, the President of Rouen, and Monsieur d’Humieres.

[129] The book of ceremonies (compiled under the influence of the Bishops Gardiner and Tonstall, and in opposition to that of Cranmer, about the year 1540, and designed to retain in the church many operose and superstitious rites, by setting them off with the aids of a philosophical and subtle interpretation), describing in succession the different parts of the Canon of the Mass, proceeds thus, "Then saith the priest thrice, Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, &c. advertising us of three effects of Christ’s passion; whereof the first is, deliverance from the misery of sin; the second is from pain of everlasting damnation; wherefore he saith twice Miserere nobis, that is to say, Have mercy on us; and the third effect is, giving of everlasting peace, consisting in the glorious fruition of God." Strype’s Ecclesiastical Memorials, Vol. i. p. 289. Records. See also Mirror of our Lady. fol. 189, and Becon’s Works. Vol. iii. fol. 49. A. D. 1564. W.

[130] These cupboards or rather sideboards of plate were necessary appendages to every splendid entertainment. The form of them somewhat resembled some of the old cumbrous cabinets to be found still in ancient houses on the continent. There was a succession of step-like stages, or desks, as Cavendish calls them, upon which the plate was placed. The reader will have a better conception than description can convey of this piece of antient ostentation, from a print in a very curious work by Julio Bello, entitled Laurea Austriaca: Francof. 1627, folio, p. 640. Where our King James I. is represented entertaining the Spanish ambassadors in 1623.

[131] Proface. An expression of welcome equivalent to Much good may it do you! Mr. Steevens conjectured it to be from the old French expression, ‘Bon prou leur face,’ which is to be found in Cotgrave in voce Prou. This was a happy conjecture of Mr. Steevens, for Mr. Nares has pointed out its true origin in the old Norman-French or Romance language: ‘Prouface souhait qui veut dire, bien vous fasse, proficiat.’ Roquefort. Glossaire de la Langue Romane.

[132] ‘Mademoiselle de Boulan À la fin y est venue, et l’a le Roy logÉe en fort beau logis, qu’il a fait bien accoustrer tout auprÈs du sien, et luy est la cour faicte ordinairement tous les jours plus grosse que de long temps ne fut faicte À la Royne.’

Lettre de l’Evesque de’ Bayonne.

[133] It is a question of fact which has been warmly debated, whether the suffrages of the Universities in Henry’s favour were purchased by money. It does not seem very necessary that we should enter into this dispute. But any one who wishes so to do, may consult Burnet’s Hist. of the Reformation, Vol. iii. p. 401, Appendix. Harmer’s Specimen of Errors, p. 7. Fiddes’s Life of Wolsey, p. 420. Poli EpistolÆ, Vol. i. p. 238. A. D. 1744. W.

[134] Eight of these determinations soon after were printed in one volume, with a long Discourse in support of the judgments contained in them, under the following title: “The Determinations of the moste famous and moste excellent Universities of Italy and Fraunce, that it is so unlefull for a man to marry his Brother’s Wyfe, that the Pope hath no power to dispence therewith: imprinted by Thomas Berthelet the viith day of Novembre, 1531.” They were also published in Latin: in which language they are exhibited by Bishop Burnet in his Hist. of the Reformation, Vol. i. book ii. No. 34. Records. W.

[135] i. e. the Bulla or Papal seal. The passage marked with * * contains three words which I could not decipher.

[136] Doctor Stephen Gardiner, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, at this time in great estimation with Wolsey. In letters and other documents of this period he is often called Doctor Stevens. Mr. Grainger in the third vol. of Bishop Burnet’s Hist. of the Reformation, p. 385, Appendix, intimates that this was a colloquial vulgarism; “vulgarly, as Stephen Gardiner was Mr. Stevyns, in Wolsey’s Letter.” But it is questionable, I think, whether this is the true account of that name. The bishop himself, in his Declaration of his Articles against George Joye, A. D. 1546, fol. 3. b. of the 4to edition, thus speaks of it, “a booke, wherein he wrote, how Doctor Stevens (by whiche name I was then called) had deceyved him.”

In Doctor Barnes’ account of his examination before the bishops at Westminster, he calls Gardiner “Doctor Stephen then secretary.”

[137] The reader may consult Burnet’s Hist. of the Reformation, Vol. iii. p. 46-48. The bishop affirms positively that the king did not appear personally, but by proxy; and that the queen withdrew after reading a protest against the competency of her judges. “And from this it is clear (says the bishop), that the speeches that the historians have made for them are all plain falsities.” It is easy to contradict the confident affirmation of the historian upon the authority of a document published by himself in his Records, i. 78. It is a letter from the king to his agents, where he says: "At which time both we and the queen appeared in person, and they minding to proceed further in the cause, the queen would no longer make her abode to hear what the judges would fully descern, but incontinently departed out of the court; wherefore she was thrice preconnisate, and called eftsoons to return and appear; which she refusing to do, was denounced by the judges contumax, and a citation decerned for her appearance on Friday." Which is corroborated also by Fox’s Acts, p. 958. Indeed the testimony for the personal appearance of the king before the cardinals is surprisingly powerful; even though we do not go beyond Cavendish, and the other ordinary historians. But in addition to these, Dr. Wordsworth has produced the authority of William Thomas, Clerk of the Council in the reign of King Edward VI, a well informed writer; who, in a professed Apology for Henry VIII, extant in MS. in the Lambeth and some other libraries, speaking of this affair affirms, “that the Cardinal (Campeggio) caused the king as a private party in person to appear before him, and the Lady Katharine both.” P. 31.

[138] Hall has given a different report of this speech of the queen’s, which he says was made in French, and translated by him, as well as he could, from notes taken by Cardinal Campeggio’s secretary. In his version she accuses Wolsey with being the first mover of her troubles, and reproaches him, in bitter terms, of pride and voluptuousness: such harsh language could hardly deserve the praise ‘modeste tamen eam locutum fuisse,’ given by Campeggio.

[139] See Neve’s Animadversions on Phillips’s Life of Cardinal Pole, p. 62.

[140] Nothing of this kind is to be found in the journal of this embassy, or in the letters of the bishop and his companions, which have been preserved, and many of which have been published by Le Grand, Histoire du Divorce de Henri VIII.

[141] “In a Manuscript Life of Sir Thomas More, written not many years after Longland’s death, this account is given. ‘I have heard Dr. Draycot, that was his (Longland’s) chaplain and chancellor, say, that he once told the bishop what rumour ran upon him in that matter; and desired to know of him the very truth. Who answered, that in very deed he did not break the matter after that sort, as is said: but the king brake the matter to him first; and never left urging him until he had won him to give his consent. Of which his doings he did forethink himself, and repented afterward.’ MSS. Coll. Eman. Cantab.” Baker’s Notes on Burnet’s Hist. of the Reformation: in Burnet, Vol. iii. p. 400, Appendix. The same Life is among the MSS. in the Lambeth Library, No. 827, (see fol. 12), and, I have reason to think, was composed about the year 1556, and by Nicolas Harpsfield. From these concurrent testimonies it should appear, that the charge which has been often urged against Wolsey, that it was through his intrigues that Longland first suggested his scruples to the king, is unfounded. W.

Wolsey was at the time loudly proclaimed as the instigator of the divorce, and though he denied it upon some occasions, he admitted it on others; but Cardinal Pole asserts that it was first suggested by certain divines whom Anne Boleyn sent to him for that purpose. It is remarkable that he says this when writing to the king, and would surely not have ventured to say so if he had not had good grounds for the assertion.

[142] July, 1529.

[143] This determination of Campeggio was in consequence of secret instructions from the pope (unknown to Wolsey), at the instance of the emperor, who had prevailed upon the pontiff to adjourn the court and remove the cause to Rome.

[144] These proceedings led the way to the next great step in the progress of the Reformation, the renunciation of the pope’s authority, and the establishment of the regal supremacy. The following account, from an unpublished treatise, of the manner in which these questions were first brought to the king’s mind (whether authentic or not) may not be unacceptable to my readers.

"Now unto that you say, that because Pope Clement would not dispense with his second matrimonie, his majestie extirped out of England the papal authoritie, a thinge of most auncient and godly reverence as you take it, I aunsweare that after the kinges highness had so appeared in person before the Cardinal Campegio, one of the princes of his realm, named the Duke of Suffolk, a great wise man, and of more familiaritie with the kinge than any other person, asked his majestie, ‘how this matter might come to passe, that a prince in his own realme should so humble himself before the feet of a vile, strange, vitious priest,’ (for Campegio there in England demeaned himself in very deed most carnally — —). Whereunto the king aunswered, “he could not tell; but only that it seemed unto him, the spiritual men ought to judge spiritual matters; and yet as you saye (said the king) me seemeth there should be somewhat in it, and I would right gladly understand, why and how, were it not that I would be loth to appeare more curious than other princes.” “Why, sir (sayd the duke), your majestie may cause the matter to be discussed secretly by your learned men, without any rumour at all.” “Very well (sayd the kinge), and so it shall be.” And thus inspired of God, called he diverse of his trusty and great doctours unto him; charging them distinctly to examine, what lawe of God should direct so carnal a man as Campegio, under the name of spiritual, to judge a king in his owne realme. According unto whose commandment, these doctors resorting together unto an appointed place, disputed this matter large et stricte, as the case required. And as the blacke by the white is knowen, so by conferring the oppositions together, it appeared that the evangelical lawe varied much from the canon lawes in this pointe. So that in effect, because two contraries cannot stand in uno subjecto, eodem casu et tempore, they were constrained to recurre unto the kinges majesties pleasure, to knowe whether of these two lawes should be preferred: who smiling at the ignorance of so fonde a question aunsweared, that the Gospell of Christ ought to be the absolute rule unto all others; commanding them therefore to followe the same, without regard either to the civile, canon, or whatsoever other lawe. And here began the quicke: for these doctours had no sooner taken the Gospel for their absolute rule, but they found this popish authoritie over the kinges and princes of this earth to be usurped." William Thomas’s Apology for King Henry the Eighth, written A. D. 1547. p. 34. Lambeth Library. MSS. No. 464. W.

[145] The history and occasion of this great obligation of the Duke of Suffolk to the cardinal, who plainly intimates that but for his interposition the duke must have lost his life, does not appear to be known to the historians. See Fiddes’s Life of Wolsey. p. 454. W.

A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1755 (Dr. Pegge), who appears to have paid much attention to the Cardinal Wolsey’s history, suggests that Wolsey was the means of abating the anger of Henry at the marriage of Suffolk with his sister Mary Queen of France, which might have been made a treasonable offence. A letter from Mary to Wolsey, dated March 22, 1515, after her marriage with Suffolk, which is still extant in the Cotton Collection, gives some probability to this conjecture.

[146] i. e. Dr. Stephen Gardiner.

[147] i. e. The season of hunting, when the hart is in grease or full season. Dr. Wordsworth’s edition and the more recent manuscripts read—‘all that season.’

[148] The following additional particulars of the route are found in more recent MSS. “And were lodged the first night at a towne in Bedfordshire, called Leighton Bussarde, in the parsonage there, being Mr. Doctor Chambers’s benefice, the kings phisitian. And from thence they rode the next day.”

[149] The king had listened to their suggestions against the cardinal, and they felt assured of success; they are represented by an eyewitness, as boasting openly that they would humble him and all churchmen, and spoil them of their wealth: “La faintaisie de ces seigneurs est, que lui mort ou ruinÉ ils dÉferrent incontinent icy l’estat de l’eglise, et prendront tous leurs biens; qu’il seroit ja besoing que je le misse en chiffre, car ils le crient en plaine table.”

L’Evesque de Bayonne, Le Grand, Tom. iii. p. 374.

[150] “Le pis de son mal est, que Mademoiselle de Boulen a faict promettre À son Amy qu’il ne l’escoutera jamais parler; car elle pense bien qu’il ne le pourroit garder d’en avoir pitiÉ.”

Lettre de l’Eveque de Bayonne ap. Le Grand, Tom. iii. p. 375.

The manor of The Moor was situate in the parish of Rickmansworth, in Hertfordshire; the site is still called Moor Park. It was purchased and the house built by George Neville, Archbishop of York. Edward the fourth had promised to make that prelate a visit there, and while he was making suitable preparations to receive his royal master he was sent for to Windsor, and arrested for high treason. The king seized at the Moor all his rich stuff and plate to the value of 20,000l. keeping the archbishop prisoner at Calais and Hammes. Stowe, A^o. 1472. There was a survey of the house in 1568, by which it appears the mansion was of brick, the chief buildings forming a square court, which was entered by a gate-house with towers: the whole was moated. It was then in a dilapidated state.

[151] “Le Cardinal CampÈge est encores À Douvres, et À ceste heure (je) viens d’entendre que, soubz couleur de faute de Navires, on ne le veult laisser passer, sans y prendre avis, de paeur qu’il n’emporte le thrÉsor du Card. d’Yorc.”

Lettre de l’Evesque de Bayonne, apud Le Grand Hist. du Divorce.

[152] The Term then began the ninth of October.

[153] Esher.

[154] The Eighteenth November, 1529.

[155] This inventory is preserved among the Harleian MSS. No. 599.

[156] These words follow in the more recent MSS. “Yet there was laide upon every table, bokes, made in manner of inventories, reporting the number and contents of the same. And even so there were bokes made in manner of inventories of all things here after rehearsed, wherein he toke great paines to set all things in order against the king’s comming.”

[157] Baudkyn, cloth made partly of silk and partly of gold. Derived from Baldacca, an Oriental name for Babylon, being brought from thence.—“Baldekinum—pannus omnium ditissimus, cujus, utpote stamen ex filio auri, subtegmen ex serico texitur, plumario opere intertextus.” Ducange Glossar. in voce. It sometimes is used for a canopy or cloth of state.

[158] The name of Cardinal Wolsey’s fool is said to have been “Master Williams, otherwise called Patch.” An inquiry into this very curious feature in the domestic manners of the great in ancient times could not fail to be very interesting. Mr. Douce has glanced at the subject in his Illustrations of Shakspeare; and gave his friends reason to hope for a more enlarged inquiry at a future period: it would afford me real pleasure to hear that his intentions were not finally abandoned.

[159] The Bishop of Bayonne, who paid him a visit of commiseration at this period, gives the following affecting picture of his distress, in a most interesting letter which will be found in the Appendix; he says: “J’ay estÉ voir le Cardinal en ses ennuis, oÙ que j’y ay trouvÉ le plus grand example de fortune qu’ on ne sÇauroit voir, il m’a remonstrÉ son cas en la plus mauvaise rhÉtorique que je vis jamais, car cueur et parolle luy falloient entiÈrement; il a bien pleurÉ et priÉ que le Roy et Madame voulsissent avoir pitiÉ du luy—mais il m’a À la fin laissÉ sans me povoir dire austre chose qui vallist mieux que son visage; qui est bien dechue de la moitiÉ de juste pris. Et vous promets, Monseigneur, que sa fortune est telle que ses ennemis, encores qu’ils soyent Anglois, ne se sÇauroyent garder d’en avoir pitiÉ, ce nonobstant ne le laisseront de le poursuivre jusques au bout.” He represents him as willing to give up every thing, even the shirt from his back, and to live in a hermitage if the king would desist from his displeasure.

[160] Dr. Wordsworth’s edition and the later manuscripts read: “which had bine a strange sight in him afore;” but this can hardly be right? The splendour of Cromwell’s subsequent fortunes, their tragical close, and the prominent figure he makes in the events of this reign, which are among the most important of modern history, gives this circumstantial account a great degree of interest. His father was a blacksmith at Putney, the son was first an agent to an English factory at Antwerp, then a trooper in the Duke of Bourbon’s army, and was present at the sacking of Rome. It appears that he assisted Mr. Russell (afterwards Earl of Bedford), in making his escape from the French at Bologna, and it is probably to this circumstance that he owed the friendly offices of that gentleman at a subsequent period. After passing some time in the counting-house of a Venetian merchant, he returned to England and studied the law. Wolsey, it appears, first met with him in France, and soon made him his principal agent in the dissolution of monasteries and the foundation of his colleges. It was a trust which he discharged with ability, and is said to have enriched himself; yet he here complains that he “never had any promotion at the cardinal’s hands to the increase of his living.” And he tells the cardinal in his troubles, that “the soliciting his cause hath been very chargeable to him, and he cannot sustain it any longer without other respect than he hath had heretofore.” He says, “I am a thousand pounds worse than I was when your troubles began.” And after announcing the king’s determination to dissolve the cardinal’s colleges, he says: “I intreat your grace to be content, and let your prince execute his pleasure.”

Cardinal Pole relates that he openly professed to him his Machiavelian principles; he had learned, he said, “that vice and virtue were but names, fit indeed to amuse the leisure of the learned in their colleges, but pernicious to the man who seeks to rise in the courts of princes. The great art of the politician was, in his judgment, to penetrate through the disguise which sovereigns are accustomed to throw over their real inclinations, and to devise the most specious expedients by which they may gratify their appetites without appearing to outrage morality or religion.” He shared largely in the public odium in which the cardinal was held, and Pole, who was then in London, says that the people loudly clamoured for his punishment.

[161] The day after it appears Cromwell was at court, and sought an audience from the king, which was granted him; Cardinal Pole, who had the account from Cromwell himself and others who were present, relates that upon this occasion Cromwell suggested to the king a mode of overcoming the difficulty of the pope’s opposition to the divorce, by taking the authority into his own hands, and declaring himself head of the church within his own realm. The king gave ear to the proposition, and was so well pleased with Cromwell, that he thanked him, and admitted him to the dignity of a privy counsellor. This was the first step; to carry into effect this project his assistance was deemed necessary, and he arrived at length to the highest honours of the state; but at last became the victim of his own Machiavelian intrigues, and the vindictive spirit of the monarch. It has been doubted whether Cromwell deserves the credit of attachment to his fallen master to the whole extent which some writers have supposed. It is evident, from the very interesting conversation above, that he despaired of ever seeing Wolsey reinstated in his fortunes, and he was too subtle in his policy to have endeavoured to swim against the stream of court favour. That the cardinal suspected his fidelity to his cause is evident from fragments of two letters published by Fiddes among Mr. Master’s collections, in one of which Cromwell says: “I am informed your grace hath me in some diffidence, as if I did dissemble with you, or procure any thing contrary to your profit and honour. I much muse that your grace should so think or suspect it secretly, considering the pains I have taken, &c. Wherefore I beseech you to speak without faining, if you have such conceit, that I may clear myself; I reckoned that your grace would have written plainly unto me of such thing, rather than secretly to have misrepresented me. But I shall bear your grace no less good will. Let God judge between us! Truly your grace in some things overshooteth yourself; there is regard to be given to what things you utter, and to whom.”

The cardinal, in answer to this, protests: “that he suspects him not, and that may appear by his deeds, so that he useth no man’s help nor counsel but his. Complaint indeed hath been made to him, that Cromwell hath not done him so good offices as he might concerning his colleges and archbishoprick; but he hath not believed them; yet he hath asked of their common friends how Cromwell hath behaved himself towards him; and to his great comfort hath found him faithful. Wherefore he beseecheth him, with weeping tears, to continue stedfast, and give no credit to the false suggestions of such as would sow variance between them, and so leave him destitute of all help.”

But the testimony of Cavendish in his favour is conclusive; he says that, by reason of “his honest behaviour in his master’s cause, he grew into such estimation in every man’s opinion, that he was esteemed to be the most faithfullest servant to his master of all other, wherein he was of all men greatly commended.”

[162] In prease, i. e. the press or crowd.

[163] A writer before cited (Dr. Pegge), is of opinion that the House of Commons could not do otherwise than acquit him, notwithstanding the validity of several of the articles alleged against him, because he had either suffered the law for them already, or they were not sufficiently proved: indeed some of them were not proper grounds of censure.

‘Wolsey says of these articles himself, “whereof a great part be untrue: and those which be true are of such sort, that by the doing thereof no malice or untruth can be arrected unto me, neither to the prince’s person nor to the state.” The rejection of the bill may be justly ascribed to the relentment of the king, for Cromwell would not have dared to oppose it, nor the Commons to reject it, had they not received an intimation that such was the royal pleasure.’

[164] During the visit of the Emperor Charles V. to Henry VIII. “on Monday at nine of the clocke at night, was begun a banquet, which endured till the next morning at three of the clocke, at the which banquet the emperor, the king, and the Queene did wash together, the Duke of Buckingham giving the water, the Duke of Suffolke holding the towel. Next them did washe the Lord Cardinall, the Queene of Fraunce, and the Queene of Arragon. At which banquet the emperor kept the estate, the king sitting on the left hand, next him the French Queene; and on the other side sate the Queene, the Cardinall, and the Queene of Aragon; which banquet was served by the emperor’s owne servants.” Stowe’s Annals, p. 510. edit. 1615. W.

[165] This instrument is published by Fiddes in his Collections, p. 224.

[166] The anguish and anxiety he suffered may be seen by the letters written at this period to his old servants Cromwell and Gardiner; I have placed them in the Appendix, as a necessary illustration of this affecting picture.

[167] In an extract from a letter to Cromwell, published by Fiddes, the cardinal says: “My fever is somewhat asswaged, and the black humour also, howbeit I am entering into the kalends of a more dangerous disease, which is the dropsy, so that if I am not removed into a dryer air, and that shortly, there is little hope.” And in a letter to Gardiner, which will be found in the Appendix, he repeats his wish to be removed from Asher: "Continuing in this moiste and corrupt ayer, beyng enteryd in the passion of the dropsy, Appetitus et continuo insomnio, I cannot lyve: wherfor of necessyte I must be removed to some dryer ayer and place."

[168] Stuff was the general term for all kind of moveables or baggage. See the instrument of the king’s benefaction to the cardinal after his forfeiture by the premunire, in Rymer’s Foedera, and in Fiddes’ Collections. The reader will find the Schedule which was affixed to it, in our Appendix.

[169] “From the old gallery next the king’s lodging, unto the first gatehouse.” Wordsworth’s Edition.

[170] “Of four thousand marks,” say the more recent MSS. and Dr. Wordsworth’s Edit.

[171] Those to whom they were granted appear to have been the Lord Sandys and his son Thomas; Sir William Fitzwilliam, Sir Henry Guilford, Sir John Russel, and Sir Henry Norris. This suit to the cardinal seems to have been successfully brought about. Their pensions out of the revenues of the see of Winchester were settled on them for life by Act of Parliament, notwithstanding the just objection in the text. Rot. Parl. clxxxviii. Stat. 22 Hen. VIII. c. 22.

[172] From the Ital. intagliare, to cut, carve, &c.

[173] PrÊt, Somme prÊtÉe. Fr. A sum in advance. W.

[174] “His train was in number one hundred and threescore persons.” This addition is in Dr. Wordsworth’s edition and the later MSS.

[175] He was now fifty-nine years old.

[176] The book of Ceremonies before cited, which was compiled in the reign of Henry VIII. observes: “Upon Easter Day in the morning the ceremonies of the resurrection be very laudable, to put us in remembrance of Christ’s resurrection, which is the cause of our justification.” Strype’s Eccles. Memorials, v. i. p. 294. Records. What these ceremonies were we may collect from the Rubrics upon that day, in the Processionale secundum usum Sarum. fol. 72. edit. 1555; which are to this effect: On Easter Day, before mass, and before the ringing of the bells, let the clerks assemble, and all the tapers in the church be lighted. Then two persons shall draw nigh to the sepulchre, and after it is censed let them take the cross out of the sepulchre, and one of them begin Christus resurgens. Then let the procession commence. After this they shall all worship (adorent) the cross. Then let all the crucifixes and images in the church be unveiled, &c. &c. In like manner Good Friday also had its peculiar ceremonies. Bishop Longland closes his sermon preached on that day before King Henry VIII. A. D. 1538, in the following manner: “In meane season I shall exhorte you all in our Lord God, as of old custome hath here this day bene used, every one of you or ye departe, with moost entire devocyon, knelynge tofore our Savyour Lorde God, this our Jesus Chryst, whiche hath suffered soo muche for us, to whome we are soo muche bounden, whoo lyeth in yonder sepulchre; in honoure of hym, of his passyon and deathe, and of his five woundes, to say five Pater-nosters, five Aves, and one Crede: that it may please his mercifull goodness to make us parteners of the merites of this his most gloryous passyon, bloode, and deathe.” Imprynted by Thomas Petyt. See also Michael Wood’s Dialogue or Familiar Talks. A. D. 1554. Signat. D. 3. W.

[177] See above, page 158, Dr. Wordsworth’s note.

[178] In Mr. Ellis’s very interesting collection of Historical Letters, vol. i. p. 176, there is an extract of a letter from Sir William Fitzwilliams, then on a mission in France, relating a conversation he had with the French king upon his hearing the Duke of Buckingham was in the Tower. With the Cardinal’s answer.

[179] The favourable representation given of this portion of the cardinal’s life, notwithstanding what is said by Fox, p. 908, is fully confirmed by an authority which cannot be suspected of partiality to his memory, that of a State Book, which came out from the office of the king’s printer in the year 1536, intituled A Remedy for Sedition. “Who was lesse beloved in the Northe than my lord cardynall, God have his sowle, before he was amonges them? Who better beloved, after he had ben there a whyle? We hate oft times whom we have good cause to love. It is a wonder to see howe they were turned; howe of utter enemyes they becam his dere frendes. He gave byshops a ryght good ensample, howe they might wyn mens hartys. There was few holy dayes, but he would ride five or six myle from his howse, nowe to this parysh churche, nowe to that, and there cause one or other of his doctours to make a sermone unto the people. He sat amonges them, and sayd masse before all the paryshe. He sawe why churches were made. He began to restore them to their ryght and propre use. He broughte his dinner with hym, and bad dyvers of the parish to it. He enquired, whether there was any debate or grudge betweene any of them; yf there were, after dinner he sente for the parties to the churche, and made them all one. Men say well that do well. Godde’s lawes shal never be so set by as they ought, before they be well knowen.” Signat. E. 2. W.

[180] In the more recent MS. and in Dr. Wordsworth’s edition, “Newsted Abbey.”

[181] Next, i.e. nearest.

[182] The prevailing hour of dinner with our ancestors appears to have been much earlier. In the Northumberland Household Book it is said, “to X of the clock that my lord goes to dinner.”

“With us,” says Harrison, in the Description of England, prefixed to Holinshed’s Chronicle, p. 171, “the Nobilitie, Gentrie, and Students do ordinarilie go to dinner at eleven before noone, and to supper at five, or betweene five and six at afternoone. The merchants dine and sup seldome before twelve at noone, and six at night, especiallie in London. The husbandmen dine also at high noone, as they call it, and sup at seven or eight: but out of the tearme in our Universities the scholars dine at ten. As for the poorest sort, they generally dine and sup when they may: so that to talke of their order of repast, it were but a needlesse matter.”

“Theophilus. You wente to diner betyme I perceave. Eusebius. Even as I doe commonly, when I have no busynes, betwene nyne and ten; me thinkes it is a good houre: for by that meanes I save a breakfast, whyche for such idlers as I am, is most fittest.” Dialogue between Eusebius and Theophilus. Signat. B 4. A. D. 1556. W.

[183] Dr. Brian Higden at that time bore the office.

[184] The Cardinal perhaps remembered the credit which was gained by his successful rival Cardinal Adrian, who being elected to the papacy by the Conclave, through the influence of the emperor Charles V. “before his entry into the cittie of Rome (as we are told by one of Sir Thomas More’s biographers), putting off his hose and shoes, and as I have credibly heard it reported, bare-footed and bare-legged, passed through the streets towards his Palace, with such humbleness, that all the people had him in great reverence.” Harpsfield’s Life of Sir Thomas More. Lambeth MSS. No. 827, fol. 12. W.

[185] Storer, in his Poetical Life of Wolsey, 1599, has availed himself of this declaration of the cardinal, in a passage justly celebrated for its eminent beauty. The image in the second stanza is worthy of a cotemporary of Shakspeare:

I did not mean with predecessors pride,

To walk on cloth as custom did require;

More fit that cloth were hung on either side

In mourning wise, or make the poor attire;

More fit the dirige of a mournful quire

In dull sad notes all sorrows to exceed,

For him in whom the prince’s love is dead.

I am the tombe where that affection lies,

That was the closet where it living kept;

Yet wise men say, Affection never dies;—

No, but it turns; and when it long hath slept,

Looks heavy, like the eye that long hath wept.

O could it die, that were a restfull state;

But living, it converts to deadly hate.

[186] Dr. Percy, in the notes to the Northumberland Household Book, has adduced a very curious extract from one of the letters of this Earl of Northumberland, which he thinks affords a “full vindication of the earl from the charge of ingratitude in being the person employed to arrest the cardinal.” However this may be, the earl appears to have felt the embarrassment of his situation; he trembled, and with a faltering voice could hardly utter the ungracious purport of his mission. To a mind of any delicacy the office must have been peculiarly distressing, and even supposing the earl to have been formerly treated in an arbitrary and imperious manner by the cardinal, it is one which he should have avoided. As the letter gives a very curious picture of the manners as well as the literature of our first nobility at that time, I shall place it in my appendix; the very curious volume in which it is to be found being of great rarity and value.

[187] “In the houses of our ancient nobility they dined at long tables. The Lord and his principal guests sate at the upper end of the first table, in the Great Chamber, which was therefore called the Lord’s Board-end. The officers of his household, and inferior guests, at long tables below in the hall. In the middle of each table stood a great salt cellar; and as particular care was taken to place the guests according to their rank, it became a mark of distinction, whether a person sate above or below the salt.”—Notes on the Northumberland Household Book, p. 419.

[188] The enemies of Archbishop Laud, particularly in the time of his troubles, were fond of comparing him with Cardinal Wolsey: and a garbled edition of this life was first printed in the year 1641, for the purpose of prejudicing that great prelate in the minds of the people, by insinuating a parallel between him and the cardinal. It is not generally known that, beside the edition of this life then put forth, a small pamphlet was also printed with the following title, “A true Description or rather Parallel betweene Cardinall Wolsey, Archbishop of York, and William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1641.” As it is brief, and of extreme rarity, I shall give it a place in the Appendix.

[189] “But what he did there, I know not.” The more recent MS. and Dr. Wordsworth’s edition have this reading.

[190] The words which follow, I apprehend, are part of some ecclesiastical hymn. It was not unusual to attribute the name of Scripture to all such compositions; and to whatever was read in churches. “Also I said and affirmed” (the words are part of the recantation of a Wickliffite), “that I held no Scripture catholike nor holy, but onely that is contained in the Bible. For the legends and lives of saints I held hem nought; and the miracles written of hem, I held untrue.” Fox’s Acts, p. 591. W.

[191] “I know not whether or no it be worth the mentioning here (however we will put it on the adventure), but Cardinal Wolsey, in his life time was informed by some fortune-tellers, that he should have his end at Kingston. This, his credulity interpreted of Kingston on Thames; which made him alwayes to avoid the riding through that town, though the nearest way from his house to the court. Afterwards, understanding that he was to be committed by the king’s express order to the charge of Sir Anthony [William] Kingston (see Henry Lord Howard in his Book against Prophecies, chap. 28, fol. 130), it struck to his heart; too late perceiving himself deceived by that father of lies in his homonymous prediction.” Fuller’s Church History. Book v. p. 178. W.

[192] where for whereas.

[193] In the old garbled editions the passage stands thus: “But alas! I am a diseased man, having a fluxe (at which time it was apparent that he had poisoned himself); it hath made me very weak,” p. 108, edit. 1641. This is a most barefaced and unwarranted interpolation. The words do not occur in any of the MSS. Yet the charge of his having poisoned himself was repeated by many writers among the reformers without scruple. See Tindall’s Works, p. 404. Supplications to the Queen’s Majesty, fol. 7. A. D. 1555. Fox’s Acts, p. 959.

[194] “This is an affecting picture,” says a late elegant writer. "Shakspeare had undoubtedly seen these words, his portrait of the sick and dying Cardinal so closely resembling this. But in these words is this chronological difficulty. How is it that Hardwick Hall is spoken of as a house of the Earl of Shrewsbury’s in the reign of Henry VIII, when it is well known that the house of this name between Sheffield and Nottingham, in which the Countess of Shrewsbury spent her widowhood, a house described in the Anecdotes of Painting, and seen and admired by every curious traveller in Derbyshire, did not accrue to the possessions of any part of the Shrewsbury family till the marriage of an earl, who was grandson to the cardinal’s host, with Elizabeth Hardwick, the widow of Sir William Cavendish, in the time of Queen Elizabeth?—The truth however is, that though the story is told to every visitor of Hardwick Hall, that “the great child of honour, Cardinal Wolsey,” slept there a few nights before his death; as is also the story, perhaps equally unfounded, that Mary Queen of Scots was confined there; it was another Hardwick which received the weary traveller for a night in this his last melancholy pilgrimage. This was Hardwick-upon-Line in Nottinghamshire, a place about as far to the south of Mansfield as the Hardwick in Derbyshire, so much better known, is to the north-west. It is now gone to much decay, and is consequently omitted in many maps of the county. It is found in Speed. Here the Earl of Shrewsbury had a house in the time of Wolsey. Leland expressly mentions it. “The Erle [of Shrewsbury] hath a parke and manner place or lodge in it called Hardewike-upon-Line, a four miles from Newstede Abbey.” Itin. vol. v. fol. 94, p. 108. Both the Hardwicks became afterwards the property of the Cavendishes. Thoroton tells us that Sir Charles Cavendish, youngest son of Sir William, and father of William Duke of Newcastle, “had begun to build a great house in this lordship, on a hill by the forest side, near Annesly-wood-House, when he was assaulted and wounded by Sir John Stanhope and his men, as he was viewing the work, which was therefore thought fit to be left off, some blood being spilt in the quarrel, then very hot between the two families.—Thoresby’s Edit. of Thoroton, vol. ii. p. 294.”—Who wrote Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey? p. 18.

[195] Mr. Douce has pointed out a remarkable passage in Pittscottie’s History of Scotland (p. 261, edit. 1788,) in which there is a great resemblance to these pathetic words of the cardinal. James V. imagined that Sir James Hamilton addressed him thus in a dream. “Though I was a sinner against God, I failed not to thee. Had I been as good a servant to the Lord my God as I was to thee, I had not died that death.”

[196] In the yeare 1521, the cardinal, by virtue of his legatine authority, issued a mandate to all the bishops in the realme, to take the necessary means for calling in and destroying all books, printed or written, containing any of the errors of Martin Luther: and further directing processes to be instituted against all the possessors and favourers of such books, heresies, &c. The mandate contained also a list of forty-two errors of Luther. See Wilkins’s Concilia, vol. iii. p. 690-693; and Strype’s Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. i. p. 36-40. W.

[197] To administer the extreme unction. “The fyfth sacrament is anoyntynge of seke men, the whiche oyle is halowed of the bysshop, and mynystred by preestes to them that ben of lawfull age, in grete peryll of dethe: in lyghtnes and abatynge of theyr sikenes, yf God wyll that they lyve; and in forgyvynge of theyr venyal synnes, and releasynge of theyr payne, yf they shal deye.” Festival, fol. 171. W.

[198] He died Nov. 29, 1530. Le Neve’s Fasti, p. 310.

According to the superstitious credulity of that age, the death of Wolsey was said to have been preceded by a portentous storm. See Letters from the Bodleian, Vol. ii. page 17. In a letter from Dr. Tanner to Dr. Charlett, dated Norwich, Aug. 10, 1709, is the following passage:

"On the other side is a coeval note at the end of an old MS. belonging to our cathedral, of the odd exit of the great Cardinal Wolsey, not mentioned, I think, in Cavendish, or any of the ordinary historians,—much like Oliver’s wind.

“Anno Xti, 1530, nocte immediate sequente quartum diem Novemb. vehemens ventus quasi per totam Angliam accidebat, et die proximÈ sequente quinto sc. die ejusdem mensis circa horam primam post meridiem captus erat Dnus Thomas Wulsye Cardinalis in Ædibus suis de Cahow [Cawood] infra Diocesam suam Eboracensem; et postea in itinere ejus versus Londoniam vigilia St. AndreÆ prox. sequente apud Leycestriam moriebatur, quo die ventus quasi Gehennalis tunc fere per totam Angliam accidebat, cujus vehementia apud Leystoft infra Dioc. Norwicensem et alibi in diversis locis infra Regnum AngliÆ multÆ naves perierunt.”

Ad finem Annalium BartholomÆi Cotton. MS. in Biblioth. Eccl. Cath. Norwic. habetur hÆc notata.

[199] The excellent author of the dissertation on this life doubted whether this passage was not an interpolation, because “Wolsey is spoken of in terms so different from those used in other parts of the book.” But it is only a proof of the integrity of the biographer, whose upright heart and devout catholic spirit would not conceal the truth.

[200] This passage follows in the more recent MSS. “riding that same day, being Wednesday, to Northampton; and the next day to Dunstable; and the next day to London; where we tarried untill St. Nicholas Even, and then we rode to Hampton Court.”

[201] Here is another addition, in the more recent MSS. to the following effect: “Who hath gotten diverse other rich ornaments into his hands, the which be not rehersed or registered in any of my lords books of inventory, or other writings, whereby any man is able to charge him therewith, but only I.”

[202] Mrs. Anne Gainsford.

[203] See the Earl of Surrey’s character of him, in an Elegy on his Death, among his poems.

[204] It is presumed that the allusion is here to Sir Thomas Wyatt’s verses entitled “A description of such a one as he would love:”

A face that should content me wonderous well,

Should not be faire, but lovely to behold:

Of lively loke, all griefe for to repel

With right good grace, so would I that it should

Speak, without words, such words as none can tell;

Her tresse also should be of cresped gold.

With wit and these perchance I might be tide

And knit againe the knot that should not slide.

Songes and Sonettes, 8vo. 1557, p. 35. 2.

[205] The King of France’s sister.

[206] Sanders De Origine ac Progressu Schismatis Anglicani. Libri 3. This book was first printed at Cologne, in 1585, and passed through several editions, the last in 1628. It was subsequently translated into French, and printed in 1673-4; which induced Burnet to write his History of the Reformation. In the appendix to his first volume he gives a particular account of Sanders’ book, and refutes the calumnies and falsehoods contained in it. This called forth a reply from the catholic party, under the title of Histoire du Divorce de Henry VIII. par Joachim Le Grand. Paris, 1688, 3 vols. 12mo. A work not without interest on account of the documents printed in the third volume, some of which I have found useful as illustrations of the present work.

[207] Sir Francis Brian was one of the most accomplished courtiers of his times: a man of great probity and a poet. Wyatt addresses his third satire to him, and pays a high compliment in it to his virtue and integrity. He was, like Wyatt, firmly attached to the Protestant cause: on this account he seems to have drawn on himself the hatred of the Roman Catholic party. Sanders, in his malevolent account of the Reformation in England, relates the following absurd and wicked story of him.—Cum autem Henrici Regis domus ex perditissimo hominum constaret, cujusmodi erant aleatores, adulteri, lenones, assentatores, perjuri, blasphemi, rapaces, atque adeÒ hÆretici, inter hos insignis quidem nepos extitit, Franciscus Brianus, Eques Auratus, ex gente et stirpe Bolenorum. Ab illo rex quodam tempore quÆsivit, quale peccatum videretur matrem primum, deinde filium cognoscere.—Cui Brianus, “Omnino,” inquit, “tale O rex quale gallinam primÙm, deinde pullum ejus gallinaceum comedere.” Quod verbum cum rex magno risu accepisset, ad Brianum dixisse fertur. “NÆ! tu merito meus est Inferni Vicarius.” Brianus enim jam prius ob impietatem notissimam vocabatur, “Inferni Vacarius.” Post autem et “Regius Inferni Vicarius.” Rex igitur cum et matrem prius, et postea filiam Mariam Bolenam pro concubina tenuisset, demum at alteram quoque filiam, Annam Bolenam, animum adjicere coepit. De Schismate Anglicano, p. 24.

This disgusting calumny is repeated by the followers of Sanders, and among others by Davanzati, in his Schisma d’Inghilterra, p. 22, Ed. 1727. And yet that history is presented by the Curators of the Studio at Padua, to the youth educated there as “una stimabilissima Storia; descritta con quei vivi e forti colori che soli vagliano a far comprendere l’atrocita del successo dello Schisma d’Inghilterra.” How (says Dr. Nott, from whom this note is taken) can the bonds of charity be ever brought to unite the members of the Roman Catholic communion with those of the reformed church, so long as their youth shall be thus early taught to consider our Reformation as the portentous offspring of whatever was most odious in human profligacy, and most fearful in blasphemy and irreligion?" Memoirs of Sir Thomas Wyatt, p. 84.

[208] 32 Henry VIII. A. D. 1540.

[209] A. D. 1532-3.

[210] Tyndal’s Obedience of a Christian Man.

[211] This curious and interesting occurrence, which probably had considerable effect in furthering the progress of the Reformation, is told with more circumstance by Strype, from the manuscripts of Fox. It is so entirely corroborated by what is here said, that I think it incumbent upon me to place it in juxtaposition with Wyatt’s narrative.

“Upon the Lady Anne waited a young fair gentlewoman, named Mrs. Gainsford; and in her service was also retained Mr. George Zouch. This gentleman, of a comely sweet person, a Zouch indeed, was a suitor in the way of marriage to the said young lady: and among other love tricks, once he plucked from her a book in Englishe, called Tyndall’s Obedience, which the Lady Anne had lent her to read. About which time the Cardinal had given commandment to the prelates, and especially to Dr. Sampson, dean of the king’s chapel, that they should have a vigilant eye over all people for such books, that they came not abroad; that so as much as might be, they might not come to the king’s reading. But this which he most feared fell out upon this occasion. For Mr. Zouch (I use the words of the MS.) was so ravished with the spirit of God speaking now as well in the heart of the reader, as first it did in the heart of the maker of the book, that he was never well but when he was reading of that book. Mrs. Gainsford wept because she could not get the book from her wooer, and he was as ready to weep to deliver it. But see the providence of God:—Mr. Zouch standing in the chapel before Dr. Sampson, ever reading upon this book; and the dean never having his eye off the book, in the gentleman’s hand, called him to him, and then snatched the book out of his hand, asked his name, and whose man he was. And the book he delivered to the cardinal. In the meantime, the Lady Anne asketh her woman for the book. She on her knees told all the circumstances. The Lady Anne showed herself not sorry nor angry with either of the two. But, said she, ‘Well, it shall be the dearest book that ever the dean or cardinal took away.’ The noblewoman goes to the king, and upon her knees she desireth the king’s help for her book. Upon the king’s token the book was restored. And now bringing the book to him, she besought his grace most tenderly to read it. The king did so, and delighted in the book. “For (saith he) this book is for me and all kings to read.” And in a little time, by the help of this virtuous lady, by the means aforesaid, had his eyes opened to the truth, to advance God’s religion and glory, to abhor the pope’s doctrine, his lies, his pomp, and pride, to deliver his subjects out of the Egyptian darkness, the Babylonian bonds that the pope had brought his subjects under. And so contemning the threats of all the world, the power of princes, rebellions of his subjects at home, and the raging of so many and mighty potentates abroad; set forward a reformation in religion, beginning with the triple crowned head at first, and so came down to the members, bishops, abbots, priors, and such like.”—Strype’s Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. i. p. 112.

[212] Mr. George Zouch.

[213] So it is in the Calendars prefixed to the Book of Common Prayer in Queen Elizabeth’s reign. Lord Herbert says it was the sixth, Sanders the eighth, and Archbishop Cranmer the thirteenth or fourteenth.

[214] A. D. 1534.

[215] Shaxton and Latimer.

[216] To every one of these she gave a little book of devotions, neatly written on vellum, and bound in covers of solid gold enamelled, with a ring to each cover to hang it at their girdles for their constant use and meditation.

One of these little volumes, traditionally said to have been given by the queen when on the scaffold to her attendant, one of the Wyatt family, and preserved by them through several generations, was described by Vertue as being seen by him in the possession of Mr. George Wyatt of Charterhouse Square, in 1721. Vide Walpole’s Miscellaneous Antiquities, printed at Strawberry Hill, 1772, No. II. p. 13. It was a diminutive volume, consisting of one hundred and four leaves of vellum, one and seven-eighths of an inch long by one and five-eighths of an inch broad; containing a metrical version of parts of thirteen Psalms: and bound in pure gold richly chased, with a ring to append it to the neck-chain or girdle. It was in Mr. Triphook’s possession in the year 1817.

[217] Cos?: this woman’s name was Cousyns.

[218] Probably the name of one of her attendants.

[219] unless.

[220] that.

[221] Sir Francis Weston.

[222] they.

[223] note.

[224] accepts.

[225] that.

[226] i. e. what.

[227] us.

[228] Anvers, Antwerp.

[229] number.

[230] an hour.

[231] number.

[232] That is his long continuance with the cardinal.

[233] He had probably disobliged the king by his attachment to Anne Boleyn.

[234] fear.

[235] Carlisle.

[236] William Worm, whom he mentions in a former letter, as the person who betrayed him.

[237] brought.

[238] out.

[239] Antiphonars, Gralls, Orderlys, Manuals, and Professionaries, are books containing different portions of the Roman Catholic Ritual. See Percy’s Northumberland Household Book, p. 446, and Burn’s Ecclesiastical Law.

[240] licence. There is a tradition at Alnwick that an auditor was formerly confined in the dungeon under one of the towers till he could make up his accounts to his lord’s satisfaction.

[241] Dr. Augustine, or Agostino, a native of Venice, was physician to the cardinal, and was arrested at Cawood at the same time with his master, being treated with the utmost indignity: v. Life, pp. 348, 351. In the Cottonian MS. Titus b. i. fol. 365, there is a letter of his to Thomas Cromwell, in Italian, requiring speedy medical assistance, apparently for Cardinal Wolsey. It is dated Asher, Jan. 19th, 1529-30. Cavendish describes him as being dressed in a “boistous gown of black velvet;” with which he overthrew one of the silver crosses, which broke Bonner’s head in its fall.

[242] Premunire.

[243] soweth.

[244] f. rest thereof.

[245] This mention of omens reminds me that Dr. Wordsworth in his notes to Wolsey’s Life has related the following affecting anecdote of Archbishop Laud.

"The year 1639 we all know was big with events calamitous to Laud, and to the church and monarchy. In Lambeth Library is preserved a small pane of glass, in which are written with a diamond pencil the following words:

Memorand: EcclesiÆ de
Micham, Cheme et Stone, cum aliis
fulguro combusta sunt
Januar: 14, 1638/9.
Omen evertat Deus.

On a piece of paper the same size as the glass and kept in the same case with it, is written by the hand of Abp. Wake, as follows: “This glasse was taken out of the west-window of the gallery at Croydon before I new-built it: and is, as I take it, the writing of Abp. Laud’s own hand.”

[246] umber, i. e. shade, ombre, Fr.

[247] kynd, is nature.

[248] gystes, or gests, are actions.

[249] For his behove, for his behoof or advantage.

[250] To put in ure, i. e. to put in use. Thus in Ferrex and Porrex, by Sackville:

And wisdome willed me without protract

In speedie wise to put the same in ure.

[251] estatts, i. e. nobles, persons of rank or great estate.

[252] This word was used by our ancestors to signify any thing greasy or filthy; the revolutions of language have at length confined it to one only of its ancient acceptations, that of obscenity.

[253] sely, i. e. simple.

[254] gold and byse, is gold and purple.

[255] entaylled, i. e. carved, vide p. 300.

[256] This is no uninteresting picture of the seclusion desired by our ancestors in the old geometric style of gardening. Of this curious knot-garden of Wolsey the remains are still to be seen at Hampton Court, the maze there forming part of it.

[257] I past not of, i. e. I cared not for.

[258] vaylled, availed.

[259] rathest, i. e. soonest.

[260] blent, i. e. blind.

[261] This is a version of the concluding passage of the Life of the Cardinal.

[262] wyst, i. e. knew.

[263] for the nons, or nonce, for the purpose.

[264] This is Tittenhanger, in Hertfordshire, which Wolsey held as Abbot of St. Albans: there was formerly a palace belonging to the Abbots of St. Albans there.

[265] Sheets of Raynes. The fine linen used by our ancestors is frequently called cloth of Raynes. Rennes in Brittanny was formerly celebrated for its manufacture of fine linen. In the enumeration of the cardinal’s treasures at Hampton Court, many pieces of cloth of Raynes are mentioned. In the Old Phrase Book, entitled Vulgaria, by W. Horman, 1519, is the following passage: “He weareth a shurte of Raynis whan curser wold serve him.”

[266] “And for the hurt of envy,” i. e. against the hurt of envy. Envy being the cause of his seeking to shrowd himself.

[267] A shrowd, signified a shield or buckler, and metaphorically any kind of defence, coverture, or place of protection.

[268] ——“least I shold fall In the daynger of the learned and honorable sort.”

That is, “lest I should encounter their censure, or fall into the control of their severe judgment.” The phrase has its origin from the barbarous Latin in dangerio, and is common to Chaucer and our elder writers as well as to Shakspeare and his cotemporaries.

[269] By this is meant the Fourth Year of the Reign of Philip, and the Fifth of Queen Mary, answering to 1558. The Latin rhyming couplet Cavendish appears to have added after the commencement of Elizabeth’s reign. How far from a true prophecy it proved, the long and prosperous reign of Elizabeth may witness.

Clyx.com

PROLOUG DE L’AUCTOR G. C.

LE HISTORYE CARDINALIS EBORACENSIS.

SPECIMEN OF AN EPITAPHE ON QUENE MARIE. BY GEORGE CAVENDISH: CONSISTING OF FIFTEEN STANZAS.

TH’AUCTOR TO HIS BOOKE.

LE HISTORYE
CARDINALIS EBORACENSIS.

SPECIMEN
OF
AN EPITAPHE ON QUENE MARIE.
BY GEORGE CAVENDISH:
CONSISTING OF FIFTEEN STANZAS.