History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. III

His Holiness approves of the proposition.

This being the substance of the Irish message, “His Holiness, perceiving the good mind of these gentlemen in God’s behalf, had determined to desire amongst all Christian kings to have aid in this matter for charity, to aid the good Christian people of Ireland.”

Ways and means to provide money. The Pope will issue pardons.

The antichrist of England and the dog Luther his brother.

“His Holiness says,” concluded the letter, “that if at the general council amongst the kings he cannot have aid to obtain this holy work, then he will desire them that they will agree and consent that certain pardons may be received in their realms, and that they may give liberty that the bishops may constrain the commonalty to receive the said pardons, and it shall be declared that all such money shall be used for the conquest of Barbary; and that his Holiness will take upon him the said conquest of Barbary with the accord of the Emperor. If the above will not suffice, then his Holiness will give order and desire for the maintenance and defence of the holy faith, to all bishops, archbishops, cardinals, legates, deans, canons, priests, and curates, and also to all sorts of monasteries, to help with certain money which may be needful, to subdue and proceed in this good deed. And he will desire the Most Christian King of France, and also the King of Scots, to have amongst them aid in his behalf, inasmuch as they and their kingdoms is nigh to the said island of Ireland. And immediately that the fleet shall be together to go for Barbary, then shall the most part go for Ireland unto the gentleman that hath written to his Holiness to uphold the Holy See, that his Holiness may sustain Holy Mother Church from that tyrant of England, the which goes to confound the Holy See of St. Peter and the governors and ministers of it. And God give unto all good Christians strength to confound the antichrist of England and the dog Luther his brother.”³⁸³

Never, perhaps, since the beginning of time had such a provision of “ways and means” been devised for a military enterprise as was found in the financial suggestions of this Papal Hibernian war scheme. Nevertheless, when so many Spanish ships annually haunted the harbours of Münster, a few thousand men might be thrown on shore there without particular difficulty. The exchequer was in no condition to endure a repetition of the insurrection of Lord Fitzgerald, which had cost forty thousand pounds; and, with the encouragement of an auxiliary force, another similar rising, with its accompanying massacres, might be easily anticipated. Though invasion might be confidently faced in England, it was within the limits of possibility that Ireland might be permanently lost.

Dangerous material in the hands of the Pope.

With such materials in their hands, more skilful antagonists than Paul III. or Cardinal Pole might have accomplished something considerable; but Paul’s practical ability may be measured by his war budget; and the vanity of the English traitor would have ruined the most skilful combinations. Incapable of any higher intellectual effort than declamatory exercises, he had matched himself against the keenest and coolest statesman in Europe. He had run a mine, as he believed, under Henry’s throne, to blow it to the moon; and at the expected moment of his triumph his shallow schemes were blasted to atoms, and if not himself, yet his nearest kindred and dearest friends were buried in the ruins.

Political condition of England.

Lord Darcy had said that fifteen lords and great men had been banded together to put down the Reformation. Two peers had died on the scaffold. Lord Abergavenny, the head of the Nevilles, was dead also; he was, perhaps, a third. The knights and commoners who had suffered after the Pilgrimage of Grace had not covered the whole remaining number. The names revealed by the Nun of Kent, though unknown to the world, had not been forgotten by the government. Cromwell knew where to watch, and how.

The Marquis of Exeter a possible pretender to the crown.

The Poles and the Nevilles.

The country was still heaving uneasily from the after-roll of the insurrection, and Pole’s expectations of a third commotion, it is likely, were as well known to the Privy Council as they were known to the Pope. Symptoms had appeared in the western counties strikingly resembling those which had preceded the Yorkshire rising, when Cromwell’s innocent order was issued for the keeping of parish registers.³⁸⁴ Rumours were continually flying that the Emperor would come and overthrow all things; and the busy haste with which the coast was being fortified seemed to sanction the expectation. The Pope had made James of Scotland Defensor fidei. Fleets were whispered to be on the seas. Men would wake suddenly and find the Spaniards arrived; and “harness would again be occupied.”³⁸⁵ Superstition on one side, and iconoclasm on the other, had dethroned reason, and raised imagination to its place; and no sagacity at such times could anticipate for an hour the form of the future.³⁸⁶

Pole’s treason had naturally drawn suspicion on his family. The fact of his correspondence with them from Liège could hardly have been a secret from Cromwell’s spies, if the contents of his letters were undiscovered; and the same jealousy extended also, and not without cause, to the Marquis of Exeter. Lord Exeter, as the grandson of Edward IV., stood next to the Tudor family in the line of succession. The Courtenays were petty sovereigns in Devonshire and Cornwall; and the marquis, though with no special intellectual powers, was regarded as a possible competitor for the crown by a large and increasing party. Lady Exeter we have already seen as a visitor at the shrine of the oracle of Canterbury; and both she and her husband were on terms of the closest intimacy with the Poles. The Poles and the Nevilles, again, were drawing as closely together as mutual intermarriages would allow. Lady Salisbury, I have said, was regarded as the representative at once of the pure Plantagenet blood and of Warwick the King Maker.³⁸⁷ Lord Montague had married a daughter of Lord Abergavenny; and as any party in the state in opposition to the government was a formidable danger, so a union between Lord Exeter, Lady Salisbury, and the Nevilles was, on all grounds, religious, political, and historical, the most dangerous which could be formed. It was the knowledge of the influence of his family which gave importance to Reginald Pole. It was this which sharpened the eyes of the government to watch for the first buddings of treason among his connexions.

Unsatisfactory conduct of Exeter during the Pilgrimage of Grace.

Irregular influence exerted by him in Devonshire.

Exeter’s conduct had been for some time unsatisfactory. He had withdrawn for an unknown cause from his share in the command of the royal army on the Pilgrimage of Grace. He had gone down into Devonshire, where his duty would have been to raise the musters of the county; but, instead of it, he had courted popularity by interrupting the levy of the subsidy.³⁸⁸ The judges on circuit at the same time complained of the coercion and undue influence which he exercised in the administration of justice, and of the dread with which his power was regarded by juries. No indictment could take effect against the adherents of the Marquis of Exeter; no dependent of the Courtenays was ever cast in a cause.³⁸⁹

The Marquis of Exeter high steward on the arraignment of Lord Darcy.

He quarrels with Cromwell.

He defends Lord Montague.

From this and other causes altercations had arisen between Exeter and Cromwell at the council-board. High words had passed on Lord Darcy’s arraignment. The marquis had been compelled to sit as high steward; and Lord Delaware, in an account of the trial, stated that when the verdict was given of guilty, a promise had been exacted from Cromwell to save Darcy’s life, and even to save his property from confiscation.³⁹⁰ Cromwell may have done his best, and Darcy’s death have been the act of the king. With Henry guilt was ever in proportion to rank; he was never known to pardon a convicted traitor of noble blood. But the responsibility was cast by the peers on the Privy Seal. Once it was even reported that Exeter drew his dagger on the plebeian adventurer, who owed his life to a steel corslet beneath his dress;³⁹¹ and that Cromwell on that occasion ordered the marquis to the Tower. If the story was true, more prudent counsels prevailed, or possibly there would have been an attempt at rescue in the streets.³⁹² The relations between them were evidently approaching a point when one or the other would be crushed. Exeter was boldly confident. When Lord Montague’s name was first mentioned with suspicion at the council-board (although, as was discovered afterwards, the marquis knew better than any other person the nature of schemes in which he was himself implicated so deeply), he stood forward in his friend’s defence, and offered to be bound for him, body for body.³⁹³ This was a fresh symptom of his disposition. His conduct, if watched closely, might betray some deeper secrets. About the same time a story reached the government from Cornwall, to which their recent experience in Lincolnshire and the north justified them in attaching the gravest importance.

The fishermen of St. Kevern, in Cornwall, will have a banner.

They will rise in Christ’s name.

Sir William Godolphin places Cromwell on his guard.

The parish of St. Kevern had already earned a reputation for turbulence. Here had been born and lived the famous blacksmith Michael Flammock, who forty-five years before had led the Cornish men to Blackheath; and the inhabitants were still true to their character – a wild, bold race, fit instruments for any enterprise of recklessness. A painter from the neighbourhood came one day to Sir William Godolphin, and told him that he had been desired by one of these St. Kevern men to “make a banner for the said parish, in the which banner they would have, first, the picture of Christ, with his wounds, and a banner in his hand; our Lady on the one side, holding her breasts in her hand, St. John the Baptist on the other; the King’s Grace and the queen³⁹⁴ kneeling, and all the commonalty kneeling, with scrowls above their heads, making petitions to Christ that they might have their holy-days.” The painter said he had asked what they intended to do with such a banner. The man gave him an incoherent account of certain people whom he had seen at Southampton, when he had been up selling fish there, and who had asked him why the Cornish men had not risen when the north rose; and now, he said, they had promised to rise, and were sworn upon the book. They wanted the banner to carry round among the neighbouring parishes, and to raise the people in Christ’s name.³⁹⁵ Godolphin would not create an alarm by making sudden arrests; but he despatched a private courier to London, and meanwhile held himself in readiness to crush any mutinous meetings on the instant of their assemblage: “If there be stirring among them,” he said, “by the precious body of God I will rid as many as be about the banner, or else I and a great many will die for it.”³⁹⁶

Intention of declaring Lord Exeter heir-apparent.

Conspiracies against Henry VIII. met usually with ill luck. Lord Exeter had traitors among his domestic servants, who had repeatedly warned the council that all was not right, and that he was meditating some secret movement.³⁹⁷ At length particular information was given in, which connected itself with the affair at St. Kevern. It was stated distinctly that two Cornish gentlemen named Kendall and Quyntrell had for some time past been secretly employed in engaging men who were to be ready to rise at an hour’s warning. When notice should be given they were to assemble in arms, and declare the Marquis of Exeter heir-apparent to the throne. Here was the key to the high promises of Reginald Pole. The government were on the eve of a fresh Pilgrimage of Grace – a fanatical multitude were about to rise again, with a Plantagenet pretender for a leader.

Private inquiries are made in Cornwall.

But Henry would not act without clearer proof against a nobleman of so high blood and influence. Cromwell sent orders to Godolphin to secure the man who had ordered the banner.³⁹⁸ The king despatched two gentlemen of the bedchamber into Cornwall, to make private inquiries, directing them to represent themselves as being merely on a visit to their friends, and to use their opportunities to discover the truth.³⁹⁹

Evident proof of Exeter’s intended treason.

Possible explanation of the conduct of his adherents.

The result of the investigation was an entire confirmation of the story. For several years, even before the divorce of Queen Catherine, a project was found to have been on foot for a movement in favour of Exeter. The object had sometimes varied. Originally the enterprise of Blackheath was to have been renewed under more favourable auspices; and the ambition of Cornwall and Devonshire was to avenge their defeat by dethroning Henry, and giving a new dynasty to England. They would be contented now to set aside the Prince of Wales, and to declare Exeter the next in succession. But the enlistment was as certain as it was dangerous. “Great numbers of the king s subjects were found to have bound themselves to rise for him.”⁴⁰⁰ We have here, perhaps, the explanation of these counties remaining quiet during the great insurrection. Exeter himself might have been willing (if the assistance of the Emperor was contemplated he must have been willing) to acknowledge the higher claims of the Princess Mary. But his adherents had possessed themselves of larger hopes, and a separate purpose would have embarrassed their movements. This difficulty existed no longer. Mary could have no claims in preference to Prince Edward; and the fairest hopes of the revolutionists might now be to close the line of the Tudor sovereigns with the life of the reigning king.

October. Arrest of an agent of the Poles.

The prisoner is seen by Sir Geoffrey Pole.

The meshes were thus cast fairly over Exeter. He was caught, and in Cromwell’s power. But one disclosure led to another. At or near about the same time, some information led to the arrest of a secret agent of the Poles; and the attitude and objects of the whole party were drawn fully into light. The St. Kevern fisherman had mentioned two men at Southampton who had spoken to him on the subject of the new rebellion. Efforts were made to trace these persons; and although the link is missing, and perhaps never existed, between the inquiry and its apparent consequences, a Southampton “yeoman” named Holland was arrested on suspicion of carrying letters between Cardinal Pole and his mother and family. There is no proof that papers of consequence were found in Holland’s custody; but the government had the right man in their hands. He was to be taken to London; and, according to the usual mode of conveyance, he was placed on horseback, with his feet tied under his horse’s belly. On the road it so happened that he was met and recognized by Sir Geoffrey Pole, Reginald’s younger brother. The worthlessness of conspirators is generally proportioned to their violence. Sir Geoffrey, the most deeply implicated of the whole family, except the cardinal, made haste to secure his own safety by the betrayal of the rest. A few words which he exchanged with Holland sufficed to show him that Cromwell was on the true scent. He judged Holland’s cowardice by his own; and “he bade him keep on his way, for he would not be long after.”⁴⁰¹

A pardon is promised to Exeter if he will make a free confession.

Lord Exeter’s chances of escape were not yet wholly gone. His treasons were known up to a certain point, but forgiveness might generally be earned by confession and submission; and Cromwell sent his nephew Richard to him, with an entreaty that “he would be frank and plain.”⁴⁰² But the accused nobleman would make no revelation which would compromise others. His proud blood perhaps revolted against submission to the detested minister. Perhaps he did not know the extent to which his proceedings had been already discovered, and still less anticipated the treachery by which he was about to be overwhelmed.

Sir Geoffrey Pole betrays the conspiracy.

Intentions of the Poles.

Sir Geoffrey Pole made haste to London; and, preventing the accusations which, in a few days, would have overtaken him, he secured the opportunity which had been offered to Exeter of saving himself by confession. He presented himself to the Privy Council, and informed them that he, with Lord Montague, the Marquis and Marchioness of Exeter, Sir Edward Neville, and other persons whom he named, were in treasonable correspondence with his brother Reginald. They had maintained a steady communication with him from the time of his legacy into Flanders. They were watching their opportunities. They had calculated the force which they could raise, the Marquis of Exeter’s power in the west forming their especial reliance. The depositions survive only in portions. It does not appear how far the Poles would have supported Exeter’s ambition for the crown; they intended, however, this time to avoid Lord Darcy’s errors, and not to limit themselves to attacks upon the ministers.⁴⁰³ The death of Lord Abergavenny had been inopportune;⁴⁰⁴ but his brother, Sir Edward Neville, with Lady Salisbury, would supply his place in rallying the Neville powers. The Yorkshire rising had proved how large was the material of an insurrection if adequately managed; and the whole family, doubtless, shared with Reginald, or rather, to them Reginald himself owed the conviction which he urged so repeatedly on the Emperor and the Pope, that, on the first fair opportunity, a power could be raised which the government would be unable to cope with.

November. Combination of dangers driving the government to severity.

If it is remembered that these discoveries occurred when the Bull of Deposition was on the point of publication – when the “Liber de Unitate” was passing into print – when the pacification of Nice had restored the Continent to the condition most dangerous to England – when the Pope was known to be preparing again a mighty effort to gather against Henry the whole force of Christendom, this was not a time, it will be understood easily, when such plottings would be dealt with leniently by a weaker hand than that which then ruled the destinies of England.

The king is reluctant to prosecute.

Lady Salisbury is examined by Lord Southampton,

Whom he finds rather like a strong man than a woman.

She is placed under surveillance at Cowdray.

Exeter, Montague, and Neville were sent to the Tower on the 3d and 4th of November. Lady Exeter followed with her attendant, Constance Beverley, who had been her companion on her secret pilgrimage to the Nun. It is possible that Sir Geoffrey’s revelations were made by degrees; for the king was so unwilling to prosecute, that ten days passed before their trial was determined on.⁴⁰⁵ Lady Salisbury was not arrested; but Lord Southampton went down to Warblington, her residence in Hampshire, to examine her. She received his questions with a fierce denial of all knowledge of the matters to which they referred, and, for a time, he scarcely knew whether to think her innocent or guilty. “Surely,” he said, in giving an account of his interview, “there hath not been seen or heard of a woman so earnest, so manlike in countenance, so fierce as well in gesture as in words; either her sons have not made her privy to the bottom and pit of their stomachs, or she is the most arrant traitress that ever lived.”⁴⁰⁶ But her rooms were searched; letters, Papal bulls, and other matters were discovered, which left no doubt of her general tendencies, if they were insufficient to implicate her in actual guilt; and one letter, or copy of a letter, unsigned, but, as Southampton said, undoubtedly hers, and addressed to Lord Montague, was found, the matter of which compromised her more deeply. She was again interrogated, and this time important admissions were extracted from her; but she carried herself with undaunted haughtiness. “We have dealed with such an one,” the earl said, “as men have not dealed with tofore; we may rather call her a strong and constant man than a woman.”⁴⁰⁷ No decisive conclusions could be formed against her; but it was thought well that she should remain under surveillance; and, three days later she was removed to Cowdray, a place belonging to Southampton himself, where she was detained in honourable confinement.

The general case meanwhile continued to enlarge. The surviving materials are too fragmentary to clear the whole circumstances; but allusions to witnesses by name, whose depositions have not been preserved, show how considerable those materials were. The world at least were satisfied of the guilt of the chief prisoners. “They would have made as foul a work,” says a letter written from London on the 21st of November, “as ever was in England.”⁴⁰⁸ Henry made up his mind that they should be proceeded against. Treason at home was too palpably connected with conspiracies against England abroad; and the country could not risk a repetition of the Pilgrimage of Grace.

Circular issued to the justices of the peace,

Directing them to search out all the cankered clergy in their districts.

While preparations were made for the trials, the king took the opportunity of issuing a calming circular to the justices of the peace. The clergy, as before, had been the first to catch the infection of disorder: they had been again eager propagators of sedition, and had spread extravagant stories of the intentions of the government against the Church. Emboldened by the gentleness with which the late insurgents had been handled, “these miserable and Papistical superstitious wretches,” the king said, “not caring what danger and mischief our people should incur, have raised the said old rumours, and forged new seditious tales, intending as much as in them lyeth a new commotion. Wherefore, for the universal danger to you and to all our good subjects, and trouble that might ensue unless good and earnest provision to repress them be taken thereupon, we desire and pray you that within the precincts of your charges ye shall endeavour yourselves to enquire and find out all such cankered parsons, vicars, and curates as bid the parishioners do as they did in times past, to live as their fathers, and that the old fashions is best. And also with your most effectual vigilance try out such seditious tale tellers, spreaders of brutes, tidings, and rumours, touching us in honour and surety, or [touching] any mutation of the laws and customs of the realm, or any other thing which might cause sedition.”⁴⁰⁹

December 3. New trials in Westminster Hall.

The Marquis of Exeter arraigned.

And now once more the peers were assembled in Westminster Hall, to try two fresh members of their order, two of the noblest born among them, for high treason; and again the judges sate with them to despatch the lower offenders. On the 2d and 3d of December Lord Montague and Lord Exeter were arraigned successively. On the part of the crown it was set forth generally that “the king was supreme head on earth of the Church of England, and that his progenitors, from times whereof there was no memory to the contrary, had also been supreme heads of the Church of England; which authority and power of the said king, Paul the Third, Pope of Rome, the public enemy of the king and kingdom, without any right or title, arrogantly and obstinately challenged and claimed; and that one Reginald Pole, late of London, Esq^r., otherwise Reginald Pole, late Dean of Exeter, with certain others of the king’s subjects, had personally repaired to the said Pope of Rome, knowing him to be the king’s enemy, and adhered to and became liege man of the said Pope, and falsely and unnaturally renounced the king, his natural liege lord; that Reginald Pole accepted the dignity of a cardinal of the court of Rome without the king’s license, in false and treasonable despite and contempt of the king, and had continued to live in parts beyond the seas, and was there vagrant, and denying the king to be upon earth supreme head of the Church of England.”

Caring only to bring the prisoners within the letter of the act, the prosecution made no allusion to Exeter’s proceedings in Cornwall. It was enough to identify his guilt with the guilt of the great criminal. Against him, therefore, it was objected —

“That, as a false traitor, machinating the death of the king, and to excite his subjects to rebellion, and seeking to maintain the said Cardinal Pole in his intentions, the Marquis of Exeter did say to Geoffrey Pole the following words in English: ‘I like well the proceedings of the Cardinal Pole; but I like not the proceedings of this realm; and I trust to see a change of this world.’

Treasonable language is sworn against him.

“Furthermore, that the Marquis of Exeter, machinating with Lord Montague the death and destruction of the king, did openly declare to the Lord Montague, ‘I trust once to have a fair day upon those knaves which rule about the king; and I trust to see a merry world one day.’

“And, furthermore persevering in his malicious intention, he did say, ‘Knaves rule about the king;’ and then stretching his arm, and shaking his clenched fist, spoke the following words: ‘I trust to give them a buffet one day.’”

December 3. He is condemned.

Sir Geoffrey Pole was in all cases the witness. The words were proved. It was enough. A verdict of guilty was returned; and the marquis was sentenced to die.

Lord Montague also sentenced to die.

If the proof of language of no darker complexion was sufficient to secure a condemnation, the charges against Lord Montague left him no shadow of a hope. Montague had expressed freely to his miserable brother his approbation of Reginald’s proceedings. He had discussed the chances of the impending struggle and the resources of which they could dispose. He had spoken bitterly of the king; he had expressed a fear that when the world “came to strypes,” as come it would, “there would be a lack of honest men,” with other such language, plainly indicative of his disposition. However justly, indeed, we may now accuse the equity which placed men on their trial for treason for impatient expressions, there can be no uncertainty that, in the event of an invasion, or of a rebellion with any promise of success in it, both Montague and Exeter would have thrown their weight into the rebel scale. Montague, too, was condemned.

The date of the expressions which were sworn against them is curious. They belong, without exception, to the time when Reginald Pole was in Flanders. That there was nothing later was accounted for by the distrust which Geoffrey said that soon after they had begun to entertain towards him. Evidently they had seen his worthlessness; and as their enterprise had become more critical, they had grown more circumspect. But he remembered enough to destroy them, and to save by his baseness his own miserable life.

Convictions of Sir Edward Neville,

He was himself tried, though to receive a pardon after conviction. With Sir Edward Neville and four other persons he was placed at the bar on charges of the same kind as those against Exeter and his brother. Neville had said that he “would have a day upon the knaves that were about the king;” “that the king was a beast, and worse than a beast;” “machinating and conspiring to extinguish the love and affection of the king’s subjects.” Sir Geoffrey Pole, beyond comparison the most guilty, had been in command of a company under the Duke of Norfolk at Doncaster; and was proved to have avowed an intention of deserting in the action, if an action was fought, – real, bad, black treason. Of the others, two had spoken against the supremacy; one had carried letters to the cardinal; another had said to Lord Montague, that “the king would hang in hell for the plucking down of abbeys.”

And of Sir Nicholas Carew.

The scaffold on Tower Hill.

The last case was the hardest. Sir Nicholas Carew, Master of the Horse, had been on the commission which had taken the indictments against Exeter, and had said “that he marvelled it was so secretly handled; that the like was never seen.” The expression brought him under suspicion. He was found to have been intimate with Exeter; to have received letters from him of traitorous import, which he had concealed and burnt. With the rest he was brought in guilty, and received sentence as a traitor. On the 9th of December the Marquis of Exeter, Montague, and Sir Edward Neville were beheaded on Tower Hill.⁴¹⁰ On the 16th the following proclamation was issued: —

Lord Exeter is degraded from the order of the Garter.

“Be it known unto all men, that whereas Henry Courtenay, late Marquis of Exeter, knight companion of the most noble order of the Garter, hath lately committed and done high treason against the king our dread sovereign lord, sovereign of the said most noble order of the Garter, compassing and imagining the destruction of his most royal person in the most traitorous and rebellious wise, contrary to his oath, duty, and allegiance, intending thereby, if he might have obtained his purpose, to have subverted the whole good order of the commonwealth of England, for the which high and most detestable treason the said Henry hath deserved to be degraded of the said most noble order, and expelled out of the same company, and is not worthy that his arms, ensigns, and hatchments should remain amongst the virtuous and approved knights of the said most noble order, nor to have any benefit thereof, – the right wise king and supreme head of the most noble order, with the whole consent and counsel of the same, wills and commands that his arms, which he nothing deserveth, be taken away and thrown down, and he be clean put from this order, and never from henceforth to be taken of any of the number thereof; so that all others by his example, from henceforth for evermore, may beware how they commit or do the like crime or fault, unto like shame or rebuke.