Volume II Part 6 (2/2)
Nor did he confine his labours in this great work to England; he employed also his Continental resources in forwarding the same object.
A letter from one John Alcestre, from Bayonne,[101] informs us of a s.h.i.+p of very considerable dimensions then on the stocks at that port, for the building of which the mayor and ”his consorts” had contracted with Henry. The vessel was one hundred and eighty-six feet in length from ”the onmost end of the stem onto the post behind.” ”The stem” was in height ninety-six feet, and the keel was in length one hundred and twelve feet.
[Footnote 101: Ellis, Second Series, Letter XXI.]
Henry appears also to have acquired the reputation in foreign countries of having a desire to possess large vessels of his own. An agent in Spain, for example, after informing one of the King's officers in England of his unsuccessful endeavour to cause to be seized for the King's use four armed galleys of Provence, expected to enter the port of Valencia, and which the King of Arragon's government had consented to arrest for Henry, but which disappointed them (p. 131) by not coming to land, mentions that two new carraks (a species of large transport vessel) were in building ”at Bartholem,” which the King might have if he pleased.
The high importance which Henry attached to these rising bulwarks of his country shows itself in various ways; in none more curious and striking than (a fact, it is presumed, new to history,) in the solemn religious ceremony with which they were consecrated before he committed them to the mighty waters. One of the highest order of the Christian ministry was employed, and similar devotions were performed at the dedication of one of the royal ”great s.h.i.+ps,” as we should find in the consecration of a cathedral. They were called also by some of the holiest of all names ever uttered by Christians.[102] Thus, on the completion of the good s.h.i.+p the Grace-Dieu at Southampton, the ”venerable father in Christ, the Bishop of Bangor,”[103] was commissioned by the King's council to proceed from London at the public expense to consecrate it.
[Footnote 102: When he sailed from Southampton in his first expedition to France, he went on board his own good s.h.i.+p, the Trinity:
”But the grandest s.h.i.+p of all that went, Was that in which our good King sailed.”
_Old Ballad._]
[Footnote 103: Pell Rolls, 16 July 1418.]
When Henry of Monmouth died, the navy of England was doubtless yet in its infancy;[104] but it owed its existence as a permanent royal (p. 132) establishment to him. We cannot look back on that ”day of small things” without feelings of admiration and grat.i.tude; nor now that we seem, for a time at least, free from the danger of foreign invasion, must we forget that, in the late tremendous struggle which swept away the monarchies and the liberties of Europe in one resistless flood, to our navy, which had grown with the growth of our country, and strengthened with her strength, our native land may, under the blessing of Heaven, have been indebted for its continuance in freedom and independence. Of those wooden walls of Old England, as a royal establishment based on systematic principles, Henry of Monmouth was undoubtedly the founder.
[Footnote 104: Among the preparations for bringing Henry's corpse with all the solemn pomp which an admiring, grateful, and mourning nation could provide, all s.h.i.+ps and vessels on the east coast were impressed, and sent to Calais.--Pell Rolls, Sept. 26, 1422.]
Whilst Henry was engaged at Southampton in personally superintending the preparations for invading France, an event occurred well fitted to fill him equally with surprise, and indignation, and sorrow. A conspiracy against his crown and his life was brought to light, which had been formed by three in his company against whom he could have entertained no suspicions: Richard of York, whom he had created Earl of Cambridge; Henry Lord Scrope, the treasurer; and Sir Thomas Grey of Heton. The Rolls of Parliament, containing the authentic record (p. 133) of the proceedings consequent upon the discovery, and the original letters of the Earl of Cambridge, leave no question as to the designs of the conspirators. Some doubts may exist as to their motives: whether they were influenced singly by a generous resolution to restore the crown to its alleged rightful heir,[105] or by some less honourable and more selfish feeling;[106] whether by any offence taken against Henry, or, as it is alleged, by the vast bribe offered to them by the crown of France; or whether by more than one of these motives combined, must remain a matter of conjecture. We cannot, perhaps, be certified of the means by which Henry became acquainted with the plot, nor if, as we are told, he was informed of it by the Earl of March himself, can we ascertain beyond doubt how large or how small a share that n.o.bleman had in the previous deliberations and resolutions of the conspirators. Whether he first consented to their design of (p. 134) setting him up as king, and then repented of so ungrateful an act towards one who had behaved to him with so much kindness and confidence, or whether he instantly took the resolve to nip this treason in the bud, no doc.u.ments enable us to decide. If the Earl of Cambridge's confession be the truth, the Earl of March at one time was himself consenting to the plot.
[Footnote 105: To suppose that this conspiracy could have originated, as it has been lately (Turner's History) suggested, in ”the resisting spirit which Henry's religious persecutions occasioned, and which led some to wish for another sovereign,” is altogether gratuitous, and contrary to fact. He was not carrying on religious persecution, and no resisting spirit on that ground had manifested itself at all.]
[Footnote 106: Richard of Coningsburg, second son of Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, fifth son of Edward III, was high in favour with Henry V, who created him Earl of Cambridge in the second year of his reign. He married Ann, daughter of Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, whose son Richard (aged fourteen in the third year of Henry V,) was heir to Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. Leland says, that the ”main design of the Earl of Cambridge's conspiracy was to raise Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, to the throne, as heir to Lionel, Duke of Clarence; and then, in case that Earl had no child, the right would come to the Earl of Cambridge's wife, (sister to the same Edmund,) and to her issue, as it afterwards did; and this is most likely to be true, whatever hath been otherwise reported.”--Lel. Coll. i. 701.]
On the 21st of July a commission was appointed, consisting of the Earl Marshal, two of the judges,[107] six lords, and Sir Thomas Erpingham, to try the conspirators: and the sheriff of the county was ordered to summon a jury, who a.s.sembled at Southampton on the 2nd of August, and found as their verdict, that, on the 20th of July, the Earl of Cambridge and Sir Thomas Grey had traitorously conspired to collect a body of armed men, to conduct Edmund Earl of March to (p. 135) the frontiers of Wales, and to proclaim him the rightful heir to the crown, in case Richard II. were actually dead, against the pretensions of the King, whom they intended to style ”the Usurper of England;” that they purposed to destroy the King and his brothers, with other n.o.bles of the land; and that Lord Scrope consented to the said treasonable designs, and concealed them from the King.
[Footnote 107: To one of these, Robert Hull, the payment of one hundred marks was ordered to be made, February 7, 1418, for lately holding his sessions in South Wales; and also for his trouble and expenses in delivering the gaol at Southampton of Richard Earl of Cambridge, Henry Lord Scrope, and Thomas Grey, Knight, there for treason adjudged and put to death.]
Lord Scrope denied having consented to the death of the King, or having had any communication with the other conspirators on that point; and he declared that he had communicated with them on the other points solely to possess himself of a knowledge of their designs in order to frustrate them. He then pleaded his peerage, and his right to be tried by his peers.
Sentence of death in the usual manner was pa.s.sed upon Grey; but the King having, by a most rare instance of mercy in those days, remitted that part of the sentence which directed him to be drawn on a hurdle and hung, he was allowed to walk through the town to the Northgate, and was there immediately beheaded. On Monday, August 5, the Duke of Clarence presided in a court of the peers, who, having satisfied themselves by carefully examining the record of the conviction of the prisoners, Scrope and Cambridge, adjudged them to death. They were both executed within a few hours of this judgment. The head of Scrope was ordered to be affixed on one of the gates of York and the (p. 136) head of Grey to be stuck up at Newcastle upon Tyne, to mark the baseness of their ingrat.i.tude, who had enjoyed so closely the confidence and friends.h.i.+p of Henry.[108]
[Footnote 108: The King's writ, dated Southampton, 8th of August, orders ”the head of Henry Lescrop de Masham to be stuck up at York, and the head of Thomas Grey de Heton to be stuck up at Newcastle upon Tyne.”--Close Roll, 3 Henry V. m. 16.]
Nothing is recorded officially of any bribe from France, but the fact of ”one million of gold” having been promised as the wages of their treason is a.s.serted by historians. ”These lords, for lucre of money,”
(to use the words of a ma.n.u.script[109] apparently contemporary with the event,) ”had made promise to the Frenchmen to have slayne King Henry and all his worthy brethren by a false trayne [treason?]
suddenly or they had beware. But Almighty G.o.d, of his great grace, held his holy hand over them, and saved them from this perilous meyne [band]. And for to have done this they received of the Frenchmen a million of gold, and that was there proved openly.”
[Footnote 109: Cotton MS. Claudius A. viii. 2.]
As to the guilt or innocence of the Earl of March himself, no proof can be drawn from the fact of his having obtained a full and free pardon[110] a few days after the event. ”Such pardons” (as Dr. Lingard rightly observes) ”were frequently solicited by the innocent as a measure of precaution to defeat the malice and prevent the (p. 137) accusations of their enemies.” Sir Harris Nicolas indeed suggests, ”that it would be difficult to show an instance in which they were granted in favour of a person who was not strongly suspected, or who had not purchased them at the expense of his accomplices.” But it requires little more than a cursory glance at our authentic records to be a.s.sured that Dr. Lingard's view is the more correct. Take, for example, the pardon granted in 1412 to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and couched in almost the same words. There is indeed in this pardon a clause very different from the pardon of the Earl of March; but it is a difference which only tends to establish this point, that the pardons in many cases were _formal_, and altogether independent of the guilt or innocence of the party. The Archbishop (Arundel) is pardoned for all treasons, felonies, and so forth, excepting some outrageous crimes of which he was never suspected; and also provided he was not then lying in prison as a felon convict, or as an adherent to Owyn Glyndowr. Many such instances occur.[111]
[Footnote 110: His pardon is dated 8th August.]
<script>