Volume III Part 7 (1/2)
The duty of repressing riots and disturbances in England lay with the n.o.bility in their several districts. In default of organized military or police, the n.o.bility _ex officio_ were the responsible guardians of the peace. They held their estates subject to these obligations, and neglect, unless it could be shown to be involuntary, was treason. The n.o.bleman who had to answer for the peace of Lincolns.h.i.+re was Lord Hussey of Sleford. Lord Hussey had spoken, as I have stated, in unambiguous language, of the probability and desirableness of a struggle. When the moment came, it seems as if he had desired the fruits of a Catholic victory without the danger of fighting for it, or else had been frightened and doubtful how to act. When the first news of the commotion reached him, he wrote to the mayor of Lincoln, commanding him, in the king's name, to take good care of the city; to buy up or secure the arms; to levy men; and, if he found himself unable to hold his ground, to let him know without delay.[106] His letter fell into the hands of the insurgents; but Lord Hussey, though he must have known the fate of it, or, at least, could not have been ignorant of the state of the country, sate still at Sleford, waiting to see how events would turn.
Yeomen and gentlemen who had not joined in the rising hurried to him for directions, promising to act in whatever way he would command; but he would give no orders--he would remain pa.s.sive--he would not be false to his prince--he would not be against the defenders of the faith. The volunteers who had offered their services for the crown he called ”busy knaves”--”he bade them go their own way as they would;” and still uncertain, he sent messengers to the rebels to inquire their intentions.
But he would not join them; he would not resist them; at length, when they threatened to end the difficulty by bringing him forcibly into their camp, he escaped secretly out of the country; while Lady Hussey, ”who was supposed to know her husband's mind,” sent provisions to a detachment of the Lincoln army.[107] For such conduct the commander of a division would be tried by a court-martial, with no uncertain sentence; but the extent of Hussey's offence is best seen in contrast with the behaviour of Lord Shrewsbury, whose courage and fidelity on this occasion perhaps saved Henry's crown.
[Sidenote: Wednesday, Oct. 4. Lord Shrewsbury raises a force,]
[Sidenote: Friday, October 6. And entreats Lord Hussey to join him.]
[Sidenote: But without effect.]
[Sidenote: He takes a position at Nottingham.]
The messengers sent from Horncastle were Sir Marmaduke Constable and Sir Edward Madyson. Heneage the commissioner was permitted to accompany them, perhaps to save him from being murdered by the priests. They did not spare the spur, and, riding through the night, they found the king at Windsor the day following. Henry on the instant despatched a courier to Lord Hussey, and another to Lord Shrewsbury, directing them to raise all the men whom they could muster; sending at the same time private letters to the gentlemen who were said to be with the insurgents, to recall them, if possible, to their allegiance. Lord Shrewsbury had not waited for instructions. Although his own county had not so far been disturbed, he had called out his tenantry, and had gone forward to Sherwood with every man that he could collect, on the instant that he heard of the rising. Expecting the form that it might a.s.sume, he had sent despatches on the very first day through Derbys.h.i.+re, Stafford, Shrops.h.i.+re, Worcester, Leicester, and Northampton, to have the powers of the counties raised without a moment's delay.[108] Henry's letter found him at Sherwood on the 6th of October. The king he knew had written also to Lord Hussey; but, understanding the character of this n.o.bleman better than his master understood it, and with a foreboding of his possible disloyalty, he sent on the messenger to Sleford with a further note from himself, entreating him at such a moment not to be found wanting to his duty. ”My lord,” he wrote, ”for the old acquaintance between your lords.h.i.+p and me, as unto him that I heartily love, I will write the plainness of my mind. Ye have always been an honourable and true gentleman, and, I doubt not, will now so prove yourself. I have no commandment from the king but only to suppress the rebellion; and I a.s.sure you, my lord, on my truth, that all the king's subjects of six s.h.i.+res will be with me to-morrow at night, to the number of forty thousand able persons; and I trust to have your lords.h.i.+p to keep us company.”[109] His exhortations were in vain; Lord Hussey made no effort; he had not the manliness to join the rising--he had not the loyalty to a.s.sist in repressing it. He stole away and left the country to its fate. His conduct, unfortunately, was imitated largely in the counties on which Lord Shrewsbury relied for reinforcements. Instead of the thirty or forty thousand men whom he expected, the royalist leader could scarcely collect three or four thousand. Ten times his number were by this time at Lincoln, and increasing every day; and ominous news at the same time reaching him of the state of Yorks.h.i.+re, he found it prudent to wait at Nottingham, overawing that immediate neighbourhood till he could hear again from the king.
[Sidenote: Musters are raised in London.]
[Sidenote: Monday, October 9. Sir John Russell reaches Stamford.]
Meanwhile Madyson and Constable had been detained in London. The immediate danger was lest the rebels should march on London before a sufficient force could be brought into the field to check them. Sir William Fitzwilliam, Sir John Russell, Cromwell's gallant nephew Richard, Sir William Parr, Sir Francis Brian, every loyal friend of the government who could be spared, scattered south and west of the metropolis calling the people on their allegiance to the king's service.
The command-in-chief was given to the Duke of Suffolk. The stores in the Tower, a battery of field artillery, bows, arrows, ammunition of all kinds, were sent on in hot haste to Ampthill; and so little time had been lost, that on Monday, the 9th of October, a week only from the first outbreak at Louth, Sir John Russell with the advanced guard was at Stamford, and a respectable force was following in his rear.
Alarming reports came in of the temper of the north-midland and eastern counties. The disposition of the people between Lincoln and London was said to be as bad as possible.[110] If there had been delay or trifling, or if Shrewsbury had been less promptly loyal, in all likelihood the whole of England north of the Ouse would have been in a flame.
[Sidenote: The Duke of Suffolk follows two days after.]
[Sidenote: Wednesday, October 11. The rebels begin to disperse from want of provisions.]
From the south and the west, on the other hand, accounts were more rea.s.suring; Middles.e.x, Kent, Surrey, Suss.e.x, Hamps.h.i.+re, Berks.h.i.+re, Buckinghams.h.i.+re, all counties where the bishops had found heaviest work in persecuting Protestants, had answered loyally to the royal summons.
Volunteers flocked in, man and horse, in larger numbers than were required; on Tuesday, the 10th, Suffolk was able to close his muster rolls, and needed only adequate equipment to be at the head of a body of men as large as he could conveniently move. But he had no leisure to wait for stores. Rumours were already flying that Russell had been attacked, that he had fought and lost a battle and twenty thousand men.[111] The security against a spread of the conflagration was to trample it out upon the spot. Imperfectly furnished as he was, he reached Stamford only two days after the first division of his troops.
He was obliged to pause for twenty-four hours to provide means for crossing the rivers, and halt and refresh his men. The rebels on the Monday had been reported to be from fifty to sixty thousand strong. A lost battle would be the loss of the kingdom. It was necessary to take all precautions. But Suffolk within a few hours of his arrival at Stamford learnt that time was doing his work swiftly and surely. The insurrection, so wide and so rapid, had been an explosion of loose powder, not a judicious economy of it. The burst had been so spontaneous, there was an absence of preparation so complete, that it was embarra.s.sed by its own magnitude. There was no forethought, no efficient leader; sixty thousand men had drifted to Lincoln and had halted there in noisy uncertainty till their way to London was interrupted. They had no commissariat: each man had brought a few days'
provisions with him; and when these were gone, the mult.i.tude dissolved with the same rapidity with which it had a.s.sembled. On the Wednesday at noon, Richard Cromwell reported that the towns.h.i.+p of Boston, amounting to twelve thousand men, were gone home. In the evening of the same day five or six thousand others were said to have gone, and not more than twenty thousand at the outside were thought to remain in the camp. The young cavaliers in the royal army began to fear that there would be no battle after all.[112]
[Sidenote: The king's answer to the rebels' pet.i.tion.]
Suffolk could now act safely, and preparatory to his advance he sent forward the king's answer to the articles of Horncastle.
”Concerning choosing of councillors,” the king wrote, ”I have never read, heard, nor known that princes' councillors and prelates should be appointed by rude and ignorant common people. How presumptuous, then, are ye, the rude commons of one s.h.i.+re, and that one of the most brute and beastly of the whole realm, and of least experience, to take upon you, contrary to G.o.d's law and man's law, to rule your prince whom ye are bound to obey and serve, and for no worldly cause to withstand.
[Sidenote: The suppression of the abbeys was by act of parliament, and in consequence of their notorious vice.]
”As to the suppression of religious houses and monasteries, we will that ye and all our subjects should well know that this is granted us by all the n.o.bles, spiritual and temporal, of this our realm, and by all the commons of the same by act of parliament, and not set forth by any councillor or councillors upon their mere will and fantasy as ye falsely would persuade our realm to believe: and where ye allege that the service of G.o.d is much thereby diminished, the truth thereof is contrary, for there be none houses suppressed where G.o.d was well served, but where most vice, mischief, and abomination of living was used; and that doth well appear by their own confessions subscribed with their own hands, in the time of our visitation. And yet were suffered a great many of them, more than we by the act needed, to stand; wherein if they amend not their living we fear we have more to answer for than for the suppression of all the rest.”
Dismissing the Act of Uses as beyond their understanding, and coming to the subsidy,--
[Sidenote: The subsidy is granted by parliament, and shall be paid.]
”Think ye,” the king said, ”that we be so faint-hearted that perforce ye would compel us with your insurrection and such rebellious demeanour to remit the same? Make ye sure by occasion of this your ingrat.i.tude, unnaturalness, and unkindness to us now administered, ye give us cause which hath always been as much dedicate to your wealth as ever was king, not so much to set our study for the setting forward of the same, seeing how unkindly and untruly ye deal now with us:
[Sidenote: Let the rebels surrender their leaders and disperse to their homes.]
”Wherefore, sirs, remember your follies and traitorous demeanour, and shame not your native country of England. We charge you eftsoons that ye withdraw yourselves to your own houses every man, cause the provokers of you to this mischief to be delivered to our lieutenant's hands or ours, and you yourselves submit yourselves to such condign punishment as we and our n.o.bles shall think you worthy to suffer. For doubt ye not else that we will not suffer this injury at your hands unrevenged; and we pray unto Almighty G.o.d to give you grace to do your duties; and rather obediently to consent amongst you to deliver into the hands of our lieutenant a hundred persons, to be ordered according to their demerits, than by your obstinacy and wilfulness to put yourselves, lives, wives, children, lands, goods, and chattels, besides the indignation of G.o.d, in the utter adventure of total destruction.”[113]