Volume III Part 21 (2/2)
[Sidenote: The king is reluctant to prosecute.]
[Sidenote: Lady Salisbury is examined by Lord Southampton,]
[Sidenote: Whom he finds rather like a strong man than a woman.]
[Sidenote: 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 pa.s.sed before their trial was determined on.[405] Lady Salisbury was not arrested; but Lord Southampton went down to Warblington, her residence in Hamps.h.i.+re, 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 circ.u.mstances; 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 repet.i.tion of the Pilgrimage of Grace.
[Sidenote: Circular issued to the justices of the peace,]
[Sidenote: 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 superst.i.tious 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 paris.h.i.+oners do as they did in times past, to live as their fathers, and that the old fas.h.i.+ons 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]
[Sidenote: December 3. New trials in Westminster Hall.]
[Sidenote: The Marquis of Exeter arraigned.]
And now once more the peers were a.s.sembled in Westminster Hall, to try two fresh members of their order, two of the n.o.blest 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 t.i.tle, 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.'
[Sidenote: 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.'”
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
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