Volume III Part 43 (1/2)

[310] Details of the equipments of many of these fortresses lie scattered among the State Papers. The expenses were enormous, but were minutely recorded.

[311] On whatever side we turn in this reign, we find the old and the new in collision. While the harbours, piers, and the fortresses were rising at Dover, an ancient hermit tottered night after night from his cell to a chapel on the cliff, and the tapers on the altar, before which he knelt in his lonely orisons, made a familiar beacon far over the rolling waters. The men of the rising world cared little for the sentiment of the past. The anchorite was told sternly by the workmen that his light was a signal to the king's enemies, and must burn no more; and when it was next seen, three of them waylaid the old man on his road home, threw him down, and beat him cruelly.--_MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. x.x.xIII.

[312] Lord Montague, on the 24th of March, 1537, said, ”I dreamed that the king was dead. He is not dead, but he will die one day suddenly, his leg will kill him, and then we shall have jolly stirring.”--Trial of Lord Montague: _Baga de Secretis_. The king himself, in explaining to the Duke of Norfolk his reason for postponing his journey to Yorks.h.i.+re in the past summer, said: ”To be frank with you, which we desire you in any wise to keep to yourself, being an humour fallen into our legs, and our physicians therefore advising us in no wise to take so far a journey in the heat of the year, whereby the same might put us to further trouble and displeasure, it hath been thought more expedient that we should, upon that respect only, though the grounds before specified had not concurred with it, now change our determination.”--_State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 555.

[313] ”I a.s.sure your lords.h.i.+p his Grace is very sorry that ye might not be here to make good cheer as we do. He useth himself more like a good fellow among us that be here, than like a king, and, thanked be G.o.d, I never saw him merrier in his life than he is now.”--Sir John Russell to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. x.x.xVI.

[314] ”Michael Throgmorton gave great charge to William Vaughan to enquire if there had been any communication upon the opinions of the physicians, whether the Queen's Grace were with child with a man child or not.”--Hutton to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 703.

[315] _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 570.

[316] Latimer to Cromwell: _State Paper Office_, Vol. I. p. 571.

[317] Hall is made to say she died on the 14th. The mistake was due probably to the printer. He is unlikely himself to have made so large an error.

[318] _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 1.

[319] Sir John Russell to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. x.x.xVI.; _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 573.

[320] Hall, p. 825.

[321] Leland wrote an ode on the occasion, which is not without some beauty:--

Spes erat ampla quidem numerosa prole Joanna Henric.u.m ut faceret regem facunda parentem.

Sed Superis aliter visum est, cruciatus acerbus Distorsit vacuum lethali tormine ventrem.

Frigora crediderim temere contracta fuisse In causa, superat vis morbi: jamque salute Desperata omni, nymphis haec rettulit almis.

Non mihi mors curae est, perituram agnosco creavit Omnipotens--Moriar--terram tibi debeo terra: At pius Elysiis animus spatiabitur hortis.

Deprecor hoc unum. Maturos filius annos Exigat, et tandem regno det jura paterno.

Dixit et aeterna claudebat lumina nube.

Nulla dies pressit graviori clade Britannum.

_Genethliacon Edwardi Principis._

[322] _Rolls House MS._, A 2, 30. I trace the report to within a month of Jane Seymour's death. Sanders therefore must be held acquitted of the charge of having invented it. The circ.u.mstances of the death itself are so clear as to leave no trace of uncertainty. How many of the interesting personal anecdotes of remarkable people, which have gained and which retain the public confidence, are better founded than this?

Prudence, instructed by experience, enters a general caution against all anecdotes particularly striking.

[323] _Rolls House MS._ A 2, 30.

[324] Instructions for the Household of Edward Prince of Wales: _Rolls House MS._

[325] _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 2.

[326] Pole to the Bishop of Liege: _Epist._ Vol. II. p. 41.

[327] Nott's _Wyatt_, p. 312.

[328] Nott's _Wyatt_, p. 319.