Volume III Part 49 (1/2)

”Thanks immortal from the Father of Heaven unto your most prudent and honourable lords.h.i.+p, for your mercy, and pity, and great charity that your honourable lords.h.i.+p has had on your poor and true orator Henry King, that almost was in prison a whole year, rather of pure malice and false suspicion than of any just offence committed by your said orator, to be so long in prison without any mercy, pity, or succour of meat and drink, and all your said orator's goods taken from him. Moreover, whereas your said orator did of late receive a letter from your most honourable lords.h.i.+p by the hands of the Bishop of Worcester, that your said orator should receive again such goods as was wrongfully taken from your said orator of Mr. George Blunt (the committing magistrate apparently); thereon your said orator went unto the said George Blunt with your most gentle letter, to ask such poor goods as the said George Blunt did detain from your poor orator; and so with great pain and much entreating your said orator, within the s.p.a.ce of three weeks, got some part of his goods, but the other part he cannot get. Therefore, except now your most honourable lords.h.i.+p, for Jesus sake, do tender and consider with the eye of pity and mercy the long imprisonment, the extreme poverty of your said orator, your said orator is clean undone in this world. For where your said orator had money, and was full determined to send for his capacity, all is spent in prison, and more.

Therefore, in fond humility your said orator meekly, with all obedience, puts himself wholly into the hands of your honourable lords.h.i.+p, desiring you to help your orator to some succour and living now in his extreme necessity and need; the which is not only put out of his house, but also all his goods almost spent in prison, so that now the weary life of your said orator stands only in your discretion. Therefore, _exaudi preces servi tui_, and Almighty G.o.d increase your most honourable lords.h.i.+p in virtue and favour as he did merciful Joseph to his high honour Amen.

Your unfeigned and true orator _ut supra_. Beatus qui intelligit super egenum et pauperem. In die mala liberabit eum Dominus.”--_MS. State Paper Office_, Vol. IX. first series.

[550] Traheron to Bullinger: _Original Letters_, p. 316; Hall, p. 837.

[551] Foxe, Vol. V. p. 431.

[552] Hall, p. 837.

[553] ”The bishop was ably answered by Dr. Barnes on the following Lord's-day, with the most gratifying and all but universal applause.”--Traheron to Bullinger: _Original Letters_, p. 317.

[554] Wyatt to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 240, &c.

[555] Henry VIII. to the Duke of Norfolk: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p.

245, &c. Henry held out a further inducement. ”If the duke shall see the French king persevere in his good mind and affection towards the King's Highness, he shall yet further of himself say that his opinion is, and in his mind he thinketh undoubtedly that in such a case as that a new strait amity might now be made between the French king and the king his master, his Majesty would be content to remit unto him the one half of his debt to his Highness, the sum whereof is very great; and also the one half of the pensions for term of the said French king's life, so as it may please him to declare what honourable reciproque he could be content to offer again to his Majesty.”--_State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p.

251.

[556] _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 318. The Queen of Navarre, who was constant to the English interests, communicated to the secretary of Sir John Wallop (the resident minister at Paris), an account of a conversation between herself and the Papal nuntio.

Ferrara had prayed her ”to help and put her good hand and word that the French king might join the Emperor and his master for the wars against the Almayns and the King of England, which king was but a man lost and cast away.”

”Why, M. l'Amba.s.sadeur,” the queen answered, ”what mean you by that? how and after what sort do you take the King of England?”--”Marry,” quoth he, ”for a heretic and a Lutheryan. Moreover, he doth make himself head of the Church.”--”Do you say so?” quoth she. ”Now I would to G.o.d that your master, the Emperor, and we here, did live after so good and G.o.dly a sort as he and his doth.” The nuntio answered, ”the king had pulled down the abbeys,” ”trusting by the help of G.o.d it should be reformed or it were long.” She told him that were easier to say than to do. England had had time to prepare, and to transport an army across the Channel was a difficult affair. Ferrara said, ”It could be landed in Scotland.”--”The King of Scotland,” she replied, ”would not stir without permission from France;” and then (if her account was true) she poured out a panegyric upon the Reformation in England, and spoke out plainly on the necessity of the same thing in the Church of Rome. _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 289, &c.

[557] Hall, p. 839. The case broke down, and Sampson was afterwards restored to favour; but his escape was narrow. Sir Ralph Sadler, writing to Cromwell, said, ”I declared to the King's Majesty how the Bishop of Chichester was committed to ward to the Tower, and what answer he made to such things as were laid to his charge, which in effect was a plain denial of the chief points that touched him. His Majesty said little thereto, but that he liked him and the matter much the worse because he denied it, seeing his Majesty perceived by the examinations there were witnesses enough to condemn him in that point.”--_State Papers_, Vol. I.

p. 627.

[558] The Bishop of Chichester to Cromwell: Strype's _Memorials_, Vol.

II. p. 381.

[559] Another instance of Tunstall's underhand dealing had come to light. When he accepted the oath of supremacy, and agreed to the divorce of Queen Catherine, he entered a private protest in the Register Book of Durham, which was afterwards cut out by his chancellor. Christopher Chator, whose curious depositions I have more than once quoted, mentions this piece of evasion, and adds a further feature of some interest.

Relating a conversation which he had held with a man called Craye, Chator says, ”We had in communication the Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More attainted of treason. Craye said to me he marvelled that they were put to death for such small trespa.s.ses; to whom I answered that their foolish conscience was so to die. Then I shewed him of one Burton, my Lord of Durham's servant, that told me he came to London when the Bishop of Rochester and Thomas More were endangered, and the said More asked Burton, 'Will not thy master come to us and be as we are?'

and he said he could not tell. Then said More, 'If he do, no force, for if he live he may do more good than to die with us.'”--_Rolls House MS._ first series.

[560] _Lords Journals_, 32 Henry VIII.

[561] 32 Henry VIII. cap. 1.

[562] 32 Henry VIII. cap. 2.

[563] 32 Henry VIII. cap. 3. ”Many goes oft begging,” ”and it causeth much robbing.”--Deposition of Christopher Chator. Here is a special picture of one of these vagabonds. Gregory Cromwell, writing to his father from Lewes, says, ”The day of making hereof came before us a fellow called John Dancy, being apparelled in a frieze coat, a pair of black hose, with fustian slops, having also a sword, a buckler, and a dagger; being a man of such port, fas.h.i.+on, and behaviour that we at first took him only for a vagabond, until such time as he, being examined, confessed himself to have been heretofore a priest, and sometime a monk of this monastery.”--_MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. VII.

[564] 32 Henry VIII. cap. 12.

[565] _Lords Journals_, 31 Henry VIII.

[566] It was so difficult to calculate at the time the amount likely to be raised by this method of taxation, or the degree in which it would press, that it is impossible at present even to guess reasonably on either of these points. In 1545, two fifteenths and tenths which were granted by parliament are described as extending to ”a right small sum of money,” and a five per cent. income tax was in consequence added.--37 Henry VIII. cap. 25. Aliens and clergy generally paid double, and on the present occasion the latter granted four s.h.i.+llings in the pound on their incomes, to be paid in two years, or a direct annual tax of ten per cent.--32 Henry VIII. cap. 13. But all estimates based on conjecture ought to be avoided.

[567] 32 Henry VIII. cap. 50.