CHAPTER THE FOURTH. HENRY THE SIXTH, SURNAMED OF WINDSOR (CONTINUED).
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EDFORD had for some time been struggling in France under the extreme disadvantage of shortness of cash, for the council being engaged in continual quarrelling at home, had become very irregular in sending remittances. He had gone week after week without his own salary, but he never grumbled at that until he found his army, from getting short of cash, beginning to fail in allegiance. Often, while reviewing the troops, if he complained of awkwardness in the evolutions, he would hear murmurs of "Why don't you pay us?" and on one occasion an insolent fellow, who had been bungling over the easy manouvre of standing at ease, cried out, "It's all very well to say 'Stand at ease,' but how is a man to stand at when he never receives his salary?" Upon another occasion, Bedford had given the word to "Charge!" when a suppressed titter ran through the ranks, and, on his demanding an explanation, he was told respectfully by one of his aides-de-camp that the troops thought it an irresistible joke to call upon them to "charge," when, if they charged ever so much, there was no prospect of their demand being satisfied. Bedford used to rush regularly every morning to the outpost, in the hope of finding a letter containing the means of liquidating some of the arrears of pay into which he had fallen with his soldiers. He was, however, always doomed to disappointment, for there was either no communication for him at all, or an intimation that "next week"—which never comes—would bring him the cash he was so eagerly waiting for. His repeated visits to the outpost usually ended in a shake of the head from the officer on duty, whose "No, sir; there's nothing for you," had in it a mixture of compassion and contempt, which are not always incompatible.
Bedford, the regent, having left Paris, Charles thought that, the cat being away, the mice might be at play, and that the city would be unprepared if an attack should be made upon it. Beauvais and St. Denis opened their gates, but the Parisians were not so complaisant, and Charles, unwilling to resort to force, tried the effect of flummery. He issued proclamations, full of the most brilliant promises to his "good and loyal city," but the inhabitants replied by hanging out an allegorical banner, representing an individual in the act of offering some chaff to an old bird, who was refusing to be caught by it. Stung by this sarcasm, Charles determined to make an attack, and on the 12th of September he commenced an assault on the Faubourg St. Honoré.
Joan threw herself against the wall, but could make no impression upon it, and she could only lament that among the French artillery there was no mortar to be brought to bear upon the bricks of the city. She then resorted to other steps—or, rather, to a ladder—and had reached every successive round amid successive rounds of applause from her followers, when she was stopped by a wound, which fairly knocked her over. A friendly ditch received the disabled Joan, who went into it with a splash, which caused all her companions to basely run away, lest they should participate in the consequences of her downfall. Drenched and disheartened, sobbing, and in a perfect sop, the Maid crawled out of the ditch and lay down for a little while; but suddenly rising, and giving herself a shake, she made another rush at the battlements. A few better spirits, ashamed of seeing the weakest thus a second time going to the wall, joined her in her advance, but, meeting with resistance, they rolled back like a wave of the sea, almost swamping the Maid, and carrying her violently away with them.
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Joan's influence had now begun to decline, for, though a heroine is popular as long as she succeeds, a woman who fails in her performance of the part is always ridiculous. She had also lost the favour of the soldiers by attacking them behind their backs, for she had flogged them with the flat of her sword till she broke the blade over their shoulders. They openly called her an impostor, a humbug, and a do; so that, hurt in her feelings as well as in her neck, wounded alike in mind and body, she resolved to quit the army. She even went to the Abbey church, and, fixing up a clothes-line, hung her white armour before the shrine of St. Denis. Charles supposed the articles had been put there to dry after the soaking the Maid had experienced in the ditch, but when he heard that Joan, as well as her coat of mail, was on the high ropes, he determined to take her down a peg as gently as possible. She was persuaded to prolong her stay, or, rather, to renew her engagement; and though, even after her military début at the siege of Orleans, she had wished it to be her "positively last appearance on any ramparts," Charles had the satisfaction of announcing that she had in the handsomest manner consented to remain in his company. A constant renewal of an engagement will dim the attraction of the brightest star, and Joan was evidently on the wane as a popular favourite.
In the beginning of 1430 there was a blight cessation of hostilities, and Charles remained at Bourges, where he was suffering under a severe exhaustion of his means and a general sinking in all his pockets. At this juncture, Joan met with a rival in the shape of an opposition prophetess, for it is always the fate of merit and success to become the subject of base and paltry imitation. Catherine of La Rochelle was the name of the female counterfeit who adapted her inspiration to the exigencies of the time, and, knowing the king to be short of cash, she pretended to have fits of financial foresight. She was, in fact, a visionary Chancellor of the Exchequer, running about with an imaginary budget, and transforming Charles's real deficiency into an ideal surplus. She affected to hear voices and to see visions; but the former were rude shouts of I.O.U., and the latter represented to her certain hidden treasure, which was hidden so well that it has never been found from that time to the present. She had the art of extracting money for the king's use from those who had any money to give, and a single speech from her mouth was sufficient to fill with coin any soup-plate or saucer that might be handed round to the audience. She boasted that she could talk every penny out of the purses of her hearers, and whenever she appeared, there was a general cry of "Take care of your pockets!"
Joan called her an impostor, and was called "another" in return; but it was said by a quaint writer of the period that, whatever the Maid of Orleans might have done with the sword, the tongue of Catherine would give an antagonist a more complete licking than the most formidable weapon. Charles was attracted by the financial fanatic, but, still wishing to propitiate Joan, he ennobled her family, and declared that her native village of Domremy should for ever be exempt from taxes. It thus became one of the greatest rights of this place to forget the whole of its duties.
At the opening of the spring, the French king advanced again towards Paris with two prophetesses in his suite, but, as two of a trade never agree—particularly if they happen to be of the gentler sex—the two young ladies were constantly quarrelling. It is probable that the presence of Catherine was the cause of putting Joan upon her mettle, for she marched to the relief of Compiegne with all her accustomed spirit. She had made up her mind to a repetition of the hit she had made at Orleans, but Victory did not answer her call or show any disposition to wait upon her. Joan fought with valour, but her soldiers had no sooner met the foe than they agreed that the chances were against them, and that the only way to bring themselves round was to turn immediately back, a manouvre which was performed by one simultaneous movement. Joan tried to rally them, but they were too far gone, and while she kept her face to the enemy, her old disaster befell her, for she backed into one of those ditches in which all her military exploits seemed doomed to ter-minate. There being no humane member of society, or member of the Humane Society, to give her the benefit of a drag from the water in which she was immersed, she was soon surrounded by her enemies. Her own companions had fled into the city and shut the gates upon her, against which she had not the strength to knock, when, mournfully murmuring out, "Alas! I am not worth a rap," she surrendered to her opponents. The sensation created by the capture of Joan of Arc was actually prodigious. The captains ran out of their positions, and the men left their ranks to have a peep at her. Duke Philip paid her a visit at her lodgings, in the presence of old Monstrelet, who was either so deaf, or so stupid, or so thunderstruck, that he could not relate what passed at the interview. The ungrateful French made no effort to release the Maid, and, indeed, there seemed to be a feeling of satisfaction at having got rid of her. Her captors showed a strong disposition to make much of her by turning the celebrated prophetess to a profit, and the person to whom she had surrendered—the Bastard of Vendôme—sold her out and out to John of Luxembourgh. Friar Martin pretended to have a lien upon her; but John, refusing to have the lot put up again, and resold—in accordance with the usual practice in cases of dispute—cleared her off to a strong castle of his own in Picardy. Another pretended mortgagee of the Maid then started up in the person of the Bishop of Beauvais, who claimed her on behalf of the University of Paris. John of Luxembourgh disposed of her to his holiness for ten thousand francs, rather than have any further trouble.
Poor Joan was committed to prison on the charge of witchcraft, and as a kind of preliminary to the proceedings in her own case, a woman who believed in the Maid was burned, pour encourager les autres who might put faith in her inspiration. The fate of Joan was for some time very uncertain; but the learned doctors of the University of Paris, and other high authorities, recommended her being burned at once, which would save the trouble and expense of a previous trial. The Bishop of Beauvais, who had become the proprietor, by purchase, of the illustrious captive, recommended the adoption of regular legal proceedings. Priests and lawyers and lettered men were summoned from far and near; many of the legal gentlemen being specially retained, and all being practised in the art of cross-examination, to which Joan was subjected by those who conducted the case for the prosecution. Her trial was, throughout, a disgraceful exhibition of forensic chicanery, for her opponents attempted to puzzle her with hard words, which, in spite of her being charged with magic spells, she had not the power of spelling. The pleadings were shamefully complicated; but she defended herself with spirit, and occasionally confounded the doctors, who were confounded knaves, for they tried to take every advantage of her unfortunate position. Sixteen days were consumed in taking the evidence, and Joan sometimes made a point in her own favour, when the Bishop of Beauvais, sinking the dignity of the judge in the temporary office of usher, began to call lustily for silence; and, according to the modern practice of the officer of the court, making more noise than everyone else by the loudness of his vociferations.
The bishop shouted and resorted to other ungentlemanly expedients, during the entire day, to damage the cause of Joan, who, nevertheless, proceeded as if in the midst of that silence which the usher in Westminster Hall is continually disturbing by loudly calling for. It was contended, on the part of the prosecution, that there was magic in her banner; but Joan, who had served the other side with notice to produce the banner, declared there was nothing particular in any part of it. The pole belonging to it was as plain as any other pike-staff, and the banner itself was formed of a cheap material, which Joan declared was all stuff; so that the banner was, of necessity, waived by her enemies. Her judges, nevertheless, declared there was sufficient evidence to support a charge of heresy, and began to deliberate on the manner of her punishment. While some recommended fire, others threw cold water upon it, and French, as well as English writers, have laboured to prove, that their countrymen, at least, were averse to a proceeding from which the term "burning shame" no doubt took the signification it bears at present. Having already found her guilty, her persecutors tried their utmost to urge her to acknowledge her guilt, for in the absence of proof, it was thought advisable to get at least a confession.
At length, on the 24th of May, 1431, the Maid was brought up to hear her sentence, and the Bishop of Beauvais, taking out a pile of papers, endorsed re Joan of Arc, declared himself ready to deliver his judgment. An opportunity was, however, allowed her to stay execution, on giving a cognovit, or acknowledgment of every charge brought against her; and such a document being drawn up, she reluctantly permitted Joan of Arc, X, her mark—for she could not write—to be affixed to it. Her punishment was commuted to perpetual imprisonment, with "the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction," which consisted of a stale loaf and a pull at the pump once a day, as her only nourishment.
She found very few crumbs of comfort in her daily crust, and when the water was brought to her, she declared it to be very hard, which was certainly better than soft for drinking. It was a portion of her punishment to resume her female attire, which caused her considerable annoyance, and a soldier's dress having been left in her prison, she was one morning discovered wearing it. Her jailer, on entering, charged her with "trying it on," but added that it was anything but fitting, and told her that she would certainly be overhauled when he reported that he had seen her in a pair of military overalls.
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The circumstance was instantly turned against her, and the putting on of male attire, which she had worn before, was declared to be a revival of the old suit, to which she had been liable. Her re-appearance in the soldier's dress was looked upon as a proof of uniform opposition to the authorities; and her offence was described as "relapsed heresy," or double guilt, like the "one cold caught on the top of t'other" by the boy who had been suffering under several layers of those disagreeable visitors. Judgment was now finally entered up against the ill-used Maid, who, on the 30th of May, 1431, was brought in a cart to the market-place and burned at Rouen.
We would gladly draw a veil over the fate of poor Joan; but we are unwilling to spare those who were accessory to it, from the odium which increases whenever the facts are repeated. Cardinal Beaufort and some of the bishops who had been instrumental to the murder of the Maid, began to whimper when the ceremony commenced, and to find it more than their susceptible natures could bear to witness. They had ordered the atrocity that was about to take place; but conscience had made them such arrant cowards, that they had not the courage to witness the carrying out of their own savage suggestions. If persons so hard-hearted as themselves could feel so much affected by the sacrifice they had ordered, we may imagine what opinion ought to be entertained of them for commanding an act of atrocity which they dared not remain to contemplate.
The conduct of Charles in not interfering on Joan's behalf, is even more cruel and despicable than that of her avowed enemies. The French king finding the Maid of no further use, came practically to a free translation of Non eget arcu (there is no want of a Joan of Arc), and left her to the fate that awaited her. It would have been nothing but policy to have insured her life, which he might easily have done, even when she was threatened with burning, and her case became doubly hazardous.
The English were very anxious to get up a sensation in France by way of diverting the public mind from the fate of the Maid of Orleans. A coronation, which is always one of the best cards to play, being good for a king or queen at the least, was thought of and resolved upon. The affair was intended to eclipse the ceremony of which Charles had been the hero and Joan of Arc the heroine. Young Henry, who had been crowned already at Westminster, and had therefore rehearsed the part he would be called upon to play, was brought over to Paris with all the scenery, machinery, dresses and decorations, properties and appointments, that had been used before, so that the coronation being in the répertoire of costly spectacles, the expense of its revival was moderate. The performance took place in November, 1431; but though the getting-up was very complete, the applause was scanty, and the attendance was by no means numerous. Cardinal Beaufort occupied a stall, and there was a fair sprinkling of people in the galleries; but' the principal character being a spiritless and most unpromising boy of nine, the spectacle excited very little interest.
Things remaining in France in a very unsatisfactory state, Charles and Philip of Burgundy came to the resolution that it was folly to go on cutting one another's throats, and they consequently effected a compromise. Philip got the best of the bargain, which was solemnised by a great deal of swearing and unswearing; for as the parties had previously exchanged oaths of hostility toward each other, it was necessary to take the sponge and wipe out former affidavits, as well as to supply the blank with new oaths of an opposite character. There was a mutual interchange of perjury; and posterity, on looking at the respective culpabilities of the two parties, can only come to the conclusion, that they were beaucoup d'un beaucoup, or much of a muchness.
The Duke of Bedford did not live long after this treaty, but died of indigestion, and considering that he had eaten an enormous quantity of his own words, the result is by no means marvellous. He finished up his existence at Rouen, on the 14th of September, 1435, having swallowed a parcel of his own oaths, some of which are supposed to have stuck in his throat, and caused his dissolution. The English in France soon felt the fatal consequences of being without a chief, for the columns of an army, like the columns of a journal, are incomplete without a leader. Deprived of Bedford, the English soldiers could no longer hold Paris—or, rather, Paris could no longer hold them—and they were consequently forced to surrender. The Duke of York succeeded to the command in France—if he can be said to have succeeded who failed in almost everything. A succession of reverses was the only thing approaching to success which he experienced; and a supersedeas was soon issued to overturn his commission.
Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, did something towards restoring the English ascendency in France; but Philip of Burgundy thought he would try his hand at a siege, and fixed upon Calais as being the most convenient. The Duke of Gloucester, hearing he had a tremendous army assembled in front of the town, sent over to Philip an offer to fight him. "Only stop there till I get at you," were Gloucester's words; to which Burgundy replied, that he should be happy to wait the English duke's convenience. Four days, however, before the latter landed, the former was seized with a panic—and, taking suddenly to his heels, his thirty thousand men scampered wildly after him. Philip, who had set the example, and must have been flighty to have commenced such an insane flight, was completely run off his legs by the ruck of fugitives in his rear; and he was swept into the very heart of Flanders, before he could ascertain what his soldiers were driving at. Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, did something towards retrieving the failing fortunes of the English; but, as both parties were getting into a nervous state—running away through sheer panics, crying out before they were hurt, and flying before they were pursued—a truce was agreed upon. It was for two years, to expire on the 1st of April, 1446,—and there could not have been a more appropriate day than that devoted to All Fools, to renew hostilities which were injurious to all parties.
Henry, of Windsor, was now twenty-four; but, though a man in years, he was still an infant in intellect. He was physically full-grown, but mentally a dwarf; and what had been in childhood the gentleness of the lamb, became in manhood downright sheepishness. His conversational powers would not have allowed him to say "bo to a goose," had it been necessary for him to address to that foolish bird that unmeaning monosyllable. Even his mother had turned her back upon him, as a noodle she could make nothing of, and had married Owen Tudor, Esquire, an obscure gentleman of Wales, who boasted, nevertheless, a royal descent, or at least maintained that the Tudors were so called from being not above Two-doors off from such illustrious lineage. The Queen-mother had died, but had left a lot of little Tudors, under the care of O. T., her bourgeois gentilhomme of a husband.
Henry being a mere nonentity, it was resolved to try and make something of him by finding him a wife of spirit; as if small beer could be turned into stout by mixing a quantity of gin with it. Margaret of Anjou was selected for the formation of this deleterious compound. She was one of those intolerable nuisances—a fine woman, with a great deal of decision, which means that she was decidedly disagreeable. Her father was a nominal king of Sicily and Jerusalem; but he had no real dominions, and only rented, as it were, a brass plate, or had his name up over the door of the countries specified. He was as poor as a cup of tea after the fifth water, and ruled over about as much land as he could cram into a few flower-pots which adorned the window of his lodging. He kept a minister who answered the bell and the purpose at the same time, and was accustomed to wait at table. His majesty's apartment was furnished with a sort of dresser covered with green baize, which formed a board of green cloth; and he had several sticks-in-waiting in his umbrella stand. His robe de matin was his robe of state; he had a green silk privy purse, and an ormolu cabinet. He had a keeper of the great seal which hung to his watch; and his bureau comprised a secretary for the home department, in which he kept all his washing-bills. He dispensed with a master of the horse by keeping no horse of his own, and he always had plenty of gentlemen-in-waiting, in the shape of creditors. He saved the expense of a paymaster by paying nobody; and though he issued Exchequer Bills, they were not only at very long dates, but wholly unworthy of anyone's acceptance. He was his own Chancellor of his own Exchequer, for he used to declare, with much apparent integrity that his government should never be degraded by useless sinecures. "Whenever there is nothing to do," he would philosophically exclaim, "I consider it my duty to do it." He usually resided in Sicily when he was at home, but he kept in his court—at the back of his lodging—a few Jerusalem artichokes, to represent the interests of his other kingdom of Jerusalem. He used to make a financial statement every now and then, for the sake of clearing himself of his debts, which were the subject of an annual act of which he alone got the benefit. He used upon these occasions to profess a considerable anxiety to rub off as he went on, but his goings on and rubbings off were equally to his own advantage, and the cost of those who had trusted him. Never was political economy carried to such perfection as by the father of Margaret, the king of Sicily and Jerusalem.
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It was hopeless to ask for a dower with the daughter of a man who had what is vulgarly termed "a sight of money," which means that he could have put the whole of his income into his eye without any detriment to his vision. Instead of asking anything from a sovereign more fitted to be upon the parish than upon the throne, a trifling settlement was made upon him, that the king of England might not be said to have married the daughter of an absolute monarch and an absolute beggar. Anjou and Maine, which had been taken from him by main force, were restored to him, and a little money was advanced to him on account of his first quarter's revenue, to enable him to cut a respectable figure at his daughter's wedding.
Suffolk brought home the bride to England, where she was, of course, severely criticised. For many she was too tall, and her height was an objection that could not be overlooked very easily. The friends of the Duke of Gloucester—known as the good Duke Humphrey—declared he would have found a better queen; and Duke Humphrey paid her no attention, for he never even asked her to a family dinner, an omission which gave rise to a saying * that is still current.
* Dining with Duke Humphrey is a process that needs no
explanation.
The good Duke Humphrey, though he gave no one a dinner, was anxious to let everyone have his desert, which made his royal highness very unpopular. His enemies began by charging his wife with necromancy, because she was in the habit of consulting the dregs of her teacup when turned out in her saucer—an act that was stigmatised as sorcery. She was also proved to have in her possession a large wax doll, resembling the king, which she was in the habit of placing before the fire for the purpose, it was said, of sweating her sovereign. This was interpreted into a desire to see him waste away, and she was accordingly sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Had she been able to melt the king himself as she melted his effigy, she might have been pardoned; but though the wax image was soft enough, he only waxed wroth when an appeal in her behalf was made to him. Her husband now became personally an object of persecution, and was arrested on a charge of treason, on the 11th of February, 1447, when he went to take his seat at the opening of Parliament. On the 28th of the same month, he was found dead in his bed, and of course the conclusion was that he had been murdered, though there were no signs of violence. There were various rumours as to the cause of Duke Humphrey's death, and despair, dyspepsia, apoplexy, and unhappy perplexity, or a broken heart, were equally spoken of as having occasioned his dissolution. It is strange that inanition was never thought of as a probable mode of accounting for the decease of Duke Humphrey, whose stinted diet has given to his dinners an unenviable notoriety.
The old rival and uncle of the good Duke Humphrey did not long survive his nephew, for the grasping prelate died on the 11th of April, 1447, at Winchester, where he had retired to his see, from which he was to the last straining his eyes towards the popedom.
Under the ministry of Suffolk the glory of England rapidly declined, and its possessions in France were daily diminishing. Parliament began to take the matter seriously up, and not a day passed without some awkward motion being made to embarrass the Government. At length, in January, 1450, Suffolk became so exasperated that he challenged his enemies to the proof of their accusations, which was equivalent to asking for a vote of confidence. The Commons replied by requesting the Lords to send him to the Tower, which they declared themselves most happy to do, if the Lower House would only send up a specific charge on which he might be committed. The Commons acceded with the utmost pleasure to the demand, and cooked up an accusation very promptly, for in those days such things were kept almost ready made, to be used at the shortest notice, for the purpose of knocking the head from off the shoulders of a minister. It was laid in the indictment against Suffolk, that he had been furnishing a castle with military stores; or, in other words, ordering a quantity of gunpowder to be sent in for the purpose of assisting France against England. Though the accusation was wretchedly vague, it was sufficient foundation for a warrant, upon which Suffolk was seized by the scruff of the neck, and hurried to the Tower. Fearing that one bill of impeachment might be insufficient, his enemies published a series of supplements.
In his defence he noticed only the first set of charges, which accused him of a desire to put the crown on the head of his son; a freak that Suffolk never had the smallest idea of practising. On the 13th of March, 1460, he was brought to the bar of the House of Lords, and went down upon his knees like a horse—or rather like an ass—on the wooden pavement. He denied, ridiculed, and repudiated some of the articles in the impeachment, and accused the lords themselves of being his accomplices in some others. A proceeding which we can only characterise as a general row immediately took place, and the House of Lords became a perfect piece of ursine horticulture, or regular bear-garden.
Suffolk, though warmly defended by the court, was furiously attacked by the Commons, who declared they would not vote a penny of the supplies while the minister remained unpunished. The king, as long as it did not affect his pockets, was tolerably staunch towards his friend, but when no money came in, and the royal outgoings continued to be large, it was found expedient to throw the favourite over. Every fresh bill that was placed on the unpaid file at the palace shook the royal resolution; and when the eye of the king glanced over his huge accumulation of unsettled accounts, he began to think seriously whether it was not too great a sacrifice to lose his supplies for the sake of saving Suffolk.
The favourite was gradually getting out of favour, and was sent for by the king to a private interview, in the course of which it was intimated to the duke that he must be dropped, but that he should be "let down" as easily as possible. This private intimation kept Suffolk in a state of suspense considerably worse than certainty; for it is a well-established fact, given on the authority of those who have tried both, that a bold leap into the fire is preferable to a constant grill on the gridiron, or a perpetual ferment in the frying-pan.
On the 17th of March Suffolk was again brought up in presence of the king, at a sort of judicial "at home," given by hiss majesty. It took place, according to some authorities, in the sovereign's private apartments; but the chroniclers are mute as to which room—whether the two-pair back, the one-pair front, the salle à manger, or the salon—was the scene of the important interview. Suffolk threw himself once more at the feet of the king, who, it is to be hoped, had no corns; but Henry must have felt hurt at receiving a minister on such a footing. Suffolk, still at his master's feet, endeavoured to hit upon Henry's tender points, but the sovereign was on this occasion influenced by the impression made upon his understanding. He ordered Suffolk into banishment for five years, and gave him till the 1st of May to pack up for his departure.
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The people were determined not to let the traitor off so easily, and no less than two thousand assembled to take his life, which he wisely abstained from placing at their disposal. He gave a farewell banquet at one of his country seats to his relatives and friends, and, upon his health being duly proposed as the toast of the evening, he swore, of course, that he was perfectly innocent. Finding it necessary to dodge the popular indignation, he started off to Ipswich, when he embarked for the Continent.
On the 2nd of May, as he was sailing between Dover and Calais, his convoy—consisting of a smack and punt for self and retinue—was hailed by a great hulking man-of-war from the hulks, which bore the name of Nicholas of the Tower. This was a sad blow to the little smack, which would have gladly gone off had it not been most vigorously brought-to by the larger vessel. The duke was ordered on board the Nicholas, and after the ship had stood off and on for three days, it turned out that the vessel was only waiting to take in an axe, a block, and an executioner. This dismal addition to the freight having at last arrived, it was immediately put in requisition, and, as Suffolk was very unpopular, nobody took the trouble to inquire what had become of him. The only account that could ever be given of him was that he had been taken away by the crew of the Nicholas, which was a very old ship, and the announcement that Suffolk had gone to Old Nick was all that was ever said concerning him.
We are soon about to enter upon those Wars of the Roses which planted so many thorns in the bosom of fair England. It is strange that out of couleur de rose should have emanated some of the most sombre and melancholy hues that ever darkened the pages of our history. "Coming events cast their shadows before," and the shade in this instance was one Cade, familiarly called Jack Cade by various authorities. This celebrated individual was a native of Ireland, who had served in France in the English army, so that he may be called a kind of Anglo-Irish-Frenchman, a combination that reminds us of the celebrated poly-politician, who, being desirous of being thought "open to all parties," with the vow of being ultimately influenced by one, gave himself out as a conservative-whig-radical. Jack Cade was a jack-of-all-trades, or, at all events, a jack of two, for he had been a doctor first and a soldier afterwards. Some have ironically contended that the change from a medical to a military life was only an extension of the same business, and that, in resigning the bolus for the bullet, the powders for the gunpowder, and the lancet for the sword, he was only enlarging the sphere of his practice. With that remarkable deference for the aristocracy they pretend to despise, which is only too common amongst demagogues, Cade tried to claim relationship even with royalty, and, giving himself out as a relation of the Duke of York, he assumed the name of Mortimer.
That Cade was a decayed scion of an illustrious stock may be doubted, and some, who have not been ashamed of an anachronism for the sake of a sneer, have gone so far as to say that the Cades were the earliest cads of which there are any records.
It has been well remarked somewhere, by somebody, that the men of Kent, though living near the water, were always very inflammable, and the Kentish fire is to this day proverbial for its intensity. Cade threw himself among these men, who made him their captain, and inarched with him to Blackheath, from which he commenced a long correspondence with the Londoners. The Government, alarmed at an assembly of fifteen or twenty thousand men at a place where large assemblies were unusual, sent to enquire the reason of the good men of Kent having quitted their homes in such large numbers. Cade, who among his other restless habits, appears to have been troubled with a cacoethes scribendi, took upon himself to answer for the whole, and embodied their reasons in a document called the "Complaint of the Commons of Kent," which was of a somewhat discursive character. It commenced by alluding to a report that Kent was to be turned into a hunting forest, and remonstrated against the people being made game of in such a fearful manner; it then proceeded to abuse the Government in general terms, which have since been the stereotyped phraseology of nearly all the friends of the people; it complained of others fattening on the royal revenue, which forced the king to supply the deficiency by robbing his subjects, and to take their provisions wholesale as well as retail, without paying a penny for them. Allusion was then made to the lowness of the company admitted to court, though this seems to have been rather over-nice on the part of Jack and his followers. The document then came to the point, by intimating that the men of Kent had been subjected to extortion and treated with contempt, so that they had been, at the same time, overtaxed and under-rated.
When the court received this elaborate catalogue of ills, it was intimated to Cade and his companions, that it would take some time to prepare the answer; but the authorities thinking that powder and shot would answer better than pen and ink, set to work to collect troops and ammunition in London. Cade could not resist his propensity to scribble, and sent in a second paper, headed "The Requests, by the captain of the great assembly in Kent." In his new manifesto Jack required an entire re-arrangement of the royal household even down to the minutest domestic arrangements; and it was even said, that not a pie came to the king's table without Jack wishing to have a finger in it.
The court was now prepared with an answer in the shape of a large army, which advanced upon Blackheath, and caused Cade to be taken so regularly aback, that he jibbed as far as Sevenoaks. Here he halted, and waited the attack of the royal army, a detachment of which came up and went down like a pack of cards, though as they had lost all heart there is something defective in the comparison. When the main army at Blackheath heard the fate of the detachment at Sevenoaks, the soldiers suddenly began to object to fighting against their own countrymen. The Court then found it time to make concession, and commenced by sending a few of its own party to the Tower, in order to propitiate the malcontents. Lord Say, an obnoxious minister, who was not merely a say, but a tremendous do, was at once locked up with some others who had rendered themselves unpopular.
Cade now made himself master of the right bank of the Thames from Greenwich to Lambeth, both inclusive, and made the celebrated incision into the latter, which retained the name of the New Cut to a very distant period. Cade took up his own quarters in Southwark, but went into London every morning, where he and his followers behaved very quietly for a few days, returning home regularly every evening to their lodgings in the Borough. Their first act of violence was to insist on the trial of Say, who was not allowed to have his say in his own defence, but was hurried off to Cheapside and beheaded. As too frequently happens with the promoters of the public good, Cade's followers could not keep their hands off private property, and a little pillage was perpetrated. Even Jack himself, who sometimes set a good example to his followers, was tempted to plunder the house at which he usually dined; and the citizens, feeling that as the spoons were beginning to go, their turn would probably be next, became indignant at the outrage. They consequently refused admission to Cade the next morning when he came to transact his city business as usual.
It was next determined by the court to delude the rebels by an offer of a pardon; and Cade caught at the bait with a simplicity less characteristic of a Jack than of a gudgeon. In two days, however, he altered his mind, and refused to lay down his arms or walk off his legs, until Government gave a guarantee for the fulfilment of its promises. With the customary hatred of each other, which too often prevails among the lovers of their country, the patriots commenced quarrelling. Cade began to fear that some disinterested friend of freedom would sell him for the thousand marks that were offered for his head; and Jack, from the idea of being apprehended, was thrown into a constant state of apprehension. Sneaking quietly downstairs in the night, he found his way to the stable, where he mounted a clever hack, and using what spurs he could to the animal's exertion, put him along at a slapping pace towards the coast of Sussex. He had not proceeded very far, when turning to look back on what he had gone through, he saw at his heels Alexander Iden, Esq. Jack had scarcely got out the words, "Is that you, Alick?" when a lick from Iden's sword revealed the purpose of his mission. "No, you don't!" cried Cade, parrying an attempt to plant a second blow, and putting in a slight poke with his battle-axe very efficiently. Were we to borrow the graphic style of the sporting chroniclers, in describing a fight, we should say that Iden came up smiling, and evidently meaning business, which he transacted by enumerating one, two, three, in rapid succession on Jack's chest, followed up by four, five, six, on the face, and seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, in the stomach. Cade endeavoured to rally, but every effort failed; and Alexander Iden, Esq., claimed the thousand marks that had been advertised. The amount was large for a head with very little in it; but the tail, consisting of the riff-raff led on by Cade, formed the real value of the article.
A dispute now commenced between persons of higher degree; or, rather, it is to be suspected that Cade and his men had been used as the tools of some more exalted malcontent. It very frequently happens that political agitators in an humble rank of life are either cunningly or unconsciously playing the game of a political schemer of more exalted station; and while they are supposed to be working for the overthrow of one tyrant, they are preparing the way for the establishment of another.
The Duke of York was the individual who, endeavouring to profit by the recent revolt, left Ireland, of which he had been Lieutenant, and forced himself into the king's presence. "Now then, what is it?" cried Henry, annoyed at the sudden intrusion; when York replied he had come to extract something from the mouth of the sovereign. "A tooth, perchance?" ironically remarked the king; but his majesty was informed that a promise to summon a Parliament was the utmost that York required. This was acceded to, and, when Parliament met, one of the members proposed declaring the Duke of York heir apparent to the throne, but the proposer was indignantly coughed down, unceremoniously pulled out, and promptly committed to the Tower. The duke, discouraged at having a minority of one, which imprisonment had reduced to none, in his favour, repaired to his castle at Ludlow, where he collected a large army; but, by way of proving that he had no evil intentions towards the king, he took, every now and then, the oath of allegiance. This periodical perjury had very little effect, for York was better known than trusted, and an army was sent against him. As the forces went one way to meet him, he came up to London by another road, but the gates of the City were slammed in his face just as he came up to them. "Well, I'm sure!" was the indignant murmur of York, to which, according to an Irish chronicler who came from Ireland in the duke's suite, "You can't come in," was the only echo. Foiled in this attempt, he went to Kent, expecting Jack Cade's followers would rally round him, but beyond some half-dozen seedy scamps, belonging to the class excluded from kitchens under the general order of "No followers allowed," there were no adherents to York's banner. When Henry came up with him at Dartford, both of them, like two little boys who have met to fight and don't know how to begin, were anxious to negotiate. This was agreed to, and the duke having disbanded his army, by which, as the papers say when a theatre closes prematurely, "an immense number of persons were thrown out of employ," he went to Henry's tent for a personal interview.
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The meeting was very unpleasant, for Somerset happening to be seated there, had the bad taste to assail York with a volley of vulgar abuse, which the latter repaid with interest. "You're a felon and a traitor, sir!" cried Somerset, as York came in, which elicited, by way of reply, "You're an old humbug," and other taunts, among which "Who embezzled the taxes?" was rather conspicuous. As the duke was about to depart, a tipstaff tripped up to him, and, begging his pardon, intimated that he was in custody. Somerset would have applied for speedy execution, but York compromised the affair by a little more perjury, for he swore a good batch—sufficient to last him a whole year—of truth and allegiance. He then retired to his castle, where he may have amused himself with playing at "Beggar my Neighbour" with his porter, as far as we can tell, for his employment while in seclusion at Wigmore is not recorded in history.
Henry's utter incapacity to hold the reins, which were literally dropping out of his hands, began to give great uneasiness to the Parliament. York was wanted back, and Somerset was sent to the Tower, for the two rivals were like the two figures in the toy for indicating the weather. What brought one out sent the other in, and a storm was the signal for the entrance of York, while political sunshine was favourable to
Somerset. On the 14th of February, 1454, York opened Parliament as commissioner for the king, who was personally visited at Windsor by a deputation of peers, desirous of ascertaining his exact condition. They found Henry perfectly imbecile, and incapable of understanding a word or uttering a syllable. The deputation conceiving it possible that his majesty might be merely muddled, retired to give him time to come to, but on their return they found him in the same state as before, and ditto repeated on a third visit. The deputation, resolving unanimously that "this sort of thing would never do," reported the facts to Parliament, and Richard, Duke of York, was elected "Protector and Defender of the realm of England." In about nine months Henry was declared to have recovered his senses, such as they were, and the court claimed for him the return of the reins, which had been taken out of his hands by reason of his incapacity. York was instantly put down, and Somerset again taken up to occupy the box-seat as heretofore.
The ex-protector retired to Ludlow as before, but got together some troops, and poor Henry was put, or carried, or propped up, at the head of an opposing army. The duke having no fear of a force under such a tumble-down leader, met him near the capital, and sent a message, full of loyalty, to the king, but insisting on Somerset being sent back by return, to be dealt with in the most rigorous manner. An answer was returned in the king's name, declaring his determination to perish rather than betray his friend; but it was the friend himself who assigned to his majesty this very disinterested preference. The sovereign was indeed so imbecile that he knew not what he said, and understood nothing of what was said for him, so that when he asked if he would not rather die in battle than hand Somerset over to the foe, an unmeaning grin was the only reply of the royal idiot. A fight of course ensued, and York got the best of it. Somerset was among the slain, and the poor king, who was as innocent of the use of a sword as a child in arms, got a wound in the neck, which sent him howling and reeling away till he took refuge in a tan-yard. York found him hiding among the hides, and pulling him out with gentleness, conducted him to the Abbey of St. Alban's. Every care was taken of the wounded monarch, whose neck was duly poulticed, and whose feet were put in hot water, though indeed they were seldom out of it.
When Parliament met after this affair, theoretical allegiance was sworn to the king and prince, but practical contempt of their position was exercised. York was declared protector until Edward, the heir to the throne, attained his majority; but Henry was superannuated at once, for he was liable, like a hare in the month of March, to fits of insanity. He was sometimes sensible enough, but no one could elucidate the date of his lucid intervals; and as the sceptre is little better than a red-hot poker in a madman's hands, he was very properly deprived of that powerful instrument.
Things had been thus arranged, when, on the meeting of Parliament, in 1456, after the Christmas recess, Henry, to the surprise of everyone, rushed in, exclaiming—"I'll trouble you for that crown!" and "Oblige me with a catch of that ball!"—alluding to the orb which forms part of the regalia. No one disputed his restoration to sanity, and York resigned the protectorate, looking unutterable things, as if he had just been engaged in a speculation by which he had made a profit of eightpence and incurred the loss of a shilling.
The king now endeavoured to effect a reconciliation between the rival parties, who affected to make it up, but started at once to their respective castles, for the purpose of looking up materials and men for the renewal of hostilities. York sent his sword to the grinder's, his armour to the tin-plate-worker's, to be let out, pieced, and otherwise repaired—while the Lancastrian chiefs were, on their side, resorting to similar arrangements. At length they came to a battle, in September, 1459, and the Yorkists were in the better position, when Sir Andrew Trollop—either from blockheadism, or bribery, or both—deserted, with all his veterans, to the standard of Henry. York, taking a series of hops, skips and jumps over the Welsh mountains, fled into Ireland. He ran so fast, that the muscles of his leg were contracted; and it was said at the time, that the York hams had as much as they could do to keep ahead of the Bath chaps, many of whom were engaged in the battle, from having lived not far from the neighbourhood. Warwick escaped to Calais, where he was exceedingly popular, and he soon collected forces enough to admit of his landing in Kent, where he stuck up his banner with the view of collecting a crowd, and then touting for followers. The project was successful, and by the time he reached Blackheath he had got thirty thousand men at his heels, according to the old chroniclers, who, it is only fair to say, have a peculiar multiplication table of their own, and who, whatever may be their aptitude at facts, certainly present to us some of the very oddest figures.
Warwick's reception was very enthusiastic. The archbishop ran out of Canterbury to meet him and shake him by the hand, Lord Cobham clapped him amicably on the shoulders, and five bishops, taking off their mitres, waved them as he passed in token of welcome. Warwick made at once for the midland counties, carrying with him the young heir of York, and meeting the Lancastrians at Northampton, a battle was fought which ended in the defeat of the latter. Henry was taken prisoner; but his wife Margaret of Anjou escaped with her son Edward, and encountered one of those adventures which season with a spice of romance the sometimes insipid dish of history. The story we are about to relate is offered with a caution to our readers, but it is too good to be omitted, and we are, moreover, afraid that were we to leave it out for the sake of correctness, we should be blamed for the omission. Use is second nature in literature as well as in anything else; and the public, being accustomed to falsehood, would regard the absence of even the most flagrant hoax as a curtailment of the fair proportions of history. It is, however, only under protest that we can lend ourselves to the gratification of this very morbid appetite, and we therefore advise the following story on the authority of De Moleville, to be taken not merely cum grano salis, but with an entire cellar of that very wholesome condiment.
The anecdote runs as follows: Margaret fled with her son into the recesses of a forest, like one of those which we see on the stage, where cut woods, canvas banks, and trees growing downwards from the sky-boarders, furnish an umbrageous recess of the most sombre character. We fancy we see her advancing to slow music, laying her child on a canvas bank, and listening to the rattle of peas accompanied by the shaking of sheet iron, which form the rain and thunder of theatrical life, when suddenly a whistle is heard, and two figures enter whose long black worsted hair, wash-leather gauntlets, drawn broadswords, and yellow ochre countenances, bespeak that they are robbers of the worst complexion. The queen has, of course, all her jewels blazing about her, which the two men proceed to appropriate, and while they are quarrelling about the division of her booty, she contrives to escape.
This brings us to another part of the same forest, where the scenery is not quite so elaborate, but where Margaret, leading on her infant son, stumbles upon a sentimental robber with a drawn sword in his hand, a tear of sensibility in his eye, and in his mouth a claptrap. She appeals to his generosity in favour of a "female in distress;" he replies with some cutting allusions to the "man who—" compares himself to a melon, or a cocoa-nut, or anything else with a rough exterior, but with some sweetness or milk of human kindness within, and by way of climax, she exclaims, "Here, my friend, I commit to your care the safety of the king's son."
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The honest fellow—by whom we mean, of course, the professional thief and casual cut-throat—goes down upon one knee in a fit of loyalty, and according to the scholastic versions of this little incident he is "recalled to virtue by the flattering confidence reposed in him." * He went also a step further, and at once devoted himself to the service of the queen, magnanimously offering to share her fortunes, which considering the desperate nature of his own, was a proposition equally indicative of self-love and loyalty. Her majesty accepted the offer, and embarked for Flanders, of course paying all the expenses of her friend the sentimental robber, who became the companion of her flight, and a pensioner on her pocket.
* Sec Pinnock'a edition of Goldsmith's History of England,
p. 143 of the thirty-second edition.
Fighting between the adherents of York on one side, and of Lancaster on the other, continued with unabated fury, until York having gained a victory at Northampton, called a Parliament, and walked straight up to the throne. He took hold of the hammer-cloth, as if to mount, and looked round as much as to say, "Shall I?" but no "hears," "cheers," or "bravoes," encouraged him to proceed. Another battle was fought soon after at Wakefield Bridge, when Richard, Duke of York, was killed, and his son Edward succeeded to the title, which was very shortly afterwards exchanged for that of king, at a packed meeting of citizens. The question was put whether Henry was fit to reign, and the "Noes" had it as a matter of course, when a motion that Edward of York should ascend the throne, was carried by a large majority.
Thus he who was not yet of age, and who had been recently nothing more than Earl March, was in early March, 1461, voted to the sovereignty by the acclamation of the people. Rushing into the House of Lords, he vaulted in a true spirit of vaulting ambition on to the throne, from which he delivered a discourse on hereditary right, making out every other right to be wrong, and maintaining his own right to be the only genuine article.
Poor Margaret made a futile attempt to rouse the loyalty of the citizens of London in a letter which she addressed to them, * but the style is so exceedingly vague, that we do not wonder at the document having proved ineffectual. As far as it is possible to collect the meaning of the epistle to which we have referred, it trounces the Duke of York in a style of truly female earnestness. It calls him an "untrue, unsad, and unadvised person," who is "of pure malice, disposed to continue in his cruelness, to the utterest undoing, if he might," of the fair letter-writer and her offspring. Poor Margaret's state of mind may have accounted for the tremendous topsy-turviness—to use a familiar expression—of her sentences. The bursting heart cannot trammel itself by those fetters which grammarians and rhetoricians have forged to restrain language within its proper limits. That Margaret of Anjou was a woman of business is evident from a copy of one of her wardrobe books now, in a state of perfect preservation, in the office of the Duchy of Lancaster. This private ledger of the royal lady would be a model for the accounts of modern housekeepers.
* This letter, which is to be found in the Harleian MSS.,
No. 543, Fol. 147, is also given in Mary Anne Wood's
interesting collection of Letters of Royal and Illustrious
Ladies of Great Britain. The letter of Margaret of Anjou
forms the thirty-eighth in the first volume of the work
alluded to.
It comprises a journal of payments even down to the accuracy of pence; and her gardener's wages, put down at a hundred shillings a year, may be considered a fair criterion of the average scale of her expenditure. She laid out little in clothes, though she kept twenty-seven valets as well as a number of ladies-in-waiting, and "ten little damsels," whose salaries and persons were no doubt equally diminutive. That her economy must have been wonderful, is evident from the fact that she did it all for seven pounds a day, which she regularly paid to the treasurer of the king's household.
It has not often been our lot to begin with a new sovereign until we have finished with the old; but in the present instance we must drop Henry the Sixth before his death, according to the example set us by his ungrateful people. We have, perhaps, lingered too long over the downfall of Henry, and we are warned by a sort of mental shout of "Edward the Fourth stops the way," that we must drive on with our history.