And is escorted by the regent to Liège.
Arrest of Aske, Lord Darcy, and Sir Robert Constable.
Treason of Sir John and Lady Bulmer.
In the cruel blight of his hopes the legate had only to comply. He hastened to Cambray, and sending a courier with the Pope’s letter to the Regent of the Netherlands, he avenged himself by childish complaints, which he poured out to Cromwell.[237] The King of France had been insulted—the sacred privileges of an ambassador had been violated by the monstrous demand for his surrender. He pretended to be ignorant that treaties are made to be observed—and that foreign courts can confer no sacred privilege on the subjects of other countries, as towards their own governments. He reached Cambray in the beginning of April, but he found in the Netherlands a scarcely more cordial reception than in France. He remained in that town under honourable but uneasy restraint till the end of May, when he was obliged to inform the Pope[238] that the regent was in so great awe and fear of “that adversary,” the King of England, that she no more dared to receive him than Francis; that he lived in daily fear of being taken prisoner and sent to London, and the utmost favour on which she could venture was to send him under an escort to Liège. To Liège, therefore, he was obliged to retire, and there for the present the bishop’s hospitality allowed him to remain. If his journey had been attended with no other consequences but his own mortification it would scarcely have required to be noticed. Unhappily it was followed by, and probably it occasioned, the destruction of more than one brave man for whom we could have desired a better fate. While at Liège, and even from his entry into France, it is evident, from his letters to the Pope,[239] that he maintained an active correspondence with England. Whether intercepted despatches found their way into the hands of Cromwell, or whether his presence in the neighbourhood invited suspicion, and suspicion led to discovery, is uncertain; we find only that simultaneously with Pole’s arrival at Cambray, Robert Aske, Lord Darcy, and Sir Robert Constable were arrested and taken to the Tower. On mid-Lent Sunday Aske had sent out his letters to “the captains” of various districts, and meetings had been held in consequence.[240] I am unable to ascertain either the objects or the results of these meetings; but “to summon the king’s lieges” for any object after the restoration of quiet was an act of the highest imprudence. In Easter week there was an obscure insurrection in Cleveland. Sir John and Lady Bulmer (or Margaret Cheyne, as she is termed in her indictment) had been invited to London. Lady Bulmer was proved to have said that she would as soon be torn in pieces as go to London unless the Duke of Norfolk’s and Sir Ralph Ellerkar’s heads were off, and then she might go where she would at the head of the commons. Her chaplain confessed to a plot between the lady, her husband, and other persons, to seize and carry off Norfolk to Wilton Castle;[241] but in the evidence which I have discovered there is nothing to implicate either Aske or his two friends in this project.
The rule of judgment in the government necessarily harsh.
That after the part which the latter had played they should have been jealously watched, that actions of doubtful bearing should be construed to their disfavour, was no more than they had a right to expect. Narrow interpretations of conduct, if severe, are inevitable with men who in perilous times thrust themselves into revolutionary prominence. To estimate their treatment fairly, we must ascertain, if possible, from the fragments of surviving informations against them, whether they really showed symptoms of fresh treasonable intent, or whether they were the victims of the irritation created by Pole’s mission, and were less punished for their guilt than because they were dangerous and powerful. The government insisted that they had clear proof of treason;[242] yet the word “treason” as certainly bore a more general meaning in Cromwell’s estimate than in the estimate of those who continued to regard the first pilgrimage as good service to the state. To the government it was a crime to be expiated by active resistance of all similar attempts, by absolute renunciation of its articles; and if, in contrast to the great body of the northern gentlemen, a few possessed of wide influence continued to maintain that they had done well, if they continued to encourage the people to expect that their petitions would be granted, if they discouraged a renewal of the commotions avowedly because they would injure the cause, it is certain that by a government surrounded by conspiracy, and emerging with difficulty out of an arduous position, yet determined to persevere in the policy which had created the danger, such men would be regarded with grave suspicion, even if compromised by no further overt acts of disloyalty.
To what extent were Aske, Darcy, and Constable compromised?
The offences which were proved against them.
But it can scarcely be said that they were wholly uncompromised. Through the months of February and March a series of evidence shows Aske, Darcy, Sir Robert Constable, a gentleman named Levening, and several others, holding aloof as an isolated group, in close and continued intercourse, yet after Bigod’s capture taking no part in the pacification of the country. These men repeatedly, in public and private, assured the people that the Doncaster articles must be conceded. They were in possession of information respecting the risings in Westmoreland and Cleveland, and yet gave no information to the government. In an intercepted letter to Lord Darcy, Aske spoke of himself as having accomplished a great enterprise,—“as having played his part, and all England should perceive it.”[243] It was proved that Darcy, when commanded in January to furnish Pomfret with stores, had repeated his former neglect,—that he and Aske were still in secret possession of cannon belonging to the government, which they had appropriated in the rebellion, and had not restored,—that Aske had interfered with the authorities at Hull to prevent the punishment of traitors taken in arms,[244]—that Constable, in a letter to Bigod, told him that he had chosen a wrong time of the year, that he ought to have waited till the spring,[245]—that Lord Darcy had been heard to say that it was better to rule than be ruled,—“and that where before they had had but two sovereign crowns they would now have four.”[246]
The lightest of these charges were symptoms of an animus[247] which the crown prosecutors would regard as treasonable. The secretion of the artillery and Aske’s conduct at Hull would ensure a condemnation where the judges were so anxious to condemn.