¶ Thus farre touching the tragicall state of this land vnder the rent regiment of king Henrie, who (besides the bare title of roialtie and naked name of king) had little appertaining to the port of a prince. For whereas the dignitie of princedome standeth in souereigntie; there were of his nobles that imbecilled his prerogatiue by sundrie practises, speciallie by maine force; as séeking either to suppresse, or to exile, or to obscure, or to make him awaie: otherwise what should be the meaning of all those foughten fields from time to time, most miserablie falling out both to prince, péere, and people? As at saint Albons, at Bloreheath, at Northampton, at Banberie, at Barnet, & at Wakefield; to the effusion of much bloud, and pulling on of manie a plage, which otherwise might haue béene auoided. All which battels, togither with those that were tried betwéene Edward the fourth, after his inthronization; and Henrie the sixt after his extermination (as at Exham, Doncaster, and Teukesburie) are remembred by Anglorum prælia in good order of pithie poetrie, as followeth:
Nobilitata inter plures hæc sunt loca cæde,
Albani fanum, Blorum, borealis & Ampton,
Banbrecum campis, Barnettum collibus hærens,
[25]Experrectorum pagus, fanúmq; secundò
Albani, propior Scoticis confinibus Exam,
Contiguóq; istis habitantes rure coloni,
Mœrentes hodie, quoties proscindit arator
Arua propinqua locis dentale reuellere terra
Semisepulta virûm sulcis Cerealibus ossa:
Mœsta execrantur planctu ciuile duellum,
Quo periere hominum plus centum millia cæsa,
Nobile Todcastrum clades accepta coegit
Millibus enectis ter denis nomen habere.
Vltima postremæ locus est Teuxburia pugnæ,
Oppidulis his accedens certissima testis,
Bello intestino fluuios fluxisse cruoris
[25] Wakefield.
But now before we procéed anie further, sith the reigne of king Henrie maie séeme here to take end, we will specifie some such learned men as liued in his time. Iohn Leland, surnamed the elder (in respect of the other Iohn Leland, that painefull antiquarie of our time) wrote diuerse treatises, for the instruction of grammarians; Iohn Hainton, a Carmelit or white frier (as they called them) of Lincolne; Robert Colman, a Franciscane frier of Norwich, and chancellor of the vniuersitie of Oxenford; William White a priest of Kent, professing the doctrine of Wickliffe, and forsaking the order of the Romane church, married a wife, but continued his office of preaching, till at length, in the yeare 1428, he was apprehended, and by William bishop of Norwich, and the doctors of the friers mendicants, charged with thirtie articles, which he mainteined, contrarie to the doctrine of the Romane church, and in September the same yeare suffered death by fire.
Peter Basset wrote king Henrie the fift his life.
Alexander Carpentar, a learned man, set foorth a booke called Destructorium vitiorum, wherein he inueieth against the prelats of the church of that time, for their crueltie vsed, in persecuting the poore and godlie christians; Richard Kendall, an excellent grammarian; Iohn Bate, warden of the white friers in Yorke, but borne in the borders of Wales, an excellent philosopher, and a diuine, he was also séene in the Gréeke toong, a thing rare in those daies; Peter Basset, esquier of the priuie chamber to king Henrie the fift, whose life he wrote; Iohn Pole a priest, that wrote the life of saint Walburgh, daughter to one Richard, a noble man of this realme of England, which Walburgh (as he affirmeth) builded our ladie church in Antwerpe; Thomas Ismaelit, a monke of Sion; Walter Hilton, a Chartreaux monke also of Shiene, either of those wrote certeine treatises full of superstition, as Iohn Bale noteth.
Fabian and Caxton.
Thomas Walden so called of the towne where he was borne, but his fathers surname was Netter, a white frier of London, and the thrée and twentith prouinciall gouernour of his order, a man vndoubtedlie learned, and thoroughlie furnished with cunning of the schooles, but a sore enimie to them that professed the doctrine of Wickliffe, writing sundrie great volumes and treatises against them, he died at Rone in Normandie, the second of Nouember, in the yeare one thousand foure hundred and thirtie; Richard Ullerston, borne in Lancashire, wrote diuerse treatises of diuinitie; Peter Clearke, a student in Oxenford, and a defendor of Wickliffes doctrine, wherevpon when he feared persecution here in England, he fled into Boheme, but yet at length he was apprehended by the imperialists, and died for it, as some write, but in what order, is not expressed.
Robert Hounslow, a religious man of an house in Hounslow beside London, whereof he tooke his surname; Thomas Walsingham, borne in Norffolke, in a towne there of the same name, but professed a monke in the abbeie of saint Albons, a diligent historiographer; Iohn Tilneie, a white frier of Yermouth, but a student in Cambridge, and prooued an excellent diuine; Richard Fleming, a doctor of diuinitie in Oxenford, of whome more at large before, pag. 169. Iohn Low borne in Worcestershire, an Augustine frier, a doctor of diuinitie, and prouinciall in England of his order, and by king Henrie the sixt, made first bishop of saint Asaph, and after remooued from thense to Rochester; Thomas Ringsted the yoonger, not the same that was bishop, but a doctor of the law, and vicar of Mildenhall in Suffolke, a notable preacher, and wrote diuerse treatises.