Part 21

“For which cause the old friendship was turned into hate, so much so that neither the consideration of his oath nor former devotion could thenceforth pacify the said Gilbert.... An endeavour was made by certain prelates to restore the Earls of Leicester and Gloucester to their former union; but they could in no wise succeed.”--W. Rishanger.

[53] J. R. Green, “The Ban of Kenilworth,” _Historical Studies_.

[54] “The triumph over Earl Simon had been a triumph over the religious sentiment of the time, and religion avenged itself in its own way. Everywhere the earl’s death was viewed as a martyrdom, and monk and friar, however they might quarrel on other points, united in praying for the souls of the dead as for ‘soldiers of Christ.’”--J. R. Green, “The Ban of Kenilworth,” _Historical Studies_.

[55] _Chronicles of Melrose._

[56] _Ibid._

[57] Wright, _Political Songs_.

[58] See J. R. Green, “Annals of Osney and Wykes,” _Historical Studies_.

[59] “The project was clearly to set up a new order of things founded on social equality--a theory which in the whole history of the Middle Ages appears for the first time in connection with this movement.”--Gairdner.

[60] It may be said that to-day the idea of political and social equality is generally accepted and that of brotherhood denied. In the fourteenth century brotherhood was esteemed, but equality was a strange, intruding notion.

[61] “The bias of Wyclif in theory and practice is secular, and aristocratic, and royalist: it is not really socialistic or politically revolutionary,”--Figgis, _Studies of Political Thought_. Nevertheless, many writers have tried to discredit Lollardy by associating it with social revolt, just as others have tried to discredit John Ball by making him out a “heretic,” and a follower of Wycliff.

[62] Froissart seems to be mainly responsible for the belief that this John Tyler became the great leader of the movement, confusing him with Wat Tyler, of Maidstone, the real leader. Several writers allege the indecency of the tax-collectors.

[63] “Tyler, according to Walsingham, was a man of ready ability and good sense. Save in some excesses, which, perhaps, were politic, possibly unavoidable, and certainly exaggerated, the rebels under him are admitted to have kept good order, and to have readily submitted to discipline.”--Thorold Rogers. To Froissart Tyler appears merely as “a bad man, and a great enemy of the nobility.”

[64] “Fearful lest their voyage should be prevented, or that the populace should attack them, they heaved their anchors and with some difficulty left the harbour, for the wind was against them, and put to sea, when they cast anchor for a wind.”--Froissart.

[65] Two names at least have been preserved--Squire Bertram Wilmington of Wye and John Corehurst of Lamberhurst.

[66] Seven years later this Earl of Salisbury, fleeing from Henry Bolingbroke, was hanged in the streets of Cirencester at the hands of the people.

[67] This law of Winchester was the statute of Edward I., 1285, which authorised local authorities to appoint constables and preserve the peace. Tyler’s aim was to strengthen local government in the counties, making them as far as possible self-governing communes.

[68] “It was in the preaching of John Ball that England first listened to the knell of feudalism, and the declaration of the rights of man.”--J. R. Green.

[69] “Observe how fortunate matters turned out, for had the rebels succeeded in their intentions they would have destroyed the whole nobility of England, and after their success other countries would have rebelled.”--Froissart.

[70] See Durrant Cooper--_John Cade’s Followers in Kent_.

[71] “These two bishops were wonder covetous men, evil beloved among the common people and holden suspect of many defaults; assenting and willing to the death of the Duke of Gloucester, as it were said.”--(_A Chronicle of Henry VI_). According to Gasgoigne--_Loci e Libro Veritatum_--the people said of Ayscough: “He always kept with the king and was his confessor, and did not reside in his own diocese of Sarum with us, nor maintain hospitality.”

[72] “He himself asserted that he had been a captain under the Duke of York, and that his real name was Mortimer, which may possibly have been true, for there were several illegitimate branches of the house of March.”--Professor Oman, _Political History of England_.

[73] “A young man of a godly nature and right pregnant of wit.”--Holinshed. Shakspeare’s farcical account of the rising in _King Henry VI._, Part II., is, of course, entirely misleading.--See the author’s _True Story of Jack Cade_.

[74] See the letter of John Payn in the _Paston Letters_. But Payn wrote fifteen years afterwards, and seems to have been a person of no very scrupulous honesty.

[75] A special act of parliament was passed in 1452 to cancel all that Cade had accomplished.

[76] Cocke was a well-known supporter of Henry VI. and a man of note. He was sheriff of London 1453, alderman in 1456, and mayor and M.P. 1462–3. Knighted by Henry in 1465, he fell from his high estate when Edward IV. was king, and languished in prison on a charge of high treason, only escaping with his life on payment of £8,000.

[77] “What answer to this demand was returned I find not, but like it is the same was granted and performed; for I find not the said captain and Kentishmen at their being in the city to have hurt any stranger.”--Stow.

[78] When, by order of the Privy Council, the Exchequer seized all Cade’s goods, these jewels were sold with the rest. They fetched £114, and a payment of £86 7s. was subsequently made to the Duke of York. So the crown made some profit on the transaction, but Malpas was unrecompensed.--See Devon’s _Exchequer Rolls_.

[79] “Whereof he lost the people’s favour and hearts. For it was to be thought if he had not executed that robbery he might have gone far and brought his purpose to good effect.”--Fabyan.

[80] This church has long been pulled down. It was absorbed into St. Saviour’s parish the following year. St. Margaret’s Hill is now part of High Street, Borough, and the present St. George’s Church stands near the site of old St. Margaret’s Church.

[81] _Acts of Privy Council_, 1451.

[82] “In the interests of truth, I must declare at the outset that I cannot find the very slightest foundation for the assertion of Stapleton, copied by Cresacre More and many others, that in the course of time their friendship cooled. Abundant proofs of the contrary will appear.”--Rev. T. E. Bridgett, _Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More_.

[83] “Indeed, it was he who pushed me to write the _Praise of Folly_, that is to say, he made a camel frisk.”--Erasmus to Ulrich von Hutten, 1519.

[84] “He had a purpose to be a priest, yet God had allotted him for another estate, not to live solitary, but that he might be a pattern to married men: how they should carefully bring up their children, how dearly they should love their wives, how they should employ their endeavour wholly for the good of their country, yet excellently perform the virtues of religious men, as piety, charity, humility, obedience and conjugal chastity.”--Cresacre More.

[85] Erasmus to Ulrich von Hutten.

[86] “It is clear that Sir Thomas had a little Utopia of his own in his family. He was making an experiment in education, and he was delighted with its success. The fame of his learned daughters became European through the praises of Erasmus, and was so great in England that in 1529, when they were all married ladies, they were invited by the king to hold a kind of philosophical tournament in his presence.... More will ever stand foremost in the ranks of the defenders of female culture.”--Rev. T. E. Bridgett, _Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More_.

[87] “He most warily retired from every opposition but that which conscience absolutely required. He displayed that very peculiar excellence of his character, which, as it showed his submission to be the fruit of sense of duty, gave dignity to that which in others is apt to seem to be slavish.”--Sir James Mackintosh, _Life of More_.

[88] “Parliament is discussing the revocation of all synods and other constitutions of the English clergy, and the prohibition of holding synods without express license of the king. This is a strange thing. Churchmen will be of less account than shoemakers, who have the power of assembling and making their own statutes.”--Chapuys, _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._ (Rolls Series).

[89] Chapuys, _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._ (Rolls Series).

[90] _Lives of the Chancellors._

[91] _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._ (Rolls Series).

[92] Roper.

[93] “To More a heretic was neither a simple man erring by ignorance, nor a learned man using his freedom in doubtful points: he was a man whose heart was ‘proud, poisoned, and obstinate,’ because he denied the Divine guidance of the Church while he claimed special Divine inspiration for himself.”--Rev. T. E. Bridgett.

[94] More’s _English Works--Apology_. It is only thirty years after his death that Foxe suggests More as a persecutor. All the evidence is in the opposite direction.

[95] Sir James Mackintosh, _Life of More_.

[96] See Dr. Jessop, _The Great Pillage_.

[97] _See State Papers, Domestic, Edward VI._

[98] The common lands engrossed in the 15th and 16th centuries were the farm lands cultivated in common by the peasants. The enclosure of the commons was left to a later date, and took place between 1760 and 1830.

[99] This Flowerdew had distinguished himself at the destruction of the abbey at Wymondham by Henry VIII., by tearing off the lead from the roof of the church and pulling down the choir, for the sake of the stones, after the people had raised a large sum of money for the king in order to save the church.

[100] “By bearing a confident countenance in all his actions the vulgars took him (Ket) to be both valiant and wise and a fit man to be their commander.”--Sir John Hayward, _Life of Edward VI._

“This Ket was a proper person to be a ringleader of mischief, for he was of a bold, haughty spirit, and of a cankered mind against the Government.”--John Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_.

[101] These two “were partly fain to agree, lest they being out of favour and place, others might come to bring all out of frame that now might partly be well framed, and the rather they assented to keep the people in better order during answer from the prince.”--Nicholas Sutherton.

[102] “That a populous and wealthy city like Norwich should have been for three weeks in the hands of 20,000 rebels, and should have escaped utter pillage and ruin speaks highly for the rebel leaders.”--W. Rye, _Victoria County History of Norfolk_.

[103] A few years later, and John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, now Duke of Northumberland, again visited East Anglia to proclaim his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England. No one rose at his call. Neither peasant nor landowner responded to the proclamation; and John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland, died, as his father before him had died, convicted of treason, beheaded by the executioner’s axe on Tower Hill. It was August 22nd, 1553, just four years after the suppression of the peasants’ rising in Norfolk when Northumberland was put to death.

[104] “Robert Ket was not a mere craftsman: he was a man of substance, the owner of several manors: his conduct throughout was marked by considerable generosity: nor can the name of patriot be denied to him who deserted the class to which he might have belonged or aspired, and cast in his lot with the suffering people.”--Canon Dixon, _History of the Church of England_.

In 1588 a grandson of Robert Ket was burnt as a Nonconformist heretic by order of Elizabeth.

[105] The three were Oxford men. Sir John Eliot was at Exeter (1607), Hampden at Magdalen (1609) and Pym at Broadgate Hall, afterwards called Pembroke (1599).

[106] “In Eliot’s composition there was nothing of the dogmatic orthodoxy of Calvinism, nothing of the painful introspection of the later Puritans. His creed, as it shines clearly out from the work of his prison hours, as death was stealing upon him--_The Monarchy of Man_--was the old heathen philosophic creed, mellowed and spiritualised by Christianity. Between such a creed and Rome there was a great gulf fixed. Individual culture and the nearest approach to individual perfection for the sake of the State and the Church, formed a common ground on which Eliot could stand with the narrowest Puritan.”--S. R. Gardiner.

[107] Eliot’s argument “was a claim to render ministerial responsibility once more a reality, and thereby indirectly to make parliament supreme.”--S. R. Gardiner.

[108] “He (Eliot) was to the bottom of his heart an idealist. To him the parliament was scarcely a collection of fallible men, just as the king was hardly a being who could by any possibility go deliberately astray. If he who wore the crown had wandered from the right path, he had but to listen to those who formed, in more than a rhetorical sense, the collective wisdom of the nation.”--S. R. Gardiner.

[109] “His (Hampden’s) distinction lay in his power of disentangling the essential part from the non-essential. In the previous constitutional struggle he had seen that the one thing necessary was to establish the supremacy of the House of Commons.”--S. R. Gardiner.

[110] Clarendon.

[111] “The same men who, six months before, were observed to be of very moderate tempers, and to wish that gentle remedies might be applied, talked now in another dialect both of kings and persons; and said that they must now be of another temper than they were in the last parliament.”--Clarendon.

[112] The Nineteen Propositions fairly express the views of Pym and Hampden at this time on the supremacy of the Commons. The main proposals were the authority of parliament: in the _sole_ choice of the ministers of the crown, in the regulation of state policy, in the management of the militia, in the education of the royal children, in the remodeling of the discipline of the Church of England; and the guardianship by parliament of all forts and castles. It was of first importance in Pym’s mind that parliament should have the control in military matters. Without the power of the sword the House of Commons could not ensure the personal safety of its members or the privileges of free debate against the enmity of the king. To command the army was to govern the country.

[113] See G. P. Gooch, _History of Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century_.

[114] “By its injudicious treatment of the most popular man in England, parliament was arraying against itself a force which only awaited an opportunity to sweep it away.”--G. P. Gooch, _History of Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century_.

[115] “Advocating direct government by a democratic Parliament and the fullest development of individual liberty, the Levellers looked with suspicion on the Council of State as a body which might possibly be converted into an executive authority independent of parliament, and thoroughly distrusted Cromwell as aiming at military despotism. Well-intentioned and patriotic as they were, they were absolutely destitute of political tact, and had no sense of the real difficulties of the situation, and, above all, of the impossibility of rousing the popular sympathy on behalf of abstract reasonings.”--S. R. Gardiner, _History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate_.

[116] S. R. Gardiner.

[117] The movement “had sprung into existence in response to a widely spread apprehension that the victory of the people might be rendered fruitless. Its call had found an echo in the ranks of the army, and by its admirable organization it had insisted that the leaders should hear what it had to say. It had powerfully influenced their conduct and had introduced a radical element into their programme. When this had been done, the soldiers felt that its _raison d’être_ as a separate party had come to an end. The battle had been fought, and the victory, at least for the time, had fallen to Ireton.”--G. P. Gooch, _History of Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century_.

[118] “In other words, not only Cromwell and Ireton, but also Fairfax, who had recently been elected a member of the House, were to be summarily cashiered.”--S. R. Gardiner, _History of the Commonwealth_.

[119] See the pamphlet “A Petition of Well-affected Women,” 1649. There is something curiously familiar in the exhortation to the women.

[120] “Unfortunately his friends, in petitioning for his release, rested their case on the ground that all sentences given by a court-martial were made illegal by the Petition of Right and the law of the land. Such a doctrine would have dissolved the army into chaos, and when Lilburne and Overton wrote to Fairfax, threatening him with the fate of Joab and Strafford, all chance of pardon was at an end. Lockyer firmly believed himself to be a martyr to the cause of right and justice.”--S. R. Gardiner, _History of the Commonwealth_.

[121] See Whitelocke’s _Memorials_, “The Army’s Martyr,” “A True Narrative,” and “The Moderate” (1649).

[122] “So die the Leveller corporals. Strong they, after their sort, for the liberties of England; resolute to the very death.”--Carlyle.

[123] Lilburne’s attitude to Winstanley’s propaganda was similar to the attitude of the political Chartists in the 19th century to Robert Owen’s socialism.

[124] “Then ensued a scene, the like of which had in all probability never been witnessed in an English court of justice, and was never again to be witnessed till the seven bishops were freed by the verdict of a jury from the rage of James II.”--S. R. Gardiner.

“In a revolution, where others argued about the respective rights of king and parliament, he spoke always of the rights of the people. His dauntless courage and his power of speech made him the idol of the mob.”--Professor C. H. Firth, “Lilburne,” _Dictionary of National Biography_.

[125] See L. A. Berens, _Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth_.

[126] _Clarke Papers_, vol. ii.

[127] Government rarely distinguishes between different schools of agitators.

[128] Between 1710 and 1867 the number of acres so enclosed was 7,660,439.

[129] _Clarke Papers_, vol. ii.

[130] See Graham Wallas, _Life of Francis Place_.

[131] “Disappointment bitter and wide-spread was following closely upon the inevitable failure of the extravagant expectations and overheated hopes which the agitation for parliamentary reform had kindled.”--F. York Powell, _The Queen’s Reign: a Survey_.

[132] See Graham Wallas, _Life of Francis Place_.

[133] Herbert Paul, _History of Modern England_.

[134] _Ibid._

[135] “Want of leaders and organization, and the great difference in objects among the Chartists themselves, led to their failure. For a while Chartism was stayed.”--Professor T. F. Tout, _England from 1689_.

[136] The differences between the two became more acute when Feargus O’Connor started his land colonization schemes a few years later. O’Brien opposed these schemes, which all ended in heavy financial losses, and urged sticking to political reform. From 1842 O’Brien was practically outside the Chartist movement, though it was not till 1848 he formally retired. He died in poverty in 1864, after giving some help to the middle-class radical movement for household suffrage.

[137] A similar impulse fifty years later brought “Labour Churches” into existence.

[138] “The ministers had met the Chartist outbreaks with strong, repressive measures, and here they had the concurrence of parliament, which had no sympathy with the movement. The House of Commons, indeed, had little understanding of the processes that were maturing outside its walls. The industrial and the social evolution went on almost unnoticed by statesmen and politicians absorbed in the party controversy.”--Sidney Low and Lloyd Sanders, _Political History of England_, 1837–1901. See also Hansard’s _Parliamentary Debates_ for these years.

[139] “The least satisfactory feature of English life in 1846 was the condition of the labouring classes. Politically they were dumb, for they had no parliamentary votes. Socially they were depressed, though their lot had been considerably improved by an increased demand for labour and by the removal of taxes in Peel’s great Budget of 1842. That was the year in which the misery of the English proletariat reached its lowest depth.”--Herbert Paul, _History of Modern England_.

[140] Stephens, a “hot-headed” Chartist preacher, put the case as he, a typical agitator of the day, saw it in 1839: “The principle of the People’s Charter is the right of every man to have his home, his hearth, and his happiness. The question of universal suffrage is after all a knife-and-fork question. It means that every workman has a right to have a good hat and coat, a good roof, a good dinner, no more work than will keep him in health, and as much wages as will keep him in plenty.”--See R. G. Gamage, _History of the Chartist Movement_.

[141] Charles Kingsley, who is said to have signed the petition, gives his view of April 10th in _Alton Locke_.

[142] See Hansard, June, 1849.

INDEX

Adam of Marsh, Franciscan friar, friend of Grosseteste and de Montfort, 120, 130

Aldrich, an Alderman of Norwich, 229, 231

Alexander III., Pope, 45, 56

Anselm, Abbot of Bec, 8; called to court of William II., 8; appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, 9; refuses to give up church lands, 11; firm attitude at Council of Rockingham, 15; semblance of peace with the king, 16; leaves England, 18; returns at request of Henry I., 19; his services to the king, 21; dispute with the king, 23; reconciliation, 26; his death and character, 27–30; his birthplace, 30

Appleton, William, 161

Ayscough, Bishop of Salisbury, impeached for treason, 174; murdered at Erdington, 175

Bailey, John, hanged by Cade, 184

Ball, John, itinerant priest from York, preaches social revolution, 143; released from Maidstone prison by Wat Tyler, 153; preaches to Tyler’s followers at Blackheath, 153; hanged as a rebel, 167

Barton, Elizabeth, “Holy Maid of Kent,” 206

Becket, Thomas, his parentage, 33; early years, 34; appointed Chancellor of Canterbury, 34; ordained priest and appointed to Archbishopric, 38; dispute with the king, 41–45; yields to king’s demands at Council of Clarendon, 47; refutes charges at Council of Northampton, 49; leaves England and appeals to the pope, 55; reconciliation with the king, 57; lands at Sandwich, 57; ill-will of the bishops, 58; Henry’s sudden rage, 59; his murder, 63; his canonisation, 64

Belknap, Chief Justice, 147, 148

Berksted, Stephen, Bishop of Chichester, 128

Bigod, Hugh of Norfolk, 121

Bigod, Roger, 126

Boniface of Savoy, Archbishop of Canterbury, 110, 131

Bradshaw, John, 297

Buckingham, Duke of, 249, 250, 251, 252

Burdett, Sir Francis, 313

Burley, Sir Simon, 148, 163