The Armourer's Prentices

And where was Stephen? Crouching, wretched with hunger, cold, weariness, blows, and what was far worse, sense of humiliation and disgrace, and tenor for the future, in a corner...

Master Hope took all the guests by boat to Windsor, and very soon the little party at the Antelope was in a state of such perfect felicity as became a proverb with them all thei...

No Giles Headley appeared to greet the travellers, though Kit Smallbones had halted at Canterbury, to pour out entreaties to Saint Thomas, and the vow of a steel and gilt reliqu...

The night and morning had been terrible to the poor boys, who only had begun to understand what awaited them. The fourteen selected had little hope, and indeed a priest came in...

Stephen's first thought in the morning was whether the _ex voto_ effigy of poor Spring was put in hand, while Ambrose thought of Tibble's promised commendation to the printer. T...

In the summer of 1519 he was out of his apprenticeship, and though Dennet was only fifteen, it was not uncommon for brides to be even younger. However, the autumn of that year w...

May Eve had come, and little Dennet Headley was full of plans for going out early with her young play-fellows to the meadow to gather May dew in the early morning, but her grand...

Matters flowed on peaceably with Stephen and Dennet. The alderman saw no reason to repent his decision, hastily as it had been made. Stephen gave himself no unseemly airs of pre...

Tidings came forth on the parting from the French King that the English Court was about to move to Gravelines to pay a visit to the Emperor and his aunt, the Duchess of Savoy. A...

The youths in the armourer's household had experienced little of this as yet in their country life, but in London they could not but soon begin to taste both sides of the matter...

Giles Headley's accident must have amounted to concussion of the brain, for though he was able to return to the Dragon in a couple of days, and the cut over his eye was healing...

"The reul of Saint Maure and of Saint Beneit Because that it was old and some deale streit This ilke monk let old things pace He held ever of the new world the trace." Chaucer.

On Sunday morning, when the young Birkenholts awoke, the whole air seemed full of bells from hundreds of Church and Minster steeples. The Dragon Court wore a holiday air, and th...

In spite of his satisfaction at the honourable obsequies of his dog, Stephen Birkenholt would fain have been independent, and thought it provoking and strange that every one sho...

There lay the quiet Temple Gardens, on the Thames bank, cut out in formal walks, with flowers growing in the beds of the homely kinds beloved by the English. Musk roses, honeysu...

A whole assembly of prelates and "lusty gallant gentlemen" rode out to Blackheath to meet the Roman envoy, who, robed in full splendour, with Saint Peter's keys embroidered on b...

The home of the Birkenholt family was not one of the least delightful. It stood at the foot of a rising ground, on which grew a grove of magnificent beeches, their large silvery...

"Of a worthy London prentice My purpose is to speak, And tell his brave adventures Done for his country's sake. Seek all the world about And you shall hardly find A man in valou...

"In sooth it was a thing to weep If then as now the level plain Beneath was spreading like the deep, The broad unruffled main. If like a watch-tower of the sun Above, the Alpuxa...

"Then hath he servants five or six score, Some behind and some before A marvellous great company Of which are lords and gentlemen, With many grooms and yeomen And also knaves am...

Very early in the morning, even according to the habits of the time, were Stephen and Ambrose Birkenholt astir. They were full of ardour to enter on the new and unknown world be...

"For him was leifer to have at his bedde's hedde Twenty books clothed in blacke or redde Of Aristotle and his philosophie Than robes riche or fiddle or psalterie." Chaucer.

The journey to Alton was eventless. It was slow, for the day was a broiling one, and the young foresters missed their oaks and beeches, as they toiled over the chalk downs that...

"For strangers then did so increase, By reason of King Henry's queen, And privileged in many a place To dwell, as was in London seen. Poor tradesmen had small dealing then And w...

When the absence of the barbarous token of the execution was discovered, suspicion instantly fell on the More family, and Margaret, her husband, and her brother, were all impris...