Chapter X.

TUDOR TIMES.

JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT.

“_The white man landed;—need the rest be told?_ _The New World stretched its dusk hand to the Old;_ _Each was to each a marvel, and the tie_ _Of wonder warmed to better sympathy._”

NOW the procession halts, while a momentous scene is enacted before our eyes. We are in the old seaport of Bristol, on a May morning in the year 1497, treading the rough cobbles of the quay whereat the good ship _Matthew_ and her consort lie. Stout, staunch vessels they are, fitted out and provisioned for the most adventurous voyage ever undertaken by Bristol ships. The royal blazon glistens on their mainsails, the flag of England flies from their mastheads. Some of the boldest and most skilful mariners in the land are on board, busy making everything ship-shape, “Bristol fashion,” for the voyage which is to begin to-day. Now you see a procession approaching. The Lord Mayor in his robes of state, with his chain of office about his neck, leads the way, and behind him troop the city fathers; then comes the bishop, with his attendant train of priests; and behind them, the observed of all observers, you see a father and his three sons. They are John, Lewis, Sebastian, and Santius Cabot—the father a citizen of Venice, the sons men of Bristol. The old city is saying farewell to them to-day, and the lusty cheers that greet them as they traverse the narrow streets show how deeply every Bristol man is interested in their enterprise. What is this enterprise? Whither are they bound?

Any urchin in the streets will tell you. “Why, master, have you not heard of the Genoese seaman, Christopher Columbus?—he who five years ago set sail from Palos in three ships, and sailed to the west’ard across the ocean, seeking a new sea-road to far-off India and Cathay. Do you not know that he lighted on marvellous new lands, which he seized in the name of Spain, and then returned home to tell the wondrous news? There’s gold by the bucketful across the Western Ocean, and we Bristol folks mean to have our share of it. So we have fitted out the _Matthew_ and the other ship which you see yonder, and this very day John Cabot and his sons are to set sail. Would that I could sail with them too!” Many an English lad, in many a seaport, echoes his wish.

“Westward! westward! westward! The sea sang in his head, At morn in the busy harbour, At nightfall on his bed.

“Westward! westward! westward! Over the line of breakers, Out of the distance dim, For ever the foam-white fingers, Beckoning, beckoning him.”

And now the procession halts on the quay, and the mariners kneel while the bishop with uplifted hand blesses them and their enterprise. John Cabot, he with the brown face and the close-cropped white hair, proudly unfolds the scroll which he carries, and begins to read his royal commission:——

“Henry, by the grace of God, King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, to all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting:

“Be it knowen that we haue giuen and granted, and by these presents do giue and grant, for VS and our heires, to our well beloued Iohn Cabot, citizen of Venice, to Lewis, Sebastian, and Santius, sonnes of the sayd Iohn, and to the heires of them and euery of them, and their deputies, full and free authority, leaue and power, to saile to all parts, countreys, and seas of the East, of the West, and of the North, under our banners and ensignes, with fiue ships of what quantity or burden soever they may be, and as many manners or men as they will haue with them in the sayd ships, upon their owne proper costs and charges to seeke out, discouer and finde, whatsoeuer isles, countreys, regions or prouinces, of the heathens and infidels, whatsoeuer they be, and in what part of the world soeuer they be, which before this time haue been unknowen to all Christians.”

So the letters-patent of his gracious Majesty King Henry the Seventh run. The reading is finished. The last farewells are taken. The wives and children of the adventurous mariners weep aloud. The Lord Mayor clasps John Cabot warmly by the hand, and the captain goes on board. Deafening cheers are raised as the hawsers are cast off and the good ships are warped out. Now you see them threading the deep gorge of the Avon. Anon they will be out on the heaving waters of the Bristol Channel; then sail will be made, and in the golden sunset glow they will fade away into the unknown.

For months there will be sad hearts in many a humble Bristol home, and white-faced women will haunt the quay, eagerly questioning incoming sailors for news of their husbands and sons who have sailed with the Cabots. Then one glad day the blazoned sails, torn and worn with tempestuous winds and the rough usage of the sea, appear again in the Avon, and all England rings with the story of the marvellous voyage. The Bristol bells ring out merry peals; the city fathers feast the returning adventurers in the Council chamber; and every lad in the good old city holds his head high because of the new fame that Bristowe men have won. What visits are paid to the _Matthew_ and her consort! The Church of St. Mary Redcliffe is thronged with eager citizens gaping at the whale’s rib which Sebastian Cabot has deposited there in memory of his voyage.

Here is one of the heroes of the expedition. Let us buttonhole him and bid him spin his yarn. Like the true sailor that he is, he readily consents. “Marry, sirs, ’twas a long and dull voyage outward; but the winds were fair, and in two moons we reached a sea with monstrous great lumps of ice floating about like fairy castles. And mark ye, the sun set not, and there was daylight all the clock round. On the twenty-fourth day of June we sighted land. _Prima Vista_ the captain called it, that being the Latin lingo, so I’m told, for ‘first seen.’ ’Twas an island, thick covered with woods, lying out from the mainland. We went ashore right speedily, and now there’s a bit of England seven hundred leagues to the west’ard across the great ocean.

“The men of that land are savages dressed in skins of beasts. They carry bows and arrows, wooden clubs and slings; and fine hunters they be, every man of them. Their land is barren, and no fruits grow, but there are big white bears in plenty and stags that would make two of ours. Off the island the sea swarms with fish, some as much as an ell long, and sea-wolves, such as ye may see now and then in Bristol Channel.

“The birds are black-hawks and partridges and eagles. When we left the isle we coasted a dreary shore for three hundred leagues, and ’tis my belief, comrades, that we have discovered a rich, new continent, with mines of copper and wonders untold. We sail again next year, and when we come back—if God wills—I’ll tell ye more about it. And now come along with me and see the three savages that the captain has brought home with him to show the king.”

There will be no lack of adventurers now to dare the Western Ocean. Ship after ship will push across the “black waters,” and every year will bring the New World into closer touch with the Old. Pass on, ye great pilots of Bristowe! Your flag is struck, your sails are furled, your ship is beached, but your work is done. In centuries to come the vast continent which ye have revealed shall be peopled by a great race, largely sprung from British loins, and speaking the brave English tongue. “Westward the star of Empire takes its way,” and ye are the first of our seamen to follow the star!

KING AND CARDINAL.

“_I charge thee, fling away ambition;_ _By that sin fell the angels._”

A stately procession now files by, headed by shaven and tonsured priests carrying silver crosses. Behind them a bareheaded noble carries the Great Seal of England, and another a cardinal’s hat on a cushion. Now you hear gentlemen ushers shout, “Make way for my lord’s grace!” and a splendid figure stalks past you with the air of a king. He wears the scarlet robe of a cardinal, with a tippet of fine sable and a gold chain about his neck, while on his feet are shoes of gold studded with jewels. In his hand he carries an orange-skin with a scented sponge in the midst. This he sniffs from time to time, lest he should catch some infection from the crowd that throngs his path. Behind him two great pillars of silver and a gilt mace are borne, and so he proceeds through Westminster Hall to the seat of justice. At his coming, suitors kneel to present their petitions and beg his favour. Anon he will devote himself diligently to the business of his high office, and will spare neither high nor low, but will judge all who come before him according to their merits and deserts.

No man in the kingdom, not even the king, lives in such splendour and magnificence. His palace is always filled with noblemen, gentlemen, and ambassadors from foreign countries, and his banquets and entertainments are the wonder of the age. Bluff King Hal and he are boon companions, and ofttimes you may see the monarch lean lovingly on the shoulder of his splendid chancellor. Sometimes he will visit his palace, and the cardinal will spare neither money nor ingenuity to divert the king.

A writer of the time tells us that “the banquets were set forth, with masks and mummeries, in so gorgeous a sort and costly manner that it was a heaven to behold. I have seen the king suddenly come in thither in a mask, with a dozen of other maskers, all in garments like shepherds, having sixteen torch-bearers, besides their drums. Ye shall understand what joy and delight the cardinal had to see his prince and sovereign lord in his house so nobly entertained and pleased.”

Who is this favoured mortal? He is Thomas Wolsey, the son of a wealthy wool-merchant of Ipswich. By his great ability and his zeal in the king’s service, he has raised himself from a comparatively humble position to be the envy of the greatest nobles in the land. “He is the person,” writes the Venetian ambassador, “who rules both the king and the kingdom. He is very handsome, learned, extremely eloquent, of vast ability, and indefatigable. He alone transacts all the business that occupies all the magistrates, offices, and councils of Venice. He has the reputation of being extremely just. He favours the people exceedingly, and especially the poor, hearing their suits and making the lawyers plead gratis for them.” But if he has friends among the poor, his pomp and pride have made him hosts of enemies among the proud and rich. The old nobles hate him, and would fain bring his haughty head to the dust. Nevertheless, even his enemies are forced to admit that he is the ablest statesman of his time, and the chief prop of the kingdom.

Truly, he treads all the ways of glory, and sounds all the depths and shoals of honour; but the knell of his greatness is soon to toll. The sun will no longer usher forth his honours, or gild again the noble troops that wait upon his smiles. Even now a woman’s bright eyes are weaning Henry from him, and soon he will be fain to say—

“The king has gone beyond me; all my glories In that one woman I have lost for ever.”

Listen to the story of his fall.

Never king came to his throne more blessed by nature, fortune, and circumstance than the eighth Henry. Nature had fashioned him as the handsomest and ablest monarch in Christendom. “He was tall and well proportioned . . . his complexion very fair and bright, with auburn hair combed straight and short in the French fashion, and a round face that would become a pretty woman.” But there was no effeminacy about him. He was devoted to tennis and extremely fond of jousting and hunting—“never taking his diversion without tiring eight or ten horses.” Nor was there a more accomplished king living. He spoke good French, Latin, and Spanish; he was a musician and an author, and even as a boy his ability and address most favourably impressed the great scholar Erasmus. With all these gifts and graces, Henry began his reign with the highest promise; but as the years went by he steadily changed for the worse. His unbridled self-will grew upon him until he became a cold-hearted despot, who made his whim the law of the land, and ruthlessly sent to the scaffold all on whom his displeasure fell. From the first he was absolute master of the realm, and could say, _L’état, c’est moi!_ Nevertheless, he was always careful to make his acts legal by getting Parliament to endorse them. He greatly valued his popularity with the people, and his ministers had to bear the blame of all his unpopular acts.

During the later years of Henry the Seventh’s reign, Arthur, the heir to the throne, had been married to Catherine, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Arthur died young, and the miserly old king, unwilling to part with Catherine’s rich dowry, proposed to marry her to her brother-in-law, Henry, who was six years her junior. Such an alliance was against the law of the Church, but a dispensation was readily obtained, and shortly after his accession Henry married her. For many years they lived happily together. “The king adores her, and her Highness him,” wrote her confessor, and never had any man a more faithful helpmeet. She was a fair-haired, gentle, pious woman, of a lively and gracious disposition, but not beautiful. As she grew older her health failed, and she became prematurely old and lost much of her attraction. All her children died except one—the Princess Mary. After eighteen years of married life Henry fell violently in love with Anne Boleyn, one of the queen’s maids of honour.

“Madame Anne,” wrote an eye-witness, “is not one of the handsomest women in the world. She is of middling stature and swarthy complexion, and has nothing but the king’s great love, and her eyes, which are black and beautiful.” She was, however, bright and lively, and had “wonderful long hair.” Soon Henry pretended to have scruples about the lawfulness of his marriage with his brother’s widow, and he persuaded himself that the death of his children was a visitation of God for his sin. Further, he argued that a son was necessary in the interests of his kingdom, for hitherto the rule of women had always provoked civil war. The real fact of the matter was that the selfish, self-willed king wanted to cast off Catherine in favour of a new, young wife. Before long Henry asked Pope Clement to declare that his marriage was null and void from the beginning.

Wolsey, as the Pope’s legate in England, was the natural channel of communication between the king and the Pope. Wolsey could not believe that Henry desired a dissolution of his marriage tie in order to contract an alliance with a giddy, insignificant lady of the court. Rather, he assumed, Henry was contemplating a union with some lady of the royal house of France, and this fell in with his pet scheme for securing the friendship of that powerful state. Believing this, he used his influence with the Pope. But the wearer of the triple crown was then in a parlous state. He was in the power of Charles the Fifth, nephew of Queen Catherine, and that monarch was determined that his aunt should not be divorced. At the same time, Clement was an ally of Henry’s, and was naturally anxious to assist him. In his dilemma the Pope sought to gain time, and therefore appointed Wolsey and the Italian Cardinal Campeggio to inquire into the case. In June 1529 the two cardinals opened their court in the great hall of the Black Friars’ Monastery in London. Catherine refused to plead, but knelt at the feet of her husband and made a touching appeal to him to spare her the indignity and injustice of divorce.

“Heaven witness, I have been to you a true and humble wife, At all times to your will conformable; Ever in fear to kindle your dislike, Yea, subject to your countenance, glad or sorry As I saw it inclined.”

She appealed to the Pope himself; then rising, bowed to the king, and refused to face the court again. The trial dragged on, and Henry became impatient and demanded speedy judgment.

Meanwhile Clement had made a treaty with the Emperor, and was no longer solicitous to retain the goodwill of the English king. He therefore revoked the commission, and ordered the cause to be transferred to Rome for a new trial. Henry, baffled and beaten, was furious, and Anne Boleyn skilfully fanned the flame of his wrath. She suggested that Wolsey had bungled the matter, and forthwith his doom was sealed. He was dismissed from his office as chancellor, and brought to trial for breaking an old law which forbade appeals to Rome. Wolsey said truthfully that he had only appealed to the Pope at the king’s request. Henry, however, denied that he had sanctioned the proceeding, and Wolsey, to the joy of his enemies, was found guilty. All his property was seized, and after he had made an abject submission, he was ordered to withdraw to his diocese of York.

Here he flung himself with all his old energy into his work as archbishop, and soon won the affection of the north-country folk. But he hungered and thirsted for his former greatness, and made the serious error of communicating with the ambassadors of the French king and the Emperor. When Henry heard of it his anger blazed forth once more. This was treason and nothing less, and Wolsey’s arrest was immediately ordered. Early in November he began his journey southward under an armed guard. Sick and heart-broken, with his health undermined, he travelled as far as Leicester, where at his coming the abbot of the place met him with the light of many torches and received him with great reverence. “Father abbot,” said he, “I am come to lay my bones among you.” Truer words were never spoken. A few days later he died, lamenting with his failing breath—

“Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in my age Have left me naked to mine enemies.”

So died the victim of a headstrong, selfish sovereign, who remorselessly flung away even the most devoted of his servants as soon as they had ceased to be useful to him.

THE NEW WORSHIP.

“_The old order changeth, yielding place to new,_ _And God fulfils Himself in many ways._”

There is a pause in our pageantry. While the next scene is preparing, let the story of the intervening period be briefly told. Twenty-eight years, long and fateful, have come and gone since Wolsey died of a broken heart, and in the interval a new England with a new destiny and a new faith has arisen. The years that have sped have been marked by religious upheaval, and by an extraordinary outburst of persecuting zeal. The fires of Smithfield have blazed, and the thumb-screw and the rack have done their fiendish work “for the glory of the Lord.” Henry in his rage against the Pope has swept away the monasteries, sent the monks adrift, and plundered them of their lands and riches. Year by year the doctrines of Church reformers have gained ground, and ere Henry’s long reign of terror and crime draws to a close, Protestantism is a powerful force in England. His son, Edward the Sixth, a precocious, consumptive lad of ten, succeeds, and then the reformers gain the upper hand. A new Prayer Book “in the vulgar tongue, understanded of the people at large,” is issued, and the Reformation is hurried on with undue speed. There is a ruthless and irreverent destruction of images, pictures, and stained glass in the churches, and many pious persons, otherwise favourable to the “new worship,” are shocked into opposition. To secure the triumph of Protestantism, Edward is persuaded on his deathbed to make a will excluding his Catholic sister Mary from the throne, and naming Lady Jane Grey as his successor.

The young king dies in his sixteenth year, and three days later Queen Jane is proclaimed. Not a hat is tossed in the air, not a cheer is raised. London declares for Mary; the nobles and gentry flock to her. The poor “eleven days’ queen”—young, innocent, and beautiful—is utterly deserted. She vanishes into the Tower, and her head pays the penalty of her father-in-law’s ambition.

Mary is now queen, and she sets herself immediately to undo the work of the Reformation and to restore England to the power of the Pope. She makes the fatal mistake of marrying Philip of Spain, whose horrible outrages on the Dutch have made him an object of terror and loathing in England. Soon he deserts her, and the miserable queen, racked by painful disease, throws her whole heart into a frenzied attempt to stamp out Protestantism in her realm. Martyrs perish at the stake, and the nation is horrified at the queen’s cruelty. And yet one cannot but be sorry for the wretched woman. In feeble health, miserable, and soured by the desertion of her husband, filled with anxious fears for the future of her kingdom, and conscious of the hatred of her people, she honestly believes that she is doing the will of Heaven in burning and torturing those of her subjects who do not see eye to eye with her in matters of religion. Every week her people grow more and more discontented; every week her health and spirits grow worse.

At length the climax is reached. Her husband drags her into war with France, and in the struggle “the chief jewel of the realm”—Calais—is lost. For two hundred years it has been in English hands, and its possession has meant the command of the “narrow seas.” Now England is without a foot of soil on French ground, and Englishmen grow bitterly angry at the thought. Mary has enough national spirit to understand the magnitude of the disaster. “When I am dead,” she cries, “you will find ‘Calais’ written on my heart!”

Ten months later, on the eve of a great national revolt, the miserable Mary dies, conscious that she has been a hopeless, helpless failure. She has striven to re-establish Romanism in the land, but has only succeeded in ringing its death-knell. Protestantism is again in the ascendant. While Mary’s obsequies are preparing, a great burst of joy sweeps over the country, for Elizabeth, her Protestant sister, is now queen.