the majority of cases. The "bookworms" were, in the estimation of such kind and disinterested critics as Richard Crumwell, the "real conspirators against reform and God's Word." Clerics who sought aid from the people were declared "lazy rogues and vagabonds," and were, by a special Statute of Henry VIII., condemned to be "burnt on the right hand." Gregory Crumwell writes to his father in a bantering tone of this class of monks "thieving on the sly," or by "some pious device," as Francis Bryan would have it. k There was another class of persons more dangerous to the State" than the "swineish brutes," or the "holy thieves," namely, the disemployed servants of the abbeys and convents-the masons, joiners, smiths, bakers, labourers, together with a vast number of small tenants who were dispossessed by the new landlords. These men averred hardily that they would neither beg nor starve. When connected with the religious houses those people were temperate and well-conducted. Driven to destitution by a rapacity so unexpected and general, they became furious, and joined in bands, seizing the flocks of the nobles and gentry, despoiling mansions, and levying contributions, wherever possible, on the agricultural and commercial classes. They also plundered the secular clergy, whom they accused of cowardice and collusion with the Crown against their good friends the monks.† They infested the highways day and night, and on the approach of danger took refuge in the woods or mountains. They showed no pity to the few new proprietors who fell into their hands, * MS. State Paper Office, Second Series. and far less mercy was bestowed upon themselves when captured by the landholders, or the irregular troops of the King. The next tree and a rope, or the sudden steel, were all the ceremonials used for their disposal-no form of law or trial. The King ordered proclamation to be made that "all highwaymen be hanged on the nearest tree as a warning to the followers of those lazy rogues called monks."* On one occasion some two hundred starving men attacked six cartloads of provisions belonging to the King; a fierce struggle took place between the guard of the convoy and their hungry assailants, who succeeded in carrying off the spoil. On the following day, however, twenty of the highwaymen were captured, and at once "hanged, without benefit of clergy."+ Roger Ascham relates that the English highwaymen of those times were "brave and generous." Those scenes continued-despairing famine contending hopelessly against the might of armed wealth-until the steel, the gibbet, and the prison plague decimated, and transformed, and subjugated a people, who, for centuries, had stood pre-eminent for their moral qualities, their sturdy independence, and their social comfort. Bad has passed; worse remains to come. I shall return to this sad subject in another chapter, wherein the condition of England is displayed by contemporary and indisputable evidence. * Royal Proclamations; Condition of the Realm; State Papers of Henry the Eighth's reign; Letters of Roland Lee. Radclyffe's Changed Tymes in the Countrie Parts. CHAPTER VII. A PLANTAGENET ON THE SCAFFLOD. TOWARDS the close of 1539 the dark chambers of the Tower and the Fleet received several notable persons who were doomed for the headsman or the gibbet. The Marquis of Exeter and Lord Montague-the latter the brother to Reginald Pole-were consigned to the Tower; and on the following day Sir Edward Neville and several others were arrested. Next came the venerable Countess of Salisbury, then nearly seventy years of age. The usual charges of high treason were preferred against all the prisoners. It was alleged that they joined in a plot to "assassinate the King's Highness, and to raise Reginald Pole to the throne by a marriage with the Princess Mary." "Witnesses and documentary evidence" were produced— indeed, the organising skill of Chancellor Audley and Thomas Crumwell seldom failed in producing these "essentials to a just conclusion," to use the words of Audley himself. Lords Exeter and Montague, Sir Edward Neville, two friars, and four persons of less note were all arraigned, found guilty, and speedily executed. Then the case of the "grand old Countess" succeeded. Distinguished for the best and most amiable qualities suited to adorn her sex and station, her treatment raised an almost universal sentiment of sympathy. "She appears," observes Sharon Turner, "to have been a woman with a Roman mind, as to firmness, dignity, and fortitude." All her contemporaries speak of her as a woman of noble, generous, and kindly nature. Whiting states that there was 66 no such noble dame in all the land as the Countess of Salisbury." She was not condemned to death for four months after her son and other relatives perished on the scaffold. The Earl of Southampton and the Bishop of Ely were commanded by Lord Crumwell to arrest the Countess of Salisbury. The report they made to the Crown "on the matter with which they were charged" exhibits the bearing and character of this illustrious lady : "Yesterday (Nov. 13) we travelled with the Lady Salisbury till almost night. She would utter and confess little or nothing more than the first day she did, but she still stood and persisted in the denial of all. This day, although we entreated her, sometimes with mild words, and now roughly and aspertly, by traitoring her and her sons to the ninth degree, yet would she nothing utter, but utterly denieth all that is objected unto her. We suppose that there hath not been saw or heard of a woman so earnest, so manlike in countenance. We must needs deem that her sons have not made her privy nor participant of the bottom and pit of their stomachs or else she is the most arrant traitress that ever was seen." The Commissioners then describe the plans they adopted to "affright her :" they found "some Bulls and other documents, which proved her sympathies to be rather with the Pope than with the King;" they describe her resolute bearing during the investigation, searching, and journey." "We assure your lordships, we have dealed with such a one as men have not dealed with all before us. We may call her rather a strong and constant man than a woman; for, in all behaviour, howsoever we have used her, she hath showed herself so earnest, vehement, and precise, that more could not be."* Lord Crumwell despatched a note to the King containing his own opinion of "the traitress." "She," the Countess, "hath been examined; and in effect she pretendeth ignorauce, and no knowledge of the person that should report the tale. . I shall never cease until the bottom of her stomach may be clearly opened and disclosed." The Countess confessed no treason; had nothing to confess; to use her own words, but that her "first allegiance was due to the Church; the second to the throne and the realm."+ She possessed all the pride and courage of the Plantagenets. There is no record extant of the exact charges made against the Countess of Salisbury; but we must accept that she was condemned under the special laws for high treason then in vogue. She remained a prisoner in the Tower for some eighteen months, during which period she was permitted to suffer incredible privations. "Want of warm clothing in winter; placed in a damp cell without fire; not sufficient bed covering, and bad food; added to this ill-treatment, the frequent and untimely visits of those 'men of iron heart and grosser conduct '-the warders." To use her own words, she "was allowed one privilege, for which she was grateful, and valued more than fine dishes or *MS. Cal. D. 11. + Ellis, Royal Letters, pp. 112, 114, 115; Strype's Memorials, p. 521; Sharon Turner, vol. x.; Lingard, vol. v. There is a diary extant in which Catherine Howard entered the names of various articles of warm clothing which she clandestinely sent to Lady Salisbury; but it is very possible that these things were never delivered. |