Chapter XXII: The White Rose Party

With the leaders of the Pilgrimage died the spirit of active resistance to Henry. The gentlemen and commons had struck their blow and failed. There still remained the White Rose party at court. Its members had done nothing during the rebellion. They only whispered together and exchanged tokens and dreamed of better days. They were all under suspicion and constantly watched by royal spies, warned against consorting together, often in disgrace and banished from court. It was impossible that they could be dangerous to Henry. The proof of this has already been given. The Pilgrimage was the one good opportunity to carry out their long-cherished plans. If the Marquis of Exeter had raised the west and Lord Montague had raised Hampshire, the south would have been plunged into turmoil and the northern Pilgrims would have been able to march on London at leisure. Henry might have been forced to fly, and Mary proclaimed queen. But, as a matter of fact, Exeter marched to join Norfolk with all the force he could make; not one of the conservative nobles raised a man to second the Pilgrims; and Cardinal Pole, in spite of the Pope’s encouragement, made not the slightest effort to improve the occasion. Their one chance slipped from the listless hands of the White Rose party. They did not even know that it was lost.

Why was Henry so bent upon the ruin of these very inefficient conspirators that he actually told the French ambassador that he meant to exterminate the house of Pole[1462]? It is true that he was very angry with Reginald Pole; he regarded with jealousy all who could lay claim to the blood royal; and he may have believed them to be more dangerous than they were. He was already troubled by a disease so painful as partly to account for the savage hatred of opposition which became little less than madness towards the end of his life. But all this is merely to say that he was a blood-thirsty tyrant, and that, however useful as abuse, is not a really satisfactory explanation of any human being’s actions.

The answer to the problem is to be found in Henry’s superb belief in his own divine right to rule. His admirers have tried to slur over the ferocity of his treason laws by vague talk of “compelled severity” and “temporary necessity.” It may be modestly suggested that there is another explanation. There was no very pressing need for these laws, as the old treason law was quite sufficiently severe, but Henry honestly believed that they were just. To him treason was the blackest of all crimes, not a mere political offence which might be committed by a virtuous person with the highest motives, but a crime worse than murder or perjury against the innocent. The man who dared to criticise the title of Supreme Head of the Church was as guilty and as worthy of death as those who resisted him in arms; he made no distinctions between those who opposed him in thought, deed, or word. The catholic martyrs died for their opinions. The Pilgrims died for maintaining their opinions with their swords. The “Exeter Conspirators” died for a few careless words—for a wish—for a dream of majesty.

It is surprising that Pole’s family remained in England. They might have fled to him at Rome, where their lives at least would have been safe. They considered flight,—they often talked of it, but apparently they could not bring themselves to face the results. The thought of becoming a landless exile was intolerable to most English gentlemen. Lord Montague might have chosen it rather than death, but he would not leave the country until the danger was imminent, and then it was too late for flight, for Henry struck swiftly. Sir Geoffrey Pole, with less to lose, often planned to join Reginald, but Montague and other friends dissuaded him, on the grounds that it would put the family in a worse position than ever. The Poles were always expecting a change of policy and a reconciliation with Rome. If this opinion was treasonable the King would have had to execute half the nobility to root it out. So the doomed family awaited the event, if not in security, at least with surprising calmness, as they were not by any means unwarned.

When Reginald Pole sent his book _De Unitate Ecclesiastica_ to Henry in 1536[1463], it was carried by an English servant who had followed his fortunes, a man named Michael Throgmorton[1464]. He was of good family, and a suitable person to be intrusted with such a delicate mission, as he was both faithful and quick-witted. He did not undertake his errand very willingly, for he had a natural fear that it would end in the Tower rather than in his return to Italy. His apprehension was well founded. Henry was furiously angry at Pole’s opinions and Throgmorton was detained in London, in great danger, until January 1536–7. The country was in open rebellion throughout the autumn, and his brother, Sir George Throgmorton was in the Tower on a charge of spreading Aske’s manifestos[1465].

In January came the news that Pole had been created a Cardinal[1466]. Before he set out on his journey Throgmorton had begged that if this promotion took place it might be kept secret until he had made his escape from England[1467], but no attempt was made at secrecy, and Throgmorton might well feel his head unsteady on his shoulders. Nevertheless he lived to be one of the few men who could boast of outwitting Cromwell[1468]. He played his cards well, declaring himself completely out of sympathy with Pole and the King’s most loyal subject. He spoke of his influence over his master, and undertook to use every means to bring Pole back to England and his allegiance. He even consented to enlist in Cromwell’s secret service, and became officially the King’s chief spy on the traitor Pole. At the cost of such “crafty and subtle conveyance” he obtained leave to return to Rome, and by 26 January 1536–7 he was on his way thither with a light heart[1469]. He had completely “bleared” Cromwell’s eyes, for he never had the least intention of playing his master false.

Throgmorton arrived at Rome on 13 February. He carried letters for the Cardinal from the Privy Council, who professed themselves unspeakably shocked at Pole’s ingratitude. But they offered to send certain wise men to meet him in Flanders in order to argue him into a better frame of mind, always provided that he came as a private person, without a commission from the Pope[1470].

Throgmorton found his master dressed in his cardinal’s robes, and delivered the letters together with credence to the same effect. He admitted in his first report to Cromwell that his persuasions had as yet been useless; “great men are not lightly persuaded and he especially.” The writing of these reports must have been a great joy to Throgmorton[1471].

Pole had been created a papal legate on 7 February, and he was about to set out for Flanders[1472], in spite of the fact that the King had refused, in such a case, to send anyone to meet him[1473]. Throgmorton represented him in this as the well-meaning tool of the scheming court of Rome; “let them mean as they will, he means all for the best, and to the honour of God and his Church, without dissimulation, covetousness or ambition.”[1474] Throgmorton hoped that Cromwell would not object to his going with his master, for although he was the King’s man, he was loth to leave Pole on account of his rare virtues and good life. He referred the question to Cromwell, as no man could give better counsel in such a case, because no man had more proved the profit and comfort of true fidelity[1475]. One of Cromwell’s genuine spies recorded that Michael Throgmorton had an open and simple-minded manner[1476]. It must have been a very simple manner to carry off remarks of that sort. But for some time Cromwell did not suspect that there was anything wrong.

Cardinal Pole was about to move at last. The avowed purpose of his legation was an attempt to help forward a general pacification, to inquire into the spread of heresy, and to announce a general council. Its real purpose was to arrange the affairs of England[1477]. According to the news then current in Rome, Henry had given way to the Pilgrims, and intended to hold a northern parliament in the spring. It was taken for granted that this parliament would restore the Pope’s authority in England, and it was essential that a papal legate should be present to see that everything was done in the right way. Also it was only proper that his Holiness should show his approval of “the manly and Christian demonstration those people are making.” Pole never reproached himself for his delay at the time of the insurrection. His one anxiety was to be in time for the parliament. It was doubtful whether he would accomplish this, as he was a very bad traveller. It occurred to him that the King might be deceiving the Pilgrims, that he might intend no reform, but sought only to quiet them and then to dispose of their leaders; in fact that Henry might be doing the very thing that he was doing. Pole suggested that if this were the case, someone, not himself, should be sent to England to exhort the people, in the Pope’s name, to stand firm, and that large sums of money should be ready in Flanders in case of need[1478].

One of Pole’s last acts before starting was to answer the letter of the Privy Council[1479]. He stated his case well, but the matter had gone far beyond the reach of argument. Pole’s only justification was that he was convinced he was right, and Henry’s only reply was that Pole was hopelessly wrong. A meeting with Henry’s agents in Flanders could have led to nothing more satisfactory, and perhaps Pole realised this when in reply to the Council’s proposal he said that he would receive emissaries only if they were sent to him as to a cardinal and a legate.

At length Pole set out, but he was a long time on the journey. About 16 April 1537 he was at Cambrai[1480], but he would not have reached even that point so soon if all had gone as he hoped on the way. There was a clause in the treaties between England and France that neither King should receive or assist the rebel subjects of the other; in marked contrast to the modern custom by which political offenders are especially exempted from extradition treaties, this clause was held to mean that a proscribed traitor who sought refuge in the other country must be seized and given up to his own government. Francis I sent word to Henry that Pole had entered his kingdom as legate[1481]. The French King regarded the Pope as the Emperor’s ally, and was ready to conciliate Henry at his expense, if he could do so without danger to himself. Henry commanded his ambassador in France, Gardiner Bishop of Winchester, to desire Francis to apprehend Pole and send him to England. Gardiner obeyed, and Francis replied that Pole had entered his dominions under safe-conduct, and that he could not arrest him, but he would send him word to depart within ten days[1482].

Henry was not satisfied. He despatched Sir Francis Brian on 8 April to demand Pole again and to remind Francis I that the treaty did not recognise safe-conducts[1483]. The French King did not dare to quarrel with Henry, but to apprehend Pole would have brought about an open breach with the Pope. The King was with the army, and when on 10 April Pole made his state entry as legate into Paris, he was met by a gentleman of the King’s chamber, who informed him that he must press on to Cambrai without seeing Francis[1484].

Henry was enraged at Pole’s escape. He blamed Gardiner and Brian for lack of zeal and care. He bade them reproach Francis I with the legate’s honourable reception[1485], and at the same time he sent by the hands of John Hutton, his agent in the Netherlands, letters to the Regent of the Netherlands, which adjured her on pain of breaking solemn treaties to prevent Pole’s entry into the Emperor’s dominions. If he were already over the borders, she must send him injunctions to leave within the time specified by treaty[1486].

Pole took refuge in the independent archbishopric of Cambrai. He was obliged to stay there all through May, though he was in considerable danger. Henry, who had not forgiven Gardiner and Brian for the first failure, wrote to them on 25 April: “And for as much as we would be very glad to have the said Pole trussed up and conveyed to Calais, we desire and pray you to consult and devise between you thereupon.” Could not Brian secretly get together some men capable of such an enterprise? Francis I himself suggested that his Italians might “snap up” the legate some time when he was beyond the walls of the town[1487]. Pole was careful to keep within the gates, for skirmishing parties were constantly about, and he soon discovered that, in obedience to their orders, Henry’s agents had surrounded him with “spies and betrayers.”[1488]

The days at Cambrai must have been very bitter to Pole. The French King had ignominiously turned him out; the Regent of the Netherlands, though more truly his friend, dared not ignore Henry’s protests[1489]. All hope of a peaceful and honourable return to England had vanished. The Pilgrims were in the Tower awaiting death, and Pole was within measurable distance of joining them. He was told that 100,000 pieces of English gold would be given to any man who brought him to England alive or dead[1490].

Sir Francis Brian had undertaken the mission, and that one-eyed “minion” declared that if the Cardinal returned to France he would kill him with his own hand[1491]. All around Cambrai was the turmoil of a great European war. The Emperor’s host was encamped round the city. The brave Queen of Hungary, Regent of the Netherlands, who wore over her kirtle “a jerkin of black leather with eyelet holes to wear harness upon,” vowed that if Francis would await her forces but fifteen days she would show him “what God may strength a woman to do.”[1492] Pole, who had been sent to urge peace upon the combatants, was an embarrassment to all parties. The Regent peevishly exclaimed that her enemy had sent him simply to trouble her[1493]. Evil days had fallen on the ambassador of the Holy See.

It does Pole much honour that he was willing and even anxious to persevere against all these discouragements. His chief hope was that he might keep up the hearts of “these poor, good men” the commons of England. He imagined that his presence near at hand might encourage them to new endeavour. But he was too late, and the people of the north had other and nearer sorrows to mourn than the decay of the Pope’s authority.

At last the Cardinal’s friends in Flanders determined to help him to a place of safety, although they were hampered by the English King’s constant threats that if Pole crossed the borders and were not arrested, he would consider that the treaties were broken[1494]. They replied at length that a legate was outside such treaties, and that they had gone as far as possible to please Henry when the Regent refused to receive the Cardinal. The Pope had especially recommended Pole to the care of his fellow-cardinal Erarde de la Marck, the Prince Bishop of Liége, who was the head of the Regent’s Council[1495]. The Bishop secretly offered Pole a safe harbour in his own see, but he suggested that Pole should travel in disguise, to which the legate, feeling that in his person the dignity of the Apostolic See would be compromised, could not bring himself to consent[1496]. During the last days of May an escort was sent, which conducted him honourably, but without all the state that was his due, through Flanders to Liége. Here he was received with pontifical honours, provided with money, and lodged in “the old palace.”[1497] “They take him there for a young god,” wrote Hutton scornfully to Cromwell.

One day a starving Englishman came to John Hutton and begged for alms. His name was William Vaughan, and he had fled from England accused of manslaughter. He told Hutton that he had begged for help from Henry Phillips, an English student at Louvain who had betrayed Tyndale. Phillips had offered to introduce Vaughan into Cardinal Pole’s service, or rather into the service of Michael Throgmorton. Phillips said that Throgmorton was about to sail secretly for England, carrying letters to Pole’s friends hidden in a loaf of bread. Hutton seized this opportunity. He gave Vaughan money, and promised him a pardon and further reward if he would contrive to sail with Throgmorton; as soon as they reached England Vaughan must see that Throgmorton was arrested[1498].

Vaughan set out for Liége with an uneasy conscience, but beggars cannot be choosers[1499]. He went to Throgmorton, who regarded him with suspicion. It was so common, however, for one English exile to ask help of another that Pole consented to speak to him. When Vaughan came into his presence, the Cardinal said, “As I am informed, you be banished out of your native country as well as I”; he added that he liked to meet a Welshman, as his grandfather came out of Wales. Vaughan asked to be taken into the Cardinal’s service, saying that he was destitute. Pole answered that he had all the servants that he needed while travelling, but if Vaughan would come to him again in Italy, he should have a place. He gave the man a crown, and bade him go back to gather news[1500]. These newsbearers must often have been puzzled to know whose spies they were.

On 10 June Pole wrote to Italy, still in good hopes that his mission might prosper, although his life was in danger. He had discovered to whom he was indebted for Vaughan’s visit[1501]. Other spies were sent by Sir Thomas Palmer, the porter of Calais, and Pole heard that special assassins had been despatched from England[1502]. Michael Throgmorton’s expedition to England was abandoned, probably because the Cardinal received news from his family about this time. The messenger was Hugh Holland, who had formerly been in the service of Sir Geoffrey Pole, but was now a merchant in the trade with Flanders. Some years before Holland had secretly smuggled into France John Heliar, the vicar of East Meon and rector of Warblington, a dependent of the Poles, who fled partly because he wanted to study in Paris, but chiefly because he disliked the King’s proceedings[1503]. Holland was still in communication with Heliar and conveyed his correspondence[1504].

“After Easter” 1537 Holland heard that wheat was selling well in Flanders, and arranged to carry a cargo across. Before he embarked Sir Geoffrey Pole sent for him and said, “I hear say you intend to go into Flanders. My brother, I hear say, is in those parts. Will you do me an errand unto him?”

Holland was quite willing, and Sir Geoffrey gave him the following message:

“I pray you commend me to my brother and show him I would I were with him, and will come to him if he will have me; for show him the world in England waxeth all crooked, God’s law is turned upso-down, abbeys and churches overthrown, and he is taken for a traitor; and I think they will cast down parish churches and all at the last. And because he shall trust you, show him this token, and show him also that Mr Wilson and Powell be in the Tower yet, and show him further that there be sent from England daily to destroy him, and that much money would be given for his head; and that the Lord Privy Seal said openly in the court that he, speaking of the said Cardinal, should destroy himself well enough; and that Mr Brian and Peter Mewtas was sent into France to kill him with a hand-gun or otherwise as they should see best.”

The day before Holland sailed Sir Geoffrey sent for him again and said, “How sayest thou, Hugh, if I go over with thee myself and see that good fellow?”

Hugh replied, “Nay, sir, my ship is fully loaded, and the mariners be not meet for this purpose.”

“Well then, I pray you remember what I have said unto you, and fare you well.”

Holland sailed to Nieuport, sold his wheat, and went on to Cambrai, where he expected to find the Cardinal, but Pole had already set out for Liége. Holland overtook him at Alne Abbey. Throgmorton received the messenger and questioned him. Hearing that he came from Sir Geoffrey, Throgmorton went and told the Cardinal. After mass Holland was sent for and found the Cardinal in the church. He delivered his message. Pole said, “And would my Lord Privy Seal so fain kill me? Well, I trust it shall not lie in his power. The King is not contented to bear me malice himself, but provoketh other against me, and hath written to the French king that he should not receive me as Cardinal or legate; but yet I was received into Paris better than some men would.”[1505]

They talked for a little while about English matters, and then the Cardinal gave Holland the following messages:

“Commend me to my lady my mother by the same token that she and I looking upon a wall together read this, ‘_Spes mea in Deo est_,’[1506] and desire her blessing for me. I trust she will be glad of mine also; and if I wist that she were of the opinion that other be there, mother as she is mine, I would tread upon her with my feet. Commend me to my lord my brother by this token, ‘_In domino Confido_,’ and to my brother Sir Geoffrey, and bid him meddle little and let all things alone.”[1507] The Cardinal did not consider it expedient that either of his brothers should join him. He bade them both tarry in England “and hold up yea and nay.”[1508]

It is impossible to avoid the thought that if the Cardinal had encouraged Geoffrey in his proposed flight, instead of snubbing him, the coming tragedy must have been, in part prevented. Lord Montague would probably have been put to death in any case, but England would have been spared the worst insult to humanity,—the degradation of the miserable Sir Geoffrey, the horror of a brother’s betrayal by a brother, the agony of their mother. Unluckily Sir Geoffrey Pole was not a very desirable inmate for a Cardinal’s household. He was stupid and extravagant, timid and untrustworthy. The Cardinal acted with his usual gentle selfishness. He refused to undertake the disagreeable responsibility, and left Lord Montague, in addition to all his other perils, to cope with this unsatisfactory younger brother.

Holland delivered all the messages to Sir Geoffrey Pole when he returned to England. Sir Geoffrey forbade him to repeat them to the Countess of Salisbury or to Lord Montague, because Montague “was out of his mind and would show all to the Lord Privy Seal.”[1509] He did not mean that Montague would betray the matter on purpose, but he was such a reckless speaker that his tongue was sure to endanger the secret. This was all the communication that Reginald Pole had with his brothers while he was in Flanders, and it cannot be said to have seriously threatened the throne of England.

The Cardinal stayed quietly at Liége until the Pope summoned him back to Rome[1510]. His Holiness needed him and his present position was doing no good, nor was it very dignified. In August Pole prepared to set out for Rome[1511]. In all his correspondence during his stay in Flanders there is strangely little reference to the Pilgrims. The months during which he was so near England were the very months of the King’s vengeance. Pole must have known the English news, for Henry was eager to spread reports of the terrible justice that he was doing. Yet in all Pole’s letters not one of the northern leaders is mentioned by name. Their effort for the Faith is spoken of only in the most general terms, and though there are vague allusions to the King’s cruelty there is no word of their trial and death[1512].

This silence effectually disposes of the idea that Pole had any share in encouraging the rebellion, but when it is contrasted with the wide-spread horror at the martyrdom of More and Fisher, and with the admiration expressed for their constancy, the feeling arises that the Papal court and the catholic clergy generally were guilty of a snobbish callousness to the fate of less renowned but not less worthy upholders of their cause. The King’s faithlessness to the insurgents was perfectly well known abroad. Laymen were not so absorbed in his attack on the Church as to overlook his treatment of his subjects[1513], but the court of Rome would calmly have watched Henry grind Englishmen to powder so long as he did not interfere with the Pope’s power and dignity. The Pope considered only his relations with the King and ignored the people, while his one chance of triumph lay in keeping his hold upon the nation, as was done in Ireland. There were two reasons for this indifference on the part of the Roman Church. In the first place, many of its supporters, Pole among them, shrank from the charge of encouraging rebellion. In the second, European statesmen in the spring of 1537 had little thought to spare on the internal state of England. The war absorbed the western states; in the south the Turks were threatening Rome itself.

Nevertheless Pole, an Englishman sent especially to watch English affairs, might have shown more interest in the fate of the Pilgrims. On 21 July, 1537, a week after Aske was hanged at York, the Cardinal wrote to the Pope to mention the suggestion of an English student at Louvain that all the Church should fast and pray for the return of England to the fold, and that certain days should be appointed for the fast. Pole was much pleased with the thought, and believed that it would do more good than any “censures or curses.”[1514] It would certainly be safer.

The Cardinal left Liége on 22 August, “riding solemnly through the city, giving his benediction to the people, with a cross borne before him and other ceremonies.”[1515] Two days before Michael Throgmorton had written his second and last report to Cromwell. Cromwell had commanded him to return to England, and much of the letter was filled with explanations as to why Throgmorton did not obey the summons. He protested that he could serve the King much better if he stayed at Rome with his master. He described the intended prayers for the unity of the Church, and added that if the King did not shortly repent Pole would publish his book as a defence against the charge of treason. Throgmorton insisted that his master sought the King’s honour and wealth, and that everyone about him marvelled that the King did nothing but try to procure his ruin[1516].

Cromwell’s first impulse on receiving this letter was to prevent Pole’s return to Rome. A letter to Throgmorton was drafted which contained an offer that, though the King felt nothing but contempt for all that the Bishop of Rome could do against him, yet “to save him whom he hath from his cradle nourished and brought up in learning,” he would send Dr Wilson and another of his own chaplains to confer with Pole in Flanders[1517]. Instructions for the chaplains were drawn up[1518], but they never started on their mission. There is nothing to show the reason which made Cromwell change his mind. Perhaps some fresh news came, or perhaps he merely decided on second thoughts that it was impossible to conciliate Pole, and the wider the breach with him became the better. Dropping his mask, he for once wrote his real mind and sent the letter after Throgmorton. It is too long to quote in full, and no mere extract can do it justice[1519].

Cromwell began by denouncing the treasons of Pole and the treachery of Throgmorton, whom he had taken for a faithful subject. “I might better have judged that so dishonest a master could have but even such servants as you are.... You could not all this time have been a spy for the King, but at some time your countenance should have declared your heart to be loyal. No! you and your master have both well declared how little fear of God resteth in you, which, led by vain promise of promotion, thus against his laws works treason towards your natural prince and country, to serve an enemy of God, an enemy of all honesty, an enemy of right religion, a defender of iniquity, a merchant and occupier of all deceits.” How foolish was Throgmorton to try to defend this “silly cardinal” from the name of traitor. All the world knew how well he deserved it. “Now if those that have made him thus mad can also persuade him to print his detestable book, where one lie leapeth in every line on another’s neck, he shall be then as much bound to them for their good counsel as his family to him for his wise dealing. He will, I trow, have as little joy thereof as his friends and kinsfolk are like to take profit of it. Pity it is that the folly of one brainsick Pole, or, to say better, of one witless fool, should be the ruin of so great a family. Let him follow ambition as fast as he can, these that little have offended (saving that he is of their kin) were it not for the great mercy and benignity of the prince, should and might feel what it is to have such a traitor to their kinsman.” Let him bring forth his book. He is not out of reach of the King’s “justice” even in Italy. “Amongst all your pretty news these are very pleasant, that the Bishop of Rome intendeth to make lamentation to the world and to desire every man to pray that his old gains may return home again.... I have done what I may to save you. I must, I think, do what I can to see you condignly punished. God send you both to fare as ye deserve—either shortly to come to your allegiance, or else to a shameful death.”[1520] With this blessing hard on his heels Pole began his journey back to Rome. His first legation was ended.

The White Rose party in England had done nothing to help the Pilgrims. It would have been well for them if they had said as little; and yet the words that were afterwards objected against them were sometimes clearly innocent, sometimes just touched with disaffection to the government,—very seldom coming even under the most stringent treason law ever enforced in England. At the time of the rebellion a friend went to see Sir Geoffrey Pole at his house at Lordington, and found him mustering men who were to march with him against the insurgents.

“I must go northwards,” said Sir Geoffrey, “but I will shift for one well enough, if they come to fighting—I will save one.”

“Well, if you intend so,” returned his friend, “you were best to have a good horse under you.”[1521]

It seems almost incredible that this old, old soldier’s joke about running away at the first shot should have been interpreted by Froude as an avowed “intention of deserting in action, if an action was fought—real, bad, black treason.”[1522]

The Marquis of Exeter had gone northward to join Norfolk against the Pilgrims. One day when his wife was sitting alone, Sir Edward Neville came to her. He was an intimate friend of the family, and Lord Montague’s brother-in-law. He greeted her with “Madam, how do you? Be you merry?”

She answered, “How can I be merry? My lord is gone to battle and he will be one of the foremost.”

“Madam, be not afeared of this,” said Sir Edward, “nor of the second, but beware of the third.”

“Ah, Mr Neville, you will never leave your Welsh prophecies,” replied the Lady Marquis, “but one day this will turn you to displeasure.”[1523]

Sir Edward’s mysterious words may have been treason, but they are even more unintelligible now than they were to the Lady Marquis. Sir Edward was much given to singing “merry songs”; in the Lady Marquis’s garden at Horsley, where both Neville and Lord Montague were welcome guests, he would sometimes add political stanzas to his songs, such as that he “trusted knaves should be put down, and lords should reign one day.”[1524] Perhaps it was on the same occasions that he used to abuse the King “saying his Highness was a beast and worse than a beast.”[1525]

One day at court Sir Edward drew Sir Geoffrey Pole aside and said, “God’s Blood! I am made a fool amongst them, but I laugh and make merry to drive forth the time. The King keepeth a sort of knaves here that we dare neither look nor speak; and if I were able to live, I would rather live any life in the world than tarry in the Privy Chamber.” Another time he said, “Master Pole, let us not be seen to speak together; we be had in suspicion; but it forceth not, we shall do well enough one day.”

The little group of friends were constantly being warned against each other. The King himself bade Sir Edward avoid the Marquis of Exeter. Sir Edward told his friend, “I may no longer keep you company”; and the Marquis quietly answered, “I pray Our Lord be with you,” and no more[1526]. Every act of friendship among the suspected nobles was used against them by Cromwell. A certain bearward of the Marquis was in trouble about the end of the year 1537[1527]. He was “in prison for treason” in the west country. His offence does not appear, but it cannot have compromised the Marquis, as the affair was not mentioned at his trial. The bearward was executed at Gloucester in February 1537–8[1528]. Sir Edward Neville heard of his arrest and very naturally told the Marquis “to look to it, as it was much against his honour.”[1529] Exeter sent to Cromwell to inquire about the matter. The result was unexpected. Cromwell told the King and a royal messenger was sent to Exeter to charge him on his allegiance to declare who had told him of the bearward’s apprehension. Exeter was astonished and alarmed that so simple a matter should be taken so seriously. The messenger found him “the most appalled man that ever he saw.” The Marquis answered at first that he would “liever die than to disclose his friend, for it did not touch the King.” Afterwards he tried to smooth the matter over by producing a servant who said that he had heard about the bearward “in Paul’s, but of whom he could not tell.”[1530]

Exeter was a loyal friend. On another occasion, when Montague was in trouble, he defended him in the Privy Council, and offered to be bound “body for body” for him[1531]. The Marquis disliked the King’s policy, but there is no proof that he ever engaged in treasonable practices. He contented himself with grumbling occasionally to his friends, and for the rest took things as they came. One day when Sir Geoffrey Pole was riding to London he met the Marquis and turned back a little way to talk to him. Exeter said that he had been compelled to give up his wardenship of Windsor and to take abbey lands instead.

“What!” cried Sir Geoffrey, “be you come to this point to take abbey lands now?”

“Yea,” said the Marquis, “good enough for a time; they must have all again one day.”

Exeter had on one occasion been obliged to receive Cromwell at Horsley; he gave his guest “a summer coat and a wood knife.” At the first opportunity he winked at Sir Geoffrey Pole and said, “Peace! knaves rule about the King,” and then holding up and shaking his fist, “I trust to give them a buffet one day.”[1532] It was very distasteful to a nobleman of the blood royal to play host to the lowborn favourite, who was also his personal enemy.

A fortnight before Christmas 1536 a story was told at Stoke in Somerset of a quarrel between the Lord Privy Seal and the Marquis of Exeter. It was said that the Marquis had drawn his dagger on Cromwell, whose life was saved only by his coat of fence. Cromwell ordered the Marquis to the Tower, “but if he had been put there ... he would have been fetched out again though the best of the realm had said nay.”[1533] There is no reason to believe that this rumour had any foundation in fact; it bears a marked resemblance to the story that Lord William Howard had assassinated Richard Cromwell[1534]. Nevertheless it illustrates the affection which the people of the west felt for Exeter.

The Marquis hated the new learning and his servants sometimes quoted their master’s opinions indiscreetly. His “yeoman of the horse” used to go to a certain goldsmith in London for the garnishing of horse harness. Protestantism was now spreading rapidly in London, especially among the shop-keepers, and one day the yeoman of the horse found the goldsmith’s wife reading the New Testament in English.

“What do you with these new books of heresy in English?” he said to her. “Well, well, there will a day come that will pay for all.”

She asked what day that might be, and he answered, “The day will come there shall be no more wood spent upon you heretics, but you will be tied together, sacked, and thrown into Thames.”

When she asked him who should do so, he said the Bishop of London [Stokesley].

“We care not for the Bishop of London,” she cried, “thanked be God and our gracious King; but would to God my lord your master would read the Gospel in English, and suffer his servants to do the same.”

On this the man affirmed with an oath, “If my Lord know any of his servants either to have any of these books in English or to read any of the same, they shall never do him any longer service.”[1535]

Lord Montague was as little inclined to conspire as his friends, but he was a careless talker. The cautious Lord Stafford, his brother-in-law, said, “I like him not, he dare speak so largely.”[1536] It is evident from his recorded sayings that he could not refrain from sallies against Henry and his favourites. He was a man of boldness and wit and took great pleasure in Sir Thomas More’s books[1537]. He thought that the Pilgrimage had been mismanaged: “Twishe, Geoffrey ... the Lord Darcy played the fool; he went about to pluck away the council. He should first have begun with the head; but I beshrew them for leaving off so soon.”[1538] He was indignant that the commons had been quieted with false promises. “Time hath been when nothing was more surer to reckon upon than the promise of a prince but now they count it no promise, but a policy to blind the people, wherefore if the commons do rise again they will trust to no fair promise nor words.”[1539] In happier circumstances Montague thought his party might have helped the Pilgrims: “If my lord Abergavenny (his father-in-law) were alive, he were able to make a great number of men in Kent and Sussex.”[1540]

Others of Montague’s sayings were that “Wolsey had been an honest man had he had an honest master”[1541]; “the King and Cromwell were both of one nature and what became of the nobility of the whole realm they cared not so they might live themselves at their own pleasure”; “the King gloried with the title to be Supreme Head next God, yet he had a sore leg that no poor man would be glad of, and that he should not live long for all his authority next God’s”; and that “the King and his whole issue stand accursed.”[1542]

These words and many others of the same sort were treason under the new act. Montague “grudged” at this act, and thought that the Council should devise a “charitable punishment” for treason “so that men should not die therefore.” He had “seen more gentleness and benignity in times past at the King’s hands than he doth nowadays.” Nor was it merely because the new laws pressed hardly on his own party that he disliked them. If he lived to see a better world, he hoped that Cromwell and the other “knaves” should “have punishment for their offences without cruelty.”[1543]

Montague lived on intimate terms with his brother Sir Geoffrey, but they had one estrangement when Sir Geoffrey entered the King’s service against the advice of his brother and the Marquis. Montague tried to dissuade him by the argument that the King “would go so far that all the world would mislike him.” He himself had never loved the King from childhood, and believed that Henry would some day go mad[1544]. Moreover nothing was so dangerous as court favour; “the King never made man but he destroyed him again, either by displeasure or with the sword.”[1545] Nevertheless Sir Geoffrey made suit to the King and was received into his service. Lord Montague told him bluntly that “they were flatterers who followed the court and none served the King but knaves.”[1546] For a time Sir Geoffrey saw little of his friends, who no longer talked openly before him but treated him as if he had turned his back on his own party[1547].

The news of Reginald Pole’s arrival in Flanders and the attempts on his life put the whole court and especially the White Rose party in a flutter. A lady named Elizabeth Darrell, who was certainly a great gossip, told Sir Geoffrey that Peter Mewtas had gone to Flanders to get rid of the Cardinal[1548]. It was on this occasion that Sir Geoffrey sent the Cardinal the above-mentioned warning by Hugh Holland[1549]. Later, forgetting their differences, he went to Lord Montague, whom he found in his garden.

“I hear our brother beyond the sea shall be slain,” he said.

“No,” replied Montague, “he is escaped. I have letters.”[1550] These letters must have contained news of the Cardinal’s safe retreat to Liége. They were from someone who heard the court news, Mistress Darrell or the Lady Marquis of Exeter.

“By God’s blood,” swore Sir Geoffrey later to Mistress Darrell, “and if he [Mewtas] had slain him [the Cardinal] I would have thrust my dagger in him although he had been at the King’s heels.”[1551] He was not as yet on his old terms with Montague, or he would surely have told him of the message from the Cardinal, however much he feared his brother’s lack of discretion. Hugh Holland’s errand was the only definite act of treason committed by any of the Poles, and Sir Geoffrey alone was responsible for it. The Cardinal’s danger was discussed in Lord Montague’s household, where the servants believed that the Cardinal “should do them all good one day,” and that “it were a [meet] marriage betwixt my Lady Mary and the Cardinal Pole.”[1552] One of the servants, named Morgan Wells, said openly that he “would kill with a hand-gun Peter Mewtas or any other whom he should know to kill the Cardinal Pole, and that he was going overseas for that purpose.” When he told this to Lord Montague’s chaplain, John Collins, he was bidden to “be of good mind and make a cross in his forehead.”[1553]

In October 1537 Sir Geoffrey Pole went to court, “but the King would not suffer him to come in.”[1554] Thus banished he went down to Bockmore, his brother’s place in Buckinghamshire, and was received again into Montague’s confidence. “Geoffrey, God loveth us well,” was Montague’s greeting, “that will not suffer us to be amongst them; for none rule about the court but knaves.”[1555]

One night Montague told Sir Geoffrey “lying in bed” that he had just dreamt that the King was dead. “And now,” quoth he, “we shall see some ruffling and bid Mr Cromwell good deane with all his devises.”[1556] Later he said, “The King is not dead, but he will one day die suddenly; his leg will kill him and then we shall have jolly stirring.”[1557] It must have been hope of this day that kept them in England, for they were well aware of their danger. Starkey, the King’s chaplain, who had formerly been a great friend of Reginald’s, warned the brothers that “if the King were not of a good nature,” Cromwell “for one Pole’s sake would destroy all Poles.”[1558] “The King, to be revenged of Reynold, I fear will kill us all,” Montague told his brother, and added that he wished they were both with the Bishop of St Luke [Luik _i.e._ Liége], who was an honest man and a friend of the Cardinal. “Marry,” said Sir Geoffrey, “an you fear such jeopardy, let us be walking hence quickly.”[1559] But Montague could by no means make up his mind to fly, though Geoffrey often urged it upon him. Reginald, when Geoffrey wished to join him, had advised them both to “tarry in England and hold up yea and nay there.”[1560] A non-committal attitude was impossible to Montague, but he determined to await the issue at home.

Sir Geoffrey was anxious to leave the realm for other besides political reasons. He often urged Hugh Holland to contrive his escape, with promises of ample reward when he reached Reginald’s friends, but Holland was afraid to do more than he had already done and always refused[1561]. Sir Geoffrey lacked ready money, and his debts were “a great occasion for him to flee.” In this extremity he turned for help to George Croftes, the chancellor of Chichester Cathedral. Croftes was an ecclesiastic of the old school. When the Supremacy Act was passed he prepared to leave the country rather than take the oath, but Lord Delaware, his intimate friend, persuaded him to conform[1562]. Sir Geoffrey told Croftes that he was determined to leave England with the next fair wind, for safeguard of his life. Croftes lent him twenty nobles to help him on his journey.

Next morning Croftes wrote to Sir Geoffrey advising him to stay in England, for “he had the most marvellous dream that night that ever he had in his life, and that he thought Our Lady did appear unto him and she wed [_i.e._ _pledged_] him that it should be the destruction of the said Sir Geoffrey and of all his kin if he departed the realm.”[1563] The dream must have impressed Sir Geoffrey, for he gave up his plan and returned the twenty nobles[1564]. Croftes went to John Collins, Montague’s chaplain, and told him the whole matter, begging him to ask his master to pay Sir Geoffrey’s debts. “Whereupon there was a way taken by the said Lord Montague that all his said debts amounting to a great sum were paid.”[1565]

It is sad that this good-hearted old priest should have all unwittingly brought their fate on the heads of the house of Pole. Dreams were the curse of the White Rose party.

NOTES TO CHAPTER XXII

Note A. “Spes mea in Deo est” was a motto much used in the decoration of the Countess’s house at Warblington[1566].

Note B. The letter is printed in full by Froude, op. cit. II, chap. XIV, and by Merriman, op. cit. II, no. 218. It has so often been quoted and is so deservedly well known that it is necessary to include only a few quotations which are very much to the point.

Note C. Early in August 1914 a civilian was travelling in a carriage full of young miners just embodied in their Territorial unit and in the wildest spirits. “I suppose you’re longing to meet a German?” he asked one of them. “By! If I meets a Garman, I’m off,” said the lad. He was certainly avowing an intention to desert in action; but I wonder if he did? Froude was too hard upon the unfortunate Sir Geoffrey Pole in several respects. This was partly owing to the fact that he had not the full evidence, arranged and dated, before him.

Note D. This speech is pieced together from three different reports of the same words.