Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/262

248 would have been had they existed. It was said that they had sent the cardinal money, which, from his own family, might have been the case, and yet with no treason. It was also charged on the Marquis of Exeter that he had said, "I like well the proceedings of Cardinal Pole. I like not the proceedings of this realm. I trust to see a change in this world. I trust once to have a fair day on the knaves that rule about the king. I trust to give them a buffet one day."

Now, had these words been fully proved, of which there is no evidence, where was the treason? Any honest man of the old persuasion might, and did, no doubt, say that he did not like the changes going, and might hope to see the ministers who recommended them removed. But the fact was, those noblemen where descended directly from the old Royal line of England: Courtenay was grandson to Edward IV., by his daughter Catherine, and the Poles were grandsons to George, Duke of Clarence, the brother of Edward. All had a better title to the throne than Henry, and that, combined with their connection with the cardinal, was the cause of the tyrant's deadly enmity. If these prisoners had been inclined to treason, they had had the fairest opportunity of showing it during the northern insurrection, but they had taken no part whatever. But Henry had determined to wreak his vengeance, which could not reach the cardinal, on them; and the servile peers and courts condemned them. It was said that Sir Geoffrey Pole, to save his own life, consented to give evidence against the rest—secretly it must have been, for it was never produced. His life, therefore, was spared, but the rest were executed. Lord Montagu, the Marquis of Exeter, and Sir Edward Neville were beheaded on Tower Hill on the 9th of January, 1539, and Sir Nicholas Carew, master of the king's horse, was also beheaded on the 3rd of March, on a charge of being privy to the conspiracy. The two priests and the mariner were hanged and quartered at Tyburn. A commission was then sent down into Cornwall, which arraigned, condemned, and put to death two gentlemen of the names of Kendall and Quintrell, for having said, some years before, that Exeter was the heir apparent, and should be king, if Henry married Anne Boleyn, or it should cost a thousand lives.

The whole of these were just so many judicial murders, to glut the spite of this bloody despot. Lord Herbert, one of the best possibly informed writers of the age, declares that he could never discover any real proofs of the charges against these noblemen, and their destruction excited universal horror. Even at this advanced period of his tyranny and his crimes, Henry was not insensible to the odium occasioned, and ordered a book to be published containing the real proofs of their treason. The cardinal himself proclaimed to the world, that if his relations had entertained any treasonable designs, they would have shown them during the insurrection, and that he had carefully examined the king's book for those proofs, but in vain.

But the sanguinary fury of Henry was not yet sated. The cardinal was sent by the Pope to the Spanish and French courts to concert the carrying out of the scheme of policy against England agreed upon. Henry defeated this by means of his agents, and neither Charles nor Francis would move: but not the less did Henry determine further to punish the hostile cardinal. Judgment of treason was pronounced against him; the Continental sovereigns were called upon to deliver him up; and he was constantly surrounded by spies, and, as he believed, ruffians hired to assassinate him. Meantime it was said that a French vessel had been driven by stress of weather into South Shields, and in it had been taken three emissaries—an English priest of the name of Moore, and two Irishmen, a monk and a friar, who were said to be carrying treasonable letters to the Pope and to Pole. The Irish monks were sent up to London, and tortured in the Tower—a very unnecessary measure, if they really possessed the treasonable letters alleged.

On the 28th of April Parliament was called upon to pass bills of attainder against Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, the mother of Cardinal Pole; Gertrude, the widow of the Marquis of Exeter; the son of Lord Montagu, a boy of tender years; Sir Adam Fortescue, and Sir Thomas Dingley.

If the evidence taken from the captive monks had anything to do with these attainders, it must have been very vague and meagre indeed, for it was found on trial that no sufficient charge could be established against any of the accused. The Countess of Salisbury, the mother of the cardinal, was a lady seventy years of age, but of a powerful and undaunted mind. She was first privately examined by the Earl of Southampton, and Goodrich, Bishop of Ely. But she conducted herself with so much spirit, that they wrote to Cromwell that she was more like a strong and determined man than a woman; that she denied everything laid to her charge; and it seemed to them that her sons could not have made her privy to their treasons. They, in fact, had no evidence.

Cromwell next undertook her and the Marchioness of Exeter, but with no better success. He had got hold of some of the countess's servants, yet he could extract nothing from them; but as the king was resolved to put his victims to death, something must be done, and, therefore, Cromwell demanded of the judges whether persons accused of treason might not be attainted and condemned by Parliament without any trial! The judges, who, like every one else under this monster of a king, had lost all sense of honour and justice in the fears for their own safety, replied that it was a nice question, and one that no inferior tribunal could entertain, but that Parliament was supreme, and that an attainder by Parliament would be good in law! Such a bill was accordingly passed through the servile Parliament, condemning the whole to death without any form of trial whatever. To such a pass was England come—its whole constitution, its Magna Charta, its very right and privilege, thrown down before this cruel despot.

The two knights were beheaded on the 10th of July; the Marchioness of Exeter was kept in prison for six months, and then dismissed; the son of Lord Montagu, the grandson of the countess, was probably, too, allowed to escape, for no record of his death appears; but the venerable old lady herself, the near relative of the king, and the last direct descendant of the Plantagenets, after having been kept in prison for nearly two years, was brought out, probably on some fresh act of the cardinal's, and on the 27th of May, 1541, was condemned to the scaffold. There she still showed the determination of her