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velled what he intended, the duke further expressing some opprobrious words." Campeius being a foreigner, it is probable, understood little of what was said, and therefore was not likely to make the duke any reply; but Wolsey, who neither wanted spirit nor words on any occasion, answered him, by saying with great sedateness, "Sir, of all men in this realm you have least cause to dispraise cardinals, for if I poor cardinal had not been, you should not at this present have had a head upon your shoulders, wherewith to make such a brag in despite of us, who wish your no harm. Speak not reproachfully of your friends; you best know what friendship I have shewn you; I never did reveal (it) to any person till now, either to mine own praise, or your dishonour." Whereupon the duke went his way, and said no more, being much discontented.

It is very plain the duke was stung, being conscious of the truth of what Wolsey alleged; but the question is, What it was that the cardinal alluded to; when, and upon what occasion he had saved the duke's life? Dr. Fiddes, who has written this cardinal's life, when he comes to this passage, professes himself ignorant of his meaning; his words are, "But that the charge itself had some foundation, though the fact upon which it is founded is still unknown, &c. And yet, I think it is not difficult to unriddle it; however, for the clearer apprehension of the matter, we must take things a little higher.

Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, had a fine person, was endued with great strength of body, and of a noble courage, and having been brought up along with king Henry VIIL his disposition was so conformable to that of the king, that he became a great favourite with him. Nay, that king actually raised him from the condition of a commoner to a dukedom, creating him first viscount Lisle, and then duke of Suffolk; and this at a time when there were so few peers of that rank in England; for I think we had no other duke when their graces the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk were made, 5 Henry VIII. but Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham. Brandon, by means of his close connexion with the king and the court, had an opportunity of recommending himself to the favour of the princess Mary, the king's youngest sister, and one of the finest women of her time. The princess, it is thought, had no dislike to him; however she was afterwards married to Lewis XII. king of France,

*Fiddes, p. 454.

but he dying within three months after the marriage, she became a dowager; and the king, her brother, writing her a letter of condolence upon the occasion, and to know her inclination as to her return into England, amongst others deputed the duke of Suffolk to carry it; when the duke, in possession of an opportunity so favourable to his inclinations, makes his addresses to the young queen, and in short married her in France, without the king's privity or con

sent.

This fact, I presume, would have been in construction of law, high treason; for let the king be never so favourably disposed towards him, the marrying his sister without his consent was a high crime: and had the king, in the violence of his resentment, been inclined to have pushed matters to extremity, his grace must have been tried by his peers; and, as they were to determine whether a treason had been committed or not, the duke's head would have been in the utmost jeopardy in such a reign. This I infer from the words of the statute 25 Ed. III. "And because that many other like cases of treason may happen in time to come, which a man cannot think nor declare at this present time, it is accorded, that if any other case, supposed treason, which is not above specified, doth happen before any justices, the justices shall tarry without any going to judgment of the treason, till the cause be shewed and declared before the king and his parliament, whether it ought to be judged treason, or other felony." Which shews, that to denominate an act treasonable, depended very much at that time on interpretation; to wit, whether the fact extended to the king and his royal majesty, which is what the statute required; and Henry, earl of Surrey, was accordingly executed in this reign, only for bearing certain arms which belonged to the king. It is true bishop Burnet says, in his history of the reformation, tom. i. p. 9. that Henry designed a marriage between his sister and the duke of Suffolk, but would not openly give his consent. But this is said without proof, and when we consider the king's temper and circumstances, not at all probable. He was fiery, and very jealous of his honour; and Thomas Howard, youngest son to the duke of Norfolk, was imprisoned in his reign for affiancing himself without the king's consent, to Margaret, daughter to Archibald Douglas, earl of Angus, and his lady, Margaret, the king's sister, and actually died in prison, A. D. 1537. The king had no child himself at this time, his two sons being dead, and the princess Mary, who afterwards reigned, not born; insomuch that the suc

cession might possibly depend upon it: a point which this king ever kept in view, having, though not a personal, yet a bleeding remembrance of the broils that so lately had depopulated the kingdom during the long contests of the two houses of Lancaster and York. Henry takes particular notice of this affair of the succession in his speech at the Black Friars; and it is well known that the remote issue of this very match, in the person of that accomplished lady, the lady Jane Grey, was very near creating this king's daughter Mary much trouble at the time of her accession.

Brandon himself, though a prime favourite, was still but a subject, and though the king afterwards might be induced to pardon him, and did so, yet it is not likely that he either intended or approved of the match: nay, I must think it impossible but that the marriage being solemnized and consummated without his leave, he, or indeed any other prince, would be highly offended at it; and if he had proceeded to take off the duke's head for it, it would have been far from being the most arbitrary, or most unjustifiable measure of his but too bloody reign. Both Brandon and the young queen were sensible of the danger they were incurring she, for her part, interested Francis I. king of France, to use his good offices with her brother before the celebration of the nuptials; and the duke in his letter to the cardinal upon the occasion says, he told the king of France "He was like to be undone if this matter should come to the knowledge of his master," and yet he ventured to marry without obtaining his hard-ruled+ master's leave, or even without acquainting him with his design. It was certainly an act of great presumption, and the duke accordingly in one of his letters to Wolsey expresses his fears, that "when the king comes to be acquainted with the marriage, he will be displeased," and so he desires him to mediate in his favour‡.

After the marriage, Suffolk and the French queen wrote to the king to implore his pardon; and one is obliged to suppose, from the natural impetuosity of Henry's temper, that he was incensed enough at first, and that there was the utmost need for some powerful friend to interpose between the duke and danger: Wolsey was that friend: Wolsey was then but archbishop of York, neither cardinal nor lord high chancellor, and consequently his greatness was but just

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dawning, wherefore the laying an obligation so personal on two such great personages as the king's sister and the duke of Suffolk, would be viewed by him as a step most advantageous to his own rising, and as such be most greedily catched at, since by their assistance he might effectually overbalance the duke of Norfolk, the duke of Buckingham, the bishop of Winchester, or any others that he deemed his most powerful rivals in the king's favour. In short, a pardon was obtained for this noble couple, and it was very much owing, as Fiddes himself observes, p. 88. to the good offices of Wolsey. Well might this cardinal then afterwards say to the duke, upon this sole account, that he of all men had the least occasion to speak ill of cardinals, for had it not been for him, his head would not have been upon his shoulders; intimating methinks plainly enough, that the king at the time was so violently enraged against the duke for marrying his sister without his leave, that had not the cardinal pacified him, when perhaps no person living else could, he would have brought him for it to the scaffold.

Yours, &c.

P. GEMSEGE.

1755, March.

VI. Strange Incident in the Life of HENRY V. explained.

Oxford, Feb. 13.

This

MR. URBAN, SPEED, in the life of Henry V. (Edit. 3.) tells us that when he was Prince of Wales, "He came into his father's presence in a strange disguise, being in a garment of blue satin, wrought full of eylet-holes, and at every eylet the needle left hanging by the silk it was wrought with," strange disguise has often puzzled me as well as the author; and may be one reason why Rapin has taken no notice of it. But since my residence in this city, I have found the meaning of it in the following custom, observed annually on the feast of the Circumcision, at Queen's College, where the Bursar gives to every member a needle and thread, in remembrance of the founder, whose name was Egglesfield, falsely deducing it from two French words, Aguille Fil, a needle and thread; according to the custom of former times, and the doctrine of rebusses. Egglesfield, however, is pure Saxon and not French; and the founder of Queen's College was an Englishman, born in Cumberland

He was, however, confessor to a queen of Dutch extraction, daughter to the earl of Hainault and Holland; a circumstance which probably gave rise to the false derivation of his name.

Now prince Henry having been a student in that college, this strange garment was probably designed by him to express his academical character, if it was not indeed his academical habit, and such as was then worn by the sons of noblemen. In either case it was the properest habit he could appear in, his father being at that time greatly apprehensive of some trouble, from his active and ambitious temper, and afraid of his taking the crown from him, as he did at last; and the habit of a scholar was so very different from that of a soldier, in those days, that nothing could better efface the impressions the king had received against him, than this silent declaration of his attachment to literature, and renunciation of the sword.

Yours, &c.

G. S. GREEN.

1756, March.

VII. The Proclamation for celebrating the Coronation and establishing a Court of Claims, with the Claims made out before the Coronation of JAMES II.

GEORGE REX.

PROCLAMATION.

WHEREAS we have resolved, by the favour and blessing of Almighty God, to celebrate the solemnity of our royal coronation upon Tuesday the twenty-second day of September next, at our palace at Westminster; and forasmuch as by ancient customs and usages, as also in regard of divers tenures of sundry manors, lands, and other hereditaments, many of our loving subjects do claim, and are bound to do and perform divers several services on the said day, and at the time of the coronation, as, in times precedent, their ancestors, and those from whom they claim, have done and performed at the coronation of our famous progenitors and predecessors: we therefore, out of our princely care for the preservation of the lawful rights and inheritances of our loving subjects, whom it may concern, have thought fit to give notice of and publish our resolutions therein; and do hereby give notice of, and publish the same accordingly:

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