dred knights, six thousand esquires, and one hundred hospitals for maimed soldiers. Thus they projected many good uses to be performed, not to enrich private men, nor to sell them for small sums of money, which would quickly be wasted: but to be a perpetual standing maintenance for an army and all public necessities.

A. D. 1414. Priories alien, not being conventual, with their possessions, except the college of Fotheringhay, were by the Parliament given to king Henry V. and his heirs, and he suppressed them to the number of* one hundred and ninety and more :3 but gave some of them to the college of Fotheringhay. King Edward IV. gave them afterward to the two colleges of the kings in Cambridge and Eton; yet Henry V. died young, his son Henry VI., after many passions of fortune, was twice deprived of his kingdom, and at last cruelly murdered; and prince Edward, his grandchild, son of Henry VI., cruelly also slain by the servants of king Edward IV.

A. D. 1447.* Humphrey, duke of Glocester, coming to the Parliament at S. Edmundsbury, and lodging there, in a place (as Leland saith) sacred to our Saviour; he was, by the lord John Beaumont, then high constable of England, the duke of Buckingham, the duke of Somerset, and others, arrested of high

* [The number cannot now clearly be ascertained; some reckon it at about 110, Spelman's own computation further back but the highest estimate probably falls short of the truth.-EDD.]

3 STOW, s. a.

4 HOLINSH. SтOW, s. a

treason, suggested; and being kept in ward in the same place, was, the night following, (viz. February 24), cruelly murdered by De la Pole, duke of Suffolk. Some judged him to have been strangled, some to have a hot spit thrust into his bowels, some to be smothered between two feather-beds. But all indifferent persons (saith Hall) might well understand that he died some violent death. Being found dead in his bed, his body was shewed to the lords and commons, as though he had died of a palsy or imposthume, which others do publish."

But it falleth out, that this lord John viscount Beaumont, and the duke of Buckingham, were both slain in the battle of Northampton, 38 Henry VI.: the duke of Somerset taken prisoner at the battle of Hexham [Levels], A. D. 1462, and there beheaded. The duke of Suffolk being banished the land, was in passing the seas surprized by a ship of the duke of Exeter's, and brought back to Dover road; where, in a cock-boat, at the commandment of the captain, his head was stricken off, and both head and body left on the shore."

[A.D. 1491. King John II. of Portugal, marrying his only son Alfonso to Isabel of Castile, celebrateth the wedding with great pomp and ceremonial at Evora. And forasmuch as the press of knights and noblemen could not be contained in the city, he laid hands on a monastery hard by, and drave forth the monks not without the malediction of some, that STOW, s. a. 1447. HOLINSH. p. 627.

God's curse should therefore alight on him in his son, which threat he at that time regarded so much as to send for absolution from the Pope. But mark what followed. The king himself, drinking of a poisoned fountain, narrowly escaped with his life: his son (for whom that injustice was committed) persuaded by his father, against his will, to bathe with him in the Tagus, is there slain by his horse; and in him the house of Aviz, in its direct line, cometh to an end.]*

A. D. 1527. Cardinal Wolsey, intending to build a college at Oxford, and another at Ipswich, obtained licence of pope Clement VII., to suppress about forty monasteries. In execution whereof he used principally five persons, whereof one was slain by another of these his companions; that other was hanged for it; a third drowned himself in a well; the fourth, being well known to be worth £200, [no small sum] in those days, became in three years' time so poor, that he begged to his death; Dr. Allen, the fifth, being made a bishop in Ireland, was there cruelly maimed. The cardinal, that obtained the licence, fell most grievously into the king's displeasure, lost all he had, was fain to be relieved by his followers, and died miserably, not without the suspicion of poisoning himself. The Pope that granted the licence was beaten out of his city of Rome, saw it sacked by the duke of Bourbon's army, and himself then besieged in the castle of S. Angelo, whither he fled, escaping nar

* [LEMOS. Hist. de Portugal, s. a. 1491.-EDD.]

But

rowly with his life, taken prisoner, scorned, ransomed, and at last poisoned as some reported. these five were not the only actors of this business. For Mr. Fox saith, "That the doing hereof was committed to the charge of Thomas Cromwell; in the execution whereof he shewed himself very forward and industrious. In such sort, that in handling thereof he procured to himself much grudge with divers of the superstitious sort, and some also of noble calling about the king, &c." Well, as he had his part in the one, let him take it also in the other: for he lost all he had, and his head to boot; as after shall appear in the progress of these his actions.

[We have here omitted a long note, apparently by Jeremy Stephens, on the subject of knight's fees, and drawing a comparison between the sacrilege of Henry VIII. and that of the Puritans in the Great Rebellion.-EDD.]

K

CHAPTER V.*

Of the great sacrilege and spoil of church lands done by Henry VIII. His promise to bestow and employ the lands to the advancement of learning, religion, and relief of the poor. The preamble of the Statute 27 Henry VIII., which is omitted in the printed book. The neglect of his promise and of the statute. The great increase of lands, and revenues that came to the crown by the dissolution, quadruple to the crown lands. The misfortunes which happened to the king and posterity: and to agents under him, as the lord Cromwell and others, to the crown, and the whole kingdom, and to the new owners of the monasteries. A view of the Parliaments that passed the Acts of the 27 and 31 Henry VIII., and of the lords that voted in them, and what happened to them and their families. The names of the lords in the Parliament of 27 Henry VIII. omitted in the record, but those of the 31 Henry VIII. are remaining. The names of the Lords Spiritual in those Parliaments, and the spoil and great loss of libraries and books. The

* [From the commencement of this chapter down to p. 134, 1. 15, we have followed the original MS., which varies considerably from the printed copies. In the enumeration, &c. Abbeys, we follow NASMITH'S TANNER, as undoubtedly under, rather than overrating the sacrilege.-EDD.]