ANNO DOM. 1552, 1553. 1. SUCH being the excellent abilities of this hopeful Prince in matters of abstruser learning, there is no question to be made but that he was the master of so much perspicacity in his own affairs, (as indeed he was,) which might produce both love and admiration in the neighboring princes.

Yet such was the rapacity of the times and the unfortunateness of his condition, that his minority was abused to many acts of spoil and rapine — (even to an high degree of sacrilege) — to the raising of some and the enriching of others, without any manner of improvement to his own estate.

For, notwithstanding the great and most inestimable treasures which must needs come in by the spoil of so many shrines and images, the sale of all the lands belonging to chantries, colleges, free. chapels, etc., and the dilapidating of the patrimony of so many bishoprics and cathedral churches; — he was not only plunged in debt, but the crown-lands were much diminished and impaired since his coming to it. Besides which spoils, there were many other helps, and some great ones too, of keeping him both beforehand and full of money, had they been used to his advantage. The lands of divers of the Halls and Corn; panics in London were charged with annual pensions for the finding of such lights, obits, and chantry-Priests as were founded by the donors of them. For the redeeming whereof they were constrained to pay the sum of twenty thousand pounds to the use of the King, by an order from the Council-table, not long before the payment of the first money for the sale of Bulloign, anno 1550. And somewhat was also paid by the city to the King for the purchase of the borough of Southwark, which they bought of him the next year. But the main glut of treasure was that of the four hundred thousand crowns, amounting in our money to 133,333 pounds 13s. 4d., paid by the French King on the surrendry of the town and territory of Bulloign, before remembered. Of which vast sum (but small, in reference to the loss of so great a strength), no less than fourscore thousand pounds was laid up in the Tower; the rest assigned to public uses, for the peace and safety of the kingdom. Not to say anything of that great yearly profit which came in from the Mint; after the intercourse settled betwixt him and the King of Sweden, and the decrying so much base money, had begun to set the same on work. Which great advantages notwithstanding, he is now found to be in debt to the bankers of Antwerp and elsewhere, no less than 251,000 pounds of English money. Towards which, the sending of his own ambassadors into France, and the entertainment of the French when they were in England, (the only two great charges which we find him at in the whole course of his reign), must be inconsiderable. 2. It was to no purpose for him to look too much backward, or to trouble himself with inquiring after the ways and means by which he came to be involved in so great a debt. It must be now his own care, and the endeavors of those who plunged him in it, to find the speediest way for his getting out. And first, they fall upon a course to lessen the expenses of his court and family by suppressing the tables formerly appointed for young Lords, the Masters of the Requests, Serjeants-at-arms, etc., which, though it saved some money, yet it brought in none. In the next place, it was resolved to call such officers to a present and public reckoning, who either had embezzled any of the Crown-lands, or inverted any of the King’s money to their private use. On which course they were the more intent, because they did both serve the King and content the people; but might be used by them as a scourge for the whipping of those against whom they had any cause of quarrel. Amongst which I find the new Lord Paget to have been fined six thousand pounds (as before was said) for divers offenses of that nature, which were charged upon him. Beaumont, then Master of the Rolls, had purchased lands with the King’s money, made longer leases of some other Crown-lands than he was authorized to do by his commission, and was otherwise guilty of much corrupt and fraudulent dealing. For expiating of which crimes he surrendered all his lands and goods to the King, and seems to have been well befriended, that he ‘sped no worse. The like offenses proved against one Whaley, one of the King’s receivers for the county of York; for which he was punished with the loss of his offices, and adjudged to stand to any such fine as by his Majesty and the Lords of his Council should be set upon him. Which manner of proceeding, though it be for the most part pleasing to the common people, and profitable to the commonwealth; yet were it more unto the honor of a Prince to make choice of such officers whom he thinks not likely to offend, than to sacrifice them to the people and his own displeasure’s, having thus offended. 3. But the main engine at this time for advancing money was the speeding of a commission into all parts of the realm, under pretense of selling such of the lands and goods of chantries, etc., as remained unsold; but, in plain truth, to seize upon all hangings, altar-cloths, fronts, parafronts, copes of all sorts, with all manner of plate which was to be found in any cathedral or parochial church. To which rapacity, the demolishing of the former altars, and placing the communion-table in the middle of the choirs or chancels of every church (as was then most used), gave a very good hint, by rendering all such furnitures, rich plate, and other costly utensils, in a manner useless. And that the business might be carried with as much advantage to the King as might be, he gave out certain instructions under his hand, by which the Commissioners were to regulate themselves in their proceedings, to the advancement of the service. Amongst which, pretermiting those which seem to be preparatories only unto all the rest, I shall put down as many as I think material: and, that being done, it shall be left to the reader’s judgment, whether the King, being now in the sixteenth year of his age, were either better studied in his own concernments, or seemed to be worse principled in matters which concerned the Church. Now the most material of the said instructions were these that follow: — I. “The said Commissioners shall, upon their view and survey taken, cause due inventories to be made, by bills or books indented, of all manner of goods, plate, jewels, bells, and ornaments, as yet remaining, or any wise forthcoming, and belonging to any churches, chapels, fraternities, or guilds; and [the] one part of the said inventories to send and return to our Privy Council, and the other, to deliver to them in whose hands the said goods, plate, jewels, bells, and ornaments, shall remain, to be kept and preserved. And they shall also give good charge and order, that the same goods and every part thereof be at all times forthcoming to be answered; leaving nevertheless in every parishchurch or chapel of common resort one, two, or more, chalices or cups, according to the multitude of people in every such church or chapel; and also such ornaments, as by their discretion shall seem requisite for the Divine Service in every such place for the time.

II. “That because information hath been made, that in many places great quantities of the said plate, bells, jewels, ornaments, hath been embezzled by certain private men, contrary to his Majesty’s express commandment in that behalf, the said Commissioners shall substantially and justly inquire and attain the knowledge thereof: by whose default the same is, or hath been, or in whose hands any part of the same is come. And in that point, the said Commissioners shall have good regard that they attain to certain names and dwelling places of every person or persons that hath sold, alienated, embezzled, taken, or carried away; and of such also as have counseled, advised, and commanded any part of the said goods, plate, jewels, bells, vestments, and ornaments, to be taken or carried away, or otherwise embezzled.

And these things they shall, as certainly and duly as they eau, cause to be searched and understood.

III. “That upon full search and inquiry thereof, the said Commissioners, four, or three of them, shall cause to be called before them all such persons, by whom any of the said goods, plate, jewels, bells, ornaments, or any other the premises, have been alienated, embezzled, and taken away; or by whose means and procurement the same or any part thereof hath been attempted, or to whose hands or use any of the same, or any profit for the same, hath grown: and by such means as to their discretion’s shall seem best, cause them to bring into these the said Commissioners’ hands, to our use, the said plate, jewels, bells, and other the premises so alienated, or the true and full value thereof; certifying unto our Privy Council the names of all such as refuse to stand to or obey their order touching the redelivery or restitution of the same, or the just values thereof, to the intent that, as cause and reason shall require, every man may answer to his doings in this behalf.”

IV. To these another clause was added, touching the moderation which they were to use in their proceedings; “to the end that the effect of their Commission might go forward with as much quiet, and as little occasion of trouble or disquiet to the multitude, as might be; using therein such wise persuasions as, in respect of the place and disposition of the people, may seem to their wisdoms most expedient: yet so that they take care for giving good and substantial order to stay the inordinate and greedy covetousness of such disordered people as should go about to alienate any of the premises; or otherwise to let them know, that, according to reason and order, such as have or should contemptuously offend in that behalf, should receive such punishment, as to the quality of their doing should be thought most requisite.” 4. Such were the faculties and instructions wherewith the King’s Commissioners were empowered and furnished. And doubt we not but that they were as punctual and exact in the execution: which cannot better be discerned than by that which is reported of their doings generally in all parts of the realm, and more particularly in the church of St Peter in Westminster, — more richly furnished, by reason of the pomps of coronations, funerals, and such-like solemnities, than any other in the kingdom. Concerning which I find, in an old chapter-book belonging to it, that on May the 9th, 1553, Sir Roger Cholmley, Knight, Lord Chief Justice, and Sir Robert Bowes, Knight, Master of the Rolls, the King’s Commissioners for gathering ecclesiastical goods, held their session at Westminster, and called before them the Dean of that cathedral and certain others of the same house, and commanded them, by virtue of their commission, to bring to them a true inventory of all the plate, cups, vestments, and other ecclesiastical goods, which belonged to their church.

Which done, the twelfth day of the same month, they sent John Hodges, Robert Smalwood, and Edmund Best, of the city of Westminster, (whom the said Commissioners had made their collectors), with a commandment to the Dean and Chapter for the delivery of the said goods; which were by Robert Crome, Clerk, Sexton of the said church, delivered to the said collectors, who left no more unto the church than two cups with the covers all gilt, one white silver pot, three herse-cloths, twelve cushions, one carpet for the table, eight stall-cloths for the quire, three pulpit-cloths, nine little carpets for the Dean’s stall, two table-cloths: the rest of all the rich furniture, massy plate, and whatsoever else was of any value, (which, questionless, must needs amount to a very great sum), was seized on by the said collectors, and clearly carried away by order from the said Commissioners. The like done generally in all the other parts of the realm, into which the Commissioners began their circuits in the month of April, as soon as the ways were open and fit for travel. Their business was to seize upon all the goods remaining in any cathedral or parish churches, all jewels of gold and silver, crosses, candlesticks, censers, chalices, and such-like, with their ready money; as also all copes and vestments of cloth of gold, tissue, and silver, together with all other copes, vestments, and ornaments, to the same belonging. Which general seizure being made, they were to leave one chalice, with certain tablecloths, for the use of the Communionboard, as the said Commissioners should think fit: the jewels, plate, and ready money to be delivered to the Master of the King’s Jewels in the Tower of London; the copes of cloth of gold and tissue to be brought into the King’s wardrobe; the rest to be turned into ready money, and that money to be paid to Sir Edmond Peckam, the King’s Cofferer, for the defraying of the charges of his Majesty’s household. 5. But notwithstanding this great care of the King on the one side, and the double diligence of his Commissioners on the other, the booty did not prove so great as the expectation. In all great fairs and markets there are some forestallers, who get the best pennyworths to themselves, and suffer not the richest and most gainful commodities to be openly sold. And so it fared also in the present business, — there being some who were as much beforehand with the King’s Commissioners in embezzling the said plate, jewels, and other furnitures, as the Commissioners did intend to be with the King in keeping all or most part unto themselves. For when the Commissioners came to execute their powers in their several circuits, they neither could discover all or recover much of that which had been purloined; some things being utterly embezzled by persons not responsible, (in which case the King, as well as the Commissioners, was to lose his right): but more concealed by persons not detectable, who had so cunningly carried the stealth that there was no tracing of their footsteps.

And some there were, who, being known to have such goods in their possession, conceived themselves too great to be called in question; connived at willingly by those who were but their equals, and either were, or meant to be, offenders in the very same kind. So that, although some profit was hereby raised to the King’s exchequer, yet the far greatest part of the prey came to other hands: insomuch that many private men’s parlors were hung with altar-cloths; their tables and beds covered with copes, instead of carpets and coverlids; and many made carousing cups of the sacred Chalices, as once Belshazzar celebrated his drunken feast in the sanctified vessels of the Temple. It was a sorry house, and not worth the naming, which had not somewhat of this furniture in it, though it were only a fair large cushion made of a cope or altar-cloth, to adorn their windows, or make their chairs appear to have somewhat in them of a chair of state. Yet how contemptible were these trappings, in comparison of those vast sums of money which were made of jewels, plate, and cloth of tissue, either conveyed beyond the seas or sold at home, and good lands purchased with the money; nothing the more blessed to the posterity of them that bought them, for being purchased with the consecrated treasures of so many temples. 6. But as the King was plunged in debt, without being put to any extraordinary charges in it, so was he decayed in his revenue, without selling any part of his crown-lands towards the payment of his debts. By the suppressing of some and the surrendering of other religious houses, the royal intrado was so much increased in the late King’s time, that, for the better managing of it, the King erected first the court of Augmentation, and afterwards the court of Surveyors. But in short time, by his own profuseness and the avariciousness of this King’s ministers, it was so retrenched, that it was scarce able to find work enough for the court of Exchequer. Hereupon followed the dissolving of the said two courts in the last parliament of this King, beginning on the first, and ending on the last, day of March. Which, as it made a loud noise in the ears of the people, so did it put this jealousy into their minds, that, if the King’s lands should be thus daily wasted without any recruit, he must at last prove burthensome to the common subject. Some course is therefore to be thought on, which might pretend to an increase of the King’s revenue, and none more easy to be compassed than to begin with the suppression of such bishoprics and collegiate churches as either lay furthest off or might best be spared. In reference whereunto it was concluded, in a Chapter held at Westminster by the Knights of the Garter, that from thenceforth the said most noble Order of the Garter should be no longer entitled by the name of St George, but that it should be called the Order of the Garter only; and that the Feast of the said Order should be celebrated upon Whitsun-eve, Whitsun-day, and Whitsun-Monday, and not on St George’s Day, as before it was. And to what end was this concluded, and what else was to follow upon this conclusion, but the dissolving of the free chapel of St George in the castle of Windsor, and the transferring of the Order to the chapel of King Henry the Seventh, in the abbey of Westminster? Which had undoubtedly been done, and all the lands thereof converted to some powerful courtiers, under pretense of laying them to the Crown, if the King’s death, which happened within four months after, had not prevented the design, and thereby respited that ruin which was then intended. 7. The like preservation happened at the same time also in the church of Durham, as liberally endowed as the most, and more amply privileged than the best, in the King’s dominions. The Bishops hereof, by charter and long prescription, enjoyed and exercised all the rights of a county palatine in that large tract of ground which lies between the Tees and the Tyne, best known in those parts by the name of the Bishopric; the diocese containing also all Northumberland, of which the Bishops and the Percies had the greatest shares. No sooner was Bishop Tonstal committed to the Tower, which was on the twentieth of December 1551, but presently an eye was cast upon his possessions. Which, questionless, had followed the same fortune with the rest of the bishoprics, if one more powerful than the rest had not preserved it from being parceled out as the others were, on a strong confidence of getting it all unto himself. The family of the Percies was then reduced to such a point, that it seemed to have been quite expired; a family which first came in with the Norman conqueror, by whom enriched with most of the forfeited estates of Morchar, Gospatrick, and Waltheof, the three last Earls of Northumberland of the Saxon race. But, this line ending in the latter times of King Henry the First, Jossdine of Lovain, descended from the Emperor Charles the Great, and one of the younger brothers of Adeliza, the wife of the King, enriched himself by marriage with the heir-general of this house, upon condition that, keeping to himself the arms of his own family, he should assume the name of Percy, to remain always afterward unto his posterity. Advanced in that respect, by the power and favor of John of Gaunt, to the rank and title of the Earls of Northumberland, at the coronation of King Richard the Second, they held the same with great power and honor — (the short interposing of the Marquess Mountacute excepted only) — till toward the latter end of King Henry the Eighth. At what time it happened, that Henry, Lord Percy, the sixth Earl of this house, had incurred the heavy displeasure of that King: first, for an old affection to the Lady Ann Bollen, when the King began first to be enamoured of her excellent beauties; and afterwards for denying to confess a precontract to have been formerly made between them, when the King (now as weary of her as before he was fond) was seeking some fair pretences to divorce himself from her, before she was to lose her head. He had no children of his own; and Thomas, his brother and next heir, was, to his greater grief, attainted of treason, for being thought to have a chief hand in the northern rebellion, anno 1536. In both respects he found himself at such a loss, and the whole family without hope of a restitution to its ancient splendor, that, to preserve himself from running into further danger, he gave unto the King the greatest part of that fair inheritance; and, dying not long after, left his titles also to the King’s disposing. 8. The lands and titles being thus fallen into the crown, continued undisposed of till the falling of the Duke of Somerset; when Dudley, Earl of Warwick, having some projections in his head beyond the greatness of a subject, advanced himself unto the title of Duke of Northumberland; not doubting but he should be able to possess himself in short time also of all the lands of that family which were then remaining in the crown. To which estate the bishopric of Durham and all the lands belonging to it could not but be beheld as a fair addition, — if, at the least, it might be called an addition which was of more value than the patrimony to which it was to have been added. 9. He had long reigned without a crown, suffering the King for some years to enjoy that rifle, which was to be transferred (if all contrivances held good) upon one of his sons, whom he designed in marriage to the eldest daughter of the house of Suffolk. And then how easy was it for him, having a King of his own begetting, a Queen of his own making, the Lords of the Council at his beck, and a parliament to serve his turn for all occasions, to incorporate both the lands of the Percies and the patrimony of that Church into one estate, with all the rights and privileges of a county palatine!

Count Palatine of Durham, Prince Palatine of Northumberland, or what else he pleased, must be the least he could have aimed at, in that happy conjuncture; happy to him, had the event been answerable unto his projections, but miserable enough to all the rest of the kingdom, who should not servility submit to this glorious upstart. Upon which grounds, as the bishopric of Durham was dissolved by Act of parliament, under pretense of patching up the King’s revenue, so the greatest part of the lands thereof had been kept together, that they might serve for a revenue to the future Palatine. But, all these projects failing in the death of the King and his own attainder, not long after the Percies were restored by Queen Mary to their lands and honors, as the Bishop was unto his liberty, and to most of his lands; it being almost impossible that such a fair estate should fall into the hands of the courtiers and no part of it be left sticking in those glutinous fingers. 10. For, to begin the year withal, the King was taken with a very strong cough in the month of January, which at last ended in a consumption of the lungs; the seeds of which malignity were generally supposed to have been sown in the last summer’s progress, by some over-heating of himself in his sports and exercises. But they that looked more narrowly into the matter observed some kind of decayings in him from the time that Sir Robert Dudley, the third son of Northumberland, was admitted into a place of ordinary attendance about his person; which was on the same day when his father was created Duke. For whereas most men gave themselves no improbable hopes, that, betwixt the spring time of his life, the growing season of the year, and such medicinal applications as were made unto him, the disease would wear itself away by little and little, yet they found the contrary. It rather grew so fast upon him, that, when the parliament was to begin, on the first of March, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal were commanded to attend him at Whitehall, instead of waiting on him from thence to Westminster in the usual manner. Where being come, they found a sermon ready for them (the preacher being the Bishop of London) which otherwise was to have been preached in the abbey-church; and the great chamber of the court accommodated for an House of Peers to begin the session. For the opening whereof, the King then sitting under the cloth of state, and all the Lords according to their ranks and orders, he declared by the Lord Chancellor Goodrick the causes of his calling them to the present parliament, and so dismissed them for that time. A parliament which began and ended in the month of March, that the commissions might the sooner be dispatched to their several circuits, for the speedier gathering up of such of the plate, copes, vestments, and other furnitures, of which the Church was to be spoiled in the time of his sickness. 11. Yet in the midst of these disorders there was some care taken for advancing both the honor and the interest of the English nation, by furnishing Sebastian Cabot for some new discoveries. Which Sebastian, the son of John Cabot, a Venetian born, attended on his first employment under Henry the Seventh, anno 1497. At what time they discovered the Baccalaos, and the coasts of Canada, now called New France, even to the 67 ˝ degree of northern latitude. Bending his course more toward the south, and discovering a great part of the shores of Florida, he returned for England, bringing with him three of the natives of that country to which the name of Newfoundland hath been since appropriated. But finding the King unhappily embroiled in a war with Scotland, and no present encouragement’s to be given for a further voyage, he betook himself into the service of the King of Spain, and after forty years and more, upon some distaste, abandoned Spain, and offered his service to this King. By whom being made Grand Pilot of England in the year 1549, he animated the English merchants to the finding out of a passage by the north-east seas to Cathay and China; — first enterprised under the conduct of Sir Hugh Willoughby, who unfortunately perished in the action — himself and all his company being frozen to death (all the particulars of his voyage being since committed to writing), as was certified by the adventurers in the year next following. It was upon the twentieth of May in this present year that this voyage was first undertaken, three great ships being well manned and fitted for the expedition; which afterwards was followed by Chancellor, Burroughs, Jack-man, Jenkinson, and other noble adventurers in the times succeeding. Who, though they failed of their attempt in finding out a shorter way to Cathay and China, yet did they open a fair passage to the Bay of St Nicholas, and thereby laid the first foundation of a wealthy trade betwixt us and the Muscovites. 12. But the King’s sickness still increasing — (who was to live no longer than might well stand with the designs of the Duke of Northumberland) — some marriages are resolved on for the daughters of the Duke of Suffolk; in which the King appeared as forward as if he had been one of the principals in the plot against him. And so the matter was contrived, that the Lady Jane, the eldest daughter to that Duke, should be married to the Lord Guilford Dudley, the fourth son (then living) of Northumberland, — all the three elder sons having wives before; that Katherine, the second daughter of Suffolk, should be married to the Lord Henry Herbert, the eldest son of the Earl of Pembroke, whom Dudley had made privy to all his counsels; and the third daughter, named Mary, being crook-backed, and otherwise not very taking, affianced to Martin Keys, the King’s Gentleman Porter.

Which marriages, together with that of the Lady Katherine, one of the daughters of Duke Dudley, to Henry Lord Hastings, eldest son of the Earl of Huntington, were celebrated in the end of May or the beginning of June, — (for I find our writers differing in the time thereof) — with as much splendor and solemnity as the King’s weak estate and the sad condition of the court could be thought to bear. These marriages all solemnized at Durhamhouse in the Strand, of which Northumberland had then took possession in the name of the rest, upon a confidence of being master very shortly of the whole estate. The noise of these marriages bred such amazement in the hearts of the common people, apt enough in themselves to speak the worst of Northumberland’s actions, that there was nothing left unsaid which might serve to show their hatred against him, or express their pity toward the King. But the Duke was so little troubled at it that, on the contrary, he resolved to dissemble no longer, but openly to play his game according to the plot and project which he had been hammering ever since the fall of the Duke of Somerset, whose death he had contrived on no other ground but for laying the way more plain and open to these vast ambitions. 13. The King was now grown weak in body, and his spirits much decayed by a languishing sickness, which rendered him more apprehensive of such fears and dangers as were to be presented to him than otherwise he could have been in a time of strength.

In which estate Duke Dudley so prevailed upon him, that he consented at the last to a transposition of the crown from his natural sisters to the children of the Duchess of Suffolk; confirming it by letters patents to the heirs males of the body of the said Duchess. And for want of such heirs males to be born in the lifetime of the King, the crown immediately to descend on the Lady Jane (the eldest daughter of that house) and the heirs of her body, and so with several remainders to the rest of that family. The carriage of which business, and the rubs it met with in the way, shall be reserved to the particular story of the Lady Jane, when she is brought unwilling upon the stage, thereon to act the part of a Queen of England. It sufficeth in this place to note, that the King had no sooner caused these letters patents to pass the seal, but his weakness more visibly increased than it did before. And as the King’s weakness did increase, so did the Duke of Northumberland’s diligence about him; for he was little absent from him, and had always some well-assured to espy how the state of his health changed every hour; and the more joyful he was at the heart, the more sorrowful appearance did he outwardly make. Whether any tokens of poison did appear, reports are various. Certainly his physicians discerned an invincible malignity in his disease; and the suspicion did the more increase for that the complaint proceeded chiefly from the lights; a part, as of no quickness, so no seat for any sharp disease. The bruit whereof being got amongst the people, they brake out into immoderate passions, complaining that for this cause his two uncles had been taken away; that for this cause the most faithful of his nobility and of his council were disgraced, and removed from court; that this was the reason why such were placed next his person who were most assuredly disposed either to commit or permit any mischief; that now it did appear that it was not vainly conjectured some years before, by men of judgment and foresight, that after Somerset’s death the King should not long enjoy his life. But the Duke regarded not much the muttering multitude, knowing full well that rumors grow stale and vanish with time; and yet, somewhat to abate or delay them for the present, he caused speeches to be spread abroad that the King began to be in a recovery of his health; which was the more readily believed, because most desired it to be true. To which report the general judgment of his physicians gave no little countenance, by whom it was affirmed that they saw some hopes of his recovery, if he might be removed to a better and more healthful air. But this Duke Dudley did not like of, and therefore he so dealt with the Lords of the Council that they would by no means yield unto it, upon pretense of his inability to endure any such remove. 14. And now, the time being near at hand for the last act of this tragedy, a certain gentlewoman, accounted a fit instrument for the purpose, offered her service for the cure — giving no small assurance of it, if he might be committed wholly to her disposing. But from this proposition the King’s physicians showed themselves to be very averse, in regard that, as she could give no reason either of the nature of the disease or of the part afflicted, so she would not declare the means whereby she intended to work t. he cure. Whose opposition notwithstanding, it was in time resolved by the Lords of the Council that the physicians should be discharged, and the ordering of the King’s person committed unto her alone. But she had not kept him long in hand, when he was found to have fallen into such desperate extremity as manifestly might declare that his death was hastened under pretense of finding out a more quick way for restoring of his health.

For now it visibly appeared that his vital parts were mortally stuffed, which brought him to a difficulty of speech and breathing; that his legs swelled, his pulse failed, and his skin changed color; with many horrid symptoms of approaching death. Which being observed, the physicians were again sent for, when it was too late; and sent for (as they gave it out) but for fashion only; because it was not thought fit in reason of state that a King should die without having some physicians in attendance of him. By some of which it was secretly whispered, that neither their advice nor applications had been at all regarded in the course of his sickness; that the King had been ill dealt with, more than once or twice; and that when, by the benefit both of his youth and of careful means, there were some fair hopes of his recovery, he was again more strongly overlaid than ever. And for a further proof that some undue practices had been used upon him, it is affirmed by a writer of the Popish party, who could have no great cause to pity such a calamitous end, not only that the apothecary who poisoned him, as well for the horror of the offense as the disquietness of his conscience, did not long after drown himself; but that the laundress who washed his shirts lost the skin of her fingers. Against which general apprehensions of some ill dealing toward this unfortunate Prince, it can be no sufficient argument (if any argument at all) that Queen Mary caused no inquiry to be made about it, as some supposed she would have done if the suspicion had been raised upon any good grounds. For it may easily be believed that she who afterwards admitted of a consultation for burning the body of her father, and cutting off the head of her sister, would not be over careful in the search and punishment of those who had precipitated the death of her brother. 15. The differences which were between them in the point of religion, and the King’s forwardness in the cause of the Lady Jane his rendering her uneapable, as much as in him was, to succeed in the crown, and leaving her in the estate of illegitimation, — were thought to have enough in them of a supersedeas unto all good nature. So that the King might die by such sinister practices, without putting Queen Mary to the trouble of inquiring after them; who thought herself to have no reason of being too solicitous in searching out the secret causes of his death who had been so injurious to her in the time of his life. A life which lasted little and was full of trouble; so that death could not be unwelcome to him, when the hopes of his recovery began to fail him; of which if he desired a restitution, it was rather for the Church’s sake than for his own — his dying prayers not so much aiming at the prolonging of his life, as the continuance of religion; not so much at the freeing of himself from his disease, as the preserving of the Church from the danger of Popery. Which dying prayer, as it was taken from his mouth, was in these words following: “Lord God, deliver me out of this miserable and wretched life, and take me among thy chosen; howbeit, not my will, but thine be done.

Lord, I commit my spirit to thee. O Lord, thou knowest how happy it were for me to be with thee: yet, for thy chosen’s sake, send me life and health, that I may truly serve thee. Oh my Lord God, bless my people, and save thine inheritance. O Lord God, save thy chosen people of England. Oh Lord God, defend this realm from Papistry, and maintain thy true religion, that I and my people may praise thy holy name, for Jesus Christ his sake.” 16. With this prayer and other holy meditations he prepared that pious soul for God; which he surrendered into the hands of his Creator on the sixth of July, toward night, when he had lived fifteen years, eight months, and four- and-twenty days: of which he had reigned six years, five months, and eight days over. His body, kept awhile at Greenwich, was on the eighth of August removed to Westminster, and on the morrow after solemnly inferred amongst his ancestors in the abbey-church. In the performance whereof, the Lord Treasurer Paulet, with the Earls of Shrewsbury and Pembroke, served as principal mourners; the funeral sermon preached by Doctor Day, then shortly to be re-established in the see of Chichester. And, if the dead be capable of any felicity in this present world, he might be said to have had a special part thereof, in this particular, viz. that, as he had caused all divine offices to be celebrated in the English tongue, according to the Reformation which was made in the time of his life, so the whole service of the day, together with the form of burial, and the Communion following on it, were officiated in the English tongue (according to the same model) on the day of his obsequies. But whilst these things were acting in the church of Westminster, Queen Mary held a more beneficial obsequy for him (as she then imagined) in the Tower of London; where she caused a solemn dirige , in the Latin tongue, to be chanted in the afternoon, and the next day a mass of requiem to be sung for the good of his soul: at which both she and many of her ladies made their accustomed offerings, according to the form and manner of the Church of Rome. 17. Such was the life and such the death of this excellent Prince: whose character I shall not borrow from any of our own English writers, who may be thought to have been biased by their own affections, in speaking more or less of him than he had deserved; but I shall speak him in the words of that great philosopher Hierome Cardanus, an Italian born, and who, professing the religion of the Church of Rome, cannot be rationally accused of partiality in his character of him. “There was in him,” saith he, “a towardly disposition and pregnancy, apt to all humane literature; as who, being yet a child, had the knowledge of divers tongues: first, of the English, his own natural tongue, of the Latin also, and of the French: neither was he ignorant (as I hear) of the Greek, Italian, and Spanish tongues, and of other languages peradventure more. In his own, in the French, and in the Latin tongue singularly perfect, and with the like facility apt to receive all other. Neither was he ignorant in logic, in the principles of natural philosophy, or in music. There was in him lacking neither humanity, a princely gravity and majesty, nor any kind of towardliness beseeming a noble King. Briefly, it might seem a miracle of nature, to behold the excellent wit and forwardness that appeared in him, being yet but a child. And this,” saith he, “I speak not rhetorically, to amplify things or to make them more than truth is; nay, the truth is more than I do utter.” So he, in reference to his personal abilities and qualifications. And for the rest, — that is to say, his piety to Almighty God, his zeal to the reformation of religion, his care for the well-ordering of the commonwealth, and other qualities belonging to a Christian King (so far as they could be found in such tender years,) — I leave them to be gathered from the passages of his life, as before laid down; remembering well that I am to play the part of an historian, and not of a panegyrist or rhetorician. 18. As for the manner of his death, the same philosopher leaves it under a suspicion of being like to fall upon him by some dangerous practice. For, whether he divined it by his art in astrology, (having calculated the scheme of his nativity), or apprehended it by the course and carriage of business, he made a dangerous prediction, when he foresaw that the King should shortly die a violent death, and (as he reporteth) fled out of the kingdom, for fear of further danger which might follow on it. 19. Of any public works of piety in the reign of this King, more than the founding and endowing of the hospitals before remembered, I find no mention in our authors: which cannot be affirmed of the reign of any of his predecessors, since their first receiving of the gospel. But their times were for building up, and his unfortunate reign was for pulling down.

Howsoever, I find his name remembered amongst the benefactors to the university of Oxford, and by that name required to be commemorated in all the prayers before such sermons as were preached ordinarily by any of that body in St Mary’s church, or at St Paul’s cross, or, finally, in the Spiral without Bishops-gate, on some solemn festivals. But possible it is, that his beneficence did extend no further than either to the confirmation of such endowments as had been made unto that university by King Henry the Eighth, or to the excepting of all colleges in that and the other university out of the statute or Act of parliament, by which all chantries, colleges, and free chapels, were conferred upon him. The want of which exception in the grant of the said chantries, colleges, free chapels to King Henry the Eighth, struck such a terror into the students of both universities, that they could never think themselves secure till the expiring of that statute by the death of the King; notwithstanding a very pious and judicious letter, which had been written to the King in that behalf, by Doctor Richard Cox, then Dean of Christchurch, and tutor to his son Prince Edward. 20. But, not to leave this reign without the testimony of some work of piety, I cannot but remember the foundation of the Hospital of Christ in Abindon, as a work not only of this time but the King’s own act. A guild or brotherhood had been there founded in the parish church of St Helens, during the reign of King Henry the Sixth, by the procurement of one Sir John Gollafrie (a near neighboring gentleman) for building and repairing certain bridges and highways about the town; as also for the sustenance and relief of thirteen poor people, with two or more priests for performing all divine offices unto those of the brotherhood. Which being brought within the compass of the Act of parliament by which all chantries, colleges, and free chapels were conferred on the crown, the lands hereof were seized on to the use of the King; the repairing of the ways and bridges turned upon the town; and the poor left destitute, in a manner, of all relief.