284 FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. [1519. The character of this royal embarkation has been handed down to us in an ancient painting. The thousands of visitors who now range freely through the state-apartments of Hampton Court, and who are familiar with the solid grandeur of a modern English fleet, look with natural curiosity upon the unwieldy hulls, the decks covered with blazonry, the painted sails, of the sixteenth century, and think how a single steam-frigate would consign all this bravery to sudden destruction. With a fair wind such a navy might safely cross the channel. The low towers of Dover have vomited forth their fire and smoke; and in a few hours the guns of Calais salute the English king. The great palace was ready, with its ceilings draped with silk, and its walls hung "with rich and marvellous cloths of arras wrought of gold and silk." But while Henry was contemplating his splendours, Wolsey was busy arranging a treaty with Francis. The friendship of England was to be secured by a renewal of the treaty of marriage between the dauphin and the princess Mary. There can be little doubt that at this very time the cardinal was bound to the interests of the emperor, with the full concurrence of his royal master. Yet the play was to be played out. Henry was to meet the French king with such a display of the magnificence of his court as might challenge any rivalry. But Francis, possessing much of the same temper, was not to be outdone in pageantry. "To-day the French All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods, The dramatic poet has described this famous meeting in a short dialogue. Hall, the chronicler, who was present, elaborates these "fierce vanities” in many quarto pages. On the 7th of June, the two kings met in the valley of Andren. Titian has made us acquainted with the animated features of Francis. Hall has painted him with coarser colours; as "a goodly prince, stately of countenance, merry of cheer, brown coloured, great eyes, high-nosed, big-lipped, fair breasted and shoulders, small legs, and long feet." Holbein has rendered Henry familiar to us in his later years; but at this period he was described by a Venetian resident in England as "handsomer by far than the king of France. He is exceeding fair, and as well proportioned in every part as is possible. When he learned that the king of France wore a beard, he allowed his also to grow, which being somewhat red, has at present the appearance of being of gold." It is scarcely necessary to transcribe the complimentary speeches, and the professions of affection which are related to have passed at this meeting. The two kings did not come to the appointed valley, surrounded each with an amazing train of gorgeously appareled gentlemen and nobles, and with a great body of armed men, without some fears and suspicions on either side. The English, if we may believe the chronicler, were most wanting in honourable confidence. The English lords and their Shakspere, "Henry VIII." Act i. Scene 1. From a letter of Sebastiano Giustiniani in 1519, quoted in Ellis, First Series, vol. i. p. 177. 286 MEETING WITH CHARLES V. [1520. attendants moved not from their appointed ranks. "The Frenchmen suddenly brake, and many of them came into the English party, speaking fair; but for all that, the court of England and the lords kept still their array." The solemnities of "The Field of the Cloth of Gold," as the place of this meeting came to be called, occupied nearly three weeks of that June of 1520. Ten days were spent in the feats of arms for which Wolsey had provided. There was tilting with lances, and tourneys on horseback with the broad sword, and fighting on foot at the barriers. The kings were always victorious against all comers. But from the court of the emperor there came no knight to answer the challengers. The lists were set up close to the Flemish frontier, but not a gentleman of Spain, or Flanders, or Brabant, or Burgundy, stirred to do honour to these pageantries. "By that," says Hall, "it seemed there was small love between the emperor and the French king." On Midsummer-day the gaudy shows were over. The kings separated after an exchange of valuable presents,-Francis to Paris, Henry to Calais. Here the English court remained till the 10th of July. It was in vain that the French king had come unattended and unarmed into the English quarter, to show his confidence in the friendship of his companion in feats of chivalry. In vain had the French nobles put all their estates upon their backs to rival the jewelled satins and velvets of England. On the 11th of July Henry met the emperor near Gravelines; and the emperor returned with him to Calais. After a visit of three days, Charles accomplished far more by his profound sagacity than Francis by his generous frankness. Wolsey was propitiated by presents and promises; Henry by a studied deference to his superior wisdom. Hall has recorded that during the pomps of the valley of Andren, on the 18th of June, "there blew such storms of wind and weather that marvel was to hear; for which hideous tempest some said it was a very prognostication of trouble and hatred to come between princes." The French, in this second meeting between Henry and Charles saw the accomplishment of the foreboding beginning to take a definite form. In the roll of illustrious names of nobles and knights at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the name of the duke of Buckingham stands at the head. He was there one of the four judges of the jousts, deputed on the king's part. High as he was in wealth and honours, he might have deemed that the evil destinies of his line were at an end; and that, whilst his father had died on the scaffold under Richard III., and the three preceding heads of his house had fallen in civil warfare, he might have securely passed through life to the death of the peaceful. But any lineal descendant of Edward III. was still unsafe, especially if his pride of ancestry were not held in check by unrelaxing prudence. The father of this Edward Stafford perished through his vain conviction that he was "meet to be a ruler of the realm;"† and the son, although a man of ability, was tempted by the ever-present thought of his high descent, to commit himself by some unguarded though trifling acts, of which his enemies took advantage. His chief enemy is said to have been Wolsey; and the cause of the cardinal's enmity is held to have arisen out of Buckingham's * Hall, p. 610. + See ante, p. 195. 1521.j CONVICTION OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 257 dissatisfaction with the expense of the great pageantry at Guisnes. But the jealousy of Henry had been exhibited in 1519; when sir William Bulmer, who had quitted the king's service to enter that of the duke, had to acknowledge his fault in the star-chamber, and to implore the mercy of the king. Henry forgave the offence; but said, "that he would none of his servants should hang on another man's sleeve; and that he was as well able to maintain him as the duke of Buckingham, and that what might be thought by his [Bulmer's] departing, and what might be supposed by the duke's retaining, he would not then declare."* The king had now entered upon that course of action which rendered his subsequent career so fearful and so odious. He could cover up his hatreds till the moment arrived for striking his victim securely. After eighteen months had passed since he had rebuked sir William Bulmer, and darkly hinted at some evil motive of the duke in retaining him in his service, the mine, which had been warily constructed, exploded under Edward Stafford's feet. He was suddenly sent for from his castle of Thornbury, to appear in the king's presence. He was watched by the king's officers to Windsor; and there perceived that he could not escape. He rode to Westminster, where he took his barge, and landed "at the cardinal's bridge;" but Wolsey refusing to see him, the duke said, "Well, yet will I drink of my lord's wine, ere I pass;" and he was brought, with much reverence, into the cellar. On his way to London, his barge was boarded, and he arrested. His fate was soon determined. On the 13th of May he was indicted before his peers, the duke of Norfolk presiding. Charles Knyvet, a discarded officer of the duke, was the chief witness against him; and deposed to certain words of Buckingham said to himself and lord Abergavenny, which, even if true, could not be fairly wrested into an overt act of treason. A monk of the Charterhouse, who pretended to a knowledge of future events, "had divers times said to the duke that he should be king of England; but the duke said that in himself he never consented to it." + The judicial inference was, that he had committed the crime of imagining the death of the king; and that his words were satisfactory evidence of such imagining. Buckingham was convicted; and Norfolk pronounced the sentence. The heroic attitude of the man in this his hour of agony, needs no exaltation by the power of the poet. He said to his judges, "May the eternal God forgive you my death as I do. I shall never sue to the king for life, howbeit he is a gracious prince, and more grace may come from him than I deserve." The duke was beheaded on the 17th of May. In the early part of the reign of Henry VIII., there were many reversals of attainders that had been passed in the previous reign. There was then evidently a merciful desire for the oblivion of political offences; and for restoring to their estates and honours the heirs of those unfortunate persons who had suffered the penalties of treason. There was no hesitation in the avowal that it was possible that an attainted person might have been unjustly condemned. In the case of Henry Courtney, earl of Devonshire, the preamble to the Act of reversal says that his father was convicted of high treason "by the sinister means and untrue informations of certain malicious and evil p. 599. † Hall, p. 623. See various Statutes from the first year to the sixth of Henry VIII. 288 EXECUTION OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. (1521 This disposed persons made unto your noble father, of famous memory."* open acknowledgment of the possibility of an unjust conviction, under the forms of law, might have led the king who would show no mercy to Buckingham, judged as he was upon the most frivolous accusations, to think that the declaration of his high will might have some effect in calling forth such "untrue representations." The time was not yet arrived when he should find his ready instruments of despotism in the highest of the land; and when he should be able to perpetrate, through his slaves in a parliament, the murders which the oriental despot could effect by a single sign to the eunuchs of the seraglio. He tasted of blood when he put Buckingham to death; and after a few more years, during which his will, being unquestioned, was less tyrannical, he showed that his relish for it was not to be satisfied to his dying hour. * 4 Hen. VIII. c. 9, first printed in the Statutes by Authority. |