ENGLAND'S GREATEST KINGS.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume VII, Issue 69, 26 September 1901, Page 2

ENGLAND'S GREATEST KINGS.

THE SEVEN EDWARDS. A POPULAR NAME. BY "HISTORICUS." PART 11. EDWARD 1V.—1461—1485. A long interval occurs before another Edward ascends the English throne, and then the event is brought about by one of the many accidents that sprung from the desperate conflict between the rival houses of York and Lancaster. Truly those times were troublous enough. Macaulay thus puts the case—" During the one hundred and sixty years that immediately preceded the Wars of the Roses nine kings reigned in England. Six of these kings were deposed, and five of them lost their lives as well as their crowns." The stormy days in which this monarch ascended the throne were the days of Guy Neville, Earl of Warwick, popularly known as the kingmaker, the days when brother raised the sword against brother, and hundreds of miles of country were laid waste and desolate, dotted only with the charred ruins of houses ruthlessly destroyed in turns by the fury of contending factions. Perhaps the best description of this awful period may be gathered from Bulwer Lytton's "Last of the Barons:" TheTiospitality of the age may be illustrated by mentioning that Warwick used to feed 30,000 people daily in his various mansions, and when he stayed in London, anyone who had any acquaintance in his household might come and take as much meat as he could cany oft' on a dagger. And we may form some idea of the barbarity of the age, and of the tyranny of Edward, from the fact that a tradesman was executed for saying that his son was " heir to the crown," when he was simply indulging in a play of words, as " The Crown " was the sign over his place of business. Even loyalty, to be safe, had to be professed at a respectable distance, and Robert B^field^^f-iitQi.]' .nnrten, -was hen vily •^®||gggg||^ iee lj n „ £ OO near tin, Jviiiy.A legend has been recorded in many histories that the King's brother, the Duke of Clarence, on being convicted of treason, was allowed to choose the manner of his death, and that he elected to be drowned in a butt of malmsey wine. The more probable account is that Clarence was murdered in the Tower, and his body was hidden in a cask. Indeed it is extremely embarrassing to judge between the conflicting stories of party writers of this period. Yorkists and Lancastrians have different versions of the same incidents. There is no doubt, for example, that in 1471, Queen Margaret, with the troops of her husband, Henry VI., sustained a crushing defeat at the hands of Edward IV. at Tewkesbury. According to one report, her son Edward was slain on the field of battle. But the common story is that the lad was brought before his victorious namesake, who asked him how he dared to make war in his realm. The youth replied that he came to recover his inheritance, whereupon the King brutally struck him in the face with his gauntlet, and the attendants despatched him with their swords. " Crowns got by force must be by force maintained" is the one bold principle upon which the violent acts of this reign may be defended or mitigated, and even then this page of the national chronicles is a sickening record of murders and massacres on the battlefield and the scaffold. The King himself was a man of intrepid courage, and high military capacity ; good-natured and just, though much given to pleasure and indulgence. He furnishes the second example—John having been the first—of a king having married a subject. His wife, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Sir Richard Woodville, aiid widow of Sir John Grey. She survived her husband, and on the accession of Henry VII. was placed in a convent, where she died in 1492. The most memorable step in the progress of the industrial arts during this reign was the introduction of printing from the Netherlands by William Caxton, who erected a printing press in the Sanctuary at Westminster Abbey in 1475. The morals of the court were of the most profligate character, and the relations of Edward with a beautiful woman named Jane Shore gave rise to much scandal. It may be no palliation of the offence to say that similar vices stained the records of other European courts. A bold friar preaching before the Sovereigns of Spain mercilessly denounced the flagrant licentiousness of his royal hearers, and was severely reproved by the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, who told him that he must preach the gospel cum grano salis, that is, "with due regard to majesty and men of high estate." No ecclesiastic was so daring as to tell Edward his

faults to his face, but after his death Jane Shore was compelled to walk barefooted through the streets of London, to do penance in St. Paul's Churchyard, dressed in a white sheet and carrying a burning taper. EDWARD V.—April 9 to June 22, 1483. This is the shortest reign and the most touching story in the annals of the sovereigns of England. Edward V. reigned less than three months, and was never crowned. At the time of his father's death he was living at Ludlow Castle with his mother's kinsmen and friends, and when on his road to London was kidnapped by his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, one of the most notorious villains of history. It is expedient to give prominence to this emphatic statement, because the habit has gained upon many eminent writers in "modern times of attempting to whitewash every historical blackguard and ruffian whom the world at large had agreed to execrate. Thus, Mr. Froude has taken infinite pains to describe Henry VIII. as a paragon of virtue, who was simply unfortunate in his wives, and whose conduct was wholly controlled and regulated by the dictation of his Parliaments. Mr. Hay ward, a barrister of high professional standing, has done a like service on behalf of Richard 111. But the evidence of his treachery, violence and murderous cruelty towards his two young nephews is too complete and convincing for sophistry and falsehood to explain away. Sir James Tyrrel, who was executed for treason in the reign of Henry VII., confessed that when Sir Robert Brackenbury, Constable of the Tower, refused to put his young prisoners to death, Richard ordered him to deliver the keys to Tyrrel for twenty-four hours, and during that time the sleeping children were smothered in their bed, and their bodies buried at the foot of the stairs. The bones of the two boys were-dis-interred 191 years later, when the reigning monarch, Charles 11., ordered them to be removed to a royal cemetery. For a long time people were persuaded that the younger of the princes had escaped when his brother was put to death, and in the reign of Henry VII. a Pretender, proved to be one Perkin Warbeck, aided by the declared recognition and influence of the Duchess of Burgundy, laid claim to be Richard, Duke of York, and consequently the rightful claimant to the throne. So late as the reign of George 11., this wild and romantic story gained the belief and support of so astute a man as Horace Walpole, and every now and again some pretentious book is published containing a mass of statements and documentary testimony professing to establish beyond reasonable doubt the identity of Perkin Warbeck with Richard, Duke of York. But so far as authentic history is concerned" that particular chapter is finally closed by the acceptance of sufficient proof that the two princes perished together in 1483 at the hands of murderers chosen by their uncle Richard Crookback. It may not be unworthy of note here that 1483 was the year of the birth of Thomas Parr, who had the honour of being buried in Westminster Abbey, where his grave is marked by the simple inscription "Old Parr." He died in the reign of Charles 1., to whom he had just been presented, and at the time of his death was aged one hundred and fifty-two years and nine months. EDWARD V 1.—1547—1553. In his unique history, or it might be more correct to say powerful caricature of the Protestant Reformation, William Cobbett says—" It was engendered in beastly lust, brought forth in perfidy and hypocrisy, and nourished by oceans of English and Irish blood. It was begun by Henry, the murderer of his wives, continued by Edward, the murderer of his uncles, and completed by Elizabeth, the murderess of her guest." To form an adequate estimate of the character of Edward VI. from this blurred and darkened portrait would l»e impossible. When his uncle, Lord Seymour, was executed at the instigation of his brother and Cranmer, the King was only eleven years old, and could do nothing except what his appointed guardian directed him to do. When Somerset, in his turn, fell under the displeasure of the Council, it was said that Edward did use considerable persuasion to modify the resentment of the lords, but was overruled by the arguments of strong statesmen as to the perils to which the realm was being exposed by the selfish and unscrupulous Protector. Be that as it may, Seymour, Lord High Admiral of England, was an ambitious and unprincipled man, who had married the widowed Queen Katherine Parr, and on her decease was paying his addresses to the Princess Elizabeth. There was no disguising the fact that he was striving to overturn the Protector, and was himself beheaded under a bill of attainder without being heard in his own defence. Even in that rough age the spectacle of one brother sending another to the block produced a revulsion of feeling, and as Somerset's rule was a failure both at home and abroad, his government was not tolerated much longer. He was liked by the people, but hated by the nobles, and haying been deprived of the Protectorate in 1549, three years later he was executed on a charge of conspiring against his rival, the Duke of Northumberland. It would be unjust to blame the boy king for the results of a strife between contending factions that spared no pains to obtain a triumphant ascendency in the. guidance of national affairs.

King Edward VI. died at Greenwich in 1553, in the sixteenth year of his age. It was stated that the cause of

his death was consumption, though a rumour was spread abroad that he had been poisoned by the Duke of Northumberland, who had remained in attendance upon him, and had induced him to name as his successor the Lady Jane Grey, who had just been married to Northumberland's son, Lord Guildford Dudley. Opinions vary as to what the real character of the King would have been had he lived to the ripe age of manhood. There are some who maintain that he betrayed indications of the passionate temper of his father, and would have been likely to develop in later years the same stubborn wilfulness and angry nature. On the other hand the fact is well attested that he had profited by the excellent teaching of the best instructors of the time, who uniformly pronounced him learned, mild, and amiable. Making all due allowance for the tendency to flatter princes, there is abundant evidence to show that Edward had achieved skill in ancient and modern languages rare in a boy of his years. He kept a journal or diary, which may still be seen in the British Museum, in which he entered an account of the chief public business transacted in his reign. Even before he was eight years old he had written Latin letters to his father, When the dying boy sought to alter the succession he made light of the legal objections of the judges, and in his enthusiasm for the establishment of the Reformed religion prepared the way for a terrible reaction accompanied by cruel persecution in the reign of his sister Mary. This completes the list of English sovereigns bearing the name of Edward who have long since passed from the throne to the tomb, and it now only remains for us briefly to notice the career of the prince who after the lapse of three centuries and a half has surrendered the familiar style of Albert Edward Prince of Wales, to hold his higher inheritance as King Edward the Seventh. EDWARD V 11.—1901. No sooner had the echoes of grief and sorrow for the august and venerable lady who had reigned over the British Empire for nearly sixty-four years died away, than the eyes of the world were turned towards her eldest son who succeeded in the natural course of events to her exalted station. From the courts of all civilised lands messages of condolence on the death of Queen Victoria were quickly followed by those of congratulation on the accession of the Sovereign who has wisely chosen to be proclaimed as Edward VII. Doubtless it may be asserted in some quarters that the language of panegyric is a peculiar possession of courtiers and of those who spend their lives in the study and practice of diplomacy, and that it would be a mistake to attach too great importance to_ such utterances as an index. Of '""international ml a t«~ i * There has nevertheless been an intensity of feeling displayed in certain instances which leaves no chance of the expression of true sentiment being confused with mere complimentary tribute. The President of the United States, for example, went beyond the required limits of international courtesies, so as to convey an unspoken opinion of the value he places on the friendship of the two countries.* Not so very long ago there used to be constant signs of friction between England and America, but since the war with Spain there has been nothing visible from which to infer the least danger of hostility between the two great families of the Anglo-Saxon race. Both Powers are alike the friends and promoters of orderly and civilised progress, and it should be their province to show to the world how enduring are the bonds of policy, of justice and of friendship that unite them now, and that shall unite them more firmly hereafter. The amity of these two great nations is not one of parchments and of protocols, but of

hearts. . . . Again, the behaviour of the German Emperor has been a splendid spectacle of the closeness of the ties of blood and affections. The man of the mailed fist was palsied with nervous terror at the bedside of his dying grandmother, and his manly tears of sorrow have won the respect of a bereaved nation. His differences with the English people have been healed, and the blindness of his former impetuosity has been retrieved by exposure to the public gaze of the kindlier, softer, and more tender side of his nature.

And what can be said of King Edward VII. himself and of the hopes and prospects under which he ascends the most illustrious throne in Christendom '? It may be said at any rate that he assumes his high responsibility with a knowledge of its duties and obligations derived from a long and active life, in the course of which he has had to discharge as proxy for his royal mother many of those functions which now devolve upon him as a matter of diligent duty by virtue of his office. It can safely be added that he has invariably acted as the representative of'the Crown with strict and unerring impartiality. . He has ever preserved a neutral tint in his political views, by showing equal favour to Conservatives and to Liberals, and he has made the voluntary declaration that he intends throughout his reign to act as a strictly constitutional sovereign. No rational man will claim for the King while he was Prince of Wales an absolutely blameless life. There have been matters in which he had a share from which all of us would rather have seen him free. There have been occasions when the press, the platform, and the pulpit have combined their voices to inform him that vice will not be tolerated in high places, and that princes must conform their conduct to the principles

of honour, decency, and virtue. But the British' people are generous and forgiving, and so long as the canons of respectability and purity are not habitually outraged, the penalty of an incidental transgression is not made too heavy for a princely offender to bear. Edward VII. assumes his inheritance amidst the genuine acclamation of his contented subjects. » His Majesty finds ready at his hands the counsels of some of the wisest statesmen the world has ever produced, and there seems to be at home a condition of political rest. The highest wisdom and the purest patriotism will sometimes most conspicuously show themselves by perfect quiescence. The colonies within his dominions are acquiring wealth with remarkable rapidity, and all of them value their connection with the mother country. Abroad, perhaps, the outlook is not so cheerful. It cannot be truly said that there tranquillity reigns undisturbed and supreme, for in divers parts of the world, there are provoking Causes to try the patience of British statesmanship. But if King Edward VII. adheres to his intention of never swerving from a constitutional position, his plain and obvious line of duty will never become entangled with the web of foreign politics, or lead him into the grievous error of being mistaken for the king of a faction instead of a nation.