CHAPTER XXXV. THE LAST TUDOR. When the villain crams his chest, GAY'S Fables: The Miser and Plutos. Pigeat sane peccare, sed pœniteri non pigeat. Pudeat periclitari, sed non pudeat liberari. Quis naufrago tabulam, ne evadat, eripiet? Quis sanandis vulneribus invidebit?-ST. PACIAN, De Catholico Nomine, Epist. i. 258 B, apud Galland. tom. vii. Like as the errors of the clock be revealed by the constant course of the sun, even so the errors of the Church are revealed by the everlasting and infallible Word of God.-JEWEL, Works, vol. i. 127. Ed. Clar. Those things which degenerate are so much the worse by how much the better they had been had they retained that primitive rectitude which God and Nature put into them. FARINDON'S Serm. ii. 335. ་ Nor be dismayed Because the dead are by ; They were as we, our little day Harold the Dauntless, canto vi. 8. NOT a few people were inclined to say, with Richard Niccols, in the Mirror for Magistrates,' on the accession of Elizabeth, and none more ready than the good rector of Hanwood, and his worthy friend, the rector of Pontesbury: Even as that morning star that doth display Her golden tresses in th' orientall skie, Brings happy tidings of approaching day So our Eliza did blest tidings bring Of joy to those whom sad distresse did sting.' But, perhaps, considering the man, the passage following, with which Hooker concludes the Fourth Book of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,' is as remarkable as any: 'And sith thus far we have proceeded in opening the things that have been done, let not the principal doers themselves be forgotten. When the ruins of the house of God (that house which, consisting of religious souls, is most immediately the temple of the Holy Ghost) were become, not in His sight alone but in the eyes of the whole world, so exceeding great, that very superstition began even to feel itself too far grown the first that, with us, made way to repair the decays thereof by beheading superstition, was King Henry the Eighth. The son and successor of which famous king, as we know, was Edward the Saint, in whom (for so by the event we may gather) it pleased God, righteous and just, to let England see what a blessing sin and iniquity would not suffer it to enjoy. Howbeit that which the wise man hath said concerning Enoch (whose days were, though many in respect of ours, yet scant as three in comparison of theirs with whom he lived), the same to that admirable child may be applied: Though he departed this world soon, yet fulfilled he much time.2 But what ensued? That work which the one had in such sort begun, and the other so far proceeded in, was in short space so overthrown as if almost it had never been till such time as that God, whose property is to show His mercies," then greatest when they are nearest to be utterly despaired of, caused in the depth of discomfort and darkness a most glorious star to arise, and on his head settled the crown, whom himself had kept as a lamb from the slaughter of those bloody times; that the expression of his goodness in her own deliverance might cause her merciful disposition to take so much the more delight in saving others, whom the like necessity should press. What in this behalf hath been done towards nations abroad, the parts of Christendom most åfflicted can testify. That which especially : 66 England's Eliza, vol. iii. p. 829. 2 Sap. iv. 13. concerneth ourselves in the present matter we treat of in the state of reformed religion, a thing at her coming to the crown even raised, as it were, by miracle from the dead; a thing which we so little hoped to see, that even they which beheld it done scarcely believed their own senses at first beholding. Yet being brought to pass, thus many years it hath continued, standing by no other worldly mean but that one only hand which erected it.' So spoke Hooker, in his solemn and well-sustained style, of Henry VIII. that famous king, of Edward the Saint, and that most glorious star Elizabeth— A virgin, that was Ladie of the Deepe. And my Talking Friend assured me, on the authority of the old rector, who lived through the first twenty years of her reign, that there were visible improvement and progress, not only in the country at large, and in the old town of Shrewsbury, but throughout the whole valley of the Rea, from Caux Castle downwards. In the words of the old poem, which contains so strange a mixture— Her settled Faith, fixt in the highest heaven, Nor her undaunted spirit could be driven, At any time, one jot thereof t' abate, By Spaine's stern threats, and Rome's pernitious hate. Somewhere about this time, said my Talking Friend, old Edward del Wartyr used to be a constant visitor at the old homestead of Meole. He was a lineal descendant of old Degory del Watur, and was a Protestant and a staunch Churchman. Why my Talking Friend so well remembered him was that he constantly declaimed, beneath his shade, against those hungry courtiers who, from Henry VIII.'s days, had devoured the revenues of the monasteries and other religious houses of the land. He it was, continued my faithful chronicler, that was so delighted with the foundation of Edward VI.'s Libera Schola, or free-school, in Shrewsbury, and lent a hand till his dying day to support it. No one knew better than he did the true meaning of the words Libera Schola, a school that is 'exempt by royal Grant from the superiority of another foundation, such as a Chapter or College'; for, had he not lived the whole of his early days in the worst days of Romanism, and had he not seen its worst effects, though he was the first to allow that had it not been for the monasteries and the libraries then, learning might almost have died out? Nevertheless, though he did not live to know of the augmentation by Elizabeth, his heart was in the work, and he saw the great benefit that must eventually accrue to town and county, as indeed it did, and in no long time. And the first thing which my Talking Friend impressed upon me was the great advance which the country enjoyed by the better administration of the law. He could remember,' he said, the time when, in the open valley of the Rea, both life and property were insecure; indeed, in his time-honoured father's days, might was right, and from Montgomery to Caux, and from Caux Castle to the Meole ford, every man did pretty much as he liked. Happily these days were gone by!' And I bethought me of the words of excellent Bishop Andrewes in his sermon on the Spittle: 'To a poor man, if he have a cause in hand, there is nothing cometh to mind but God and innocency, and the goodness of his cause. There is his strength, and that is "the horn of his salvation" (Psalm xviii. 1). But the rich, saith Amos, hath gotten him alms in his own strength; as in our modern version, "Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?" (Amos vi. 13).' As Bishop Andrewes was born in 1555, only three years before Elizabeth came to the throne, and survived James I. by a year, it is to be feared that there was plenty of injustice rife still, notwithstanding my Talking Friend's hopeful opinion. No doubt even in Elizabeth's days it might have been said I have often heard of Lydford law, And sit in judgment after. It was, as well as I could make out, in the very first ycar of Elizabeth's reign, that my Talking Friend reported how the rector of Hanwood had been disturbed in his mind by some improperly printed paper or another which had been put into his hands-something, probably, like to what was afterwards called a Broadside, an invaluable collection of which still remains in the Pepys an Library-and of which he spoke in no measured terms of censure; however, with the alarm of Sir Thomas More and many others on its first invention. A sentence from Hearne will very nearly express his thoughts on the matter: Though honest men will rightly judge of such performances, and be by no means biassed by them, yet they bear no proportion to others, who will be swayed by such books, and will greedily imbibe the principles in them, and instil them in their children and dependents.' The alarm was, certainly, not unnatural; there is no rose without its thorn, but it is a rose still! And one may say with the old poet Omnia perversas possunt corrumpere mentes, There are no great historical events during Elizabeth's long and glorious reign of forty-five years in which the old town of Shrewsbury is much concerned; for the augmentation of the school was a local matter. Local matters, however, were those which were sure to reach the valley of the Rea first-historical ones concerning the kingdom at large, by degrees and it will be seen from the sequel that my Talking Friend was by no means an Oak lacking information. There can be no doubt that he delighted in hearing the mixed information beneath his hospitable shade, and of him most certainly it could not have been said with truth Curiosus nemo est, quin sit malevolus. The incident which follows is a local matter, but it gives a date, which from the Rolls of Accounts must have been anno 1561. It was, indeed, a very simple matter, but it was mentioned under the Old Oak that their neighbour, Mr. Onslow was gone, with others, to Bridgnorth, to knowe, my l'rd p'sident hys pleasure, where the cownsell could come together.' Onslow not being far off from the old homestead, it was natural enough that this conversation should have taken place, and everything which concerned Sir Henry |