130
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 15.
no sagacity at such times could anticipate for an hour the form of the future.[1]
Pole's treason had naturally drawn suspicion on his family. The fact of his correspondence with them from Liège could hardly have been a secret from Cromwell's spies, if the contents of his letters were undiscovered; and the same jealousy extended also, and not without cause, to the Marquis of Exeter. Lord Exeter, as the
- ↑ I attach specimens from time to time of the 'informations' of which the Record Office contains so many. They serve to keep the temper of the country before the mind. The King had lately fallen from his horse and broken one of his ribs. A farmer of Walden was accused of having wished that he had broken his neck, and 'had said further that he had a bow and two sheaves of arrows, and he would shoot them all before the King's laws should go forward.' An old woman at Aylesham, leaning over a shop window, was heard muttering a chant, that 'there would be no good world till it fell together by the ears, for with clubs and clouted shoon should the deed be done.' Sir Thomas Arundel wrote from Cornwall, that 'a very aged man' had been brought before him with the reputation of a prophet, who had said that 'the priests should rise against the King, and make a field; and the priests should rule the realm three days and three nights, and then the white falcon should come out of the north-west, and kill almost all the priests, and they that should escape should be fain to hide their crowns with the filth of beasts, because they would not be taken for priests.' 'A groom of Sir William Paget's was dressing his master's horse one night in the stable in the White Horse in Cambridge,' when the ostler came in and began 'to enter into communication with him.' 'The ostler said there is no Pope, but a Bishop of Rome. And the groom said he knew well there was a Pope, and the ostler, moreover, and whosoever held of his part, were strong heretics. Then the ostler answered that the King's Grace held of his part; and the groom said that he was one heretic, and the King was another; and said, moreover, that this business had never been if the King had not married Anne Boleyn. And therewith they multiplied words, and waxed so hot, that the one called the other knave, and so fell together by the ears, and the groom broke the ostler's head with a faggot stick.'—Miscellaneous Depositions: MSS. State Paper Office, and Rolls House.
