The Strife of the Roses and Days of the Tudors in the West Part 8

It would require no seer to divine the vindictive thoughts of Margaret, on regaining possession of her captive husband, and the consummate danger environing those in whose custody she found him, whether for preservation or otherwise. The Queen and her son discovered the helpless man in his tent with one personal attendant only, Lord Montague his Chamberlain. But there were at least two other distinguished men near, who were said to have remained to guard him from the lawless soldiery, one was the brave Sir Thomas Kyriel, and the other Lord Bonville. Both could doubtless have fled with the rest of the fugitives, had they been so minded, but it is recorded, that out of chivalrous feelings, when urged by the King to remain by him and protect him, they did so, under the a.s.surance from him that their lives should be preserved.

A fatally hazardous undertaking in those days of merciless reprisals, and so it turned out. Whatever the well-meaning King may have promised and perhaps really wished, his wife, the determined Margaret, was the "master of the situation," and the arbiter of their destiny; nor was she probably wanting in prompters calculated to urge her to wreak the worst vengeance upon her husband's guardians. However that may be, it is recorded, that as she turned from the battle-field in the evening, she left orders for their decapitation the next day, and the barbarous sentence was promptly carried out.

Weever says,--

"Sir _Thomas Kiriell_ was beheaded with the Lord _Bouvile_ the day after the second battell at _St. Albons_, in the raigne of king Henry the sixth: or slain in the battell according to John Harding.

'The Lords of the north southward came, To Sainct _Albones_, vpon fasting gang eve Wher then thei slewe the Lord Bouvile I leve And Sir _Thomas Kyriell_ also of Kent, With mekell folke, that pitee was to se.'"

The old chronicler Hollingshed describing this unhappy transaction tells us with greater truth,--

"When the daie was closed, those that were about the king (in number a twenty thousand) hearing how euill their fellowes had sped, began utterlie to despair of the victorie, and so fell without anie long tarriance to running awaie. By reason whereof, the n.o.bles that were about the king, perceiving how the game went, and withall saw no comfort in the king, but rather a good will and affection toward the contrarie part, they withdrew also, leauing the king accompanied by the Lord Bonneuille and Sir Thomas Kiriell of Kent, which vpon a.s.surance of the king's promise, tarried with him and fled not. But their trust deceived them, for at the queenes departing from Saint Albons they were both beheaded, though contrarie to the mind and promise of her husband."

No record exists of Lord Bonville's burial place. At the first battle of St. Alban's, in 1455, the Abbot craved the bodies of the slain n.o.bles from the victors, and buried them in the choir of the Abbey Church. But after this second engagement, Margaret's ill-paid, freebooting soldiers pillaged the town and abbey, so that probably those that perished were hastily interred near where they fell. This plundering the abbey "entirely changed the worthy Abbot Whethamstede's politics, and from being a zealous Lancastrian, he became a Yorkist."

Lord Bonville's ancestors in the direct line were mostly, if not all, buried in the choir of Newenham Abbey Church, near Axminster, of which hardly a trace now remains.

At the death of Lord Bonville, his brother Thomas of Tamerton-Foliot, was still alive, and survived until 11 Feb., 1467. He left one son John, who deceased in 1494, leaving a daughter Anne, married to Philip Coplestone. Some years anterior to this, the little child-heiress of Shute, Cicely Bonville, grown to woman's estate, was wedded,--and so, before the fifteenth century had closed, the antient and influential name of Bonville was extinct.[15]

[15] There was a natural strain of the Bonvilles, settled at Combe-Ralegh, and later at Ivybridge where, "by virtue of a remainder, this land came unto William Lord Bonvill, which gave it unto John Bonvill, his naturall sonne, begotten on his concubine Elizabeth Kirkby, which John Bonvill, having only daughters, gave it to his natural son, &c." (Pole). There were several generations of them, and used for their arms those of Bonville with the addition of _a bend sinister_; they also became extinct.

It is with feelings of relief that we turn away, at least for a time, from these scenes of horror. The Wars of the Roses appear to us, we regret to say, to have been imbued with very little, if any, chivalry.

They were in the main, only fought for the selfish purpose, l.u.s.t of power, and as a consequence, were attended by the congenial sinister characteristics of cruelty, treachery, and revenge. It is noteworthy however, that notwithstanding so many of the common people shed their blood and lost their lives thus freely, and it may be added ignorantly, partly lured and partly compelled probably to take part in these conflicts, at the bidding of their superiors in station and wealth striving for the mastery, it was not upon them as a cla.s.s the great social misfortunes of the war fell. As a general result, the engagements being over, their little houses and surroundings were scarcely ever ravaged or destroyed, the humble partizans in these sanguinary encounters, if victors, do not seem to have laid waste or appropriated their beaten neighbours' possessions, but simply kept their legions together, until their antagonists had time to rally, and again gather themselves in array for another trial of strength; an extraordinary, in its way, but by no means uncommon hallucination, that has first and last, in the world's history, cost millions of lives, wasted to determine the unmanly and degrading sentiment as to who should be a nation's master and rule over them;--a totally opposite aspiration to a people engaged fighting against a tyranny for liberty. But not thus comparatively scatheless, did the great actors in and promoters of this sanguinary drama, come off from the effects of the internecine strife. These men were desperate gamblers for high stakes, and the loss of the game to them was a fatal mischance, resulting in the deprivation of their lives, the confiscation of their estates, and occasionally--as with Bonville and the elder strain of Courtenay, extermination of their race also. No such terrible social quarrel ever convulsed England, nor heart-rending dissension so bitter, sown between the nearest and dearest relatives and friends, that the very commonest ties of humanity were outraged, dyed in blood, and trampled under foot, until at last the majority of the most ill.u.s.trious families in the land were wrecked in misery and destruction.

Over such a relation as this, friend of mine, fraught with contingencies and evils so desperate, let us close the record for awhile.

Old Shute Park! A royally descending gift of demesne,--as such, sacred from the intrusion of despoiling hands, and therefore happily preserved to us undesecrated of Nature's abounding charms and native beauty.

Here we are, seated on one of its pleasant knolls, throned in luxuriant ferns, surrounded by magnificent trees, and a calm, sunny, summer evening. Overhead a congregation of noisy rooks are flapping about, quarrelling with us apparently for thus intruding on the solitude of their domain. Below, across the openings of a densely foliaged avenue, a shadowy train of flying horn and bounding hoof has pa.s.sed noiseless as an apparition into the adjoining covert, where they presently a.s.semble in timorous conclave, at safer distance, alert and watchful.

"Gold of the reddening sunset, backward thrown In largess on these old paternal trees, Thou with false hope or fear did'st never tease His heart that h.o.a.rds thee; nor is childhood flown, From him, whose life no fairer boon hath known Than that which pleased him earliest, still should please: And who hath incomes safe from chance as these, Gone in a moment, yet for life his own?"

Such is the commentary Nature suggests, as we linger on this delightful acclivity. But what to us is the inspiration of the hour, whose minds are now busy in contemplation of the olden doings of her sons?

Look along that glade of venerable oaks, huge, gnarled, and twisted, the duration of whose lives may be reckoned by centuries, yet still hale, vigorous and leaf-arrayed, whose outward and visible aspect during the little cycle of mortal existence that at present looks upon them, has shewn no appreciable change, and will probably with unvarying regularity continue to display their perennial Spring garniture, to many succeeding generations, long after the eyes that now behold them have closed for ever.

Among them yonder is a veteran with a regal appellative--called after him, surnamed of Lackland,--"King John's Oak," with which monarch, tradition delivers it was in existence contemporary. And who is to say the legend is not correct, especially as every lineament of this aged grandee of the forest's appearance, goes to confirm it. Could a tongue be given thee, old tree, what a history mightest thou relate. Then, probably in the vigour of early youth, thou mayest have witnessed the _first_ Bonville, that claimed the owners.h.i.+p of this acclivity, pa.s.s cross-bow in hand under thy branches. His influential descendant who lies at rest in the valley of the far distance, and his still more celebrated but unfortunate grandson--both, when in the flesh,--with little doubt thou hast seen. Aye, even the little Lady Cicely--the _last_ hope of their unfortunate race,--may have toddled and prattled beneath thy shade, and afterward escorted by her n.o.ble husband, accompanied by his august relative, the moody and astute Henry VII., and followed by her fine family, rested beside or near thee, when that monarch and his host exercised their skill as bowmen in these delightful glades.

Then a season of desertion and gloom fell for a time over these erstwhile pleasant precincts; but when the star of the last Tudor sovereign was in the ascendant, then it again became thy destiny to welcome the new owner of this historic and time-honoured appanage, and thenceforward from time to time to greet each succeeding inheritor down to its genial possessor of the present hour. Here, may we not appropriately say,

"Beneath thy shadowing leaf.a.ge dense What stories have been told;-- Perchance of booty won and shared Beneath the starry cope,-- Or beauty kept an evil tryste, Ensnared by love and hope,-- Of old intrigues, And privy leagues, Of traitor lips that muttered plots, Of kin who fought and fell; Performed long generations since, If trees had tongues to tell."

Notwithstanding all the devices of man, for perpetuity of remembrance,--Nature, changing yet changeless, silent, un.o.btrusive and un.o.bserved, often continues and preserves the clue that binds all our generations together, long after our own mortal schemes and efforts, though projected with the utmost care, have pa.s.sed away; and carefully and lovingly bridges the void of Time, if not by actual record, by the even more true and gracious message of a.s.sociation.

And well it is so; in her tender keeping alone the memory of Bonville is now seemingly vested, for of their former existence, residence, or sepulture, otherwise not a vestige recalling their direct line, we believe, remains. On the capitals of the pillars of Powderham church, are s.h.i.+elds displaying the _torteaux_ of Courtenay, impaling the _mullets_ of Bonville, allusive to the marriage of Sir William Courtenay, the Lord of Powderham, who died in 1485, with Margaret Bonville, daughter of the n.o.ble and unfortunate victim of St. Albans, and a further s.h.i.+eld similarly charged, having relation to the same alliance, is found on the capital of a pillar in Stockland church.

Beyond this, and until the girl-heiress of Shute had been many years married, if not in her widowhood,--mementos which in due time will engage our attention--no further trace has been discovered.

We descend from our pleasant elevation, and our steps lead us a short distance over to what is now called Old Shute. The church stands on a little acclivity to the left, but in addition to the tower, whose supporting arches are of Early English type, coeval probably with the first Bonville,--and were in being when the interesting christening ceremony, previously recorded, took place,--there is apparently little of the fabric that was in existence when the name was extinguished.

It is equally doubtful if any part of the present Old Shute House was erected by them. The portion of the main fabric remaining, as also the gate-house, are both of Elizabethan origin, and retain evidence of having been erected by William Pole, Esq. (whose initials W. P. occur in the spandrels of one of the doorways), who purchased the Bonville's confiscated inheritance here of Secretary Petre, to whom Queen Mary gave it, after the attainder and execution of the Duke of Suffolk, last male representative of the Bonville blood.

And the mention of the name of the Duke of Suffolk brings us back again to our little annals, and to Cicely, the girl-possessor of this antient inheritance and a vast acc.u.mulation of other family property, a baroness with the two t.i.tles of Bonville and Harington,--altogether an heiress of the first magnitude.

After her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather's untimely deaths, her mother the Lady Katharine, and her second husband Lord Hastings, were const.i.tuted, as we have mentioned, her legal guardians, and had custody of her estates until she was of age, which was fixed at the mature period of sixteen. But this was considered quite a marriageable age at that era; and which would have arrived at about 1476-7. We have also described how her stepfather Lord Hastings had the wards.h.i.+p of her future husband, and so it fell out that in due time "a convenient marriage was purveyed for her."

Thomas Grey was the eldest son of Sir John Grey of Groby, by his wife Elizabeth,--daughter of Richard Widville, afterward Earl Rivers,--who subsequently became Queen to Edward IV. Sir John Grey was killed fighting on the side of the Red Rose at the second battle of St.

Albans, 18 Feb., 1460-1, the same engagement, after which Cicely's great-grandfather lost his head.

He was first created Earl of Huntingdon 4 Aug., 1471, a t.i.tle he afterward relinquished on his being advanced to the Marquisate of Dorset, an honour which was performed with great state ceremony 18 April, 1475, "_per cincturam gladii, et capae honoris et dignitatis impositionem_, the coronet being omitted. Upon which day he sate in his habit at the upper end of the table among the knights in St.

Edward's chamber."

The rich girl-bride was his second wife, and presumably he was considerably her senior in years. His first wife was both of royal descent and alliance, being his step-father's niece, Anne daughter of the unfortunate Henry Holland, the last Duke of Exeter, found drowned between Calais and Dover in 1473,--by his wife Anne, daughter of Richard, Duke of York, and sister to Edward IV. There does not appear to have been any issue of this marriage.

By his second wife Cicely Bonville, the Marquis is said to have had the large family of fifteen (Leland makes it only fourteen) children, seven sons and eight daughters.

Of the sons, Thomas the eldest succeeded his father to the t.i.tle.

Leonard, was in 1536 created Viscount Graney in the peerage of Ireland, and same year authorized to execute the office of Deputy of Ireland under Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, natural son of king Henry VIII., by Elizabeth daughter of Sir John Blount, and widow of Gilbert, Lord Talboys. In 1540 he was recalled, and the next year articles of high treason were exhibited against him, and although he had shewn the king good services formerly both in France and Ireland, was charged with a purpose to join Cardinal Pole and other the king's enemies, and to that end had left the king's ordnance in Galloway, and consented to the escape of his nephew Gerald (son of his sister Eleanor), and being brought to trial confessed all. He was thereupon beheaded on Tower Hill, and attainted by the Parliament then sitting.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD SHUTE GATEWAY.]

This nephew, he had consented to the escape of, was Gerald, his sister's eldest son, who subsequently became the eleventh Earl of Kildare. He was born in 1525, and at the time of his half-brother's execution about ten years of age. Henry VIII., "being very averse to his whole family, and offering large sums of money for his apprehension," the poor youth's peril was imminent, and his escapes almost marvellous, from the treachery that environed him, and plots laid to get possession of his person; besides disease and accidents of extraordinary nature that otherwise threatened his existence. But he contrived to keep safe until after the death of Henry VIII., when Edward VI. reinstated him in much of his forfeited property, and Queen Mary, at the intercession of Cardinal Pole, restored him, 13 May, 1554, to the t.i.tles of Baron Offaley and Earl of Kildare.

George was in holy orders. Edward and Anthony died young, and John, of whom we have no further account.

Of the daughters,--Dorothy married first, Robert, the second Lord Willoughby de Broke, and secondly, William Blount, seventh Lord Montjoy, who died in 1594.

Cicely married John Sutton, seventh Lord Dudley,--"a man of weak understanding, who became entangled in usurer's bonds, and at last became exposed to the charity of his friends for subsistence, and spending the remainder of his life in visits among them, was commonly called _Lord Quondam_."

Mary, as his first wife, to Walter Devereux, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, and Bourchier, created first Viscount Hereford, 1549, and K.G.

Margaret, as his second wife, to Richard Wake, of Hartwell, Northamptons.h.i.+re, second son and heir of Roger Wake of Blisworth in the same county, who died 19 Henry VII., 1504.

Elizabeth, as his first wife, to Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, Cornwall. He was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Arundell, K.B., who died 1 Oct., 1485, by Katharine, third daughter of Sir John Dinham, and coheir to her brother John, Lord Dinham; their daughter Elizabeth was wife of Giles, Lord Daubeney, K.G. "Sir John Arundell was made a Knight of the Bath on the eve of All Saints, 31 October, 1494, Knight of the Garter, 1501, and Knight Banneret in the expedition to Terouenne and Tournay at the battle of 'the Spurs,' in 1513, Receiver of the Duchy of Cornwall in 1506, and Receiver General for life, 1509"

(Dunkin). He died 36 Henry VIII., 1545. Their second son Thomas was ancestor of the Lords Arundel of Wardour.

Their splendid and originally richly enamelled bra.s.s still exists in the church of St. Columb-Major, Cornwall, in a fairly complete state, the knight bare-headed, but otherwise in complete armour, between his two wives (the second was Katharine, daughter of Sir Thomas Grenville), in gowns, mantles, and pedimental head-dresses. Below them were two smaller male figures, one partly perfect in armour, and underneath again, six female children, of whom two remain. The inscription, partly missing, is on a ledger-line,--

? =John Arundell Knyght of ye Bath and Knyght Banneret Recey ... ye Duchye of Cornewall ffirst Ma ...

Elizabeth Grey Daughter to the Lorde Marques Dorse & after Kateryn ye Daughter of Syr Thomas Gre ...

... ght of ffebruary the x.x.xvi yere of the raigne of Kyng Henry the Eyght an^o domine 1545 and ye yere of his age=

There were formerly eight s.h.i.+elds of arms; of these six remain quartered as follows,--

(1.) _Baron_, quarterly of six:--1. ARUNDELL.--2. DINHAM.--3.

ARCHES.--4. CHIDEOCK.--5. CARMINOW.--6. ARUNDELL;--impaling _femme_, quarterly of eight,--1. GREY.--2. HASTINGS.--3. VALENCE. 4. FERRERS OF GROBY.--5. ASTLEY.--6. WIDVILLE.--7. BONVILLE.--8. HARINGTON. For Sir John Arundell, and the Lady Elizabeth Grey, his first wife.