little that is interesting to be seen in and around the old imperial
city--are likely to have pointed out to them some venerable house or
other, which, their guides will tell them, was nearly four hundred years
ago the residence of a great English noble, a pretender to the crown, and
the terror of Henry VIII.--the "Duke of Suffolk." Some guides may even
style him "The King of England," since their distinguished townsman,
Philippe de Vigneulles, gives him that title. In all probability the house
shown will be the wrong one. For there is a great deal of loose and
inaccurate archaeology prevalent in these parts, and one old house is very
apt to be confounded with another. I myself have had a leading French
archaeologist in Metz indicating to me an old Merovingian palace--highly
interesting, to be sure--as the "Duc de Sciffort's" quarters. Once the
building was plainly ancient, the trifling difference of eight hundred or
a thousand years in the several dates made no odds to him. With the kind
assistance, however, of the present archivist, Dr. Wolfram, my friend M.
des Robert and the help of some old documents preserved in the local
library--which in spite of repeated pilferings for the enrichment of
Paris, still contains many valuable old manuscripts, I have been able
pretty clearly to trace the movements in Metz of our distinguished
countryman--who was indeed a claimant to the English crown, and over whose
death in the battle of Pavia, in 1525, Henry VIII. exulted with such
exuberance of gratitude to Providence, that he ordered a second public
thanksgiving to be held "with great joy" on the 16th of March, the triumph
proper for the victory of Pavia having--somewhat rashly, as it afterwards
turned out--been celebrated on the 9th day of that month.
The story of this Englishman's exploits abroad affords some features of
interest. It is a rather curious tale of adventure, love and war, strange
escapades, intrigues, and ambition. And it may be worth telling, because I
find that in English historical writings there is a gaping hiatus on the
subject--which is not a little remarkable. For, considering what an
ever-present weight Richard evidently was on the minds of the two last
Henrys, to what all but incredible lengths those kings carried their
unscrupulous persecution of him--how they offered bribes to kings to
deliver him up, and to meaner men to assassinate him--how not a treaty was
proposed to foreign potentates but contained a special clause forbidding
the harbouring of this dangerous character--one might have supposed that
our chroniclers of the time would have deemed it expedient to tell
posterity something about him. Their silence is explained by a strange
want of materials. So little turns out to have been known in this country
about the great marpeace, that Mr. Burton, in his 'History of Scotland,'
actually assigns to him the wrong christian name, calling him "Reginald."
Mr Gairdner in his interesting preface to one of the volumes of
'Chronicles and Memorials' goes at some length into the history of
Richard's brother Edmund. What became of Richard himself--except that he
fell at Pavia--he confesses that he "cannot trace at all accurately."
Napier in his 'Notices of Swyncombe and Ewelme' supplies fuller
information than any other English writer. But he, too, is evidently at
fault for materials. It is practically only foreign sources, very little
studied in this country, to which we have to look for information on the
subject of how "White Rose" employed the time of his exile, be it
self-imposed or involuntary, which made up the main portion of his life.
The chief of such writers is Philippe de Vigneulles, a contemporary of
Richard's, and a citizen of Metz, who has left rather curious and pretty
full memoirs written in that strange-sounding, uncouth Lorrain French,
which was at his time spoken at Metz. The original manuscript, formerly in
the possession of Count Emmery, was some time ago purchased at a sale by
M. Prost, the well-known Lorrain archaeologist. From it M. des Robert,
another well-known writer, specifically connected with the ancient city of
Metz--which only patriotic considerations have led him to desert--has
drawn the information which some years ago he incorporated in a little
monograph. Even this monograph leaves some gaps. And the author falls into
one or two odd mistakes--which are no doubt excusable in a foreigner. For
instance, he confounds the "rebel and traitor" Richard de la Pole with one
of the most faithful followers of the Tudor kings, Sir Richard Pole, of
Lordington, in ascribing to his hero, first, the office of Chamberlain to
Prince Arthur, and later on the fatherhood of Reginald Pole the cardinal.
But his pamphlet is decidedly useful, as supplying clues, which I have
been able to follow up successfully on the spot.
Richard de la Pole was the last member of a family which, within the space
of about a century of strange vicissitudes, ran through all the stages of
rapid rise, almost to the height of the throne, and no less sudden,
humiliating descent, to attainder, execution, confiscation, and dishonour.
I cannot stop here to tell their history at length. Genealogists have been
careful to point out that the French prefix _de la_ proves no Norman
descent. There is no "de la Pole," nor any name resembling it, to be met
with in the Battle Roll. The De la Poles' origin was, in fact, so humble,
that their first distinguished member, Michael, the prosperous
merchant--to whom his native town, Hull, raised a monument in
1871--afterwards Lord Chancellor of England and Knight of the Garter, is
described in Camden as "basely born." His "base birth," it is true, has
been disproved. But that only makes a difference of two or three
generations. When Richard and his brothers came into the world, the family
had had five generations of titled distinction and notoriety--partly of
honour and partly of disgrace. Only one Suffolk of this
creation--Richard's father--seems to have died at home and in his bed. And
even his death was caused by "grief for the ruin of his family." The Lord
Chancellor expired almost exactly a century before of "a broken heart" in
exile. His son fell a victim to "dissentery" before Harfleur. The next
Earl was honourably killed at Agincourt. His son, again, the "Duke of
Suffolk" denounced in early ballads, lived to disgrace that dukedom which
he had first obtained, and to die by lynch law under the form of a trial,
for having had a hand in the murder of Humphrey, the "good" Duke of
Gloucester, and in the surrender of Normandy and Aquitaine to France. This
"bad" Duke's son rose once more to high distinction. King Edward IV.
actually conferred upon him the hand of his sister Elizabeth; and Richard
III., on the death of his own only son, appointed his eldest son
John--created Earl of Lincoln--next heir to the throne. That appointment
proved in after-time a rather questionable boon to the family. For it
involved both John and his brothers in perils, and intrigues, and
persecution. The Earl of Lincoln fell in the battle of Stoke, fighting for
Simnel, the pretending Earl of Warwick, and by his treason and disgrace
caused the death of his father. Of course his estates and titles were held
to be forfeited. That forfeiture notwithstanding, the Earl of Lincoln's
next brother was admitted to some part of the succession, both of estate
and of title, by amicable arrangement with King Henry VII. These peerage
cases were dealt with in those days in a very different manner from what
they are now, as appears from the fact, that only some eight years
previously, in Edward IV.'s reign, the De la Poles' rather distant cousin,
the then Duke of Bedford--a Neville, not a Russell--had been deprived of
his peerage by Act of Parliament on the score of poverty.
Edmund de la Pole bargained with Henry VII., and recovered part of his
brother's possessions and also the humbler of his titles in the peerage,
by sacrificing the higher. He was admitted to the peerage as "Earl of
Suffolk." Notwithstanding his renunciation, he, later on, when in exile,
again claimed the dukedom. Edmund had in his youth been reported by the
University of Oxford in a letter addressed to his uncle, King Edward IV.,
"a penetrating, eloquent, and brilliant genius"--anything but which he
proved himself to be. His letters read like the writing of a man of very
poor education, even judged by the standard of those unlettered days. And
at Court he played his cards so unskilfully, that he soon became, from a
rather petted hanger-on, a declared "rebel and traitor," persecuted with
all the unrelenting meanness and malice that the two first Tudor
kings--the first, at any rate, not feeling very secure on his throne--were
masters of. That almost necessarily involved his younger brother Richard
in a like fate--which Richard did nothing to evade. Edmund, we read, had
the misfortune to kill a "mean" person, whom he presumed to chastise for
insulting him. For this he was brought before the King's Bench and
adjudged guilty. The king readily granted a pardon. But the Earl took the
indignity of his mere trial so much to heart, that he very unwisely fled
die country. People said that he had taken refuge at the Court of his aunt
Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, which was then notoriously the
gathering-place of malcontent Yorkists. This turned out incorrect. But the
rumour may have helped to prejudice Henry against him. Edmund returned
home for Prince Arthur's wedding in 1501, and appears to have been at
pains to make his loyalty know, and to have been outwardly well received.
But almost immediately afterwards he ran away a second time. And as he
forthwith proclaimed himself a pretender to the throne, and obtained from
the Emperor Maximilian a promise of material help--the loan of 4000 of his
troops, wherewith to make good his pretention--it is not surprising that
Henry should have set all his ample apparatus of crafty persecution at
work against a man become so dangerous a foe. But it is surprising to find
him stooping so very low in his recourse to dirty expedients. The State
Papers show that bribes were offered all round--to the Emperor, to the
King of France, Louis XII., to Philip of Castile and Burgundy--as much as
twelve thousand crowns in gold--for Edmund's surrender or despatch. At
length, in 1506, Fortune put Philip into Henry's power--a storm driving
him on our coast. And Henry meanly took advantage of that opportunity to
extort from the Spaniard an undertaking to surrender Edmund--then detained
at Namur--agreeing, in return, to Philip's stipulation, that the
prisoner's life should be spared. That promise he kept to the letter.
Edmund was detained in the Tower until Henry's death--and then executed on
Tower Hill by Henry VIII., in obedience to a direction set down with
incredible rancour in his father's will. Dugdale suggests that, Edmund
being so popular as a pretender, Henry VIII. did not like to leave the
kingdom for a war projected in France, with his rival remaining in England
alive. Another report says, that he was beheaded on the ground of
correspondence proved to have taken place between himself and his brother,
then a general in the French army.
Richard had taken service under the King of France as early as 1492.
Charles VIII. detecting in him even then that brilliant capacity which
made him in after-life one of the foremost generals of his day, intrusted
to him the command of 6000 _lansquenets_, at whose head he mastered the
difficult but valuable art of maintaining discipline among a most unruly,
but at the same time most serviceable host, and qualified himself for that
peculiar kind of warfare in which he subsequently gathered splendid
laurels. By this early favour Charles linked to his Court an officer who,
as Gaillard says, became one of "_cette pleiade de grands Capitaines qui
illustrerent les regnes de Louis XII. et Francois I., et porterent si haut
l'honneur de nos armes--Bayard, la Palisse, la Tremouille, duc de
Gueldres, Robert de la Marck_ [better known as Fleurange, "Le Jeune
Aventureux"], _et la famille de Rohan_." Of all these famous
captains--and, moreover, of Francis of Angouleme himself--Richard was a
comrade-in-arms and familiar friend. And nobody seemed to be able to
manage the wild and "_indociles_" mercenaries, who were ready to place
themselves at the service of any sovereign who would pay them, like
himself. Dreaded foes--and to the people scarcely less dreaded
allies--were those "bandes noires" of Northern Germany, who, like the
modern Prussians, bore on their banner the colours of black and white.
Before Pampeluna--of gloomy memory--they mutinied even against Bayard,
"striking"--according to the most approved notions of nineteenth-century
trades-unionism--at the most critical juncture for the concession of
double pay. Bayard and Suffolk between them, however, soon reduced them to
obedience. Brantome relates that it was said of the _lansquenets_ that
after St. Peter had refused them entrance into heaven, their troubled
souls could not even obtain admission into hell. The very devils were
afraid of this wild company. With these rough warriors did Richard fight
his battles, and fought them so well, that there was not one of the three
French kings whom he served, who did not feel moved to reward his services
with a substantial pension, in addition to his open thanks. Ever foremost
in battle, Richard's company "receveyd," as John Stile reports to Henry
VIII., "most hurte and los of men then any other of that party." And on
that fateful day which cost Richard his life, and Francis I. "_tout fors
l'honneur_," the king declared that, if all his troops had but done their
duty like Richard's _lansquenets_, the victory would have been his.
Francis was especially beholden to these rough soldiers, because, by
winning for him the battle of Marignano, when his crown was still young
and unsettled upon his head, they raised him to high prestige, and
completely altered his position in Europe. "_Ce gros garcon gatera tout_,"
Louis XII. had said--leaving 1800 livres of debts for the "_gros garcon_"
to pay. The prediction proved wrong.
When Richard de la Pole took service under Charles VIII., his father was
recently dead "of grief," and his family were under a cloud, owing to
Lincoln's rising in 1487. The "affable" king was much pleased with his
captain, and after the siege of Boulogne assigned to him a pension of 7000
_ecus_. At the conclusion of the treaty of Etaples, Henry VII. began his
shabby course of persecution against Richard, from which he and his son
never desisted while Richard was alive, demanding from Charles the
surrender of his foe. Charles, however, flatly refused the demand. King
Charles's pension, it is sadly to be feared, lapsed with his life in 1498;
for in 1505, and thereabouts, we find Richard in absolute
destitution--left, indeed, in pawn by his brother Edmund for that
brother's debts with the citizens of Aix-la-Chapelle. (Sir Henry Ellis,
with a little too much knowledge of German geography, places Richard at
"Aken on the Elbe." It is, however, perfectly clear that the place of his
detention was Aachen--that is, what we generally call Aix-la-Chapelle, but
for which both Edmund and Richard adopted various fancy spellings, as,
indeed, they did for most of their words, from the simple article upward.)
As Richard's fate is so closely bound up with Edmund's, it may be
convenient to review at one rapid glance the fortunes of that poor
nobleman after his flight in 1501. He first repaired to Imst, in the
Tyrol, to seek help from the Emperor Maximilian. The Emperor Maximilian
gave him ample encouragement, drew up an agreement, kept his confidential
agent as representative at his own Court, and sent him with letters of
recommendation to Aix-la-Chapelle, where, hoping to obtain further
succour, Edmund managed to outrun the constable, and was fain to leave his
brother as pledge. In spring 1502 it was proposed that Edmund, to make
good his claim, should land in England from Denmark. In that same year,
however, Henry talked over the Emperor, and concluded a treaty with him,
by which Maximilian bound himself not to allow any English rebels to
reside in his dominions, "even though they be of the rank of dukes." That
was, there can be no doubt, specially aimed at Edmund and Richard. Edmund
now despaired of help in the quarter appealed to, and transferred his
attentions to the Court of the Count Palatine. In 1504 he entered
Guelders, with a view to proceeding to Frisia and obtaining pecuniary
assistance--so he writes to his pawned brother at Aachen--from Duke George
of Saxony. The Duke of Guelders, greedy to secure--as Archduke Philip, his
cousin, writes to Henry--the reward which he is likely to receive from
Henry, plays the traitor and enters into an intrigue with Philip of
Burgundy--it is always the same Philip--who eventually "interns" Edmund at
Namur.
Poor Richard was in sore straits all the time. "Here I ly," he writes to
his brother in very curious English, "in gret peyne and pouerte for your
Grace, and no manner of comffort I have of your Grace.... Sir, be my
trothe ye dele ffery hardly with me." "Sir," he writes again another time,
"I beseche your Grace, send me some what to help me with all." He reports
that--while Edmund was at Namur--the indignant "bourgoys of Aix" have sent
a deputation to Philip to see what redress they could obtain. And coming
back empty-handed they had denounced Edmund to Richard as "_le pluis false
homme que oncques fuyt de sa parole_," and threatened to expose him at all
the courts of Europe. At the same time Richard is made uncomfortable by
the fact that he knows that Henry has offered the burgesses of Aix
bribes--as much as 5000 crowns in gold--if they will deliver him "three
lieuwes out of the town of Aix"--"and he will pay them," he significantly
adds.
From Namur, Edmund, with a mixture of rather too ingenuous prudence and
folly, as a last shift, offers a reconciliation to Henry, but fixes his
own terms exorbitantly high. This offer, as has been already related,
sealed his doom. He died by the executioner in 1513.
His death left Richard the more or less recognised "White Rose" claimant
to the throne of England. (What became of his two elder brothers, Humphrey
and Edward--both of whom took orders, and one of whom was Archdeacon of
Richmond--we are not told.) Somehow or other he had managed to get away
from Aix in 1506. For in that year we find the Emperor reporting to Henry
that he had seized the French "orators," who had proceeded to Hungary by
way of Venice. He had looked out, as desired, for Richard, but had not
been able to find him among the company. In April, 1507, however, Richard
writes, dating his letter "Budae," to the Bishop of Liege--one of the De
la Marcks with whom at Metz he was to become intimate--in Latin, which is
very much better than his English, though that is not saying much.
King Henry having, in 1509, given proofs of his peculiar goodwill towards
the De la Poles, by excepting them in distinct terms from a general
pardon, we cannot be surprised to learn that Richard--"Blanche Rose" they
called him in France--had grown busy scheming against his sovereign. Louis
XII. was then at war with Henry, and it served Louis's purpose to turn to
account the "_instrument de trouble que le roi dans l'occassion pouvait
faire agir en Angleterre--une etincelle qui pouvait y rallumer les
anciennes incendies_." In 1512 we have John Stile reporting to Henry, that
"your sayd rebel was mayde a Capytan of the Almaynys that went you to
Navar, where many of the Almaynys now of late be slayne." "The Almaynys"
were Richard's _lansquenets_, who indeed suffered great "hurte and los" in
that ill-starred campaign. Richard fought there side by side with Bayard,
and half starved with him on bread made of millet; and though their defeat
meant disaster to the King of Navarre, the army were not altogether sorry
to be called back to Artois, invaded by the English. Richard's command of
the "French fleet for a rising in England," recorded by Peter Martyr, was
probably only of brief duration. For we find him again at the head of his
6000 _lansquenets_ at Therouenne, besieged by the English, and taking part
in the inglorious "battle of the Spurs"--so named because the French,
taken by surprise while riding, not their war-horses, but their
"hackneys," trusted more to their spurs than to their swords. That day of
Guinegate helped to bring peace to England and France--and to send Richard
to Metz. The Duc de Longueville, taken prisoner on that day, turned his
captivity to account for negotiating a treaty of peace--one condition of
which was that the Princess Mary, Henry VIII.'s sister, should be married
to the all but dying Louis XII.--as the clerics of the Basoche said, "_Une
hacquenee pour le porter bientost et plus doucement en enfer ou en
paradis_." Another condition was, that Richard should be given up. To this
Louis would not agree, but answered in almost the same terms which his
cousin had used, "_Qu'il aimait mieux perdre tout ce qu'il possedait que
de le conserver en violant l'hospitalite_." Some people say that this was
mere bounce. But it had its effect.
A compromise was arranged, in pursuance of which Richard was banished to
Metz. That was rather a cool proceeding on the part of the two monarchs,
considering that Metz was then a city of the Empire, in no sort of
dependence upon either Henry or Louis. The thirteen Jurats of Metz were
accordingly a little taken aback when they received Louis's letter to
"_mes bons amis_," begging that his _protege_ might be "_bien recu et bien
advenu_"--as well they might, in view of the treaty concluded between
England and their master, the Emperor, in 1502, with special reference to
this self-styled "duke." However, they got over the difficulty by granting
Richard a _laissezpasser_ for eight days, to be indefinitely renewed,
while that should prove practicable. So De la Pole went to Metz, England
and France got their peace for a time, and Mary--"_bien polie, mignoinne,
gente et belle_" as she was--married Louis, "_fort gouteux vies et
caducque_," as a brief prelude to her clandestine marriage with the new
Duke of Suffolk, Brandon.
On the 2d of September, 1514, one Saturday, we read in Vigneulles,
"Blanche Rose" entered Metz, escorted by sixty "_chevaliers_," several
French "_gentilhommes_," and a guard of honour furnished by the Duke of
Lorraine, Rene II. That was making his entry in good style; and such
style, on the whole, he managed to maintain whilst in Metz. It is true
that at times he was very short of money, and paid his servants, dressed
"in grey and blue," their wages most irregularly; and that even his
chaplain could wring his "wages" from him only "a crown at a time." But
that was because, what with keeping open house, and entertaining the
_honoratiores_ of Metz, betting, gambling, and making love to other men's
wives, "the Duke" spent his money faster than he got it. King Louis had
allowed him a pension of 6000 _ecus_ per annum. King Francis made very
much of him, and from time to time "augmented his stipend." The Messins,
always inclined to hospitality, took delight in honouring their guest,
whose chivalrous manners and easy amiability made him popular. And they
never ceased to look upon him as "_le vray heritier d'Angleterre qui
devoit mieulx estre roy que celui qui l'estoit_."
Metz was then in a semi-independent state, which, in the present day, it
is interesting to study. Its nationality was German, its language was a
curious sort of early French. Its sympathies were French, too. Its
seigneurs served in the French army; and at the famous "sacres" of French
kings, representatives of the leading families of Metz--the Serrieres, the
Gournays, the De Heus, the Baudoches, &c.--attended, and considered it an
honour to be dubbed knights. To complete the mixture of nationalities, the
city was surrounded by Lorraine, then an independent dukedom. The
government of the city was in principle the same as that of other great
German free towns--Strassburg, Bale, Cologne, Mayence, &c. There was
nothing at all similar in France. It was divided into six (originally only
five) "paraiges." Its head was a _maitre echevin_, at that time appointed
afresh every year. It was administered by a council of thirteen Jurats,
representing, for the most part, the patrician families. From the judgment
of the Thirteen there was no appeal. The larger Council consisted of the
Thirteen, with the addition of an indefinite number of "prudhommes" or
"wardours"; and for purposes of taxation and similar business, the whole
mass of citizens were called together. There were, moreover, standing
committees of seven each, appointed to deal severally with matters of war,
gates and walls, the collection of taxes, the treasury, and paving. There
were also three mayors under the _maitre echevin_ and a number of "amans"
or amanuenses, answering to modern notaries. The whole city was a
thoroughly self-contained little republic.