[Transcriber's note: Odd, inconsistent, and sometimes incorrect,
spellings have been retained as printed. A Contents has been added
for reader convenience.]
[Illustration: Cover art]
FRESTON TOWER:
A TALE OF THE
Times of Cardinal Wolsey.
BY THE
REV. R. COBBOLD, A.M., R.D.,
Rector of Wortham,
AUTHOR OF "MARGARET CATCHPOLE," "MARY ANNE WELLINGTON,"
"ZENON THE MARTYR," ETC.
WARD, LOCK AND CO.
LONDON: WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C.
NEW YORK: BOND STREET.
TO
THE REVEREND JOHN CONNOP,
IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT
OF HIS UNSOUGHT AND UNMERITED KINDNESS
TO
THE AUTHOR AND HIS FAMILY,
THIS HISTORICAL
Record of Piety connected with the County of Suffolk,
IS WITH UNFEIGNED PLEASURE,
Dedicated
AS A MEMORIAL OF FRIENDSHIP,
BY
THE AUTHOR.
Contents
Preface
I. Genius
II. Rivalship
III. The Greeting
IV. The Conversation
V. The Castle and Company
VI. The Excursion
VII. The Visit
VIII. The Event
IX. College Career
X. Ellen and Her Suitors
XI. The Conversation
XII. The Palace
XIII. The Reception
XIV. The Recluse
XV. The Judgment
XVI. Judgment Continued
XVII. St. Ivan's Warning
XVIII. The Fall of the Palace of Wykes
XIX. St. Ivan's Funeral
XX. A Memorable Night
XXI. The Pain of the Swimmer
XXII. Wolsey
XXIII. Changes
XXIV. Affections
XXV. The Letter
XXVI. The Journey
XXVII. The Interview
XXVIII. The Marriage Procession
XXIX. The Marriage Ceremony
XXX. The Revelation
XXXI. The Punishment
XXXII. The Monasteries
XXXIII. The Reformers
XXXIV. The Arrest
XXXV. The Letter
XXXVI. The Summons
XXXVII. The Arrival
XXXVIII. The Departure
XXXIX. The Change
XL. The Interview
XLI. The Argument
XLII. Enjoyment
XLIII. Hospitality
XLIV. The Fall
XLV. The Courtier
XLVI. Goldwell Hall
XLVII. Pride
XLVIII. The Plot
XLIX. The Fool
L. Christmas Day
LI. The Incendiary
LII. The Conflagration
LIII. The Pursuit
LIV. The Last Visit to the Tower
LV. The Last Event
[Illustration: Preface headpiece]
PREFACE.
Upon the banks of the beautiful river Orwell has stood for centuries,
and still stands, Freston Tower. Every sailor belonging to the port
of Ipswich knows it well; every traveller in the county of Suffolk,
who has any love for the tranquil in nature, must have noticed, if he
has sailed from Ipswich to Harwich, this picturesque object towering
above the trees, and looking upon the widest expanse of water which
the river scene affords.
Thousands of conjectures have been formed as to its origin and use.
After many years of promised hope to unravel the mystery, the present
work will afford an entertaining and instructive record of its origin.
It will be found connected with the history of one of the most
learned youths of his age, even with that of the Boy-Bachelor of
Oxford; with the stirring events of the Reformation; with the pride
and downfall of the proudest Chancellor England ever knew, and will
afford a lesson to readers of both sexes of the punishment of
haughtiness, and the reward of true nobility and patience, even in
their present existence.
In sending forth the present edition, the Author is gratified by the
thought that some benefit may arise therefrom to the Hospital in his
native town.
RECTORY, WORTHAM.
[Illustration: Preface tailpiece]
[Illustration: Chapter I headpiece]
FRESTON TOWER.
CHAPTER I.
GENIUS.
Who is that youth walking upon the soft sands of Frestonstrand,
intently meditating upon the contents of an old parchment-covered
book, with silver clasps, which, from their length, proclaim that the
work is one of some considerable size and depth? He seems to devour
that work; and, if a stranger might judge from his countenance, to be
enjoying, with great relish, the sentiments it contains--for, every
now and then, he soliloquizes in a foreign tongue, as if repeating
with admiration the lines he has been studying.
That book he holds in his hand is the first edition of the greatest
Grecian poet ever printed. It is the Iliad, printed by Aldus, who
first cast the Greek alphabet in the year 1476. The book has been
lent him by Lord De Freston, his distant kinsman, and he is on his
way from the ancient town of Gypesswick (now called Ipswich) to
return it to its rightful owner.
Like a true valuer of his treasure, he seems to store up in his mind
the most beautiful passages it contains. Every now and then he
pauses, and, with his dark eye averted from the book, he scans the
beauty of the scene around him. He is walking beside one of the
loveliest rivers in England, and at a spot where hill, dale, wood,
and water, under the influence of the bright beams of the rising sun,
exhibit nature in those splendid colors which an early riser only can
appreciate.
That eye, even in its glance across the waves of the river Orwell, is
a most thoughtful one; for it can view all the tracery of nature, and
find a corresponding beauty in the poetical ideas which crowd in upon
his mind.
He has been reading high-sounding words, heroic actions, and exalted
feelings; and his breast is as naturally inspired with the thoughts
of what he has read as his eye is with the view before him. But
nature is not able to chain down his soul to any terrestrial object,
nor can the charms of scenery engross his attention; for his spirit
seems on fire with enthusiasm, and his eye swells with a conscious
hopefulness in himself, arising out of the question--For what purpose
am I born?
The cap he wears proclaims him but a youth, and the curling locks,
hanging from its sides and sweeping over his face, bespeak a native
gracefulness, which well accords with his intellectual features.
There is a golden tinge upon his brow, and a ruddy, healthy glow upon
his cheek, which says that his occupation as a student has not been
confined to an unhealthy cloister.
He is but a boy, yet there were many men in his day, who, after years
of application, could not retain the memory of what they read with
half the ease of that extraordinary youth.
The fact was, as was afterwards proved, his genius was as
comprehensive as his energies were active, and a spirit was then
stirring in him, a mind in embryo, which, though not confined to the
drudgery of the scholastic routine of study, comprehended at a glance
the value of education, and made him the greatest schoolmaster of his
age.
As the beautiful stream then flowing before him in a sort of endless
wave upon wave, that youth seemed desirous to command as endless a
reputation; for his immortal mind possessed an unslaked thirst to
discern every species of wisdom which either letters, nature,
observation, or reflection could unfold.
Such was the genius of him who then stood upon the banks of the
Orwell, imbibing wisdom with an ambitious desire of distinction which
no future eminence could satisfy.
It was the youthful Wolsey, who, then unknown to fame, was noted by
many of the best spirits of that age and country, as a boy of most
acute intellect, and of an understanding beyond his years. He had
left his native town early in a beautiful spring morning, to go by
invitation to the castle of Lord De Freston--a nobleman celebrated
for his great learning as well as his benevolent disposition.
The youth had left many friends in the town of Ipswich, who had
encouraged his love of study, by lending him manuscripts and books,
which he could not otherwise have obtained. Richard Peyvale, one of
the most learned of the portmen of the town, and the compiler of the
'Ipswich Doomsday Book,' had been the first to discover the latent
superiority of his mind; for, in an examination of boys in the Free
Grammar School, the son of Robert Wooly or Wuly so acquitted himself
in classical knowledge as to carry off the great prize given by Sir
Humphrey Wyngfylde, to be presented by the town-clerk, which was done
by Robert Bray, before the bailiffs, governors, and portmen of that
ancient borough.
This was probably one of the spurs to genius. But Wolsey--the boy
Wolsey--soon discovered so much dross amidst the confined system of
school studies, that he told his father it was no use his sending him
to school, for old Mr. Capon could teach him nothing more. Hence,
after his twelfth year, he was under no tutors, but formed his own
reading; and was frequently applied to, by many learned men, to solve
difficulties of construction, which to him were very easily accounted
for.
Every classical work then known to the world, and within the reach of
the wealthy, whether from private families or from public libraries,
was obtained for him upon loan; and at one time he had in his own
garret, in the gable-end of his father's house, then dividing the two
great streets in St. Nicholas, leading from Peter's Priory to the
centre of the town, such a catalogue of eminent books, that had they
been his own, he would have thought himself the wealthiest man in the
land.
The names of Homer, Sophocles, Thucydides, Euripides, Xenophon,
Plato, Horace, Cicero, Plautus, Pliny, Tibullus, together with the
Scriptures, were familiar to him; and he was so great a man in his
boyhood, as far as classical comprehension went, that he scarcely at
any after-period of his life had to study these writings again.
It was not to be wondered at, then, that a boy with such precocity of
intellect--such a handsome youth too as he really was--should be
noticed by the richer and more independent portion of the community.
Lord De Freston had married a niece of the elder Daundy, one of the
wealthiest and most enlightened of the inhabitants of Ipswich, and
had, therefore, become connected with the female branch of Wolsey's
family, for Joan, his mother, was sister to Edmund Daundy. He was a
very early patron of the young student; and took such interest in his
cousin, as he called him, as laid the foundation of his greatness in
after life, though the youth's pride had well nigh lost him his
friendship.
But there he stood upon the Freston shore, and caught the sound of
the early matin bell, which came pealing from the opposite bank of
the river, from the Priory of Alneshborne. The sound of the bell,
and the mood in which the youth then stood, accorded well with each
other. The former called the monks to prayer, and in some measure
roused Wolsey from the reverie, and made him think of time. He
looked intently along the bright gleaming waves of the Orwell to see
if he could not discover some object which ought to interest his
attention.
De Freston's lofty turrets were in view, peering over the spring
foliage, just breaking forth in yellow tints from the oaks of the
park. The castle shone conspicuously white, as the rays of the
gloriously rising sun struck upon its walls. All nature seemed
alive. The rooks were taking their flights for the distant marshes;
the cuckoo's note saluted the early morn; and so bright and clear was
the sky, that even the lark rose joyfully, carolling with his lively
note, as if going to seek a purer clime than could be found on this
earth.
Had not ambition inflated his breast, Wolsey would have enjoyed to
the full the exquisite scene of that April morn. But ambition had so
fired his genius that even the lovely river then flowing before him,
the light of the heavens, the birds of the air chaunting their
praises, and the monks at their matin prayers, had no charms for him.
Not even the consciousness of classical knowledge could just then
satisfy his mind; for he had received an indirect promise from Lord
De Freston that he should go to Oxford, and such a vision of future
glory had opened before him, that even his native town, with all the
cordial friends it contained, were completely thrown into the
back-ground.
Ambition is a syren who deprives of rest those who are once charmed
by her voice; and when she prompts to grandeur, and all the
imaginative self-consequences of a great name, fame, and power, there
are no cruelties through which she will not urge her victims, and,
like fabled deities of the heathen, cover them with her mantle or
cloud of invisibility.
Moral reflection founded upon the only motive worthy of exertion, the
good of others, is a very distant object in the aspirations of a vain
man. Destroy selfishness, and all that is laudable, honorable,
great, and worthy in the human character will then shine forth, and
whether present success shall attend it, or future generations
celebrate its worth, it cannot be destroyed by disappointment, since
the serenity of equanimity is the same, whether the individual be
humbled by the praises of men, or exalted by their persecutions.
Selfish ambition, however plausible or deluding, cannot bear, with an
equal mind, the frowns of adversity. Success forms the criterion of
its own excellence; and it can no more enjoy the quietude of
retirement, than a famous actor can relish the coldness of his
audience.