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Published March 2025. The Deeds of King Henry V, or in Latin Henrici Quinti, Angliæ Regis, Gesta, is a first-hand account of the Agincourt Campaign, and subsequent events to his death in 1422. The author of the first part was a Chaplain in King Henry's retinue who was present from King Henry's departure at Southampton in 1415, at the siege of Harfleur, the battle of Agincourt, and the celebrations on King Henry's return to London. The second part, by another writer, relates the events that took place including the negotiations at Troye, Henry's marriage and his death in 1422.
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England under the reigns of Edward VI and Mary is in Tudor Books.
There is a manuscript in the Harleian,1 which gives us some interesting particulars of this mi-* serable man and his companions. It informs us that, on the 21st day of August 1553, before forty of the citizens of London, the Duke of Northumberland, my Lord Marquis of Northampton, Sir Andrew Dudley, Sir Henry Gates, and Sir Thomas Palmer, came into the chapel, where they first knelt down each upon his knees and heard mass, every one of them saying the Confiteor. " Mass being finished," it continues, '' the Duke rose up and looked back upon the Lord Marquis, and came unto him, asking them all forgiveness, one after the other upoii their knee, one to another; and the one did heartily forgive the other. And then they came all together before the altar, every one of them kneeling, and confessing to the Bishop that they were the same men in the faith according as they had confessed to him before, and that they all would die in the Catholic faith. When they had all received the sacrament, and all was done, they turned to the people every one of them, the Duke saying, 'Truly, good people, I profess here before you all that I have received the sacrament according to the true Catholic faith; and the plague that is upon this realm, and upon us now, is, that we have erred from the faith these sixteen years, and this I protest unto you all from the bottom of my heart.' And the Lord Marquis likewise did affirm the same with weeping tears; and also Sir Andrew Dudley, Sir Henry Gates, and Sir Thomas Palmer." It must have been on the evening of this day that Dudley wrote that piteous letter to the Earl of Arundel, which has been so frequently printed. He addresses this nobleman as his especial refuge, declaring how woful was the news which he had received that evening from the Lieutenant of the Tower, that he must prepare to-morrow for his deadly stroke. "Alas! my good Lord," he exclaims, "is my crime so heinous as no redemption but my blood can wash away the spots thereof? An old proverb there is, and that most true, 'That a living dog is better than a dead lion.' Oh, that it would please her good Grace to give me life! yea, the life of a dog, if I might but live and kiss her feet, and spend both life and all in her honourable service!" This affecting appeal, however, led to no extension of mercy, and the law was allowed to take its course.
Note 1. Harleian, 284; fol. 128. d. I have since found that Stow's account, p. 614, coincides almost verbatim with this manuscript.
Note 2. By Howard, in his Life of Lady Jane Grey, pp. 322, 323; Tierney, in his History of Arundel, p. 333; and by Lodge, in his Life of Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.
There are so many versions of the last words of the Duke of Northumberland,1 that it is not easy to discover the exact truth regarding his deportment upon the scaffold. The number of these copies seems to indicate an uncommon importance attached by both parties to his behaviour at the last. Fox says2 that he had promise of pardon, even if his head was upon the block, if he would recant and hear mass; and Burnet, in his History of the Reformation3, affirms, that "certain it is that he said he had been always a Catholic in his heart." The reader will observe from the following confession, which is in the latter portion of it a different production from the speech, as reported by Stow,4 that Dudley says nothing in the least degree similar to the words imputed to him by Burnet, but rather the contrary. "On the 22nd of August," I quote from Stow, "Sir John Gage, Lieutenant of the Tower, delivered to the Sheriffs of London by indenture these prisoners following. First, Sir John Gates was brought forth, and set at the garden-gate; then the Duke of Northumberland was likewise brought forth, and Sir Thomas Palmer after him.
Note 1. There is, besides the "Confession" printed in the text, one in the Cotton Collection, Titus, B. II. f. 162; another in the Royal MSS. British Museum, 12 A. 26, in Latin; another later abstract in the Harleian, 2194.
Note 2. Fox, vol. iii. p. 13.
Note 3. Vol ii. p. 243.
Note 4. Stow's Annals, p. 615.
"When the Duke and Sir John Gates met, 'Sir John,' saith the Duke, 'God have mercy upon us! for this day shall end both our lives; and I pray you forgive me whatsoever I have offended, and I forgive you with all my heart, although you and your counsel was a great occasion hereof.' 'Well, my Lord,' quoth Sir John Gates, 'I forgive you as I would be forgiven; and yet you and your authority was the original cause of all together; but the Lord pardon you, and I pray you forgive me.' So, either making obeisance to other, the Duke proceeded; and when he came upon the scaffold, he, putting off his gown of grain-coloured damask, leant upon the east rail, and spoke to the people — "1
Note 1. Stow, p. 614.
I do not give Stow's edition of the speech of Northumberland, as the following confession is J probably a more authentic document.
The Open Confession of John Duke Of Northumberland (age 49), who suffered at Tower Hill, 22nd of August 1553. Orig. Harleian, 284; fol. 127.
"Good people. Hither I am come this day to diej as ye know. Indeed, I confess to you all that I have been an evil liver, and have done wickedly all the days of my life; and, of all, most against the Queen's Highness, [of] whom I here openly ask forgiveness (and bowed his knees): but not I alone the original doer thereof, I assure you, for there were some other which procured the same; but I will not name them, for I will hurt now no man. And the chiefest occasion hath been through false and seditious preachers, that I have erred from the Catholic faith and true doctrine of Christ. The doctrine, I mean, which hath continued thro' all Christendom since Christ. For, good people, there is, and hath been ever since Christ, one Catholic church; which church hath continued from him to his disciples in one unity and concord, and so hath alway continued from time to time until this day, and yet doth throughout all Christendom, only us excepted; for we are quite gone out of that church. For, whereas all holy fathers, and all other saints throughout alt Christendom, since Christ and his disciples, have ever agreed in one unity, faith, and doctrine; we alone dissent from their opinions, and follow our own private interpretation of Scriptures. Do you think, good people, that we, being one parcel in comparison, be wiser than all the world besides, ever since Christ? No, I assure you, you are far deceived. I do not say so for any great learning that I have, for, God knoweth, I have very little, or none; but for the experience which I have had.
" For I pray you, see, since the death of King Henry the Eighth, into what misery we have been brought; what open rebellion, what sedition, what great division hath been throughout the whole realm; for God hath delivered [us] up to [our] own sensualities, and every day [we] wax worse and worse. Look also in Germany, since they severed from the faith; unto what miserable state they have been brought, and how their realm is decayed. And herewith I have [braved] these preachers for their doctrine, and they were not able to answer any part thereof, no more than a little boy. They opened the books, and could not [reply to] them again. More than that, good people, you have in your Creed, Credo Eccksiam Catkolicam, which church is the same church which hath continued ever from Christ, throughout all the apostles', saints', and doctors' times, and yet doth, as I have said before. Of which church 1 do openly profess myself to be one, and do steadfastly believe therein; I speak unfeignedly from the bottom of my heart. This good man, the Bishop of Worcester, shall be my witness (and the Bishop said, ' Yea'), And I beseech you all bear nie witness that I die therein. And I do think, if I had had this belief sooner, I never had come to this pass: wherefore I exhort you all, good people, take you all example of me, and forsake this new doctrine betimes. Defer it not long, lest God plague you as he hath me, which now suffer this vile death most worthily.
" I have no more to say, good people; but all those which I have offended I ask forgiveness, and they which have offended me I forgive them, as I would God forgive me. And I trust the Queen's Highness hath forgiven me: where as I was with force and arms against her in the field, I might have been rent in pieces without law, her Grace hath give me time and respect to have judgment.
"And after he had desired all the people to pray for him, he humbled himself to God, and covered his own eyes with a cloth, and he suffered execution meekly."
In looking into Sepulveda's Annals of Charles the Fifth, we find, in the speech there ascribed to Northumberland, that general similarity with the above " Confession," which proves, I think, that both contain a pretty fair report of the real behaviour of Dudley on the scaffold1. I may notice, by the way, that there is an interesting letter of Sepulveda's, addressed to Cardinal Pole2, which shows that the Spanish historian sent the Cardinal the manuscript of the twenty-ninth book of his History, embracing the account of England under Mary; requesting him to add to it and correct it. It is not unlikely, therefore, that Dudley's speech was the interpolation of Pole, who arrived in England in the month of November of the succeeding year, and enjoyed the best opportunities of procuring accurate information. In the same letter to Pole, Sepulveda informs us, that, amongst other materials for the English portion of his history, he had access to the letters of Philip the Second, written to hia sister Joanna. But if his Highness' epistles to his sister were not somewhat more minute and communicative than those to his wife. Queen Mary, which I have met with in the State Paper Office, the Spanish author would not be much the richer by the acquisition. As to the assertion of Fox, that Dudley was induced to profess himself a Roman Catholic by a promise of pardon, I have nowhere found any good authority to support it.
Note 1. Sepulveda De Rebus Gestis Caroli V. Sepulvedie Opera, vol. ii. p. 483.
Note 2. Sepulvedie Opera; Madrid, 1780, 4 vols. 4to. Vol. 3, Lib. vi. Epietoia xiv. — I owe the knowledge of this curious letter to my friend Mr. HolnieE, of the British Museum.