Читать книгу The History of Medieval London - Walter Besant - Страница 19

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The reign of Edward IV., who had now become, as he remained to the end, the most popular of kings in the City of London, presents a record of continual agitation and excitement. He stayed first at Baynard’s Castle, where he began his reign by hanging an unfortunate grocer of Cheapside, trading under the sign of the “Crown,” for saying that his son was heir to the crown. Of course Walker must have said more than that. There were Lancastrians still among the citizens. One could hardly hang a man for making a feeble pun. His remarks were probably seditious and disrespectful to Edward’s title. From the death of Richard II. to the accession of Henry VIII. all the English kings were extremely sensitive as to the strength and reality of their titles.

EDWARD IV. (1442-1483)

The news from the north of the siege of Carlisle would not allow the King to be crowned at once as was intended. A week after the Proclamation he started hurriedly for the north to meet Henry, to whom he gave battle at Towton. The result of the stubborn contest was the defeat of Henry, who with the Queen and his son Prince Edward and such of the Lords as were left, fled into Scotland. Edward stayed awhile to set things in order and then rode south. He was welcomed by the Mayor and Aldermen and five hundred citizens at Lambeth on 27th July, and was escorted to the Tower, whence on the 29th—the 28th day of each month was accounted unlucky—he rode to Westminster and was crowned with due ceremony.

In the second year of his reign he granted a Charter to the City in which he confirmed all past privileges and liberties. The Mayor, Recorder, and Aldermen past the chair, were appointed perpetual justices as long as they continued to be Aldermen. They were also constituted justices of Oyer and Terminer for the trying of all malefactors within their jurisdiction; they were exempt from serving on Juries or on Foreign Assizes, and from having to undertake certain offices; they were empowered to hold a Fair in the Borough of Southwark; and they received certain other privileges connected with waifs, strays, and treasure trove. Three other Charters were granted by Edward. All of them will be found in the Appendix.

The year 1463 was taken up by another campaign in the north, with sieges of castles, and with the usual crop of treasures, perjuries, arrests, and beheadings. Surely there was never any war or contest more disgraced by change of sides, broken oaths, and villainies, than this War of the Roses.

Edward returned to London in February 1463, and was received by a procession of barges. It has been observed, doubtless, that the mediæval citizens were at all times perfectly regardless of the season: they had a Riding in January, a Coronation in December, a water procession in February quite as happily as in July or August. Yet it is very certain that the climate was as capricious and as uncertain then as now.

In 1464 the King married secretly Elizabeth, the young widow of Sir John Grey, and daughter of Lord Rivers. The Queen was crowned in May 1465. In the same year the unfortunate King Henry was taken prisoner, and brought to the Tower of London. At this point we may take up the somewhat tangled story of Alderman Coke. In the early years of King Edward’s reign Coke was treated with special favour by the King. Other Aldermen were made plain Knights. Coke was made a Knight of the Bath. He had a town-house and a country seat, Gidea Hall in Essex. It was this Coke who, when he was made Lord Mayor, finding at an entertainment that the most honourable seat at the table, which belonged to himself, had been taken by the Lord High Treasurer, refused to sit down at all, and with the Aldermen and the citizens retired to his own house, where he gave a dinner.

Coke in 1465 was impeached of treason. What kind of treason? Gregory says that many men both of London and of other towns were also impeached. Treason was everywhere. Every man’s dearest friend conspired against him. When one sees the things that were done by great lords we may believe the charges against the merchants. The times, moreover, were doubtful. It behoved men who were afraid of losing their substance, if not their heads, to be ready at any moment for a change. Therefore Alderman Sir Thomas Coke, K.C.B., may very well have carried on treasonable correspondence with the other side. He was arrested, released on bail, arrested again, his effects seized, and his wife committed to the care of the Lord Mayor. He was acquitted, but in spite of his acquittal he was sent to the Bread Street Compter, and thence to the King’s Bench, and there kept till he paid £8000 to the King, and £800 to the Queen. Moreover, the servants of Lord Rivers had pillaged his house in Essex, destroyed the deer in his park, killed his rabbits and his fish, carried off all his brass and his pewter, and Lord Rivers obtained the dismissal of the judge who acquitted him. When Henry VI. was restored Coke had his property restored, but on power being regained by Edward, he fled. He was caught, imprisoned, and then pardoned, with everybody else concerned. Coke is an ancestor both of Sir Francis Bacon and the Marquis of Salisbury.

In a few years the proverbial instability of fortune was again illustrated, together with the wisdom—the cunning of a fox—of keeping in with both parties. It was Edward’s lavish gifts to the Queen’s brothers and cousins, and his neglect of the few great nobles left, that caused the next disturbances. The defection of Warwick, and the Rebellion of Lincolnshire, hardly belong to London history. But it must be recorded that the rebels reached Charing Cross, that they found in the “Palace called the Mews” Lord Rivers and his son, whom they beheaded, and that they captured the King. Edward, however, found means to escape and reached London, where he was received with loyal assurances. And so the war began again, as may be read in the History of England.

On October the 1st, Edward fled to Scotland where he was certain to find safety at least. The Queen, then enceinte, took refuge in the Sanctuary. The Tower of London was surrendered to the Mayor, who held it until the arrival of Warwick and Clarence. But Henry was removed from his prison to the State apartments. There appears to have been no order maintained or attempted in the City during these distractions. Every man made haste to change his side, and the caps that had been tossed up for Edward now darkened the sky for Henry with equal zeal. There was a rising of the City rabble, headed by one Sir Geoffrey Gates, whose character is vaguely summed up by Maitland in the words, “of abandoned principles.” The mob, under his leading, spoiled the foreign merchants—Lombards, Flemings, and others—and then, probably having met with some resistance, they got over to Southwark, where they robbed, burned, and destroyed and ravished through all the Borough, together with St. Catherine’s, Limehouse, and Ratcliffe, the City not attempting anything until the arrival of Warwick, when the mob was dispersed and the ringleaders hanged.

SHIPS OF THE PERIOD

From MS. in Brit. Mus. Reg. 15, Ed. IV.

Henry was once more a King, and lodged in the Bishop’s Palace. The Parliament, summoned in haste, met in St. Paul’s Chapter House and called Edward a usurper. But the Mayor took care to be sick and confined to his bed. Coke occupied his place, which seems to increase the probability of that alleged treason. The restoration of the unfortunate Henry lasted for six months. In April, Edward entered London again with the customary rejoicings, sallied forth immediately, met Warwick at Barnet, defeated and slew him, and returned for more rejoicings and in order to lead Henry clad in a long gown like a bedesman back to the Tower, and then marched into the west, where Tewkesbury witnessed the final destruction of the Lancastrian cause.

Then followed, as concerns London, the gallant attempt of the captain known as the Bastard of Falconbridge. We may look upon this leader as a freebooter and as a pirate, or we may look upon him as a loyal and faithful follower of Warwick. From either point of view it is a striking episode in the history of the time as well as the history of London. Moreover, it is one of the few early recorded appearances of the English sailor.

Thomas, the Bastard of Falconbridge, was an illegitimate son of William Nevill, Lord Falconbridge or Falconberg, Earl of Kent, and brother of the Earl of Warwick. He had received the freedom of the City in the year 1454, seventeen years before his attempt. (Sharpe, London and the Kingdom.) This distinction was in recognition of his services in connection with the destruction of pirates at the mouth of the Thames. As for his age, if he were about twenty-five at that time, he would be about forty when he led his men to the siege of London. He was by no means an unknown or an obscure person. The Earl of Warwick4 had made him Vice-Admiral of the Sea, “so that none should pass from Calais to Dover for the succour of Edward,” a post of no mean responsibility. Then, Grafton tells us, being driven into need and poverty, he became a pirate, and through his robbery and “shameful spoyling” got together a great navy of ships. We need not believe in the piracy; he probably held the navy for the Earl of Warwick, for whom he seems to have had a sailor-like fidelity. Nor is there anything to show need and poverty. Hearing, however, that his patron was again in the field, the Bastard resolved on striking a blow for him. He landed, therefore, on the coast of Kent and raised a large force of Kentishmen, who seem to have forgiven Henry for his perfidy in the Cade business and now joined the stout-hearted sailor who called himself Captain of King Henry’s people in Kent. He was not therefore a rebel, he was a soldier on the side of the Red Rose. He sent his ships up the Thames with orders to await his coming in the Pool off Blackwall; and with 17,000 men he marched through Kent and appeared before the gates of London Bridge. He wrote to the Mayor from Blackheath asking for permission to pass through the City, promising that no violence would be committed by any of his men. What the ships were to do meanwhile does not appear. It looks, however, very much like an attempt to seize the City. It is certain, further, that he had not received the news of Barnet, or of the death of his illustrious cousin. The Battle of Barnet was fought on 13th April. News could certainly reach the City on the same day, within two or three hours. But it was very possible that in those disturbed times, the ordinary channels of communication being broken off, the news might not reach Kent for some weeks. However that may be, or whenever Falconbridge heard of it, he did not know of Warwick’s death when he began to levy his men.

THE BASTARD OF FALCONBRIDGE ATTACKS LONDON BRIDGE

From a MS. in the University Library, Ghent.

Sharpe has found both Falconbridge’s letter and the Mayor’s reply in the archives of the City. The latter stated that he might possibly hold a commission for the Earl of Warwick, but that the Earl of Warwick was dead, slain on the field of Barnet together with his brother Montague. That further, since that battle, another, that of Tewkesbury, had been fought a week before (this was May 11, and Tewkesbury was fought on May 4), of which they had certain information from their own runners: that “Sir Edward,” the son of Henry VI., was killed after that battle. They therefore exhorted this Captain to disband his forces and to acknowledge King Edward IV. But as for passing through the City they were determined he should not do so. The Bastard professed not to believe that Warwick and Prince Edward were dead; perhaps he really did not believe it. In what followed, however, he certainly showed the intention of making himself master of the City if he could, and the Mayor evidently understood this to be his intention, for he proceeded to fortify the river bank, which, the wall having been long since taken down, was now accessible at fifty points by stairs and narrow alleys and courts leading from Thames Street to the river. The City had not been threatened with an attack from the river since the time of King Canute. The details of the fight which followed are very scanty. Falconbridge landed some of his men—three or four thousand—at St. Katherine’s, and attempted a simultaneous attack on Bishopsgate, Aldgate, the riverside, and London Bridge. Fabyan says that they shot guns and arrows and fired the gates, but nevertheless they seem to have effected nothing in their attack from the river; at Aldgate they actually got in, but the portcullis was dropped and none of them got out again. Robert Basset, the valiant Alderman of Aldgate Ward, was conspicuous for his courage on this occasion. He drove back the Kentish men, put them to flight and killed three hundred of them in their endeavours to reach their boats at Blackwall. Meantime, Falconbridge with the main body of his men was trying to fight his way across London Bridge. They lost heart on hearing of the repulse at Aldgate and fled, being pursued as far as Deptford, a great number being slain. Ralph Jocelyn, late Mayor, was in command of the citizens; he, too, like Robert Basset, performed prodigies of valour. Many of the men were taken prisoners and held for ransom “as they had been Frenchmen,” says Fabyan. The rising was treated as a rebellion, a good many being executed for their share in it. The Captain got on board ship and on the following night dropped down the river with his fleet and so escaped. At Sandwich he fortified himself, for, as he had 47 ships and 800 men, he was strong enough to dictate his own terms—pardon for himself and his men, in return for which he was ready to deliver the ships into the hands of the King. Edward accepted, and the Bastard did deliver up his ships. Six months later, we hear that he was captured at Southampton; and, one knows not on what pretence, they beheaded him. What are we to call the Bastard, pirate or patriot? Henry was still living, though his very hours were now numbered, for on Edward’s return—he had been brought back—it was announced that he was dead, having met with nothing but care and sorrow during the whole of his most wretched life. Gloucester—not of course Humphrey, but Richard—is said to have killed him; but then Gloucester is said to have killed everybody; tradition makes him a universal murderer. At the same time, as everybody else belonging to the Lancastrian party was killed, there seems a sort of rounding off and completion of the work by the murder of Henry. The fight happening so soon after Tewkesbury as to appear uninfluenced by that event, was a splendid example of the City loyalty. What the Mayor would have done had Tewkesbury gone the other way, it is impossible to say. Loyalty, fidelity, honour, truth, in the Wars of the Roses never survived defeat. They were, however, hugely encouraged by a victory. And when Edward rode back to London he heard with pleasure that while he had smitten his enemies in the West of England, his loyal City, his “Chamber,” had bravely rid him of all that were left in the South.

The Battle of London Bridge is recounted in a contemporary ballad:—

“In Sothwerke, at Bambere heth, and Kyngston eke,

The Bastarde and his meane in the contre abowte,

Many grett men in London they made seke,

Man, wyff, ne childe there durst non rowte,

Oxin, shepe, and vetayle, withowtyn any dowte,

They stale away and carrid ever to and froo.

God suffirs moche thyng, his wille to be doo.

Moche sorow and shame the wrecchis thay wroughte,

Fayre placis they brend on the water side.

Thayre myschevus dedis avaylid ham noughte,

Schamfully thay wrougte, and so them betyd.

Thay wolde not leve ther malice, but therin abyde,

Thay cryed kynge Edward and Warwicke also.

Thus the wille of God in every thynge is doo.

At Londone brygge they made asawte, sham to see,

The utter gate on the brygge thay sett on fyre;

Into Londone shott arrows withowte pete.

With gunnus thay were bett that sum lay in the myre.

Thay asked wage of the brygge, thay paid them thayre hire

Ever amonge thay had the worse, then wakynd thaire woo,

False men most be poyneshed, the will of God is soo.

At London brige anodyr sawte thay made agayne,

Wyth gunpowdir and wildefire and straw eke;

Fro the gate to the drawbrygge that brent down playne,

That x myle men mygte se the smeke.

Thay were not of thayre entent the nere of a leke

For into the cite they mygte not com for a wele ne for woo;

God restid thayre malice, the wille of hym was soo.

At Alegate thay sawtid in an ill seasoun;

Thay brente fayre howsis, pitie was to se.

Thus these false men did opyne tresoun,

Supposynge evermore to enture into cite.

God and good seyntes thereof had pitie.

Thayre malice was sesid and turned hem to woo

Thus in everythynge, Lorde, thy will be doo.

The erle of Esex, and also the aldurmen,

At Bysshopus gate togedder they mette,

And owte therat sewde like manly men.

Thay bete hem down, no man mygte hem lett;

Freshely on thayre enmyes that day did thay fyghte.

Thayre false treson brougte theym in woo;

Thus in every thynge, Lorde, thy wille be doo.

The erle Revers, that gentill knygte,

Blessid be the tym that he borne was

By the power of God and his great mygte,

Throw his enmyes that day did he passe.

The maryners were kellid, thay cryed ‘Alas!’

Thayre false tresoun brougte hem in woo,

Thus in every thynge, Lorde, thy wille be doo.”

(Political Poems and Songs, Ed. III.—Rich. III., p. 277;

edited by Thomas Wright.)

These tumults appeased, and the Civil Wars apparently ended, the City got itself to work upon a question of morals.

William Hampton, Mayor in 1473, hit upon a notable device of terrifying evil-doers. Until then, one pair of stocks had been considered sufficient for the whole City. Hampton set up a pair in every Ward. He also hunted out the women of loose conduct; “he corrected”—i.e. flogged—

“strumpets and causyd them to be ladde aboute the towne with raye hoodes upon their heddes divers and many; and spared none for mede nor for favour, that were by the law atteynted, notwithstanding that he might have taken xl pounds of redy money to hym offerid for to have spared one from that jugment.” (Fabyan.)

Henry’s remains lay in state at St. Paul’s and at Blackfriars. It was necessary that people should understand that he was really dead and out of the way. They were then carried to Chertsey where they were buried. Edward knighted all the Aldermen. Sharpe gives the list, in which one is grieved to find neither Robert Basset nor Ralph Jocelyn.

In the year 1475 by an Act of Common Council the election of the Mayor was ordered to be made henceforth by the Mayor, Aldermen, Common-Councilmen, and Liverymen of the City. And so it has remained ever since. Only while the City gave the election to the Liverymen it included all those who had the freedom of the City, excluding any other residents, tenants, foreigners, great Lords, or their followers. The house called “Gildhalla Teutonicorum,” the Steelyard, was in this year granted to the Hanseatic League. The history of this house will be considered separately.

Two more charters were obtained from the King. One granted permission to hold lands in mortmain to a limited extent: the other gave the City the privilege of package, portage, garbling of spices, gauging, wine-drawing, etc., a charter of a commercial and technical kind.

As for the rest of the acts of King Edward they concern not much the City of London. He entertained the Mayor and Aldermen at a hunt; he also sent the Lady Mayoress six fat bucks and a tun of wine, of which they made a great feast at Drapers’ Hall; he murdered his brother, the Duke of Clarence; he invaded France and came back again;—one must needs speak of his mistress, Jane Shore;—and he borrowed a great deal of money which he did not repay.

The history of the King’s mistresses should hardly claim a place in the history of London. There are, however, one or two of these favourites who, in some way inexplicable, have captured the imagination of the people, and have won their sympathies. Why do we think more of Jane Shore than of Alice Perrers? Why, out of the long list of frail beauties about the court of Charles II., do we fix our eyes upon Nell Gwynne and neglect the rest? Certain it is that, not only in her own lifetime but also long afterwards, Jane Shore was remembered with kindliness and pity. Everybody knows her story: she was the wife of a London citizen, a goldsmith; she attracted the attention of the man who is commonly believed to have been the handsomest man in the country, as he was certainly the most dissolute. If, however, the portrait of Edward IV. in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries is to be trusted, his beauty did not lie in his face; it must have been his stature and his strength which gave him this reputation. When he died, Jane Shore, whose husband had cast her off, fell into the power of Hastings or of the Marquis of Dorset. When Hastings was beheaded, Richard endeavoured to convict her of witchcraft, probably he had some private reason for personal malice against Jane Shore. This attempt failing, he accused her of unchastity, which was not to be denied. She was taken to the Bishop’s Palace there clothed in a white sheet, a wax taper was placed in her hand, and she was led to the Cathedral beside the Palace, where she offered the taper, and to Paul’s Cross, where she made confession of her sins. One is glad to think that the poor creature had so short a distance to walk in this deplorable guise. Some, as Stow says, may think this woman “too slight a thing” to be written of: yet who can read the words of the grave Sir Thomas More, and still think so? And one cannot read the words of Stow himself without feeling that it was no common woman who could thus draw all hearts to her; who could leave behind her the memory of so many good deeds; who expiated a youth of such splendid sin by an old age of such terrible poverty and neglect.

Here are the words of Sir Thomas More:—

“Her stature was mean: her hair of a dark yellow, her face round and full, her eye grey, delicate harmony being betwixt each part’s proportion, and each proportion’s colour; her body fat, white, and smooth; her countenance cheerful, and like to her condition. That picture which I have seen of her, was such as she rose out of her bed in the morning, having nothing on but a rich mantle, cast under her arm, over her shoulder, and sitting in a chair on which her naked arm did lie. What her father’s name was, or where she was born, is not certainly known: but Shore, a young man of right goodly person, wealth, and behaviour, abandoned her bed, after the King had made her his concubine.”

And, next, hear Stow:—“This woman was borne in London, worshipfully friended, honestly brought up, and very well married, saving somewhat too soone, hir husband an honest citizen, yong and godly, and of good substance. But for as much as they were coupled ere they were wel ripe, she not very fervently loved, for whom she never longed, which was happily the thing that the more easily made hir incline unto the King’s appetite, when he required hir. Howbeit the respect of his royaltie, the hope of gay apparell, ease, pleasure, and other wanton wealth, was able soone to pierce a soft tender heart.

But when the King had abused hir, anone hir husband (as he was an honest man) left hir up to him altogether.

When the King died, the Lord Chamberlain tooke hyr, which in the King’s dayes, albeit he was sore enamoured upon hir, yet he forebare hir, eyther for reverence, or for a certain friendly faythfulnesse. Proper she was and fayre: nothing in hir bodie that you would have chaunged, but if you would have wished hir somewhat higher.

Thus say they that knewe hir in hir youth. Albeit some that nowe see hir (for yet she liveth) deeme hir never to have bene wel visaged, whose judgement seemeth me somewhat like as though men should gesse the beautie of one long before departed, by her scalpe taken out of the charnelhouse: so now is she olde, leane, withered, and dryed up, nothing left but riveled skin and hard bone. And yet being even such: who so wil advise her visage, might gesse and devise, which parts how filled would make it a faire face. Yet delited not men so much in her beautie, as in her pleasant behaviour. For a proper wit had she, and coulde both reade well and write, merrie in companye, readie and quicke of aunswere, neyther mute nor full of bable, sometime taunting without displeasure, and not without disporte.

The King would say that he had three concubines, which in their diverse properties diversly excelled. One the merriest, another the wyliest, the third the holyest harlot in his realme, as one whom no man could get out of the Church lightly to any place, but it were to his bed. The other two were somewhat greater personages, and nathelesse of their humility content to be namelesse, and to forbeare the praise of those properties. But the meriest was this Shors wife, in whom the King therefore took special pleasure. For many he had but hir he loved, whose favour to saye the truth (for sinne it were to belie the Devil) she never abused to any man’s hurt, but to manye a mannes comforte and relief: where the Kyng tooke displeasure, she would mitigate and appease his mynde: where men were out of favour she woulde brynge them in his grace. For manye that hadde highlye offended shee obtayned pardon. Of great forfeytures she gat men remission. And finally, in many weightie sutes she stoode many men in great steade, eyther for none or very small rewardes, and those rather gaye than riche: eyther for that she was content with the deed selfe well done, or for that shee delyted to bee sued unto, and to shewe what she was able to doe with the King, for what wanton women and wealthy be not always covetous.

I doubt not some shall thinke this woman too sleyghte a thing to be written of, and set among the remembrances of great matters: whych they shall specially thinke, that happilye shall esteem hir onely by that they nowe see hir. But me seemeth the chaunce so muche the more worthy to be remembered, in how much she is nowe in the most beggerlye condition, unfriended and worn out of acquaintance, after good substance, after as great favour with the Prince, after as greate sute and seekyng to with all those that those dayes had businesse to speede, as many other men were in theyr tymes, which be now famous only by the infamye of theyr yl dedes. Hir doings wer not much lesse albeit they be much lesse remembered because they were not so evil. For men use if they have an evill turne to write it in Marble; and who so doeth us a good turne, we write it in duste, whiche is not worst proved by hir: for at this day she beggeth of manye at thys daye lyving, that at this day had begged if she had not bin.”

“THE HIERARCHY OF THE SCIENCES,” AS CONCEIVED BY MEDIÆVAL THOUGHT

From the Berri Bible in British Museum. Harl. 1585.

It will be observed that Stow speaks of Jane Shore as living at the time he wrote. She was born about 1450; and she became mistress of Edward IV. about 1470; the King died in 1483, when she became the mistress of the first Marquis of Dorset for a short time. She was imprisoned in the Tower on a charge of sorcery, her goods were seized and sold, she did penance as above described, she was imprisoned in Ludgate, she fell into poverty and she lived to an advanced age, dying, it is supposed, about the year 1526, at the age of seventy-five or six. Seeing Stow was born in 1525 how can he speak of Jane Shore as living at the time he wrote? He is obviously quoting some older writer. Sir Thomas More, who was born in 1478, and died in 1535, was five years of age when Jane Shore did penance; he could hardly remember the event, even if he saw it. Nor could the unfortunate woman retain much of her early beauty when More was of an age to observe and to compare. At the same time he probably knew plenty of people who could remember the London beauty in her pride, and in the full flow of her generosity and wit and grace.

The funeral of Edward was celebrated with great splendour. The following account is taken from Archæologia, vol. i.:—

“But when that noble prince the good King Edward the iiiith was deceased, at Westminster in his paleys, which was the 5th day of April, the xxiii yer of his reign:

First, the corps was leyde upon a borde all naked, saving he was covered from the navell to the knees, and so lay openly X or XII hourez, that all the lordes both spirituell and temporell then beying in London or ner theraboute, and the meyer of London with his bredre sawe hym so lyng, and then he was sered etc. and was brought into the chapell on the morn after, when wer songen iii solemn massez: first of our Lady songe by the chapeleyn: and so was the second of the courte: the iiide masse of Requiem whiche was songen by the bishop of Chichester, and at afternoon ther was songen dirige and commendacion.

After that he had the hole psalter seid by the chapell, and at nyght well wecched with nobles and oder his servants, whose names ensuen like an apperethe in the watche rolle from the first nyght in tyme he was beryed. And at the masse of Requiem the lorde Dacre, the queen’s chambreleyn, offred for the quene, and the lordes temporell offred dayly at that seid masse, but the lordez spirituells offred not to the bishop but to the high auter, and oder the King’s servants offred also: this ordre was kept in the paleys viii dayez, savinge after the first daye ther was but on solemp masse, whiche alway was songen by a bishop: and on Wednysday the xvii day of the monyth, the corps was convenied into the abbey born by divers knyghts and esquires that wer for his body: having upon the corps a riche and a large blak cloth of gold with a crosse of white cloth of gold, and above that a riche canapye of cloth imperiall frenged with gold and blue silk. And at every corner a baner. And the Lord Howard ber the King’s baner next before the corps, having the officers of armez aboute them. Wher was ordeyned a worthy herse like as it apperteyneth, having before hym a grete procession. And in that herse, above the corps and the cloth of gold abovesaid, ther was a personage like to the similitude of the king in habite roiall, crowned with the verray crown on his hed. Holding in that one hande a sceptr, and in that other hand a balle of silver and gilte with a crosplate. And after that the lordes that wer within the herse, and the bisshoppez had offred, the meyer of London offred, and next after hym the chef juge and other juges and knyghts of the Kings hous with the barons of the eschequier and aldermen of London as they myght went to. And when the masse was don and all other solempnite, and that the lordes wer redy for to ryde: ther was ordeyned a roiall char covered with blak velvet, having about that a blak clothe of gold with a white cross of gold: under that a mageste clothe of blak sarsenet, drawen with vi coursers trapped with blac velvet with certeyn scochens betyn upon sarsenet betyn with fyne gold. Apon the fore hors and the third hors sate ii charet men. And on the iiii oder hors satte iiii henchemen. On either side the for seid draught went divers knyghts and esquiers for the body and other: some leying their handez to the draught and some leyding the hors unto tyme they passed the townes whose namez ensuen.

And the Lorde Haward, the Kings banerer, rode next before the forschorse bering the Kings baner upon a courser trapped with blak velvet with divers scochons of the Kings armez with his morenyng hudd on his hed. When the corps with the personage as above with procession of bishoppes in pontificalibz and the iiii ordrez of frerez was conveyed to the chare. And in ordre as above to Charingcrosse wher the bishops sensed the char, and the lordes toke their horse, and so proceded to Syon that nyght, where at the churche dore the bishoppes censed the corps, etc., the corps and the personage was born as before in the qure. And ther the bishop of Duresm did the service. And on the morn in like ordre as above he was conveyed to the chare, and from thens to Wyndesore.”