Letters. 1471. Letter XXXVIII. Anne Countess of Warwick (age 14) to the House of Commons.

To the right worshipful and discreet Commons of this present Parliament.

Sheweth unto your wisdoms and discretions the king's true liege woman, Anne countess of Warwick, which never offended his most redoubted highness; for she, immediately after the death of her lord and husband (age 17) - on whose soul God have mercy - for none offence by her done, but dreading only trouble, being that time within this realm, entered into the sanctuary of Beaulieu [Map] for surety of her person, to dispose for the weal and health of the soul of her said lord and husband, as right and conscience required her so to do; making within five days, or near thereabouts, after her entry into the said sanctuary, her labours, suits, and means to the king's highness for her safeguard, to be had as diligently and effectually as her power would extend. She not ceasing, but after her power continiling in such labours, suits, and means, insomuch that, in absence of clerks, she hath written letters in that behalf to the king's highness with her own hand, and not only making such labours, suits, and means to the king's highness, soothly also to the [her daughter] queen's (age 34) good grace, to my right redoubted lady the king's mother, to my lady the king's eldest daughter, to my lords the king's brethren, to my ladies the king's sisters, to my lady of Bedford (age 56), mother to the queen, and to other ladies noble of this realm; in which labours, suits, and means, she hath continued hitherto, and so will continue, as she owes to do, till it may please the king, of his most good and noble grace, to have consideration that, during the life of her said lord and husband, she was covert baron, which point she remits to your great wisdoms, and that after his decease, all the time of her being in the said sainctuary, she hath duly kept her fidelity and liegeance, and obeyed the king's commandments. Howbeity it hath pleased the king's highness, by some sinister information to his said highness made, to direct his most dread letters to the abbot of the monastery of Beaulieu, with right sharp commandment that such persons as his highness sent to the said monastery should have guard and strait keeping of her person, which was and is to her great heart's grievance, she specially fearing that the privileges and liberties of the church, by such keeping of her person, might be interrupted and violated, where the privileges of the said sanctuary were never so largely attempted unto this time, as is said; yet the said Anne and Countess, under protestations by her made, hath suffered strait keeping of her person and yet doth, that her fidelity and liegeance to the king's highness the better might be understood, hoping she might the rather have had largess to make suits to the king's highness in her own person for her livelihood and rightful inheritance, which livelihood and inheritance, with all revenues and profits thereto pertaining, with her jointure also, and dower of the earldom of Salisbury, fully and wholly hath been restrained from her, from the time of the death of her said lord and husband unto this day. And forasmuch as our sovereign lord the king of his great grace hath set and assembled his high court of Parliament for reformations, right, and equity to all his subjects and liege people duly to be ministered, the said Anne and Countess humbly beseecheth your great wisdom to ponder and weigh in your consciences her right and true title of her inheritance, as the earldom of Warwick and Spencer's lands, to which she is rightfully born by lineal succession, and also her jointure and dower of the earldom of Salisbury aforesaid. And to shew her your benevolence, that by the king's good grace and authority of this his noble Parliament she may to her foresaid livelihood and rightful inheritance duly be restored and it enjoy, as the laws of Almighty God and of this noble realm, right, also, and conscience doth require; beseeching heartily your great goodnesses, in the reverence of Almighty God and of his most blessed mother, will of grace to consider the poor estate she stands in, how in her own person she may not solicit the premises as she would, an she might, nor is of power any sufficient solicitor in this behalf to make; and though she might, as (she; may not, there is none that dare take it upon him; to have also this poor bill in your tender remembrance, that your perfect charity and good will may solicit the eflFect of the same, which to do, her power at this time may not extend. And shall pray and do pray to God for you.

The History of King Richard the Third by Thomas More. Of these two, the one had a sermon in praise of the Protector before the coronation, the other after; both so full of tedious flattery that no man's ears could abide them. Penker in his sermon so lost his voice that he was glad to leave off and come down in the midst. Doctor Shaa by his sermon lost his honesty and soon after his life, for very shame of the world, into which he dared never after come abroad. But the friar cared not for shame, and so it harmed him the less. However, some doubt and many think that Penker was not of counsel of the matter before the coronation, but after the common manner fell to flattery afterwards; namely, because his sermon was not immediately after it, but at Saint Mary's Hospital on the Easter after. But certain is it that Doctor Shaa was of counsel in the beginning so far forth that they determined he should first break the matter in a sermon at Paul's Cross, in which he should, by the authority of his preaching, incline the people to the Protector's ghostly purpose.

But now was all the labor and study in the device of some appropriate pretext for which the people should be content to depose the Prince and accept the Protector for king, for which diverse things they devised. But the chief thing, and the most weighty of all that invention, rested in this: they should allege bastardy, either in King Edward himself, or in his children, or both, so that he should seem unable to inherit the crown by the Duke of York, and the Prince by him. To lay bastardy in King Edward sounded openly to the rebuke of the Protector's own mother, who was mother to them both; for in that point could be none other color, but to pretend that his own mother was one adulteress, which, not withstanding, to further his purpose he omitted not; but nevertheless, he would the point should be less and more favorably handled, not even fully plain and directly, but that the matter should be touched upon, craftily, as though men spared, in that point, to speak all the truth for fear of his displeasure. But the other point, concerning the bastardy that they devised to surmise in King Edward's children, that would he be openly declared and enforced to the uttermost. The color and pretext whereof cannot be well perceived but if we first repeat to you some things long before done about King Edward's marriage.

After King Edward the Fourth had deposed King Henry the Sixth and was in peaceful possession of the realm, determining himself to marry, as it was requisite both for himself and for the realm, he sent over in embassy the Earl of Warwick with other noble men in his company unto Spain to entreat and conclude a marriage between King Edward and the king's daughter of Spain. In which thing the Earl of Warwick found the parties so toward and willing that he speedily, according to his instructions, without any difficulty brought the matter to a very good conclusion.

Now it happened in the meanwhile that there came to make a suit by petition to the King, [her daughter] Dame Elizabeth Gray, who was after his Queen, at that time a widow born of noble blood, specially by her mother, who was Duchess of Bedford before she married the Lord Woodville, Elizabeth's father. However, this Dame Elizabeth, herself being in service with Queen Margaret, wife unto King Henry the Sixth, was married unto one John Gray, a squire, whom King Henry made knight upon the battlefield where he had fought on Shrove Tuesday at Saint Albans against King Edward. And little while enjoyed he that knighthood, for he was at the same field slain. After he had died, and the Earl of Warwick being in his embassy about the before mentioned marriage, this poor lady made humble suit unto the King that she might be restored unto such small lands as her late husband had given her during their marriage. Whom when the King beheld and heard her speak, as she was both fair, of a good favor, moderate of stature, well made and very wise, he not only pitied her, but also grew enamored with her. And taking her afterward secretly aside, began to enter into talking more familiarly. Whose appetite, when she perceived it, she virtuously denied him. But that did she so wisely, and with so good manner, and words so well set, that she rather kindled his desire than quenched it. And finally after many a meeting, much wooing, and many great promises, she well spied the King's affection toward her so greatly increased that she dared somewhat the more boldly say her mind, as to him whose heart she perceived more firmly set than to fall off for a word. And in conclusion she showed him plain that as she knew herself too simple to be his wife, so thought she herself too good to be his concubine. The King, much marveling at her constancy, as he that had not been wont elsewhere to be so stiffly told nay, so much esteemed her continence and chastity that he set her virtue in the place of possession and riches. And thus taking counsel of his desire, determined in all possible haste to marry her. And after he was thus resolved, and there had between them an agreement been assured, then asked he counsel of his other friends, and in such manner, as they might easily perceive it remedied not greatly to say nay.