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did the repairs he might do them as he liked, Abram took off £10,000, and made money by doing so. Yarndale said, 'I'll make the best of it;' but if he goes on as he is, it'll be long before he gets out of the bad of it. If the fire had happened in Squire Doot's time, the country-side would have lent a hand to help him; they all loved him and were good friends wi' one another. Now there's three or four parties all hating one another, and don't care a straw, less maybe, for squire, landlord, or law. There's Fenians, League men, Moonlighters, and worse than them, about. If we don't do what they bid us, we suffer. If we do their will, we get into jail; but as that is farther off than our neighbours, and as they don't miss the mark, we mostly do as they tell

us.

There's a-many getting weary of all this teasing, only we don't know how to get out of it, so we goes on doing what we are told to do."

"Will you do as I tell you, Mr Murphy?" I asked.

"Oh, begorrah! and it's I that's tired of doing as I am told to do. If Squire Doot were alive, and told me to swallow the peat-heap, or drink the flax water, why I'd try and do it. He'd never have

told any of his neighbours to injure one another. The more whisky he swallowed, the more milk o' kindness followed; and the better the poteen, the richer was his cream. That's all gone now; there's no poteen on the hillside, and no fellow-feeling in the valley. Do as you tells me, sur! I'd like to know what it is first. There's them who asked me to do wrong things, and they'd get absolution. As I didn't know if I'd be left for the chance of that delivery, I told 'm I'd think about it. So, sur, though you've brought up good memories, you'll excuse me if I feel unable to do as you tell me."

"Very good, Murphy; I honour your caution and your conscience. What I was going to tell you to do is very simple. Keep the law of the land, and obey those who keep it going. That's the same as Squire Doot said, only excepting his debts. If you do that carefully, and obey the commandments, you'll be comfortable. That's what we all want, but don't see it. Try it on, Mr Murphy, and tell your neighbours what you are going to do. If they'll try it, they will like it, and content will roar on like the fire at Doot Hall and burn up the bad side of your house."

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RICHARD DE LA POLE, 'WHITE ROSE."

ENGLISH visitors in Metz-there ought to be more, for there is a good deal 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 archæology prevalent in these parts, and one old house is very apt to be confounded with another. I myself have had a leading French archeologist 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, 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, some months ago, 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 gra

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titude, 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 been— somewhat rashly, as it afterwards turned out-celebrated on the 9th day of that month.

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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 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 thought 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-ex- ington, in ascribing to him, first,

cept 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 what "White Rose" actually did during his exile, self-imposed or involuntary, which made up the main portion of his life.

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 descents, 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 of 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 notorietypartly 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. a foreigner. his family." The Lord Chancellor expired almost exactly a century before of "a broken heart" in exile. His son fell a victim to

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 Lorraine French, which was at his time spoken at Metz. The archaic language in which they are written may possibly account for the fact that no French publishers have thus far been found to tackle these otherwise very readable memoirs, and that in default of them it has been left to a German literary society to lay them before the world-in a mutilated form. The original manuscript, formerly in the possession of Count Emmery, was some time ago purchased at a sale by M. Prost, a well-known Lorraine archæologist. From it M. des Robert, another well-known writer in the old duchy, has drawn the main portion of the information which some years ago he incorporated in a monograph. Even this monograph leaves some gaps. And the author falls into one or two odd mistakes-which are perhaps 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 Lord

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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 attained, 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 Johncreated Earl of Lincoln-next heir to the throne. That appointment proved in after-time a rather doubtful 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 way 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 lower of his titles in the peerage, by sacrificing the higher. He was

"Earl

admitted to the peerage as 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 kingsthe 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 the 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 show his loyalty, and to have been outwardly well received. But almost immediately afterwards he ran away a second time.

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And as

he forthwith proclaimed himself a pretender to the crown, and obtained from the Emperor Maximilian a promise of material help -the loan of 4000 of his troops wherewith to make good his pretension-it is not surprising that Henry should have set all his large apparatus of crafty persecution at work against 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 he should spare his life. That promise he kept to the letter. Edmund was

detained in the Tower until Henry's death- and then despatched 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, while he remained 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

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powers which made him in afterlife 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 so unruly, but at the same time so serviceable a host, and qualified himself for that peculiar kind of warfare in which he subsequently gathered such 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 illustrèrent les règnes de Louis XII. et François I., et portèrent si haut l'honneur de nos armes— -Bayard, la Palisse, la Trémouille, 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 Angoulême 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-unionismat the most critical juncture for the concession of double pay. Bayard and Suffolk between them, however, soon reduced them to obedience. Brantôme relates that it was said of the lansquenets that after St Peter had refused them entrance in heaven, their troubled

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