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and ton still alludes to his name; and in one window of the hall are the arms of Eton, in another of Waynflete, whom we may suppose to have concurred with him in acts of beneficence, and to have entertained a provincial attachment to the society. He was succeeded in his bishoprick by Robert Stillyngton, who had been collated in 1450 to the archdeaconry of Taunton in the same diocese, and had headed the party of the non-residents in a dispute between the canons, which, when wearied and exhausted by a troublesome and expensive litigation, they agreed to refer to the wisdom and equity of Waynflete, (perhaps while he held the seals, for I have not met with the date of the transaction,) by whom it was happily terminated.

SECT. IX. I HAVE not been able to discover whether any intercourse was allowed or carried on, between Waynflete and the captive monarch, during his long confinement of near nine years in the Tower. The piety and clemency of king Henry had conciliated the affection and reverence of the people, had been respected by the confederate chieftains when flushed with victory, and, added

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to his high rank, probably exempted him from rigorous or unhandsome treatment. If he was permitted, as I suppose, to see and converse with the bishop, their interviews. gave no umbrage to the king de facto and de jure; who in 1466, of his special grace, quieted and exonerated him, and his successors in his see, from all debts, demands, penalties, and forfeitures to the crown, which he might have incurred; and further consulted his peace and tranquillity, in 1469, by granting with the authority of parliament to him, his heirs and executors, a most ample pardon of all crimes, misdemeanors, and transgressions, and a remission of their consequences; declaring and accepting him as a true liegeman, and receiving him into special favour. The preamble of this instrument sets forth, that the king had a regard to the manifest good deserts of the bishop, and that he had found him always grateful and trust-worthy. It appears that he was reconciled to him gradually, and not without previous trial of his behaviour.

Rymer Acta MSS. vol. i. 6 Edw. IV.

CHAP

CHAPTER VII.

Of Bishop Waynflete during the Remainder of the Reign of King Edward the Fourth.

TH

SECT. I.HE extirpation of the Lancastrian party had been nearly effected by battles, murthers, attainders, exile, and the scaffold, when Edward was destined in his turn to be for a time with Henry the sport of inconstant fortune. In 1470 his brother the duke of Clarence, with the earl of Warwick, fled to France, and concluded a treaty with queen Margaret, who consented that prince Edward her son should marry a daughter of Warwick, on condition that her husband Henry should be replaced on the throne. In eleven days, such was the turbulence and instability of the people, and such the power of their leaders, a revolution was accomplished. King Edward escaped from his bed to the sea-side, and to Holland, without a recompense to bestow on the captain of the vessel, except a robe,

and

and a promise apparently of much less value. His queen took refuge in the sanctuary of Westminster. Henry was crowned again, 13th Oct. 1470. A parliament was assembled, and king Edward was included in a bill of attainder, and declared an usurper and traitor. But he remained not long absent. The city of London opened its gates to him. Henry, who was delivered up, (11th April 1471,) the archbishop of York holding him by the hand, was remanded to the Tower. Edward, taking him in his train, advanced to Barnet: Clarence joined him; when a mist was supposed to be raised by a certain conjurer, and the similarity of a sun and a star on the liveries of Edward and Warwick produced a mistake fatal to the Lancastrians. The earl, the king-maker, was slain, and no quarter given.

SECT. II. THE attentive reader will have noticed the mist and conjurer of this battle. Ignorance was not then confined to the people; it was esteemed as a privilege by the nobility. The earl of Worcester (Tibetot), who was beheaded during the revolution, was, whether Yorkist or Lancastrian, of more value to the nation than an hundred

iron-clad and iron-minded barons; if, as is affirmed, he was "struck with the first rays "of true science, which began to penetrate "from the south; and was zealous," as he has been represented, "to propagate, by his "exhortations and example, the love of "letters among his unpolished country66 men." So rude indeed and uncultivated were the vulgar, great and small, that more knowledge than usual in mathematics and astronomy produced to its possessor (John Stacie) not long afterwards the imputation of necromancy, a trial, torture, and death. What are our obligations to the Wykehams, the Waynfletes, and other worthies, by whose care and munificence, in sustaining literature when nearly expiring, our reason has been gradually enlarged from such abject, such debasing thraldom!

SECT. III. LIVERIES, badges, and devices were the fashion of the times. At the armed congress of barons at London in 1458, the earl of Warwick was attended by six hundred men, all in red jackets with ragged staves embroidered behind and beforet. On

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