The Revelations Shown to Him
Furthermore I think it not well to pass over the heavenly mysteries which were shown to this king.
When he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, a certain chaplain of his asked him, about the time of the feast of Easter, how his soul agreed at that most holy season with the troubles that pressed upon him and so sprouted forth that he could by no means avoid them. The king answered in these words: ‘The kingdom of heaven, unto which I have devoted myself always from a child, do I call and cry for. For this kingdom which is transitory and of the earth I do not greatly care. Our kinsman of March thrusts himself into it as is his pleasure. This one thing only do I require, to receive the sacrament at Easter, and the rites of the church on Maundy Thursday with the rest of Christendom, as I am accustomed.’ And for the much devotion which he always had to God and His sacraments, it seems not unsuitable that he should often have been enlightened by heavenly mysteries and comforted thereby in his afflictions. He is reported by some in his confidence, to whom he was used to reveal his secrets, to have often seen the Lord Jesus held in the hands of the celebrant and appearing to him in human form at the time of the Eucharist. Again, when he was at Waltham he told some one privately (though others also standing behind him heard it) of a repeated revelation from the Lord vouchsafed to him three years running at that feast of St Edward which falls on the vigil of the Epiphany, of the glory of the Lord appearing in human form, of His crown, and of a vision of the assumption of the Blessed Mary both corporal and spiritual.
Also there is the matter of the absence of the sacrament from the pyx when he rode by a certain churchyard, on account of which he refrained from his wonted reverence to the sacrament, as is told above.
Also in the extreme pressure of his wars in the parts of the North, it is told by some who came from that region, that when there was for a time a scarcity of bread among his fellow-soldiers and troops, out of a small quantity of wheat, bread was so multiplied by his merits and prayers that a sufficiency and even a superfluity was forthcoming for all of his who sought and asked for it, whereas the rest that were opposed to him had to suffer from lack of meat.
Moreover, after the horrid and ungrateful rebellion of his subjects had continued a long time, and after these rebels had fought many hard battles against him, he fled at last with a few followers to a secret place prepared for him by those that were faithful to him. And, as he lay hid there for some time, an audible voice sounded in his ears for some seventeen days before he was taken, telling him how he should be delivered up by treachery, and brought to London without all honour like a thief or an outlaw, and led through the midst of it, and should endure many evils devised by the thoughts of wicked men, and should be imprisoned there in the Tower: of all which he was informed by revelation from the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saints John Baptist, Dunstan, and Anselm (whose consolations he did then as at other times enjoy) and was thereby strengthened to bear with patience these and like trials. But when he told this to some of his people, and namely to Masters Bedon and Mannynge, they were incredulous and believed it not, but thought all to be but vain wanderings until the event assured them of the truth.
It is also said that when the king was shut up in the Tower he saw a woman on his right hand (or out of his window) trying to drown a little child, and warned her by a messenger not to commit such a crime and sin, hateful to God; and she, rebuked by this reproof, desisted from the deed she had begun.
Also, when this king Henry was asked during his imprisonment in the Tower why he had unjustly claimed and possessed the crown of England for so many years, he would answer thus: ‘My father was king of England, and peaceably possessed the crown of England for the whole time of his reign. And his father and my grandfather was king of the same realm. And I, a child in the cradle, was peaceably and without any protest crowned and approved as king by the whole realm, and wore the crown of England some forty years, and each and all of my lords did me royal homage and plighted me their faith, as was also done to other my predecessors. Wherefore I too can say with the Psalmist: The lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground: yea, I have a goodly heritage. For my right help is of the Lord, who preserveth them that are true of heart.’
Praise be to God.
Footnotes
Notes
47 Lit. from virtue to virtue.
Notes
The style and literary ability of John Blacman must be rated very low. In translating him one is forced to neglect his use of particles and tenses in order to produce a tolerable sense. He uses the pluperfect apparently as an equivalent of the preterite, and begins sentences with unde where unde has no meaning at all. There is no shape or proportion in the composition of his tract as it stands. At the end of the section on Pietas et patientia he comes to a dignified close, but immediately continues with a chapter on Revelationes which, one would think, ought not to have been an afterthought. This chapter ends in mid-air; there is no kind of finality about it. It must be either unfinished by the author or mutilated (as Hearne conjectured). If mutilated, political considerations may have been responsible, for the subject of the last paragraph is the question of Henry’s right to the crown (and not any revelation vouchsafed to him); and I see signs that the tract was written before the accession of Henry VII, in the vagueness of such allusions to the reigning sovereign as are to be found in it. The clause ‘propter regnum, ut tunc sperabatur, ab aliis pacifice possidendum’ is the most overt of these, and no one can say that it is too explicit. The next sentence speaks of the long series of miracles done where Henry’s body is buried. This may mean that the body is still at Chertsey, though in after years miracles occurred at Windsor. It will be remembered that Richard III transferred it hastily from Chertsey to Windsor because the reports of the miracles were testifying to a growth of interest in the good king which was not healthy for the dynasty of York.
So also in the prologue, Blacman will not dwell upon the descent, the coronation, and so on, of Henry, because these things are known to everyone and because of his subsequent fall. The latter is the more cogent reason.
To what has been said of Hearne’s connexion with the book, it may be added that in the new edition of his Collections (Oxf. Hist. Soc. vol. x. p. 442) he tells us under date July 31, 1731, that “Mr West lately met with a small Pamphlet in 4to bound up with the Arminian Nunnery, at Little Gidding, and intituled ‘Collectarium mansuetudinum (etc.).’ ’Tis printed in the old black Letter by Cowpland, with the figure of a king in his Robes,... I do not remember to have ever seen this Book. Archbishop Usher had seen John Blacman’s MSS Collections wch probably contained a great many other things relating to the Carthusians and their Benefactors... (Henry VI) was a pious, tho’ very weak Prince. The Carthusians had most deservedly a great opinion of him,... and did what they could for his honour.”
I think Hearne is mistaken about Ussher, who does no more than quote a passage from Blacman in his Historia Dogmatica (Opp. xii. 363).
It may further be remarked that Holinshed and other chroniclers make small extracts from Blacman without naming their source. I have not discovered who is actually the earliest writer to cite him: but Hall (1548) does not appear to do so.
p. 4. quidam Angliæ reverendus antistes. This bishop who was Henry’s confessor for ten years I suppose to have been William Ayscough, bishop of Salisbury 1438-1450, who was much in Henry’s confidence. It is remarked in the Dict. Nat. Biog. that it was “a novelty in those days for a bishop to be a king’s confessor.”
p. 6. missalia, oracula. I take these words together and regard them as a ‘refined’ way of saying ‘orationes in missa’ or the like.
sanctæ crucis signorum seriem in corona. These crosses on the ring of the crown are seen alternating with fleur de lys in the (early xvith century) representation of Henry in painted glass in the Hacomblen chantry in King’s College Chapel.
p. 8. Francisci Petrarchæ. This, Blacman’s one literary quotation, is a garbled one from Petrarch’s De Vita Solitaria, lib. ii. sect. vi. c. i.
p. 9. Jaspere et Edmundo. The sons of Owen Tudor by Katherine, widow of Henry V.
p. 10. cardinalis et episcopi Winton. Cardinal Beaufort, d. 11 April 1447. The gift to Eton and King’s was in fact made by a codicil to the cardinal’s will executed two days before his death. See Maxwell Lyte, Eton College, p. 27.
p. 11. decem mutatoria casularia. I suppose this to mean enough silk to make ten or more sets of mass-vestments for a single priest.
Episcopos Wurcestriæ et Cestriæ. Chester had no bishop till 1541. Chichester must be meant. The bishop was doubtless Adam Moleyns 1445-50, and he of Worcester John Carpenter 1443-76. Both appear in the king’s will as his feoffees for Eton and King’s.
p. 12. This is the most interesting page of the tract to those who have enjoyed King Henry’s bounty. A happy thought has of recent years dictated the use of his words Sitis boni pueri and the rest on the occasion of the admission of the new King’s Scholars at Eton.
p. 13. Sed libera nos. It is at this point in the Lord’s Prayer that the congregation responds, at the end of the Prayer of Consecration (or Canon) of the Roman Mass.
magistro doctore Town. William Towne was scholar of Eton in 1443, and passed on to King’s. He died in 1484: his chantry and brass are in one of the side-chapels on the N. of King’s College Chapel.
quidam discus. It is not clear to me whether a piece of plate representing the Five Wounds in enamel is meant, or some edible ‘subtilty’: probably the former.
p. 14. cum capucio rotulato. Perhaps a hood with a liripip (i.e. tapering into a tail) is meant.
caligas, ocreas, calceos: foot-gear for walking, riding and indoor use respectively.
p. 15. dominus Ricardus Tunstall. Sir Richard Tunstall of Thurland in Westmorland (or Lancashire) appears frequently in the Patent Rolls etc. of Henry VI, Edward IV and Henry VII. Under Edward IV his lands are naturally granted to other people and he is attainted. In 1470, at Henry’s restoration, he is ‘king’s chamberlain’ (Cal. Pat. R. p. 227). Under Henry VII he is in favour and holds many important posts.
An entry in William Worcester’s Annals (Rolls, Wars of the English in France, ii. pt. 2 [785]), wrongly printed, is of interest here. Under 1464 he writes: “Mense Julii, dolo cujusdam monachi Abendoniæ, rex Henricus in comitatu Lancastriæ capitur per quendam Johannem Talbois et Ricardum Tunstalle milites, ibidem captus evasit. Dictusque rex Henricus una cum monacho Thoma Mannyng et Bedone doctore... versus Londoniam adducebatur etc.” We should certainly read ‘et Ricardus T. miles... evasit.’
Tunstall was afterwards taken in Wales by Lord Herbert, and confined in the Tower, but soon pardoned (Warkeworth’s Chron. Camd. Soc. p. 43).
Another entry (Three Fifteenth Cent. Chronicles, Camden Soc. p. 80) says:
“Kynge Harry was take in the northe contre, and ii doctors with him, the whiche wer called Doctor Mannynge and Doctor Beden, the whiche were all thre brought to London.”
On the whole episode see Sir J. H. Ramsay, Lancaster and York, ii. 316.
What follows in the text is Tunstall’s story. Blacman adds that he himself witnessed a similar occurrence.
p. 17. I do not know that the four nobles or the three great lords who were pardoned can be certainly identified. Nor is it plain whether the first of the two men who wounded him attacked him when confined in the Tower.
p. 18. isti p̄r̄iales. Blacman intends a word of the sense of ‘parricidiales.’ But either he or the printer has gone wrong.
p. 19. ex miraculorum ubi corpus ejus humatur diutina continuatione. A large collection of Henry’s miracles is preserved in two MSS, Royal 13. c. viii. and Harley 423. The latter is a partial copy of the former. See a special note on them below.
Cognatus noster de Marchia, i.e. Edward IV, Earl of March.
p. 20. in festo S. Edwardi etc. The depositio of S. Edward the Confessor which falls on 5 January.
vox corporalis. Probably means a voice audible to the bodily senses.
p. 21. magistris Bedon et Mannynge. On these companions of Henry VI at his capture see above in the note on Tunstall. John Bedon, clerk, receives a general pardon from Edward IV in 1467 (Cal. Pat. R. p. 11). Holinshed and those who copy him call him Bedle. He may be the John Bedon who took a B.D. degree at Oxford in 1455. Thomas Mannynge, though called a monk by Will. Worcester, seems undoubtedly to be the man who was dean of Windsor from 1452 to 1462, and is indicted (1 Ed. IV, Rot. Parl. v. p. 477 etc.) of treason in the first year of Edward IV: he is described as late of New Windsor in Berkshire, clerk. On Nov. 7, 1465, he has a general pardon for all offences up to the 26th of August previous. Earlier, in 1451 (Aug. 24) when Henry VI grants him the prebend of Nassington in Lincoln cathedral, he is described as the king’s clerk and chaplain.
On 29 Nov. 1469 he is dead; the king is informed by his executor that Thomas was in debt and indigent in his life, and had made forfeiture to the king, so that a licence to administer was necessary.
The Rev. J. N. Dalton, Canon of Windsor, has kindly informed me that no records in the possession of the Dean and Chapter of Windsor throw light on Dean Mannynge’s life.
a dextra sua. Corrupt: I suppose the meaning to be that the king saw the woman out of his window: camera or fenestra is wanted.