"Come, friends all," said the archbishop; "let not the gibe and jest go round; there be matters of graver import that should occupy us this night. To-morrow, let the elements be propitious, and the day is won."
"Od's life," said Aske; "surely the rain will not again prevent us from passing the river, as it did in our last campaign."
"If it do," cried a deep and melancholy voice from the lower end of the table, "then will I say this Pilgrimage of Grace is the device of man, and not of God, and the work will not prosper."
This ominous anticipation seemed to strike terror into the most stout-hearted. "Foul fa' the croaking raven!" said Aske. "No good comes on't, when the Lord of Ravenswood breaks from his usual silence. Mischief follows, safe as the bolt after the flash."
"Hush! my son," said the archbishop to this bird of ill-omen; "thou speakest unwisely. 'Tis not for us to adjudge the displeasure of Heaven upon slight testimonies. He trieth our faith, when the dark cloud overshadoweth His mercy. But let us not dishonour this good cause, and weaken our hands by indulging in such gloomy anticipations. The night showeth little token of a change, and when I was last abroad, the river passed on, shallow and murmuring, over the ford."
The guests were fully occupied to a late hour in discussing the plan of attack, the occupation of the town, together with subsequent arrangements; after which, with mutual anticipations of success, the company departed.
Paslew, on retiring to his chamber, though much fatigued, found himself unable to sleep. The dark chaos of events brooded heavily upon his brain. Feverish and excited, the dread to-morrow seemed already pressing on the past, mingling its deep and unseen flood with the full tide of existence. The whirl and eddy, created by the conflict, lashed his thoughts almost to madness. He grew appalled. The billows blackened as they rose. He seemed sinking, overwhelmed in the struggle, and the spirit quivered as they passed. He arose, darting an anxious glance through the low casement. The moon was riding on the top of a huge mountain of clouds towards the north-west. As he gazed they came rapidly athwart the heavens, like the wings of some terrible demon visibly unfolding. On a sudden the door of his chamber flew open. He started forward to meet the intruder, but there was no footstep—no sound save the hurrying gusts that foreran the approaching tempest. Soon like a mighty deluge it burst on at once in its full vigour, as though it would overwhelm creation once more in immediate ruin. The roll of the river answered swiftly to the tempest's voice, now swollen to a huge and foaming torrent, rising rapidly over its level banks, and threatening devastation on every side. Paslew quaked. Gloomy forebodings crept upon him. He beheld in this strange visitation another and a manifest interposition of Heaven, fighting against the cause he had unhappily espoused. Rest was out of the question, his whole thoughts being occupied in the contrivance of measures for his own immediate safety.
In the morning consternation had seized the whole camp. They beheld the muddy and turbulent waters before them, again frustrating their hopes, levelling their proud schemes, and fighting visibly and irresistibly against them, in front of their adversaries. So intimidated were the troops, and so convinced that their cause was now hopeless, that not all the persuasions and threatenings of their leaders, nor the archbishop's promises of an eternal reward, could prevent the breaking up of this vast multitude, and the hasty dispersion of the rebel host.
Ere morning Paslew was gone. He liked not the dust from a falling house. Weary and alone he came back to his dwelling on the tenth day after his departure.
From this time danger and misfortune crowded fast upon that devoted house. The dark course of events unfolded with frightful rapidity, and Paslew, by many a vain contrivance, sought to avert the king's displeasure and his own doom. A relaxation of some measures more than ordinarily severe was attempted; and we find, from existing records, that a pension of ten marks per annum was granted to Thomas Cromwell, the king's secretary and principal visitor—whether in the way of bribe or fee is not certain.
It shows, however, the humiliating and submissive circumstances to which the monks were now reduced. They were indeed fallen from that high estate, when kings were their tributaries, and empires too narrow for the wide grasp of their ambition. The following is a copy of Thomas Cromwell's indulgence, taken from the Townley MSS.:—
"To all estates due honour and reverence, and to all other commendacioun in our Lord everlastyng. Know ye that we John, abbot of ye monasterie of our blessed Ladie of Whalley, in Com. Lanc., by ye assente and consente of ye convente, have freely granted untoe ye right honourable Mr. Tho. Cromwell, secretarie, general visitor, and principal official to our most sovereign Lord Kyng Hen. VIII., an annual rent or fee of vi: xiii: iv: yerele, to be paide at ye nativitie of St. John Baptist unto ye saide Maister Thomas Cromwell. Wee, ye saide abbot and convent have put to ye same our handes and common seale. Yeven at Whalley 1st Jan. 28 Hen. VIII."
But every act of submission, every stratagem and advice, had failed to ward off the blow. Within ten weeks from the date of this document there was neither abbot nor abbey of Whalley.
After the dispersion, imprisonment, and execution of the principal leaders of the rebellion, the day of reckoning and retribution was at hand. Shrewsbury, by the king's orders, sent a herald with a troop of horse, who, taking Paslew, Eastgate, Haydock, and some others of the monks prisoners, they were arraigned at Lancaster, and convicted of high treason. On the 12th March 1537, Paslew was conveyed back to Whalley for execution, where, in a field called the Holehouses, immediately facing the house of his birth, a gallows was erected, on which Paslew and Eastgate suffered punishment or martyrdom, for the story varies according to the bias of the party by whom it is told. Haydock was carried to Padiham, and died there the same ignominious death on the day following. The monks, driven from their asylum, escaped into France, with the exception of a few, who lingered near the scenes of their former enjoyments, hovering like departed hopes round the ruin to which they clung.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Whitaker's Hist. Whalley.
SIR EDWARD STANLEY.
"Why, then, the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open!"
"God never wrought miracles to convince atheism, because His ordinary works convince it."—Bacon.
"No man doubts of a Supreme Being, until, from the consciousness of his provocations, it becomes his interest there should be none."—Government of the Tongue.
"Men are atheistical because they are first vicious, and question the truth of Christianity because they hate the practice."—South.
The following will, perhaps, be thought misplaced as a polemical subject. But in relating what may be conceived as the true motive that incited Sir Edward Stanley to the founding of that beautiful structure Hornby Chapel, we may be allowed to show the operation as well as the effect—to trace the steps by which his conversion from an awful and demoralising infidelity was accomplished.
We have borrowed some of the arguments from "Leslie's Short Method with the Deists," condensing and illustrating them as the subject seemed to require. We hope to be pardoned this freedom; the nature of the question would necessarily refer to a range of argument and reply in frequent use; and all that we could expect to accomplish was to place the main arguments in such a position as to receive the light of some well-known and self-evident truth.
The dark transactions to which the "Parson of Slaidburn" obscurely refers may be found in Whitaker's "Whalley," pp. 475, 476.
The same historian