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Cressingham [Crisam]

Norfolk

OS grid ref: TF 855 015

to these your foresaide wryters, as witnesses produced against these men: MarginaliaTwo things to be obserued in story writers.there be 2. things (as I take it) in these chronicle wryters to be cōsidered: First the groūds which they follow: secondly in what place they serue.

As touching the order and ground of wryting among these Chroniclers, MarginaliaThe ground of histories to be cōsidered.ye must consider, and cānot be ignorant that as none of all these by you forenamed, was present at the deede, not witnesse of the fact, so haue they nothyng of thēselues herein certainely to affirme, but either must follow publike rumor and hearesay for their autor, or els one of them must borrow of another. Whereof neither seemeth to me sufficient. For as publike rumor is neuer certain: so one author may soone deceiue an other.

MarginaliaAll thinges not true, that be foūd in stories.By reason wherof it commeth oft to passe, that as these story wryters hit many times the truth, so againe al is not the gospell that they doe wryte. Wherefore great respect is heere to be had, either not to credite rashly euery one that wryteth stories, or els to see what groundes they haue whome we doe followe.

Now to demaund (M. Cope) of you, what authoritye or foundation hath your Robert Fabian, hathe Polydore Virgil, Edward Hal, and other of your authors to prooue these men to be traytors? What authority do they auouch? what actes, what registers, what recordes, or out of what court do they shewe? or what demōstration do they make? And do you thinke it sufficient, because these men doe only affirme it, wythont any further probation, wyth youre αυτοε εφη, therfore we are boūd to beleue it? Take me not so (M. Cope) that I do here diminish any thing or derogate from the credit of those wryters you alledge, whose labors haue deserued well, and serue to great vtilitie: but cōming now to triall of a matter lying in cōtrouersie betwene vs, we are now forced to seeke out the fountaine and bottome of the truthe, where it is not enough to say, so it is, but the cause is to be shewed, why it is so affirmed. MarginaliaWordes without probation are not sufficiēt in story matters.And what though Robert Fabian, Polydore Virgile, and Edwarde Hall, should all together (as they do not) agree in the treason of sir Iohn Oldcastle and of the rest, yet neither is this any sufficient surety to prooue them traitors. Considering that wryters of stories for most part folowing either blind reporte: or els one taking of an other, vse commonly all to sound together after one tune, tanquam Dodonæi lebetes, so that as one sayth, all say, and if one erre, all do erre. Wherfore you see M. Cope, howe it is not sufficient nor sure to sticke onely to the names and authorities of Chronographers, vnlesse the ground be found substantial wherupon they stand themselues. Which yet in none of these whome you haue produced, doth appeare.

MarginaliaChroniclers how farre, and to what effect they serue.Secondly, in alleaging and wryting of Chronicles is to be considered to what place and effect they serue. If yee would shew out of them the order & course of times, what yeres were of dearth and of plēty, where kings kept their Christenmasse, what condites were made, what Maiors and shirifes were in London, what battails were fought, what triumphs and great feasts were holdē, when kings began their raigne, and when they ended. &c. In such vulgare and popular affairs, the narration of the Chronicler serueth to good purpose, & may haue his credite, wherein the matter forceth not much, whether it be true or false, or whether any listeth to beleue them. But where as a thyng is denied, and in cases of iudgement, and in controuersies doubtfull, which are to be decided and boulted out by euidence of iust demonstration: I take them neither for Iudges of þ^e bench, not for arbiters of the cause, nor as witnesses of themselues sufficient necessarily to be sticked vnto. Albeit I deny not but hystories are takē many times, and so termed for witnesses of times, and glasses of antiquitie. &c. yet not such witnesses, as whose testimony beareth alwaies a necessary truth and bindeth beliefe.

The two witnesses whych came against Susanna, being seniours both of auncient yeares, bare a great countenance of a most euidēt testimony, wherby they almost both deceiued the people, & oppressed the innocent: had not yōg Daniel by the holy spirite of God, haue take thē aside, and seuerally examining them one from the other, found them to be fals liers both, leauing to vs therby a lesson of wholsome circumspection, MarginaliaHistories not rashely to be beleued.not rashly to beleeue euery one that commeth: and also teaching vs, how to try thē out. Wherfore (M. Cope) following here the like example of Daniel in trying these your records whom ye inferre against these men we wil in like maner examine them, seuerally one frō an other, and see how their testimonie agreeth: MarginaliaThe testimony of Fabian against the L. Cobham examined.first beginning wyth your Robert Fabian. Which Robert Fabian being neither in the same age, nor at the deede doing, can of himselfe geue no credite herein, without due proofe, and cuidence conuenient.

How thē doth Rob. Fabian proue this matter of trea-son true? what probation doeth he bring? what authoritie doth he alleage? And doth Rob. Fabian thinke, if he were not disposed to conceiue of the L. Cobham, and those men a better opinion but to be traitors, that men are bounde to beleue him only at his word, without any ground or cause declared, why they shuld so do, but only because he so saith and pleased him so to write? And if yee thinke (M. Cope) the word only of this witnes sufficient to make authority speaking against the Lord Cobham, and prouing nothing which followed so many yeres after him: MarginaliaThe testimony of Rich. Belward for the L. Cobham.Why may not I as well and much rather take the worde and testimonie of Richard Belward a Northfolke man, and of the towne of Crisam, who liuing both in his time, & possible knowing the party, & punished also for the like trueth, is not reported, but recorded also in the MarginaliaEx Regist. Episc. Noruic.registers of the church of Norwich, to geue this testimonie among other his articles, for the foresaid L. Cobham, that is, þ^t sir Iohn Oldcastle was a true Catholike man and falsely condemned, and put to death wythout a reasonable cause. &c. Ex Regist. Noruic.

Agaynst this man if you take exception & say, that one hereticke will hold with an other: why may not I with þ^e like exception reply to you agayne, & say as well, one Papist hold with an other, and both cōiure together, to make and say the worst agaynst a true Protestant.

Further, yet to examine this foresayd Fabian, witnes agaynst Sir Iohn Oldcastle, as Daniell examined þ^e witnesses agaynst Susanna. I will not here aske vnder what tree these adherentes of sir I. Oldcastle conspired agaynst the king, & subuersion of þ^e land, but in what time, in what yeare and moneth this conspiracie was wrought? Fabian witnesseth that it was in the moneth of Ianuary. MarginaliaWitnesses against the L. Cobham agree not togeather.Cōtrary Edward Hall & other our Abridgementers followyng him, doe affirme that they were condemned in the Guild hall the xij. of December, and that their executiō vpon the same was in Ianuary followyng, so that by their sentence the fact was done either in the moneth of Decēber, or els before, & so Fabianus mentitus est in caput suum, vt cū Daniele dicam, or if it were in the moneth of Ianuary as Fabian sayth, then is Hall and his followers deceiued, testifying the fact to be done in the moneth of December.

MarginaliaFabian conuict of a manifest vntruth in his story of the L. Cobhā.And yet to obiect moreouer against the sayd Fabiā, for so much as he is such a rash witnes agaynst these burned persons whom he calleth traytors: it would be demaūded further of him, or in his absence of Maister Cope, in what yeare this treason was conspired? If it were in the same yeare (as he cōfesseth himselfeMarginaliaFabian. part. 7. in vita Henr. 5. pag. 390.) in which yeare Iohn Cleidon the Skinner, & Richard Turmine Baker were burned, then was it neither in the moneth of Ianuary, nor in the first yeare of kyng Henry the fift. For in the registerMarginaliaEx regist. Archiep. Cant. of Cāterbury it appeareth playne, that Iohn Claydon was condemned neither in the tyme of Thom. Arundell Archbyshop nor yet in the first nor second yeare of kyng Henry the v. but was cōdemned in the second yeare of the translation of Henry Chichesly, Archbyshop of Canterbury, the. 17. day of August, which was the yeare of our Lord. 1415. So that if this conspiracie was in the same yeare (after the witnesse of Fabiā) in which yeare I. Cleydon was burned, then doth the testimony of Fabian neither accord with other witnesses, nor w^t him selfe, nor yet with truth. And thus much concerning the witnes of Rob. Fabian.

MarginaliaThe testimony of Polydore examyned.Let vs next proceede to Polidore Virgill, whose parciall and vntrue handling of our history in other places of of his bookes, doth offer vnto vs sufficient exception not to admit his credite in this. And yet because we will rather examine him, then exclude him, let vs heare a little what he sayth, & how he fayleth, & in how many pointes, Marginalia5. Vntruhes of Polydore noted in one story.numbring the same vpon my fiue fingers.

Marginalia1. Vntruth.First ending with the life of king Henry 4. hee sayeth, that hee raigned 14. yeares and 6. moneths and 2. dayes. Angl. hist. lib. 21. whyche is an vntruth, worthy to be punyshed wyth a whole yeares banishment (to speake after the maner of Apulenis) when as truth is, he raigned by the testimony of the story of S. Albones, of Fabian, of Hall, of our old English Chronicle and of Scala mundi, but 13. & 6. moneths, lacking as some say 5. dayes, Hal saieth he raigned but 12. yeares.

Marginalia2. Vntruth.The second vntruth of Polydore is this, where as hee speaking of this sedition of sir Iohn Oldcastle and his adherents, affirmeth the same to be done after the burning of Iohn Hus, and of Hierome of Prage, whych was sayeth he An. 1415. in which yere (sayth he) Thomas Arundell died. Hys wordes be these: In eodem concilio damnata est Ioh. Wicliffi hæresis, ac Ioan. Hus, & Hieronymus Pragensis in ea vrbe combusti sunt. Quod vbi reliquis consocijs, qui etiam tunc in Anglia erant, patefit, tanquam furijs agitati primùm coniurationes in mones sacerdotes, deinde in regē &c. In which words he not onely erreth, falsly assigning the cause and occasion