The Armourer's Prentices

I have attempted here to sketch citizen life in the early Tudor days, aided therein by Stowe’s Survey of London, supplemented by Mr. Loftie’s excellent history, and Dr. Burton’s English Merchants.

Stowe gives a full account of the relations of apprentices to their masters; though I confess that I do not know whether Edmund Burgess could have become a citizen of York after serving an apprenticeship in London. Evil May Day is closely described in Hall’s Chronicle. The ballad, said to be by Churchill, a contemporary, does not agree with it in all respects; but the story-teller may surely have license to follow whatever is most suitable to the purpose. The sermon is exactly as given by Hall, who is also responsible for the description of the King’s sports and of the Field of the Cloth of Gold and of Ardres. Knight’s admirable Pictorial History of England tells of Barlow, the archer, dubbed by Henry VIII. the King of Shoreditch.

Historic Winchester describes both St. Elizabeth College and the Archer Monks of Hyde Abbey. The tales mentioned as told by Ambrose to Dennet are really New Forest legends.

The Moresco’s Arabic Gospel and Breviary are mentioned in Lady Calcott’s History of Spain, but she does not give her authority. Nor can I go further than Knight’s Pictorial History for the King’s adventure in the marsh. He does not say where it happened, but as in Stowe’s map “Dead Man’s Hole” appears in what is now Regent’s Park, the marsh was probably deep enough in places for the adventure there. Brand’s Popular Antiquities are the authority for the nutting in St. John’s Wood on Holy Cross Day. Indeed, in some country parishes I have heard that boys still think they have a license to crack nuts at church on the ensuing Sunday.

Seebohm’s Oxford Reformers and the Life of Sir Thomas More, written by William Roper, are my other authorities, though I touched somewhat unwillingly on ground already lighted up by Miss Manning in her Household of Sir Thomas More.

Galt’s Life of Cardinal Wolsey afforded the description of his household taken from his faithful Cavendish, and likewise the story of Patch the Fool. In fact, a large portion of the whole book was built on that anecdote.

I mention all this because I have so often been asked my authorities in historical tales, that I think people prefer to have what the French appropriately call pièces justificatives.

C. M. Yonge.

August 1st, 1884

CHAPTER I. THE VERDURER’S LODGE

“Give me the poor allottery my father left me by testament, with that I will go buy me fortunes.” “Get you with him, you old dog.”

As You Like It.

The officials of the New Forest have ever since the days of the Conqueror enjoyed some of the pleasantest dwellings that southern England can boast.

The home of the Birkenholt family was not one of the least delightful. It stood at the foot of a rising ground, on which grew a grove of magnificent beeches, their large silvery boles rising majestically like columns into a lofty vaulting of branches, covered above with tender green foliage. Here and there the shade beneath was broken by the gilding of a ray of sunshine on a lower twig, or on a white trunk, but the floor of the vast arcades was almost entirely of the russet brown of the fallen leaves, save where a fern or holly bush made a spot of green. At the foot of the slope lay a stretch of pasture ground, some parts covered by “lady-smocks, all silver white,” with the course of the little stream through the midst indicated by a perfect golden river of shining kingcups interspersed with ferns. Beyond lay tracts of brown heath and brilliant gorse and broom, which stretched for miles and miles along the flats, while the dry ground was covered with holly brake, and here and there woods of oak and beech made a sea of verdure, purpling in the distance.