CARDINAL WOLSEY 31 



small children, apparelled in semblance of angels, with 

 sweet-tuned voices, singing praises and lauds unto God : 

 for the victorious king would not suffer ditties to be 

 made and sung of his history, for that he would wholly 

 have the praise given unto God ; neither would he 

 suffer to be carried before him, nor showed unto the 

 l^eople, his helmet, whereupon his crown of gold was 

 broke and deposed in the field by the violence of the 

 enemy, and great strokes he had recei\'ed, nor his 

 other armour that in that cruel battle Avas so sore 

 broke." 



But perhaps the most remarkable meeting on 

 Blackheath was that which assembled to escort the 

 cardinars hat, designed for Wolsey. When that 

 particularly haughty prelate learnt that the insignia 

 of his promotion was on its way from Rome in charge 

 only of an ordinary messenger, he deemed it essential 

 to his importance that a more imposing method of 

 conveyance should be provided. Previoush% therefore, 

 to the arrival of the Pope's messenger on our shores, 

 Wolsey caused him to be met and decked out with 

 robes and trappings suitable to so important an 

 occasion. That glorified pursuivant of Papal authority 

 was, therefore, brought along the road from Dover to 

 Blackheath with the greatest show of deference and 

 consideration, and here, on this waste, the hat was 

 met by great numbers of the clergy and nobility, who 

 conducted it to London and to Westminster Abbey 

 in great triumph. 



Wolsey's hat, however, comes out of chronological 

 sequence. Let us then j^ut back the clock of history 

 again to the year 1450, when Jack Cade's rebellion 

 peopled Blackheath with a menacing host. These 

 were the early days of the quarrels of the rival Roses. 

 England was losing — whether by bad generalship or 

 by trend of unavoidable circumstances it matters not 

 — the provinces of France won by Henry the Fifth 

 whose feeble son now reigned ; the kinghead around 

 whose ill-balanced kingship raged the quarrels and 



