mains but the library, and the building on each side of the gateway and these have been greatly changed in appearance by alterations in the 17th and 18th centuries. The library, however, was in Rotherham's time a chapel, the earliest College chapel in Cambridge, dating from about 1360. In 1875 the little old court, of which this library forms the northern side, was still in existence. On the site of the present hall stood the older hall and in its southern portion the combination room, over which were the rooms of the Master. Pictures of it still remain, shewing us the lodging which Rotherham may have occupied on his visits, which could scarcely have been frequent, to the College. He seems to have been Master about six years.*

Rotherham Archbishop of York.

This same year (1480) witnessed the elevation of Rotherham from the diocese of Lincolnt to the highest eminence which he attained. On Sept. 12 the Bulls of Sixtus IV.

These details are given from "Cambridge described and illustrated," pp. 312-320, by T. D. Atkinson. The present chapel at Pembroke was built by Bishop Wrenn, after the designs of his great nephew, Sir Christopher Wrenn, as a thank-offering for the restoration of the King, and his own deliverance, out of a passionate love for Cambridge, and a 'grateful remembrance of his first education' at Pembroke. In his notes on Rotherham's life he speaks of his tenure of the Mastership being ad sexemium (aut plus eo), and adds that he does not know the reason for his resignation, surmising that it may have been caused by his withdrawal from public affairs at the commencement of Henry VII.'s reign; or the business which came to him as legate of the apostolic See, or a desire to give way to some friend as a successor; or the plague, from which he at last died, which may have been raging at the University. It was not at any rate the business of the apostolic See.

There is another of those pathetic exclamations in his Will, appended to his mention of the Mitre and Pastoral Staff, which he had already given, and the twenty pounds which he bequeaths to Lincoln. "Lincoln, which I ruled secondly, O would as well as I ought to have done." Guest, p. 141. This clause is not given in the Latin Will below.

were read in the Cathedral church of York for his appointment as Archbishop of York and Legate of the apostolic See. Rotherham himself, however, was not there in person,* appearing by his Vicars-General. The appointment as Legate was not an exceptional one. Since the time of Archbishop Thoresby the Archbishop of York had been in virtue of his office a "legatus natus" like the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is rather a surprise to find the record of a grant of pardon from the King as the sequence of his new dignity (Oct. I, 1480). It would have been almost natural, when he was raised to the See of Lincoln, after all the risks in the revolution: but these were quiet years. But it was not uncommon to sue for a Grant of Pardon on leaving office as a security. Bourchier did so, when he resigned the seals as Chancellor. Waynflete did the same. The Pardon did not imply any known acts of offence, but was a safeguard against accusations.‡

*The dates in this matter are these: on May 4, Rotherham is given the temporalities of York to hold for the King (Rymer); on June 12, the congé d'élire is issued to York (ibid); on Sept. 3, the Papal Provision; on Sept. 9, the restoration of the temporalities to Rotherham as Archbishop (Rymer, Le Neve); on Sept. 12, the publication of the Bulls of Sixtus IV. in the cathedral at York, Rotherham himself being away from the diocese in distant parts (extra suam Diocem Eboracensem in remotis agente). This last quotation is from Rotherham's Register at York, begun on this September 12, which is in good preservation.

I am indebted to the courtesy of Monsignore Noyes for pointing this out to me.

Rymer xii. p. 138. Hatcher in the register of King's College asserts positively that Rotherham at some period attained the still higher eminence of Cardinal of St. Cecilia trans Tiberim, commenting on the omission of this in the list of English Cardinals given by Godwin in his book "De Præsulibus Angliæ." I have however nowhere found any evidence of this elevation: nor has the industry of Guest (p. 93), nor of Cole, the careful Cambridge biographer. Monsignore Noyes also, in answer to an enquiry through one of my friends, Mr. Francis

The Parliament of 1483.

Once more, for the last time, Rotherham opened Parliament on Jan. 20, 1483, taking for his text "The Lord is my Light and my Salvation." War with France seemed again approaching. Edward had been fooled by Lewis. For three years he had been expecting that the Princess Elizabeth would be sent for to France, to marry the Dauphin in accordance with the terms of the Picquigny agreement; but some excuse had always been offered for delay. A sudden event--the death of Mary of Burgundy by a fall from her horse-opened a new vista to the King of France. If Margaret, Mary's daughter, could be married to the Dauphin, with the estates which Lewis had ravished from her mother as a settlement, this quarrel with Burgundy would be ended. So he threw Edward over without a scruple. Edward was furious and the nation indignant. The Parliament voted a tenth and a fifteenth for the war.

The Death of
Edward,

But there was to be no war. The most splendid man of his time, in the prime of April 9, 1483. life, found himself stricken with a mortal sickness, fed by his habits of debauchery and lust and the prospect for his Queen and children as well as the retrospect of his own life filled him with gloom and dread. To no one, we think, more than Rotherham, his trusted instrument for so many years, his chaplain and so probably his confessor, would the tumult of the King's soul be laid open. At that death-bed interview, filled with the vision of fresh bloodshed

King, most kindly examined the available authorities on English Cardinals (Giaconius, Rome, 1677; Lorenzo Cardella, Rome, 1793; Dictionnaire des Cardinaux, Migne, vol. xxxvi.; and Francesco Cristofori, Rome, 1888; as well as a series of Articles in the "Catholic Times," by Mr. C. Munich), but could find no evidence of it.

around the person of his innocent boy, he bound on the one hand his Queen (with her brother Rivers) and her young sons Dorset and Grey, and on the other Hastings the Queen's enemy, Howard, Stanley, and the old nobility who resented the power and honours which had been heaped on the meaner blood at the Queen's kindred, to vows of reconciliation and amity. Rotherham's truer promises would be given along with the hollower ones of the rest. Rotherham would receive the last confession of his bloody past, and the direction which he left that restitution should be made out of his treasures to all whom he had wronged by exactions or benevolences : from Rotherham's lips he would receive his absolution and the last office for the dying. In the elaborate account of the obsequies the figure of Rotherham frequently occurs. He would be among the peers, who on the day following the King's death (April 9) viewed the gigantic bloated corpse, stripped to the waist, at the palace of Westminster. In the great procession to the Abbey the Archbishop of York was among those that preceded the "herse," and was the celebrant at the mass. At its conclusion he rode with the lords to Charing, where the "chaire" in which the body was borne was censed; and on to Syon, where it rested in the church for the night. On the morrow they reached Windsor, where the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Winchester censed the corpse at the castell gate. Next morning in Edward's new quire of St. George's, where Henry VI. alone among our Kings had found at last a rest, it was by Rotherham that the final masse of requiem" was sung* (April 19).

66

* For Edward's preparation for death, and orders for restitution to those he had oppressed, see Lingard. For the details of the funeral, see the curious account in "Letters and Papers illustrative of the reigns of Richard III. and Henry VII.," by James Gairdner.

CHAPTER IX.

THE LAST DAYS OF ROTHERHAM'S PUBLIC

LIFE.

The tyrannous and bloody act is done;
The most arch deed of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of.

Thus, thus," quoth Forest, "girdling one another
Within their alabaster innocent arms:

Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,

Which in their summer beauty kissed each other.
A book of prayers on their pillow lay."

Richard III., Act i., Scene III.

Richmond-We will unite the white rose with the red.

Smile, heaven, upon this fair conjunction,
That hath long frowned upon their enmity.

Ibid, Act v., Scene III.-Shakspeare.

The Boy-King in the Power of the Duke of GloucesterThe News of the King's Capture reaches Rotherham-He gives the Queen the Great Seal-Rotherham dismissed from the Chancellorship-The Black Council of June 13-Death of Hastings-Imprisonment of Rotherham-Murder of the Boy-King, Edward-Incidents concerning Rotherham in the Reign of Richard III.-Incidents in the Reign of Henry VII.

in the Power

The Boy-King THE death of Edward IV. left Rotherham firmly devoted to the Queen and the young princes. For the moment the Queen seemed at considerable vantage. The young

of the Duke of Gloucester.

King was at Ludlow in the hands of her brother, Lord Rivers. The Tower with all its treasure was in pos