Little Arthur's history of EnglandCallcott, Maria, Lady
History
Little Arthur's history of England
Callcott, Maria, Lady
Great Britain -- History -- Juvenile literature
Now King Henry knew this story was not true, yet it vexed him very
much. For Perkin Warbeck prevailed on several noblemen in Ireland to
take his part, and he went to Scotland, and got the king to believe
him, and to let him marry a beautiful young lady, named Catharine
Gordon, the king’s own cousin, and to march into England with an
army, where he did a great deal of mischief before King Henry’s army
could drive him away. Then Perkin sailed to Cornwall, and collected
a small army; but after doing just enough mischief to make everybody
fear him and his people, he was taken prisoner by King Henry, who
kept him some time in the Tower: at last he was hanged at Tyburn, and
nobody was sorry for him but his poor wife Lady Catharine.
King Henry sent for that unfortunate lady, and took her to the queen,
who treated her very kindly, and made her live with her, and did all
she could to make her happy again.
England was quite quiet for the rest of King Henry’s reign; and
Wales, which had been ill-treated by the Kings of England ever since
Edward the First conquered it, was better treated by Henry.
As there was no fighting, the young men began to try to improve
themselves in learning. Some years before that time, some clever men
in Germany had found out how to print books instead of copying them
in writing, so there were a great many more books, and more people
could learn to read. The young men in Cambridge and Oxford began to
read the good books that had been forgotten in the wars of the Roses,
and they were ashamed to find that there were not half a dozen men in
England who knew anything at all about Greek. I think one of those
few was Grocyn, a teacher at Oxford.
But the English had soon a very good Greek teacher. A young man born
at Canterbury, called Thomas Linacre, after learning all he could
at the school in his own town, and at Oxford, went to travel in
Italy, where the most learned men in the world lived at that time.
These learned men soon found out that Thomas Linacre was very clever
indeed, and so they helped him to learn everything that he desired,
for the sake of improving his own country when he came back. He
studied everything so carefully, that on his return to Oxford the
greatest and wisest men went to him to be taught Greek, besides many
other things he had learned in his travels. He was chosen to be tutor
to the king’s eldest son, Prince Arthur, and he was afterwards tutor
to some of the next king’s children. He was the greatest physician in
England, and before he died he founded the same College of Physicians
that we have now.
In the next chapter we shall have a great deal to read about several
of Linacre’s scholars; but I tell you about him now that you may know
that it was in this king’s time that the gentlemen of England began
to think of reading and studying, instead of doing nothing but fight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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