It would seem as if Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, heard some whisper or
rumour concerning this birth, or was told something about the true
nature of the Queen's illness, for he issued a very singular
proclamation, warning the world, generally, against marrying Queen
dowagers, as if these ladies grew on every hedge. When, however, a year
or so afterwards, the fourth child, Margaret, was born, Humphrey learned
the whole truth: the degradation, as he thought it, of the Queen, who
had stooped to such an alliance, and the humble rank and the audacity of
the Welshman. He took steps promptly. He sent Katharine with some of her
ladies to Bermondsey Abbey, there to remain in honourable confinement:
he arrested Owen Tudor, a priest--probably the priest who had performed
the marriage--and his servant, and sent all three to Newgate.
All three succeeded in breaking prison, and escaped. At this point the
story gets mixed. The King himself, we are told, then a lad of fifteen,
sent to Owen commanding his attendance before the Council. Why did they
not arrest him again? Owen, however, refused to trust himself to the
Council--was not Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, one of them? He asked for
a safe-conduct. They promised him one by a verbal message. Where was he,
then, that all these messages should be sent backwards and forwards? I
think he must have been in Sanctuary. He refused a verbal message, and
demanded a written safe-conduct. This was granted him, and he returned
to London. But he mistrusted even the written promise; he would not face
the Council: he took refuge in the Sanctuary of Westminster, where they
were afraid to seize him. And here for a while he remained. It is said
that they tried to draw him out by sending old friends who invited him
to the taverns outside the Abbey Precinct. But Owen would not be so
drawn. He knew that Duke Humphrey would make an end of him if he could.
He therefore remained where he was. I think that he must have had some
secret understanding with the King; for one day, learning that Henry
himself was with the Council, he suddenly presented himself and pleaded
his own cause. The mild young king, tender on account of his mother,
would not allow the case to be pursued, but bade him go free.
He departed; he made all haste to get out of an unwholesome air: he made
for Wales. Here the hostility of Duke Humphrey pursued him still: he was
once more arrested, taken to Wallingford, and placed in the Castle there
a prisoner. From Wallingford he was transferred again to Newgate, he and
his priest and his servant. Once more they all three broke prison,
'foully' wounding a warder in the achievement of liberty, and got back
to Wales, choosing for their residence the mountainous parts into which
the English garrisons never penetrated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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