Earl of Suffolk

“ In the year 1400, Michael De-lu-poole Earl of Suffolk granted him an annuity of 20l. during his life, out of his castle, manor, and honour of Eye in Suffolk, in recompense for the good and agreeable service that Sir William had done him in times past, and shall do him in time to come, both in war and peace; and upon this Sir William obliged himself to serve the Earl with one esquire, two servants, and five horses, all which were to have bouche de court at the Earl's expense; and if he travels in England at the Earl's command, he was to be allowed reasonable expenses ”

“ The young Earl of Suffolk succeeded Lord Halifax as Secretary of State,—a post he had declined a few months before on the want of languages, which he certainly had not acquired in so short an interval. The late Prime Minister, the Duke of Grafton,193 succeeded327 Suffolk in the Privy Seal; but, with proud humility, desired not to be called to the Cabinet, where he would only have been subordinate. Lord Hyde was made Chancellor of the Duchy; Dr. Egerton, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, was removed to Durham, and was succeeded by Dr. North,194 brother of the Minister. ”

“ In 1639 he came back to England with the intention of offering his services against the Scots, and at once began a new suit against his old enemy the Earl of Suffolk (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1639-40, pp. 73, 414) . ”

“ The duke of Glocester, high-spirited and haughty, and educated in the lofty pretensions which the first successes of his two brothers had rendered familiar to him, could not yet be induced to relinquish all hopes of prevailing over France; much less could he see with patience his own opinion thwarted and rejected by the influence of his rival in the English council. But, notwithstanding his opposition, the earl of Suffolk, a nobleman who adhered to the cardinal’s party, was despatched to Tours, in order to negotiate with the French ministers. ”

“ In his place there arose a new minister, De la Pole, Earl of Suffolk. This man, a descendant of a wealthy merchant in the reign of Edward III., and grandson of the favourite of Richard II., was fully engaged upon the side of the Lancastrian dynasty. He had been taken prisoner after the siege of Orleans, and had in France formed connections which pointed him out as a fitting person to manage negotiations with that country. It was determined, if possible, to make the marriage of the young King with a French Princess the basis of a peace. ”

“ The people charged the loss principally upon the Earl of Suffolk, now a duke, who had made those easy terms about the Royal Marriage, and who, they believed, had even been bought by France. So he was impeached as a traitor, on a great number of charges, but chiefly on accusations of having aided the French King, and of designing to make his own son King of England. The Commons and the people being violent against him, the King was made (by his friends) to interpose to save him, by banishing him for five years, and proroguing the Parliament. ”

“ In short, the unity of a divided nation was restored under a set of politic kings, who enforced the laws, kept down the nobility, and, in spite of their despotism, were generally loved by the people.
319.1 A notable example of this is afforded by the letters of Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, which will be found printed in my Letters and Papers of Richard III. and Henry VII. His successor in title, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the favourite of Henry VIII., wrote quite as barbarous a hand, and outraged orthography in a manner equally bewildering. ”

“ The Earl of Suffolk was very unwilling to cede back this territory, for he knew very well that nothing would be so unpopular in England, or so likely to increase the hostility of the English people to the proposed marriage, and consequently to give new life and vigor to the Gloucester party in their opposition to it, as the giving up again of territory which the English troops had won by so many hard-fought battles and the sacrifice of so many lives. ”

“ In 1772 he had nine wooden plates cut of old Norfolk seals, entitled ‘Sigilla antiqua Norfolciensia;’ and a copper-plate portrait of Thomas Martin, afterwards prefixed to that antiquary's ‘History of Thetford,’ was engraved at his expense. By favour of the Earl of Suffolk, he was in October 1774 appointed an honorary member of the College of Arms, and created Suffolk herald extraordinary, which title was expressly revived for him (Noble, Hist. of the College of Arms, p. 445) . ”

“ In 1385, the Earls of Notingham and Suffolk, and the Duke of Lancaster, were here, and were nobly treated by the city; it seems the Earls came to solicit for the King towards carrying on the war against the Scots, to which the city gave 50 marks, and lent 150 more, and gave 50 marks to the Duke, towards carrying on his own foreign affairs; they expended 10 marks on the Earl of Notingham, and presented the Earl of Suffolk with two pipes of wine, and a last of oats. ”

“ Such inconsistency is very common in Shakespeare. Compare I. iv, lines 35 ff. and 67 ff. It is not necessary to explain that Gloucester's eyes were dim, or that his agitation prevented him from getting more than the general import of the passage. The author was writing for auditors, who would not compare the two texts.
I. i. 65. We here create thee the first Duke of Suffolk. The Earl of Suffolk was created Marquis, September 14, 1444, and was made Duke, June 2, 1448, three years after the coronation of Queen Margaret (May, 1445) . ”

“ The Scots having made incursions in the north of England, Richard advanced against them, and burnt Edinburgh, Dunfermline, Perth, and Dundee.
1386. The king’s favourites, De Vere, duke of Ireland, and De la Pole, earl of Suffolk, removed from office, and Suffolk impeached. ”

“ Sixteen rebels at least were executed in Suffolk, and still more in Norfolk.
On the breaking out of a fierce quarrel between John of Gaunt [q. v.] and his former ally, Henry Percy, first earl of Northumberland [q. v.] , Suffolk attended the council at Berkhampstead in which the duke brought his charges against the earl, and, on the latter being ordered under arrest, Suffolk joined with Warwick in acting as his surety (Walsingham, ii. 44; Chron. Angliæ, p. 329) . Northumberland now became the favourite of the London mob, and Suffolk won back his old popularity. ”

“ It is almost impossible to understand the characters of the men who held responsible positions in the reign of Henry VI. The uncles of the King quarrelled among themselves, and their respective followers were hunted down by their enemies.
William De la Pole, fourth Earl and first Duke of Suffolk, a distinguished leader in the French wars, but a politician in later life, was the chief opponent of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the leader of the warlike party. Suffolk was an active agent for peace. ”

“ The King, said he, would have plenty of money at his command, if the wicked councillors were only forced to disgorge their ill-gotten booty. Yet with all their cleverness, Gloucester and his allies could not succeed in accusing Suffolk of any greater covetousness than "taking from the King a thousand marks a year since he was made an Earl"—which was the ordinary grant from the Crown to every earl in England. ”

“ In May 1351 and in June 1352 he was chief commissioner of array in Norfolk and Suffolk.
In September 1355 Suffolk sailed with the Black Prince, Edward, prince of Wales (1330–1376) [q. v.] , to Aquitaine. Between October and December he was engaged in the prince's raid through Languedoc to Narbonne, where he commanded the rear-guard, William de Montacute, second earl of Salisbury [q. v.] , son of his old companion in arms, serving with him. After his return he was quartered at Saint-Emilion, his followers being stationed round Libourne (Chandos Herald, p. 44) . ”

“ The Duchess of Suffolk died in 1580, and his son Peregrine soon afterwards succeeded to the barony of Willoughby. Bertie died at Bourn, in Lincolnshire, on 9 April 1582, and was buried at Spilsby in the same county. In Spilsby church there is a stately monument to his memory and that of the Duchess of Suffolk. Besides his son Peregrine he had issue by the Duchess of Suffolk a daughter, Susan, born in England in 1554, who was successively wife of Reginald Grey, earl of Kent, and of Sir John Wingfield. ”

“ St Valery, the town of, is won by the French, vii. 115, 153
Suffolk, the earl of, succeeds the earl of Salisbury in the command at the siege of Orleans, vi. 237
is taken prisoner at Gergeau, vi. 504
Suffolk, the marquis of, is imprisoned in the tower by the populace of London, viii. 431
is liberated by the king, and afterwards beheaded, viii. 432, 433
Suffolk, the duke of, is killed by the partisans of the duke of Somerset, ix. 116
Surienne, sir Francis de, called the Arragonian, takes the town and castle of Fougares, viii. 427
Swiss, the, defeat the duke of Burgundy at Granson, xi. ”

“ This Robert had several sons, one of whom was Sir Ralph de Ufford (d. 1346) , justiciar of Ireland, who married Maud, widow of William de Burgh, earl of Ulster, and daughter of Henry Plantagenet, earl of Lancaster. ”

“ The King whose favor he never lost sentenced Suffolk to five years' exile. On May 1, 1450, the Duke set sail for France, but the ship on which he embarked was intercepted by a royal man-of-war, Suffolk was compelled to go on board, and on the following day was taken into a small boat and beheaded. His body was cast upon the beach at Dover. The sanguinary deed was probably due to Richard of York, his mortal enemy.—John de la Pole (1442-91) second Duke of Suffolk, only son of the preceding, regained the ducal title in 1455. ”

“ The powerful party which prosecuted the revenge of Gloucester's injuries, and now allied itself to the ambitious Duke of York, were the more numerously backed by the nobility, in that they regarded Suffolk with envy as a man who being but the grandson of a merchant, had risen over their heads, and made himself all but monarch. ”

“ Grocyn and all of our London savants crowded eagerly to hear him.”
“Well! well! I knew nothing of these most agreeable particulars,” said Suffolk; “I only knew that it was he who induced Parliament to refuse the subsidy demanded for the Queen of Scots. If he continues to repeat such exploits as that, I venture to predict he will not be chancellor very long.”
“Oh! as to that,” replied the duke, “he is a man who will never compromise his conscience. ”

“ The news of what was passing in the city produced a rapid change of policy in the Tower. Many of the very counsellors, who the day before had set their hands to resolutions to stand by the Lady Jane, hastened to be present at the proclamation of Queen Mary, and despatched messengers to that princess, humbly soliciting her pardon for their offences. Suffolk, as much dejected as he had before been exalted, proceeded to his daughter’s apartments, ordered all the ceremonials of royalty to cease, and admonished her to bear, with what patience she could, a return to private life. ”

“ As the duke of Suffolk was known to have had an active hand in the crime, he partook deeply of the hatred attending it; and the clamors which necessarily rose against him, as prime minister and declared favorite of the queen, were thereby augmented to a tenfold pitch, and became absolutely uncontrollable. The great nobility could ill brook to see a subject exalted above them; much more one who was only great-grandson to a merchant, and who was of a birth so much inferior to theirs. ”

“ Are you the butcher, Suffolk? where's your knife?
Is Beaufort term'd a kite? where are his talons? ⁠196
Suf. I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men;
But here's a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,
That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart
That slanders me with murther's crimson badge. ⁠200
Say, if thou dar'st, proud Lord of Warwickshire,
That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey's death.
War. What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him? ⁠203
Queen. He dares not calm his contumelious spirit,
Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,
Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times. ”

“ The French contrived to find occasion for extorting a promise to surrender all the English possessions in Anjou and Maine, a concession that was to prove fatal to Suffolk and his policy. Still for the time his success was complete, and his position as the personal friend of the young king and queen seemed secure. Humphrey of Gloucester died in February 1447, within a few days of his arrest, and six weeks later Cardinal Beaufort died also. Suffolk was left without an obvious rival, but his difficulties were great. ”

“ Redress for such evils would now naturally have been sought from Parliament; but the weakness of the Crown gave the great nobles power to rob the freeholders of their franchise and return the knights of the shire. Nor could redress be looked for from the Court. The murder of Suffolk was the act of Kentishmen, and Suffolk's friends still held control over the royal councils. The one hope of reform lay in arms; and in the summer of 1450, while the last of the Norman fortresses were throwing open their gates, the discontent broke into open revolt. ”

“ He informs the cardinal, that from twenty pounds upward there were not twenty in the county of Norfolk who had not consented. "So that I see great likelihood that this grant shall be much more than the loan was." It was done, however, very reluctantly, as he confesses; "assuring your grace that they have not granted the same without shedding of many salt tears, only for doubt how to find money to content the king's highness." The resistance went further than the duke thought fit to suppose; for in a very short time the insurrection of the common people took place in Suffolk. ”