Our sympathies are naturally on the side of the weak and the unsuccessful.  State considerations lose their force after the lapse of centuries, when no interests of our own are any longer in jeopardy; and we feel for the great sufferers of history only in their individual capacity, without recalling or caring for the political exigencies to which they were sacrificed.  It is an error of disguised selfishness, the counterpart of the carelessness with which in our own age, when we are ourselves constituents of an interested public, we ignore what it is inconvenient to remember.

Thus, therefore, on one hot Midsummer Sunday in this year 1533, the people gathering to church in every parish through the English counties, read, nailed upon the doors, a paper signed Henry R., setting forth that the Lady Catherine of Spain, heretofore called Queen of England, was not to be called by that title any more, but was to be called Princess Dowager, and so to be held and esteemed.  The proclamation, we may suppose, was read with varying comments; of the reception of it in the northern counties, the following information was forwarded to the crown.  The Earl of Derby, lord-lieutenant of Yorkshire, wrote to inform the council that he had arrested a certain “lewd and naughty priest,” James Harrison by name, on the charge of having spoken unfitting and slanderous words of his Highness and the Queen’s Grace.  He had taken the examinations of several witnesses, which he had sent with his letter, and which were to the following effect:—­

Richard Clark deposeth that the said James Harrison reading the proclamation, said that Queen Catherine was queen, Nan Bullen should not be queen, nor the king should be no king but on his bearing.

William Dalton deposeth, that in his hearing the above-named James said, I will take none for queen but Queen Catherine—­who the devil made Nan Bullen, that hoore, queen?  I will never take her for queen—­and he the said William answered, “Hold thy peace, thou wot’st not what thou sayest—­but that thou art a priest I should punish thee, that others should take example.”

Richard Sumner and John Clayton depose, that they came in company with the said James from Perbalt to Eccleston, when the said James did say, “This is a marvellous world—­the king will put down the order of priests and destroy the Sacrament, but he cannot reign long, for York will be in London hastily."[443]

Here was the later growth of the spirit which we saw a few months previously in the monks of Furness.  The mutterings of discontent had developed into plain open treason, confident of success, and scarcely caring to conceal itself—­and Yorkshire was preparing for rebellion and “the Pilgrimage of Grace.”