Far different was the conduct of Sir Ralph Pudsey, of Bolton Hall, where the king was concealed for some months prior to his appearance at Waddington.  Quitting Bolton, probably from some apprehension that his retreat was in danger of being discovered, he left behind him the well-known relics which are still shown to the curious.  These are a pair of boots, a pair of gloves, and a spoon.  The boots are of fine brown Spanish leather, lined with deer-skin, tanned with the fur on; about the ankles is a kind of wadding under the lining, to keep out wet.  They have been fastened by buttons from the ankle to the knee; the feet are remarkably small (little more than eight inches long); the toes round, and the soles, where they join to the heel, contracted to less than an inch in diameter.

The gloves are of the same material, and have the same lining; they reach up, like women’s gloves, to the elbow; but have been occasionally turned down, with deer-skin outward.  The hands are exactly proportioned to the feet, and not larger than those of a middle-sized woman.  In an age when the habits of the great, in peace as well as war, required perpetual exertions of bodily strength, this unhappy prince must have been equally contemptible from corporeal and from mental imbecility.[54]

A well adjoining to Bolton Hall still retains his name.  He is said to have ordered it to be dug and walled round for a bath; and it is much venerated by the country people to this day, who fancy that many remarkable cures have been wrought there.

It is not generally recorded that the science of alchemy was much encouraged by the royal visionary.  Though he had commissioned three adepts to make the precious metals, and had not received any returns, his credulity remained unshaken, and he issued a pompous grant in favour of three other alchemists, who boasted that they could not only transmute metals, but could impart perpetual youth, with unimpaired powers both of mind and body, by means of a specific called the Mother and Queen of Medicines, the Celestial Glory, the Quintessence or Elixir of Life. In favour of these “three lovers of the truth, and haters of deception,” as they styled themselves, Henry dispensed with the law passed by his grandfather, Henry IV., against the undue multiplication of gold and silver, and empowered them to transmute the precious metals.  This extraordinary commission had the sanction of Parliament; and two out of the three adepts were the heads of Lancashire families—­viz., Sir Thomas Ashton of Ashton, and Sir Edmund Trafford of Trafford.  These worthy knights obtained a patent for changing metals, 24 Hen.  VI.  The philosophers, probably imposing upon themselves as well as others, kept the king’s expectation wound up to the highest pitch; and in the following year he actually informed his people that the happy hour was approaching when, by means of the stone, he should be able to pay off his debts[55]