Chapter X: Part 10

Very soon after this honour was conferred on him, Edward despatched the Earl with eight hundred archers, to aid the Earl of Pembroke and his brother Sir Richard Herbert then in command of about seven thousand Welchmen, marching to give Sir John Coniers and the Lancastrians battle. The sequel cannot be better related than in the words of Cleaveland:--

"With these forces the Earl of Pembroke resolved to hinder the
rebels in their journey, and having notice that they took their
way by _Northampton_, he led the whole body of his army against
them, having given orders to Sir _Richard Herbert_ with two
thousand soldiers, to wheel about and charge the enemy in the
rear. Sir _John Coniers_ had so carefully strengthened the
rearward, that the _Welch_ were repulsed with loss, whereupon Sir
_Richard Herbert_ retired to his brother, and Sir _John Coniers_
diverted from his direct course to _London_, marched towards
_Warwick_, where the Duke of _Clarence_, and the Earl of
_Warwick_, had levied a mighty host. The Earl of _Pembroke_
followed him closely, expecting an opportunity of cutting off
some part of the enemy, as they marched disorderly, or to give
battle to the whole army: but while he was in this pursuit of
glory, a small difference between him and the Lord _Stafford_,
ruined the whole attempt; for he encamping at _Banbury_, a
question arose concerning an Inn, to which _Stafford_ pretended,
as having long used the house; but the Earl of _Pembroke_, in
regard of his preheminence as General, was resolved to lodge in
it. This so trivial distaste, (if there was no farther treason in
it) grew so high, that _Stafford_ withdrew himself and his
_English_ archers. The rebels, who soon had notice of this
unhappy discord, gave the Earl's camp the next morning a sudden
assault: the _Welch_ received the charge so stoutly, that they
took Sir _Henry Neville_, the leader; but, guilty of too much
barbarity, most cruelly slew him in cold blood, by which act they
raised so fierce a desire of revenge in the enemy, that the next
day they gave the Earl battle, and the fight was longe and cruel,
but at last the _Welchmen_ fled; in the battle five thousand of
the _Welch_ were slain, and, among the few prisoners the Earl of
_Pembroke_, and Sir _Richard Herbert_ were taken, whose heads
were soon after sacrificed to the ghost of _Neville_."

Another account says this quarrel about the Inn was the result of a matter of love rather than war, that "a fair damsel was resident in the house, of whom both Earls became enamoured, and contrary to the arrangement entered into between them, the first in possession should remain so, the Earl of Devon was dispossessed by the Earl of Pembroke, which excited so much discord between them that, unmindful of his duty to his Sovereign, and the cause in which he was engaged, he departed with his power,"--and so, as a consequence thereon, the Earl of Pembroke and his brother lost their lives, together with five thousand soldiers, who perished on the plain of Danesmore, near Edgcote, about three miles from Banbury, 6 July, 1469.

Treachery of this kind was not likely to be lightly passed over by Edward, justly angry at the defeat of his army, and ingratitude of the man he had so recently honoured. Orders were sent to the Sheriffs of Somerset and Devon to seize Stafford wherever they could find him, and put him to immediate death. The Earl had returned to Somerset, he was taken at the village of Brentmarsh, promptly conveyed to Bridgwater, and there at once beheaded in the market-place on the 17 Aug., 1469. His body was conveyed to Glastonbury, and buried under the south arch of the great tower, at the cross of the Abbey Church.

He had made his will some years before, bearing date 3 September, 1463, wherein he "_bequeathed his body to be buried in the Church of our Lady at Glastonbury, and appointed Mr. Michael Goss, and Mr. Watts, then Wardens of the Grey Friars in Exeter, should for the salvation of his soul, go to every parish church, in the counties of_ _Dorset, Somerset, Wilts, Devon, and Cornwall, and say a sermon in every church, and town, and other. And because he could not recompense such whom he had offended, he desired them to forgive his poor soul, that it might not be in danger_" (Dugdale).

So perished Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Devon, still quite a young man, for he could not have been more than thirty years of age,--"he enjoyed," continues Cleaveland, "but a little time that honour and estate which he got by procuring the death of its right owner, and he was in derision called _The Earl of three months standing and no more_."

The Earl married Isabel daughter of Sir John Barry, knt.,--and after his death she remarried with Sir Thomas Bourchier, knt., fifth son of Henry Bourchier, second Earl of Ewe, and 30 June, 1461, created Earl of Essex, who was also Lord Treasurer of England, and who died in 1483,--by his wife Isabel, daughter of Richard, Duke of York, and sister to King Edward IV., another strange conjunction, her thus marrying a nephew of the man who had so vindictively beheaded her first husband. But sentiment had little place in those days; ambition, station, and love of rule were the things sought after, all else seems to have been forgotten.

Weever gives the following inscription as occurring in the church of Ware, Herts, where both herself and second husband appear to have been buried,--

=Hic iacet Thomas Bourchier miles filius Henrici comitis Essex; ac
Isabella uxor eius nuper comitissa Devon, filia et heres Johannis
Barry militis: qui obiit ... 1491 et Isabella ob. 1 die Marcij
1488, quorum animabus &c.=

Whereon the old 'epitaphist' is induced to further moralize,--

"This _Isabell_, the daughter and heire of Sir _John Barry_,
knight, was, when the said _Thomas_ married her, the widow of
_Humfrey_ Lord _Stafford_, of Southwike, sonne of _William
Stafford_ of _Hooke_, Esquire, created Earle of Devon, by King
_Edward_ the fourth; to whom the King gave all honours, manors,
Castles, &c., which were _Thomas Courtneys_, the fourteenth Earle
of Devon: who neverthelesse, grew ingratefull to King _Edward_
his advancer, in revolting from him at the battaile of Banbury,
for which cowardise (hee being apprehended) was without processe
executed at Bridgewater, the seventeenth of August, _anno. 1469_,
having been Earle but three moneths."

At his death the ill-gotten estates of the Courtenays that he possessed, were again forfeited, and Edward IV. gave a considerable portion of them to another eminent west-countryman John, Lord Dinham, and to other grantees, but the succession failed in nearly all the recipients, and Henry VII., in the first year of his reign, made void all these grants by Edward IV., and restored both the title and the estates to their rightful owners.

Here, before we finally dismiss our thoughts on the signal catastrophe that ended the dynasty of Stafford of Suthwyke, we dwell awhile on the singular parallelism of characters and incidents that are presented to us in each of our little narratives relative to the distinguished but unfortunate house of Stafford.

Both the prominent factors of our unpretending histories fell victims to the vengeance of the White Rose, the result of defection doubtless, though of differing kind. Each experienced the same unhappy fate, Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Devon, was sent to the scaffold at Bridgwater, by the peremptory mandate of Edward IV., Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, suffered in similar summary manner at Salisbury, by the relentless order of Richard III.

Two eminent ecclesiastics of the highest dignity are also associated with their relations. John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Chancellor to Henry VI., finds place in the one, and John Morton, Cardinal-Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Chancellor to Henry VII., appears in the other.

Both were west-countrymen also, having been born in neighbouring counties, the one at a village in north Wilts, the other in a little country town in central Dorset.

Stafford saw the beginning of the internecine strife of the Roses, but was called away as their rival pretensions began to assert themselves, and the deadly conflict to thicken.

Morton appeared at the conclusion of the disastrous quarrel, and it was reserved for him to put a stop to the deluge of blood that had been ruthlessly shed for so many years,--computed to have cost a hundred thousand lives,--decimating his native land, and by uniting and neutralizing the contending claims, bring it peace. A statesman-like mission of the first importance, and carried out with such consummate wisdom, that it has been aptly said, "he joined the Roses, that is, he brought about the union of the Houses of York and Lancaster, for that was his doing, and, so far as can now be seen, would not have been done but for him. He made the Tudor dynasty, and his name is buried under his own creation."

So ends our little story,--such are the momentous issues, that fill the mind's eye, amid this rural quietness, as our steps make homeward. Evening is approaching, and leaving the interesting precincts of North-Bradley church, our path back to Trowbridge,--discerned afar by its hood of smoke,--leads through some pleasant meadows by way of Suthwyke. Here we halt for a moment to take a final look at the old place, and first home of Stafford in these parts. If deserted, one after another, by its antient possessors, it now appears shorn of the original dignity that man's transitory occupation once conferred upon it, and of which nothing but a memory remains, Nature, unchanging, still continues to adorn it with her charms, and specially so just at present, for the trees in the orchard that skirts the Court are in full bloom, some of them "white as a sheet with blooth" (as the old Saxon idiom of the west-country peasantry expressively describes it), and others loaded with clusters of variously expanded chalices of all shades of that inimitable pink, the which--for want of other satisfactory description,--we are content to call "apple-blossom."

There, across the moat, lived the first Sir Humphrey,--this we know,--but what voice shall come back from the Past, and point us to the site of the cottage, wherein the future Archbishop--his presumed son--first saw the light? All is silent.

Of the last resting-places of the Staffords of Suthwyke, greater certainty exists, and widely divided are they all in death.

The two successive Sir Humphreys, their wives, and a stray descendant, sleep where stood a venerable monastic church, on the shores of the Atlantic, in southern Dorset; the unfortunate, headless Earl, lies in Glastonbury's great Abbey in central Somerset; but the record of their graves has perished with them. Not so the memorials that perpetuate the memories of the Archbishop's mother and her famous boy. She received honoured burial, presumably amid her native scenes, and, it may be, among her own kindred, here in this little sanctuary in north Wilts; but her distinguished son found sepulture far away in Kent, in the glorious cathedral, whose throne he filled, and among those whose names are entwined with the greatest traditions of the land, and within the precincts of its most sacred place, near where his canonized predecessor meekly met his death at the hands of savage men, and thenceforward named for all time as

"THE TRANSEPT OF THE MARTYRDOM."

Stranger, who through these dim sepulchral aisles,
Strayest in silence 'mid the mighty dead,
Lo, History's tongue here Time's fleet ear beguiles,
Great memories rise at every footstep's tread;--
Entombed in peace, repose, life's tumult o'er,
Two famous prelates from the distant west,
One, Suthwyke's son,--though graven found no more,
Hear thou his erstwhile record, and request;--

"_Whose dust concealeth thou, O ponderous stone?
Marble declare;--John Stafford was his name;--
In whose seat sat he?--on the Primate's throne,
Illustrious there, from Bath with mitred fame:--
For Chief so great, pray, now from life laid down,
The Virgin born may grant him golden crown._"

"THEY DID CAST HIM."

A pleasantly representative English look has the irregular, disjointed, yet withal eminently picturesque little town of Tisbury, viewed from the acclivity of the railway station.

On the one side a group of cottages, and fine trees planted high on the shoulder of the hill, shews well against the distant sky-line, and patches of houses--broken in their midst by the principal hostelry of the place, staringly obtrusive in the most modern brick and white, perched at the top of the straggling street that leads up to it,--carry the eye across to the further fringe of the elevation on the other side, where an ecclesiastical looking edifice, gabled and pinnacled, cuts into the ether and balances the picture.

Low in the valley on the extreme right, some very old, and, evidently from this distance, unmistakably important buildings are gathered together, attesting the presence of the chief domicile of the place in days of yore, and still retaining much of their antient consequence with old gateway, great kitchen, and turreted chimney, and vast barn two hundred feet long, with roof arched and high as a cathedral,--the antient Grange, or Place, and country seat of the Abbess of Shaftesbury.

Thus much for the mid-distance of the scene; an equally representative, and in some peculiarities unique fore-ground is at our feet.

Centrally almost, comes the Church--large, substantial, and well-windowed--with a curious, but now-a-day unfortunately very common, half-antient half-modern look, exhibiting a low massive tower rising from its centre, capped with a pseudo-classic lantern, pierced with four large, circular, winking clock-face apertures. It stands in a well-kept churchyard, ornamented by some noble yew trees, and around two sides of it runs a road, skirted with low antient buildings, picturesquely gabled and chimnied, and dating from Tudor times.

Immediately on the right of the church, and jostling, almost vulgarly invading the sacred precincts of the churchyard, which it adjoins, rises the obtrusive bulk of a huge brewery, with accompanying chimney stalk, as big as the church itself, and almost as venerable looking,[36] a pertinent illustration of the contiguity, so often sarcastically associated in one of our modern political cries.

[36] Of late it has been considerably rebuilt, and "dappered up"
as the Dorsetshire folk express it, to newness and smartness of
appearance.

On the left of the church, but at further distance, and pleasantly situated on an acclivity, is an immense well-built union workhouse, larger than either.

Strange company these, materially and metaphorically, and eminently characteristic of our modern civilization, the brewery and the workhouse, with the church between them, and suggestive of many thoughts;--of clamorous interest too even in this little town, in this passing hour, as announcements in large letters attest that meet the eye of the wayfaring man, tarrying here about.

But leaving these present-day regions of noisy morality, and all "burning questions" akin, to other disciples, be the purpose of our quiet enjoyment to-day of a fairer and more gracious kind, as we note peradventure the career, and seek it may be the association and historic companionship of one who trod the troubled path of life in the past, and endeavour--however imperfectly--to brighten his memory for a season.

A short leisurely stroll from the station leads us by the great shrine dedicated to the Bacchus of our modern Briton, and we halt in front of the gate opening to the path leading to the north porch of the large church immediately before us. But ere we enter, we pause to take a momentary glance at the long line of semi-ecclesiastical, almshouse-looking buildings with Tudor gables and high chimnies that skirt the opposite side of the road, and from one of which the civil custodian of the church, in response to our enquiries, emerges.

From him we learn that the house he dwells in was probably antiently the Priest's dwelling, who was perhaps a monk appointed by the Abbess of Shaftesbury to whom a large part of the manor of Tisbury belonged, if not also the patronage of the benefice. In making some excavations behind it a few years since, the skeletons of several persons were found, on one skull the hair remained very perfect, but subsided to dust the instant it was uncovered, as if shrinking from the sacrilege of the intrusive eye and curiosity of the present. The building may also have been a Cell attached to Shaftesbury Abbey, and this spot the last resting-place of the solitary religious, once resident within it.

The pavement of the path through the churchyard leading to the church is also strongly representative of modern destructive notions, and exhibits,--although it traverses what we should regard from its associations as sacred precincts,--a true example of the now-a-day "way of the world." It is floored with the older memorial stones of the departed that rest, now un-named, around, and the tear-wrought memories they were charged to perpetuate, callously trod under the foot of man, and in sure process of ruthless obliteration. "They are only very old stones," said our cicerone in answer to our protest,--"families all gone and no one to look after them,"--exactly so, thought we with a half-sigh mingling with the echo of the Ploughman's line, ringing a presaging knell over the fate of our possible memory, when, as here, some day and perhaps

"--no distant date,
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate,"

and this outrage on the memories of the departed, not the _best_ preparation altogether for entrance into the temple of Him, whose love knoweth no change, and whose remembrance faileth not for the children of men, more enduring than Job's yearning for graven words with iron pen in the rock for ever, or even as vigorous Toplady puts it in glorious anticipation,--

"My name from the palms of His hands,
Eternity will not erase."

Inside, the church has a somewhat desolate look,[37] and no antient memorial catches the eye, except two small brass effigies of a Franklin or Merchant of Henry the Seventh's days, in long tunic with scrip buckled to his waist, and his wife with pointed head-dress and embroidered girdle, riven from their sepulchral stone and nailed to the wall; an early denizen it may be of the grand old domicile of Place. A noticeable and somewhat unique feature however must not be forgotten,--the cover of the font, pyramidal in shape, of oak panelled and crocketted, and richly gilded. There were formerly two screens across the transepts, but they have disappeared. There are fine roofs to the side aisles, on the bosses are the Sacred Names, and the date 1595. A curious circumstance here may be mentioned, the tower has three times been struck by lightning, once in 1762, again in 1795, and also of late years,--and this doubtless accounts for the incongruous style of its lantern-shape upper storey.

[37] It has recently been considerably restored.

But the chief historic association of the church, and what has led our wandering feet here to furnish a text to hang our little story on, is found in the chancel, though very little comparatively is to be seen there even, by the uninitiated as things at present are, to give direction to his thoughts.

Tisbury tells of Arundell! Such is the first suggestive thought to him of the west-country that cometh to that little rural town, and specially in this chancel, beneath whose pavement the dust of the earlier members of one of its most distinguished descents is at rest. But the home-land of that antient race, so happily and allusively named after our gentle summer visitant,--the graceful-flighted "chimney-haunting" swallow,--is not here.

Not on the boundless arid chalk plains, on whose rocky skirt the swallow of the west has with kindred instinct migrated, seek we his parent nest. In the dusky twilight of our national history we trace probably his earliest haunts, chronicled in the great accompt of the Norman Conqueror, as then holding considerable possessions amid the rich plains of Somerset and breezy uplands of Dorset. Then we hear of him nestling in a green combe in leafy Devon, and anon occupying a "coigne of 'vantage" on the southern fringe of tor-crested Dartmoor, and where his name still clings though its possessor has long since fled. From thence in the days of the earlier Plantagenet kings, he winged his flight across the deep-banked Tamar into far Cornubia, where the soft mists of the Atlantic and warm southern sunshine alternate, bathe the granite bastions that defend her valleys, and there finally settled Arundell, there built he his parent nest and reared his "procreant cradle," and thenceforward he and his for centuries flourished and multiplied in great honour and ample estate, until his name for power and influence was styled _the Great_, and it became a household word in the county of his adoption.

But wealth and honour, not even when allied with teeming descendants scattered around and settled in divers descents seemingly to defend it, can perpetuate a race,

"There is no armour against fate,"

and to the mutation and decay, impartially entailed on human destiny, both peer and peasant alike are equally doomed.

So, in Cornwall, for centuries, the generations of Arundell succeeded each other at Lanherne and Trerice, the great twin stems of this noble stirpe, and spread and rooted themselves, in divers offshoots located near. But gradually that name, although surnamed _the Great_, and their descendants, one after another, dwindled away under the breath of Time, until its sound became an echo and a tradition only, in the regions of its olden home, and finally became extinct.

In 1701, the _Great_ Arundell of Lanherne (from them the dormant Arundells beneath our feet were descended), last of his name of the elder house, died, and a distaff only followed him to his grave. She was wedded and the mother of a son,--but his name was not Arundell,--but on him his grandfather settled all his estates, and the heritage of his antient name.

Again the succession was denied, daughters only were born to him, and distaff succeeded distaff. One of them sleeps below, presumably in life a happy and unique fate befell her, as by her marriage with Lord Arundell was united the two descents of Lanherne and Wardour, and her name will probably recur to our thoughts again before our little story ends.

Seventy years--just a spell of human life--later, in 1773, the final representative of the almost equally distinguished descent of Trerice (they had been ennobled by Charles II. in 1664), John, fourth and last Baron Arundell of Trerice, passed to that bourne, from which no traveller, however distinguished, returns. It is curious that both he, and his noble wife--who was a sister of the Earl of Strafford and pre-deceased him--both found their sepulchre far eastward of their native home, and repose in the chancel of the church of Sturminster-Marshall in Dorset, not very far from this.

But to return to Arundell of Tisbury--yet we must still digress for a time--and to this chancel, where, beginning three centuries ago, and descending from him of whom we propose to have something to say, lie the ashes of the ancestors of the green branch of this antient stock located not far off, still nobly upholding its olden name and fame, although in its earlier days it had to struggle fiercely through some of the direst vicissitudes that environ human life, to perpetuate its existence.

To translate our thoughts, once more, for a short time to Cornwall, and recall the then representative of the Lanherne descent, Sir John Arundell, knt., a man great at the Courts of king Henry VII. and his bluff son Henry VIII. From both those monarchs he received distinguished marks of favour, being successively nominated a Knight of the Bath, a Knight of the Garter, and also for his valour at Terouenne and Tournay at the celebrated "battle of the Spurs" created a Knight-Banneret.

He was well descended. On his father's side of the family escutcheon, among other venerable Cornish bearings, was displayed the blue field and _golden bend_ of the antient Carminow,--insignia for dignity rivalling the blazon of the distinguished Scrope,--and quartered also with it, there appeared, in happy alliance with the swallows of Arundell, the garland of kindred _martlets_ that fringe the shield of the olden race of Chidiock in Dorset. His well-born mother was a daughter of Sir John Dinham of Hartland, a noble Devonian name of that era, her brother, to whom she was coheir, being John, Lord Dinham, so created by king Edward IV., 28 February, 1466, also like her husband included within the circle of the Garter, and holding high office under Henry VII.; she could also claim the blood of illustrious Courtenays among her ancestors.

Sir John Arundell by marriage allied himself with families of great influence, his first wife being the Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Grey, Lord Marquis of Dorset, step-son to Edward IV., and half-brother to the Queen of Henry VII.,--her mother being the last descendant and sole heiress to a great but unfortunate Devonshire name, Cicely Bonville. Secondly, he wedded Katharine, daughter of Sir Thomas Grenville, a knightly and warlike race of the first renown in north Cornwall, and sister of Jane, who was married to his kinsman the other Sir John Arundell of Trerice. His aunt, his father's sister Elizabeth, was married to Sir Giles, who was afterward created Lord Daubeney, and K.G.,--a man like himself of high rank at the Court of Henry VII.

In 1506 he was appointed Receiver of the Duchy of Cornwall, a position of great honour and influence in his native county, and in 1509 the office was confirmed to him for life.

Thus by birth, alliance, honours, appointments, and possessions, he seems to have been amply qualified to sustain the appellation bestowed on his ancestor, that of being designated _the Great Arundell of the West_.

He died in 1544-5, and a superb brass exhibiting the effigies of himself and two wives, his children, and elaborate armorial insignia, still exists in the church of St. Columb Major, in Cornwall, but whether he was buried there, or in St. Mary Woolnoth in London, there is some doubt,--but the balance of testimony inclines toward St. Columb.[38]

[38] Refer to pages 67-8-9 for a further account of this knight,
and detailed description of his memorial brass.

Take breath, friend of mine, after the shadow of this great and much honoured Tudor magnate has passed across the screen of the past, dimly lit by the illumination of your thoughts,--for a broad and striking glimpse follows in his wake, of what we are sometimes apt to term the "good old times" opens upon us, as we rapidly picture the chief events that characterized the days of Thomas Arundell his second son, and the first of Wardour, and glance at his companions at the Courts of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., together with those of his immediate descendants in the succeeding reigns of the two last Tudor sovereigns.

If those eventful times were not "good" in the large acceptance of the term, there was a large infusion of stern unflinching reality within them. The influence of strong mental power meets us everywhere, men aspired to be men,--sons of Anak in their resolutions,--and the views they took and combated for, were to them no myths,--nor did the almost absolute certainty of the fate of the martyr's stake, the headsman's block, or the confiscator's hand, if the enterprise should fail, deter or daunt an inflexible and often relentless purpose, dictated perhaps by the call of religious sentiment, or animated by the promptings of high personal ambition alone, or cast it may be, in the mould of real or imaginary patriotic duty.

Contrasted with such, our puny doings of the present offer suggestive difference to the life-poised movements carried out by the deep-souled resolves that sustained the doings of the men, who passed through the grim ordeal of the blood-gripped days of Wolsey and Somerset,--some episodes of which, occurring during the reign of Henry VIII. and his son the boy-king, we propose lightly to glance at,--when the 'shapings' of the history of our native land lay in rather grander purpose than the now-a-day trivialities and companionship ravings of our modern political 'stump.'

Sir John Arundell, of Lanherne, who died in 1545, by his first wife the Lady Elizabeth Grey, left two sons,--Sir John the elder, a country gentleman located at the old family seat of Lanherne, and Sir Thomas, ancestor of the Wardour descent, and the subject of our little story.

Sir Thomas, born probably about 1500, was as a younger son sent early a-field to seek his fortune, and for that purpose introduced, it may be by his father, to the precincts of the Court of Henry VIII., where afterward he appears to have spent much of his time amid its phantasmagoria of pleasures and horrors, ecclesiastical, military, and civil.

Beginning, if not exactly with actual attendance at the Court itself, but doubtless intended as a stepping-stone to it, we first hear of him as attached to the service of the next potential person of the realm, the subtle and ambitious Wolsey, in whose retinue he was appointed as one of the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber to my Lord Legate and Cardinal, with whom he was on friendly terms, and who probably brought him into notice.

The pompous semi-royal state in which this notable ecclesiastic lived and moved, even in that extravagant age, is almost incredible. His setting off to France on one of his diplomatic journeys is thus described,--

"Then marched he from his own house at Westminster, through all
London, over London Bridge, having before him a great number of
gentlemen, three in a rank, with velvet coats, and the most part
of them with chains of gold about their necks; and all his yeomen
followed him with noblemen's and gentlemen's servants, all in
orange tawny coats, with the cardinal's hat and T and C, for
Thomas Cardinal, embroidered upon all the coats, as well of his
own servants, as all the rest of the gentlemen's servants; and
his sumpter mules, which were twenty or more in number. And when
all his carriages and carts, and other of his train were passed
before, he rode like a Cardinal very sumptuously with the rest of
his train, on his own mule, with a spare mule and a spare horse
trapped in crimson following him. And before him he had his two
great crosses of silver, his two great pillars of silver, the
King's broad seal of England, and his Cardinal's hat, and a
gentleman carrying his cloak-bag, which was made of scarlet,
embroidered with gold. Thus passed he forth through London, and
every day on his journey he was thus furnished, having his
harbingers in every place before, which prepared lodgings for him
and his train."

All this was not much beyond the state this proud churchman ordinarily assumed, and it leaves little room to wonder why Henry VIII. and Wolsey could not exist together, nor of church and state being straightway at issue, nor why not long afterward the knock of a heart-broken monk at the gate of the Abbey of Leicester was the knell of his own order in England.

Wolsey passed out of his troubled existence in November, 1530, and in the year following, 1531, an event took place that at once placed Sir Thomas among the foremost men of that era, this was his marriage with a scion of the noble house of Norfolk,--Margaret, eldest daughter of Lord Edmund Howard.

He was the third son of Thomas Howard, second Duke of Norfolk, K.G., who died 21 May, 1524, by his first wife Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Sir Frederick Tilney.

Concerning this Duke a few words. "On May 13, 13 Henry VIII., 1521," says Collins,--

"he performed the office of Lord High Steward on the trial of
Edward, Duke of Buckingham, and gave sentence of death on him,
whereat he was so much concerned, as to shed tears."

Then he further continues,--

"In 14 Henry VIII. (the next year) he--the Duke--obtained a grant
in special tail, and to his son, Thomas, Earl of Surrey, of the
manors of Welles, Shyringham-Stafford, Bannyngham, Warham, and
Weveton in the County of Suffolk, with the advowsons of their
churches; part of the possessions of the before specified Edward,
Duke of Buckingham, attainted."

This Duke of Buckingham was the son of the ill-fated personage of our little narrative, executed at Salisbury;[39]--he fell, it is related, like his father, by domestic treachery, and the enmity of Wolsey, on a most frivolous charge, and at his trial thus made answer to the "tears" of the Lord High Steward,--

"My Lord of Norfolk,--you have said as a traitor should be said
to; but I was never any. I nothing malign you, for what you have
done to me, but the eternal God forgive you my death. I shall
never sue to the king for life, though he be a gracious prince;
and more grace may come from him than I desire, and so I desire
you and all my fellows to pray for me."

[39] See page 111.

Such is the recorded reply of the doomed, high-souled captive, to the "tears" of his fellow duke, and condemning judge; whose sincerity of grief on the occasion may be estimated by the subsequent fact of his soliciting for the gift of a large portion of the victim's possessions the year following. But the Dukes of Norfolk of those days appear to have been among the most unscrupulous men of that era. Then we learn with almost incredulous surprise that Thomas, the third Duke of Norfolk, and son of the Lord High Steward, who presided at Buckingham's trial, married the victim's daughter Elizabeth;--their son was the accomplished and ill-fated Earl of Surrey, beheaded twenty-five years afterward in the same reign, and on equally flimsy pretence.

To resume. Lord Edmund Howard married Joyce, daughter of Sir Thomas Culpeper of Hollingbourne, Kent. He is described as being

"Marshal of the Horse, in the battle of Flodden-field, 5 Henry
VIII. when he, and his elder brother the Lord Thomas Howard
leading the van-guard, this Lord Edmund was in some distress,
through the singular valour of the Earls of Lennox and Argyle;
but the Lord Dacres coming to his succour with one Heron, the
fight was renewed and the Scots vanquished. In 12 Henry VIII., on
that famous interview which that King had with Francis I. of
France, where all feats of arms were performed between Ardres and
Guisnes for thirty days, he was one of the challengers on the
part of England."

On the occasion of his marriage, and to give his son position befitting his rank as a country gentleman, his father, Sir John Arundell, settled on Sir Thomas and his wife, partly in jointure, a dozen or so manors in the Counties of Dorset and Somerset. In 1532, and again in 1533, he filled the office of Sheriff of Dorset.

But it was the alliance itself with the influential family of Howard, destined immediately afterward to be so closely related to the crown itself, and in perilous nearness to the grim and capricious Henry, that must have given him considerable importance, advanced him to the front rank among the courtiers, and afforded him ample opportunity to promote his position and interests, both as to honours and wealth.

These were not slow of arriving. In May, 1533, Henry VIII. was wedded to 'sweet' ill-fated Anne Boleyn. This brought Sir Thomas into his first direct relationship with that king, to whom, through his wife, he now stood in the position of cousin, the new Queen being the daughter of her aunt Elizabeth (sister of Lord Edmund Howard), wife of Sir Thomas Boleyn, K.G.--afterward created Viscount Rochford, and Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond.

Our next glimpse of him is within the royal precincts, and being the recipient of an honour, amid the company of some of the most distinguished men at Court, on the occasion of the crowning of that unfortunate Queen. Among the "Knights of the Bathe, made at the coronation of the most excellent Princesse Queen Anne the 25 yere of the reign of Kinge Henry the Eight on Whitsonday the last day of May, 1533; (when) shee was crown'd at Westminster,"--twelfth on the list occurs the name of Sir Thomas Arundell.

Just three years afterward and on the 19th of the same month of May, 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn was from the Tower, "a little before noon, led down to the green, where the young grass and the first daisies of summer were freshly bursting into sunshine. A single cannon stood loaded on the battlements, the motionless cannoneer was ready, with smoking linstock at his side; and when the crawling hand upon the dial of the great Tower clock touched the mid-day hour, the cannon would tell London that all was over. The Yeomen of the Guard were there, and a crowd of citizens; the Lord Mayor too, and the deputies of the guilds, and the sheriffs, and the aldermen; they were come to see a spectacle which England had never seen before,--a head which had worn the crown falling under the sword of the executioner."[40]

[40] Froude.

But there was a much more interested listener for the fatal boom of that cannon than any heart-struck citizen of London, as we learn further, "An old tradition strongly depicts the impatience with which Henry expected her death. On the fatal morning he went to hunt in Epping Forest, and while he was at breakfast his attendants observed he was anxious and thoughtful. But at last they heard the report of a distant gun--a preconcerted signal. 'Ah! it is done,' cried he, starting up--'the business is done! Uncouple the dogs, and let us follow the sport.' In the evening he returned gaily from the chase, and on the following morning he married Anne's maid of honour, Jane Seymour, who on Whitsunday, the 29th, clad in royal habiliments appeared in public as Queen."[41]

[41] _Comprehensive History of England._ Macfarlane and Thompson.

So perished poor Queen Anne Boleyn, niece to Sir Thomas. A fortnight or so before her death, on her arrival at the Tower, she agonizedly asked of Cromwell, "I pray you tell me where my Lord Rochford ys? and I told her I saw hym afore dyner in the Cort. O wher is my swete brother? I said I left hym at York Place: and so I dyd." Never to see him again--he was beheaded on Tower Hill two days previous to her own execution.

This fresh marriage of the king with Jane Seymour, the sister of the man with whom Sir Thomas was eventually implicated and suffered, continues incidentally, pertinent interest to our little story. Queen Jane Seymour, although she escaped the wretched fate of her immediate predecessor and successor in the royal preference, fell a victim to an even more painful death, at the birth of her son, which took place 12 October, 1537.

At the ceremonial of the christening of the infant prince Sir Thomas was present, and also, as a matter of course, the child's uncle, Sir Edward Seymour (afterward Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector), on that occasion one of the most honoured guests. Little wot these men as they gazed on, and took part in the splendid ceremony, that those helpless, motherless, baby hands were destined at some future and not very distant day to sign their death warrants, which consigned them to the scaffold, and both for alleged participation in the same offence.

Henry VIII. having become tired of, and also got divorced from Anne of Cleves, and Cromwell, the promoter of the distasteful marriage, having been summarily disposed of by the usual method of the axe, another event in the king's matrimonial projects was about to happen, which brought Sir Thomas into still closer relationship with him. Henry had this time set his eyes on Katharine Howard, a daughter of Lord Edmund Howard, cousin to the unfortunate Anne Boleyn, and sister to Elizabeth, wife of Sir Thomas Arundell. She was proclaimed Queen 8 August, 1540, but the king had been privately married to her some time before. Thus the knight now stood in the double capacity of being by marriage both cousin and brother-in-law to his most august and cruelly inclined sovereign, by whom Sir Thomas was made 'Chancellor' to the new Queen.

This relationship to Henry must have given him great influence, and as the spoliation of the Abbeys and Monastic institutions was then busily going forward, he would have good opportunity of advancing his suit, or claims for a portion of the large landed possessions of these institutions then being distributed with lavish hand. In this distribution Sir Thomas appears at different times to have acquired by grant and purchase a considerable share. Concerning this a short notice presently.

Queen Katharine Howard at the time of her marriage with Henry could not have been more than twenty years of age. Two short years only passed by, and then a fearful charge of similar nature to that which had sent her hapless cousin to the block, was alleged against herself, and on the 13 February, 1542, after almost unexampled mental suffering, she perished in like manner on the Tower green. With her died also, and by the same means, Jane, Lady Rochford, the wife of Queen Anne Boleyn's brother George. All three of these headless women were laid side by side in the Tower Chapel.

Thus was severed by like circumstances, in each case equally deplorable, the living tie that had connected Sir Thomas Arundell with his dread sovereign. He appears, however, to have been endowed with the rare faculty of keeping himself clear of the difficulties that would naturally arise amid such mournful conditions, and to have enjoyed apparently the friendship, if not the confidence of the grim king, and which does not appear to have been afterward disturbed. This was manifest by what followed.

In 1541,--which must have been during the lifetime of Katharine Howard, and while she was Henry's Queen,--Sir Thomas purchased of the king for L761--14--10, the Manor and Grange of Tisbury, late the property of the Abbey of Shaftesbury, and advowson of the living, the manor and advowson of Dorrington in Wilts, and sundry other lands.

In 1545,--this was also the year his father, Sir John Arundell, died,--King Henry VIII., by letters patent, granted to him a large number of manors, late the possessions of the Abbey of Shaftesbury, in the counties of Wilts, Dorset, and Somerset (including also probably the site of the Abbey), and other property in London.

The Benedictine Abbey, or Nunnery of Shaftesbury, was one of the most antient religious foundations in the west of England, and existed probably before the time of King Alfred, who was a great benefactor, and one of its principal Founders, about A.D. 888. "It was first dedicated," says Hutchins,

"to the _Blessed Virgin Mary_, but it lost that name, at least
for several ages, upon the translation hither of the body of St.
Edward the Martyr, who was murdered at Corfe-Castle 18 March,
978, and first clandestinely buried at Wareham, whence, according
to Leland, he was next year, or as others on better grounds say,
three years afterwards removed to this abbey by Elpher, or
Alpher, duke of Mercia. This unfortunate king being esteemed a
martyr, and canonized a saint, his shrine was much resorted to by
superstitious pilgrims, and persons of all ranks and qualities,
and even by some of our kings, particularly Canute who died here.
On account of the burial of St. Edward, the abbey and the church
received their names from him; and the abbess was styled Abbess
of St. Edward, and the very town almost lost its old name, and
was called for some time _Burgus Sancti Edwardi_, and
_Edwardstowe_."

Upwards of thirty abbesses from the foundation, presided over this important community, to its surrender by Elizabeth Zouch, its last Abbess, to the King Henry VIII., 23 March, 1539, when there were fifty-five nuns within it.

"It was one of the largest and best endowed nunneries in England,
except Syon in Middlesex, its revenues at the suppression being
estimated at between eleven and fourteen hundred pounds per
annum. This occasioned a proverb, mentioned by Fuller in his
_Church History_,--'That if the Abbot of Glastonbury might marry
the Abbess of Shaftesbury, their heir would have more land than
the King of England.' The abbess was of such quality, that she
was one of the four who held of the king by an entire barony, and
had by tenure privilege of being summoned to parliament, &c.,
though upon account of their sex it was omitted. They had writs
directed to them, to send their quota of soldiers into the field,
in proportion to their knight's fees. The three others were those
of Barking in Essex, St. Mary in Winchester, and Wilton."

Thus much for the Abbess, her wealth, importance and high station; the buildings of the Abbey, and Abbey church, appear to have been of commensurate grandeur, but, continues Hutchins,--

"There now remain not the least vestiges of it. It seems to have
stood parallel with Holy Trinity churchyard, which anciently
belonged to it, at the east end of the abbey, on Park-Hill, as
appears by bones and coffins found there. It was the glory and
ornament of the town, the mother church, and almost the only
place of sepulture, there being but one ancient in any of the
present churches, which is in St. Peter's, and seems to have been
removed hence. It was a most magnificent building, if we may
judge from the traditions the townsmen retain of its largeness
and height, and from the spire, which Camden and others, derive
the name of the town. By its great height, and advantageous
situation on the top of the hill, it must have had a very fine
effect, and been seen over a great part of the counties of Dorset
and Somerset. It is greatly to be lamented it was not left
standing and made parochial, being so great an ornament to the
town and county.

"The arms of the Monastery were, _Azure, a cross between four
martlets or_,--Dr. Tanner in his _Notitia Monastica_ says they
were, _Azure, on a pale sable, cotised argent, three roses or_.
The former are in Wolveton house, and are those commonly given to
King Alfred."

The fine buildings of the Abbey having been demolished, St. Peter's church in Shaftesbury appears to be the only building of any size,--and this not very large,--of antient date now left remaining, and is the "mother, principal and presentative" church of the place. Hutchins enumerates nearly a dozen little churches and numerous chantries that once had their station at Shaftesbury, clustering around the Monastery, the major portion of which seem now to have disappeared. St. Peter's is of late character, and very plain architectural detail, erected probably toward the end of the reign of Henry VII. The single ornamental portion is the cornice or frieze toward the street, temp. Henry VIII., on which appears the _double rose_, _portcullis_, _pomegranate_, arms of the See of Winchester, some other local coats, a merchant's mark, &c.

Within, on the altar step, is the only monumental remembrance left of the Abbey, and apparently removed hither from it, a large blue stone, having in the centre a small brass plate, now almost obliterated, with this inscription as copied by Hutchins,--

=Sub isto saxo tumulat' corpus Steph'i Payne, armiger', fil' et
hered' Nichi' Payne, arm', quond' seneschali hujus monasterii,
gui obiit xiiij die mens' Decembris: Anno D'ni m.ccccc.viij:
cujus a'ie p'piciet' altissimus De'. Amen.=

The indents of four shields, two at the top and two at the bottom of the stone, are visible.

Stephen Payne held the office of Seneschal to the Abbess, which probably meant her Steward or Bailiff for the Abbey property. Of him, says Hutchins,--

"Here (Shaftesbury) was another freehold held 2 Henry VIII.,
1511, by Stephen Payne at his death; namely--seven messuages,
three gardens in Shaston, of the Abbess; forty acres of land in
Bellchalwel of the Earl of Northumberland; and seventy-eight
acres of land in the hundred of Alcester, of the Abbot of
Evesham, by rent of five shillings."

In the chancel window are two escutcheons;--1. _Azure, a dolphin embowed_ or (FITZJAMES OF LEWSTON), impaling, _Bendy of eight or and azure, within a bordure of the first_ (NEWBURGH OF WINFRITH), the shield encircled by a riband, but the inscription destroyed.

"The ancient family of Fitzjames," continues Hutchins,

"was formerly seated at Redlynch. Sir John Fitzjames, knt., son
of James Fitzjames, married Alice, daughter of John Newburgh of
East Lullworth, Esq., and was father to Sir John; Richard, bishop
successively of Rochester, Chichester and London; and Aldred,
ancestor of the Lewston line. The elder branch has been long
extinct, but produced many eminent men. Sir John Fitzjames was
lord chief justice of the king's bench thirteen years; died 30
Henry VIII., 1539."

On the other are,--quarterly, 1 and 4, _Argent, a barrulet gules, between four bars gemelles wavy azure_; 2 and 3, _Argent, a chevron gules, between three castles sable_.

Two further escutcheons display, one the emblem of the Trinity with customary legends, and the other--what is seldom seen in painted glass, being usually found sculptured on the frieze, or on the capitals of the pillars, at or over the entrance to chantry or chancel,--the imagery of

THE FIVE WOUNDS.

Look at yon carven shield,
Above the chantry door,
No blazoned pride bedecks its field,
But emblems five sprent o'er.

There are His pierced feet,--
There are His mangled hands,--
And wounded heart,--whose latest beat
Ceased at love's sweet commands.

="Fyve wellys"=--there symbolled trace,
Hushing this mortal strife,--
"=Of pitty, merci, comfort, gracy,
And everlastingh lyffe.="

The shepherd monk of old,
Well his vocation knew,
Set it o'er gateway of the fold,
That all his flock may view.

Ere ranged in order close,
They gathered round his board,
Signs of His sorrows, sufferings, woes,
With thankfulness adored.

Seen with unseen allied,--
Trusting their happy fate,
Should some day see them glorified,
Keystone of heaven's gate.

Wayfarer of to-day,
The same tale runs for thee,
As in the ages far away,
And for all time to be.

As Sir Thomas Arundell did not get the royal grant until two years after the dissolution of the Abbey, it is probable the work of destruction on the fine building was considerably advanced, as but little time as a rule was allowed to elapse before the demolition commenced, anything that could be turned into money, such as the bells, lead, &c., sold, and the walls pulled down and carried away for building purposes.

Respecting this we further learn from Hutchins,--

"Tradition says, that one Arundell, steward to the Earl of
Pembroke, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, built a
large house in the town for himself, out of the Abbey materials.
This seems to have been the same which Mr. Coker speaks of, when
he says, 'The greatest ornament of the town is a fair turretted
house of the Lord Arundell of Wardour.' But it is most probable
it was built by Sir Thomas Arundell, or his son Sir Matthew, out
of the ruins of the Abbey. It stands in Bymport Street, and has
been a public house, it is now almost pulled down. In 1747, on
the chimney piece were these arms,--1. ARUNDELL, _with crescent
for difference_.--2. Quarterly, 1 and 4, _Gules, four lozenges
ermine_ (DINHAM), 2 and 3, _Gules, three arches conjoined,
argent_ (DE ARCHES).--3. CHIDIOCK.--4. _Sable (azure), a bend,
with label of three points or, for difference_ (CARMINOW)."

This was not all the property Sir Thomas appears to have had assigned him at the dissolution of religious houses. In 1547, Henry VIII. granted him the house and site of the Priory (or College) of Slapton in South Devon, "except all the lead upon the said College other than the gutters, and the lead in the windows; except all the bells and ornaments"--the rectory, also that of Loddiswell, and three other manors in Devon, Somerset, and Cornwall. Although his wife's sister Queen Katharine had been executed four years previously, he is described as 'Chancellor' to her.

Associated with Sir Thomas Arundell at the Court of Henry VIII., and also in his country possessions in the west, was his relative Henry Daubeney, Earl of Bridgwater, a most unfortunate man. He was the son of Giles, Lord Daubeney, K.G., a trusted servant and soldier to Henry VII.; the old seat and possessions of the family being at South-Petherton, and later at Barrington Court near that town. Lord Daubeney married Elizabeth, sister of Sir Thomas Arundell, K.B., of Lanherne,--the father of Sir John Arundell, who was the father of the Sir Thomas of our narrative,--Henry Daubeney, Earl of Bridgwater, his only son, would therefore be Sir John's cousin.

But not only by kinship on his father's side, but also by a similar relationship on his wife's, was the Earl closely connected with Sir Thomas. Lord Bridgwater married secondly, Katharine Howard, daughter of Thomas, second Duke of Norfolk, by his second wife Agnes Tilney. She was therefore aunt to Sir Thomas' wife, being her mother's half-sister.