The Strife of the Roses and Days of the Tudors in the West Part 26

"1551-2. The xxviij. of Januarij was reynyd sir Thomas Arundell, Knyght, and so the qwest cold nott fynd ym tyll the morow after, and so he whent to the Towre agayn, and then the qwest wher shutt up tyll the morow withowt mett or drynke, or candylle or fyre, and on the morow he came a-gayne and the qwest qwytt ym of treasun, and cast hym of felony to be hangyd."

And Hayward soliloquizes over the unhappy event,--

"Sir _Thomas Arundel_ was with some difficulty condemned, for his cause was brought to trial about seven of the clock in the morning, and about noon the jurors went together, and because they could not agree, they were shut in a house all the residue of that day and all the night following. The next morning they found him guilty. Unhappy man! who found the doing of anything or nothing dangerous alike."

and the little King mechanically notes in his diary,--

"29th Jan., 1551-2. Sir Thomas Arundel was likewise cast of felony in treason, after long controversie, for the matter was brought in trial bie seven of the cloke in the morning 28th day; at none the qwest went together; they sate shut up together in a house, without meat or drinke, bicause they could not agree, all that day and all night; this 29th day in the morning they did cast him."

So the first act of the coming tragedy was completed, and then after they had made sure of the destruction of their victim, they were equally a.s.siduous that he should have ample religious consolation, in order that he "may dye well,"--and so give colour to the a.s.sumption that he was rightly convicted; and seemingly seek to justify the cruel sentence, awarded under such manifest difficulty, arising from the slight grounds of the accusation preferred against him.

Therefore the very same day of his condemnation, the 29th of October,

"the Council issued orders to the Lieutenant of the Tower, 'that Doctour Bill may from tyme to tyme resort to Sir Rauff Fane for his instruction to dye well; and that Doctour Parker may resort from tyme to tyme to Sir Thomas Arundell for the lyke purpose."[45]

Both these spiritual advisers were evidently Protestants, holding office in the Reformed Church. Dr. William Bill was successively Master of St. John's and Trinity Colleges, Cambridge, and afterward Provost of Eton, Dean of Westminster, and Almoner to Queen Elizabeth.

Dr. Matthew Parker was Chaplain to Edward VI., Dean of Lincoln, and afterward Archbishop of Canterbury. What faith Sir Ralph Vane professed may not be related here, but from his bold and resolute character it may be surmised to have been of an easy-going kind, and the clerical consolers sent to administer to him in his necessity might have been as acceptable as any other.

Not so to Sir Thomas Arundell; his religious adherence as a staunch Catholic was doubtless well known, and to him, the intrusion of the men named, in his hopeless distress, would have been adding still further cruelty to his sentence, by depriving him of that last preparation and final rites of the church he belonged to, which one of her own confessors could alone afford him.

Application was therefore made for this privilege, and so we find that,--

"on the 11th of February, Mr. Perne was allowed to resort to Sir Thomas Arundell, to instruct hym to dye well."[45]

[45] BELL'S _Chapel in the Tower_.

To die well,--such was, apparently, the condition most sought for, to appear penitent, and if possible to ensure this, the strong religious point was waived, and one,--probably of the ejected religious of the previous reign,--was "allowed" admittance to the death-sentenced prisoner. The monk who came was presumably William Peryn, Prior of the Black-friars, and a distinguished preacher; he probably attended Sir Thomas in his last moments.

The last scene of this mournful progression was now at hand. On the 22nd February the Lieutenant of the Tower received instructions to give notice to--

"Sir Thomas Arundell, and Sir Rauf Vane that they should against Friday next, prepare themselves to dye, according to their condempnation."

But another and melancholy privilege had now to be sought for, and that was to change the ignominious method of hanging,--the punishment accorded for treason-felony,--to the less degrading death by beheading. Some influence had to be used, but it was granted. The same method of death was also extended to Sir Michael Stanhope. No alteration, however, was accorded--if sought for--with regard to the execution of the "ruffian," Sir Ralph Vane, and Sir Miles Partridge; they were to perish at the same hour at the gallows, which was probably set up beside the scaffold on Tower Hill.

Cavendish in his _Metrical Visions_, thus refers to this circ.u.mstance in the last stanza of that one relating to Sir Thomas Arundell,--

"To be hanged though my judgment ware, Yet to do me honour they changed my sentence, And to leese my head to ease me of my care:-- But death was the thing of all their pretence Which they desired;--such was their conscyence There I make an end, and I without redresse As here ye may see me, a symple body hedlesse."

Then came the final order on the 23rd to the King's Solicitor--

"To make a warrant for the beheading Sir Thomas Arundell, and Sir Michael Stanhope, and to perform the process of hanging of Sir Rauf Vane and Sir Miles Partridge, who are appointed to be executed on fryday next between ix. and xi. before noone."

The warrant was duly made out and dated the 25th,--the next day Friday, the 26th February, was fixed for their execution. Machyn thus describes the event,--

"The xxvj. day of Feybruarii the wyche was the morrow after saynt Mathuwe day, was hedded on the Tower hill, sir Mygh.e.l.l Stanhope knyght and ser Thomas Arundell, and incontenent was hangyd the seylff sam tyme sir Raff a Vane knyght, and ser Mylles Parterege knyght of the galowse besyd the ---- and after ther bodys wher putt in to dyvers new coffens to be bered, and heds, in to the Towre in cases, and ther bered."

Both Sir Thomas Arundell and Sir Michael Stanhope were interred in the Tower Chapel. Thus he followed in the same dire way, and was buried beside his two headless kinswomen laid there a few years previously.

What is to be said as to all these proceedings, and their melancholy termination, had guilt or innocence anything to do with it, or was it expediency only, that controlled the result? Sir John Hayward apparently supplies the true key as to the object of the nefarious transaction,--

"Not long after the death of Somerset, _because it was not thought fit that such a person should be executed alone, who could hardly be thought to offend alone_, Sir Ralph Vane and Sir Miles Partridge were hanged on Tower Hill, Sir Michael Stanhope and Sir Thomas Arundell were there also beheaded.

"All these took it upon their last charge, that they never offended against the King, nor against any of his Council. G.o.d knows whether obstinately secret or innocent, and in the opinion of all men Somerset was much cleared by the death of those _who were executed to make him appear faulty_."

But their deaths were not destined to go long unavenged. He who had poured the "leperous distilment" into the young king's ear, that sent Sir Thomas to his doom, and others, in company with his rival Somerset, lame-footed vengeance was on the trail of his unscrupulous, ambitious footsteps, it speedily overtook him, and the next headless body that was brought to find unconscious entrance to the Tower Chapel was that of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.

As the grave closes over the unfortunate Sir Thomas Arundell our thoughts next follow to those he left behind him. The usual fate was awarded his possessions as a traitor, he was attainted, and they were confiscated to the Crown; but King Edward, two years after his death, restored to his widow, the Lady Elizabeth Arundell, her full dower out of her deceased husband's property.

Of course there is no direct memorial existent to Sir Thomas Arundell, but it is singular, that in the fine bra.s.s to the memory of his father, mother, and his father's second wife in St. Columb church, Cornwall, one of their children, a little _headless_ armoured figure still remains, and beside it is Sir Thomas' escutcheon,--Arundell with six quarterings, impaling Howard with four. The diminutive effigy is undoubtedly designed to represent Sir Thomas,--the label over his head that contained his name is gone. The corresponding indents of figure, s.h.i.+eld, and label, were originally filled with a representation of his brother Sir John, his name and arms.

Sir Thomas Arundell, by his wife Elizabeth Howard, left two children, Sir Matthew, who succeeded him, and Margaret, married to Sir Henry Weston.

Sir Matthew married Margaret, daughter of Henry Willoughby[46] of Wollaton, Notts, by his wife Anne, third daughter of Thomas Grey, second Marquis of Dorset, and sister to Henry, afterward Duke of Suffolk. They were second cousins, both being the grandchildren of Cicely Bonville.

[46] The ghost of his name, and the tomb in Southleigh churchyard, seem to haunt our little narratives, see pages 35 and 85.

With the accession of Queen Mary, matters wore a very different aspect toward the Arundells. Doubtless the Queen fully recognized and esteemed their allegiance to the antient faith, which she held in common with them, and so we find in the first year of her reign, she restored by patent to Sir Matthew, all his deceased father's lands.

This does not seem to have included Wardour Castle, which appears to have been granted by lease or otherwise to the Earl of Pembroke, who greatly embellished it, but Sir Matthew subsequently, by purchase, acquired its possession from that family; it was not, however, free of the claims of the Crown as will be seen. He probably resided before this at Shaftesbury, in the house he had built out of the ruins of the Abbey.

Sir Matthew was knighted, with twenty-two other west-country gentlemen, who "were dubbed in the progress to Bristowe, anno d'ni, 1574," by Queen Elizabeth.

Once more we find ourselves in Tisbury church, and in this chancel, where the succeeding generations of the Arundells of Wardour, after the vicissitudes of this life,--and in their earlier days they had their ample share of them,--were over,--and one after another were here gathered together in the fold of death.

Sir Matthew was buried 24 Dec., 1598. This inscription commemorates him,--

IESUS.

MAT' ARUNDEL, EQUES ORDINE, INTUS DORMIT IN PULVERE.

IGNOSCAT ILLI OMNIA QUI NOSTRA TULIT CRIMINA.

DELICTA JUVENTUTIS MEE ET IGNORANTIAS MEAS NE MEMINERIS DOMINE.

I. H. S.

Thomas, his son, succeeded him. "Prompted by the ardent and chivalrous spirit of adventurous enterprise prevalent in the reign of Elizabeth, he obtained the Queen's permission to enter the service of Rudolph II., Emperor of Germany, to whom she addressed a personal letter of recommendation of her 'kinsman.'" This was correct enough,--Queen Elizabeth was the daughter of Queen Anne Boleyn, and so grand-daughter of Lady Elizabeth Howard,--Thomas Arundell was the great-grandson of Lord Edmund Howard, her brother. In 1595, at the siege of the city of Gran, or Strigonium, in Hungary, then held by the Turks, he gave great proofs of his valour, "and that in forcing the water tower, near Strigonium, he took from the Turks their banner, slaying the bearer with his own hand." For this and other services Rudolph created him a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, which he had the temerity to accept, without getting sufficient leave from his jealous and imperious 'kinswoman' at home, and for which he appears to have suffered some confinement. It raised a dispute also at Court as to what precedence, or otherwise, this foreign distinction was ent.i.tled to, and the matter being brought before the Queen for her opinion, she characteristically replied,--

"that there was a close tie of affection between the prince and subject; and that as chaste wives should have no glances but for their own spouses, so should faithful subjects keep their eyes at home, and not gaze upon foreign crowns, and she, for her part, did not care her sheep should wear stranger's marks, nor dance after the whistle of every foreigner."

and she intimated to the Emperor, that she had forbad him any place or precedence in England.

It is probable Queen Elizabeth had no great liking for the Arundells, being prejudiced against them, it may be on account of their religious principles. Some years before, in 1575, when Sir Matthew Arundell had re-acquired Wardour Castle and Park, she seized upon it to enforce the payment of an old Crown debt, that seems to have been owing on property Sir Thomas Arundell acquired of Henry VIII., and had not been cleared off, and which it was probable from his relations.h.i.+p to that monarch was never intended should be paid. The Queen, we believe, did not insist on the payment, but it shewed her semi-hostile att.i.tude toward them then, and this incident of the acceptance of a foreign t.i.tle, did not tend to improve it. King James, however straitened and antagonistic in his religious views, and natural distaste to the Roman communion, nevertheless, recognized his merits, by creating him in the second year of his reign, 4 May, 1605, Baron Arundell of Wardour, but neither Queen Elizabeth, nor that King, we believe, ever recognized his foreign t.i.tle. He died at Wardour Castle, and was buried in this chancel. The following inscription is to his memory,--

THOMAS DOMINUS ARUNDELIUS, PRIMUS BARO DE WARDOUR, SACRI ROMANI IMPERII COMES, OBIJT 7^MO DIE NOVEMBRIS, aeTATIS SUae 79, ANNO DOMINI 1639.

SICUT PULLUS HIRUNDINIS SIC CLAMABO.

Isaiae x.x.xviii. v. 14.

With this we close any extended notice of the succeeding descendants of this n.o.ble and distinguished family. Thomas his son was a devoted Royalist, and "being at the battle of Lansdown was shot in the thigh by a brace of pistol-bullets, whereof the same year he died in his Majesty's garrison at Oxford,"--the devoted and heroic Blanche Somerset his wife it was who so bravely defended Wardour Castle during the war of the Commonwealth; she died at Winchester, but both are rejoined in death here. These inscriptions occur to them,--

D. O. M.