BRASS OF SIR JOHN ARUNDELL, ST. COLUMB-MAJOR.
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"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.

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.

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 Térouenne 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]

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,—

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,—

Then he further continues,—

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,—

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

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]

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]

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 £761—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,

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.

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,—

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,—

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,—

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,

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.

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,—

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.

The Countess of Bridgwater was greatly persecuted during the trial of her niece Queen Katharine Howard, and almost every means was resorted to to implicate her with that unfortunate woman. The Earl, her husband, plunged into the vortex of expensive frivolities that surrounded the Court of Henry VIII., and it is related irretrievably crippled, if not finally ruined himself by extravagant display at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He died without issue, in seclusion and comparative penury at the little rural parish of South-Perrott, near Crewkerne, and was there buried 12 April, 1548,—his wife survived him, and was interred in the Norfolk Chantry in Lambeth church, 11 May, 1554.[42]