Part 25

"The xxvj. day of Feybruarii the wyche was the morrow after saynt Mathuwe day, was hedded on the Tower hill, sir Myghell 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. God 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 brass 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, shield, 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 entitled 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 relationship 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 attitude toward them then, and this incident of the acceptance of a foreign title, 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 title. 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, ÆTATIS SUÆ 79, ANNO DOMINI 1639.

SICUT PULLUS HIRUNDINIS SIC CLAMABO.

Isaiæ xxxviii. v. 14.

With this we close any extended notice of the succeeding descendants of this noble 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.

Hic parte sua mortali quiescit, qui in coelo potiori parte vivit immortalis THOMAS ARUNDEL, Baro Arundel de Warder, sacri Romani imperii Comes, primogenitus nempe Thomæ Arundel, Baronis etiam de Warder, qui, ob insignia et pietatis et fortitudinis exempla in communem Christiani nominis hostem in Hungaria ad Strigonium præstita hæreditarium hunc honoris titulum a Rodolpho secundo meruit ipse, et ad posteros transmissit; cujus dignitatum virtutumque hic hæres, dum vixit, sic Deo in constanti pietatis exercito militavit in terris, ut debitum sibi in coelis triumphum expectare videretur, ita se totum in Regis Caroli primi obsequium, imminente in Anglia bello civili, impendit, ut in illud opes fortunamque profuderit, ac vitam denique ipsam lubentissime contulisset, e qua excessit Oxonii die 19^o Maij, ann. ætatis 59, annoque reparatæ salutis 1643.

And on the adjoining stone:--

D. O. M.

Hic conjugi conjux amantissima adjacet Domina BLANCHA SOMERSET, filia Edwardi Somerset, Wigorniæ Comitis, privata sigilli custodis, magistri equitum, &c., quæ marito par generis splendore, exercitio virtutum non impar, in aula regia quasi in cella privata vixit quanto dignitate terrena sublimior, tanto pietatis fulgere splendidior, quantoque regiæ vicinior majestati, tanto (quod parum est inter mortales) supremo dilectior numini quo ut proprius frueretur coelo natura mortalitatem exuit Wintoniæ die 28^o Octob: ann: ætat: LXVI. annoque Dom: M.DC.XLIX.

Henry, their son, spent five years in the Tower, 1673 to 1678, on the information of the infamous Titus Oates, but afterward became Lord Privy Seal to James II.

"Which Henry Lord Arundell, at his own charge, raised a regiment of horse for the service of King Charles the First in the time of the usurpation, and stoutly defended his Castle of Wardour against those rebellious forces, which, under the command of Edward Hungerford, did then attempt it on behalf of the Parliament. In the year 1678, he was with William Earl Powis, William Viscount Stafford, William Lord Petre, and John Lord Bellasis, committed prisoners to the Tower, and afterwards were impeached by the House of Commons of high crimes and offences, without being brought on their trial. He continued prisoner with the other Lords, till the year 1683, when they were admitted to bail.

"On King James II. accession to the throne he was sworn of his Privy Council, and on 11 March, 1686, was constituted Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, also, when that Monarch, in 1688, began his journey towards Salisbury, he committed the administration of affairs in his absence to the Lord Chancellor, the Lords Arundell, Bellasis, Preston, and Godolphin. He departed this life 28 December, 1694, having married Cecilie, daughter of Sir Henry Compton, C.B., of Brambletye, in the county of Sussex." (Collins.)

Henry, the seventh baron, by his marriage in 1739 with Mary Arundell-Bealing of Lanherne, who died in 1769, re-united the antient branch of the family from which he was descended; he died in 1756, aged 38, is interred below, and his epitaph (by translation) tells us, "_who taking to himself to wife Mary Arundell, the most noble heiress of the family of Lanherne in Cornwall, and having gotten a son of her, a most renowned race which for more than two centuries had been rent asunder, now happily united, flourishes, and may it for ever flourish by the favour of God_."

With the memory of this delightful incident, so gracious and refreshing after the blood-stained relation of the earlier portion of our little narrative, we take our leave of this garner of the departed Arundells, and, seeking once more the rapid convenience of the iron road, are passing swiftly homeward. As the train glides rapidly by the little station of Sutton-Bingham, we remember that not far from this, another and almost unique trace of Arundell of Cornwall is to be found. At about a mile's distance is the village of East-Coker, and in the south transept window of its church are two antient shields of painted glass side by side, on one are the arms of the See of Exeter, on the other quarterly, Arundell and Carminow. These are the arms of John Arundell, Bishop of Exeter, who presided over the diocese two years, died 19 Feb., 1506, and was buried in the church of St. Clement Danes, London, and, as far as we have knowledge, is the only trace of memorial existing to him.

Once more the career of the subject of our little narrative returns to us. All appears to have gone well with him, even among the perils with which he was environed during the reign of Henry VIII. It may be, the instant danger of giving offence to the wishes or inclinations of that capricious tyrant kept him in the path of caution and safety.

But when that king's baby son assumed the reins of sovereignty this terror had disappeared, and men were busily vieing with each other as to whom,--professedly under the little king,--should really rule the destinies of the nation. Sir Thomas now appears to have taken action, and identified himself with one side of the contending factions, not prominently, but sufficiently marked to make him a subject of suspicion--to say nothing beyond--with those he was presumed to differ from, and this on an adverse emergency was a position of considerable peril. So it turned out, for in the end his death appears to have been resolved on, not because his offence was easily proved, or that he deserved such punishment, but as a makeweight, to give the colour of complicity, and so justify the death of Somerset, by the execution of himself, and that of others, thereby inferring the plot was a real one, and of dangerous extent. If so,--and circumstances seem strongly to confirm this view,--his was altogether a hard fate; it is difficult indeed, to imagine a harder one.

"SICUT PULLUS HIRUNDINIS SIC CLAMABO."

Even Thine altars!--there my soul shall flee-- O Lord of Hosts! and as a swallow come On quivering wing, and chatter mournfully, And make her nest, and seek eternal home.

Even Thine altars! where in holy state Lies the Great Sacrifice of endless love, Incense adoring streams to heaven's gate, Service unceasing seeks Thy throne above.

Even Thine altars! there unharmed to stay, And when my captive pinions death shall free, Migrate to fairer regions far away, There fold my wings, and rest in peace, with Thee.

=Deo data.=

OF THE IMPERIAL LINE.

A leisurely sail from the beautiful, capacious, and almost land-locked harbour of Plymouth, up its main inlet--so curiously named the Hamoaze--to the picturesque precincts of the lower extremity of the Tamar, on a bright summer day with a gentle breeze, is an excursion in all respects most enjoyable.

The harbour itself is studded over with craft of every variety and size, and sails spread of almost all hues, with here and there a fussy steam-boat ploughing its smoky way between them, while just inside, and tethered as it were to the dim line of the breakwater, are two or three dark grim-looking ironclads, lying as watch-dogs at its entrance.

Sea-ward, is the broad, blue, open main; on the left, the tree-fringed heights of Mount-Edgcumbe; before us, the irregular, creek-broken shore of the "Three-Towns" jutting angularly into the deep, clear water, with houses crowding down to its rocky edge. There, too, in its centre, is one of the most classic spots on English soil--the Hoe--consecrated by endless historic national traditions, and made sacred beyond imagination's most inspired effort, by the tears, prayers, and hopes that have alternately taken their rise, and from its heights watched the silent sails pass on below to the distant ocean, bearing voyagers, the purpose of whose errands,--who may declare?

On its pleasant open plateau, how diverse also have been the objects of those who from time to time have there assembled. Determined spirits with hands upon their sword-hilts, waiting and watching for the first glimpse of the van of the seven miles crescent-flotilla of the dark and hostile Spaniard, sweeping onward toward the shore, bearing the chains of slavery, spiritual and social, within their holds. Bands of bare-headed, bent-browed men, kneeling in reverent, prayerful conclave--the last home-office of their undaunted faith--ere they stepped on board the peaceful convoy, expatriated by conscience from their native soil, in search of a larger liberty, and destined to found in another hemisphere, an even greater England than they were leaving. Invader and emigrant, each shall we say, with purpose animated by soul-constraining religious convictions, but with ultimate aspirations, how different!

Spectators,--myriad numbered, greeting with enthusiastic plaudits, the departure of stately fleets, that at intervals during successive centuries, have passed out, destined to carry the grand conquests of the seamanship and valour of the English race,--triumphs martial and commercial,--to every sea; or anon, sorrowful groups with down-cast hearts, wafting sad and final farewells to those, who have here in continuous exodus set out to seek new homes on distant shores, and from hence cast their last "longing, lingering look," at the receding, vanishing outline of their native land; or again, eager eyes anxious to descry the first rise of the sail of the home-bound ship on the distant horizon, bearing a freight more precious to the love-strained heart, than all the wealth of Ind.

But while these suggestive thoughts are haunting us, we have slowly crept up to the warlike precincts of the lower Hamoaze. We pass the huge, cavernous, pent-house-looking, but now empty 'slips,' hanging over the darkling tide, in which the 'wooden walls' of _old_ England were wont aforetime to be built, ere the steam-urged iron monsters of our present _new_ England were dreamt of. And we ruminate a moment over this change of times and things, and mentally ask the question, What is the gain to human development achieved by much of the scientific--_ergo_ mechanical--appliances of the present hour? the which, while it flatters the lord of creation with the belief he has become the autocrat of the forces and elements, in truth practically reduces that proud being to be the servant and care-taker of the machine he has constructed, for assuredly to a very large extent to this menial occupation he is being rapidly reduced.

Specially with regard to ships and navigation, a generation or two ago, vessels in construction and appearance were not only beautiful objects as such, but required also all the skill, foresight, courage, and dexterity which taxes the resources of manhood to the utmost, and forms the basis of true seamanship, for their guidance and control. Then there was something both for the mind and bodily energy alike to exercise and develope itself on; and undoubtedly much of the secret of our victories, both in commerce and war, that we have achieved in the past, may be traced to our proficiency therein, and as a consequence, the cause of our winning the crown of success among all other competing maritime nations.

Now almost all is changed, science has invaded the citadel of living endeavour, and deposed its activity and ambition; while furnished with the results of her conquests, one man practically has become as good as another, the spur of incentive has vanished from the heel of individual aspiration to excellence, with this result, that if to man the privilege of becoming a greater, nobler being, fostered by the soul's glorious activities, as having something to conquer, or win, be denied or removed from him; he can now console himself with the belief he may afford to become a much idler one,--a prime factor in the creed of the present hour.

And therefore instead of the slips and the wooden-walls, with clatter of adze, axe, and caulking hammer, and the wholesome odour of Stockholm tar,--here we are abreast of the 'steam-yard,' with its metallic clang and reek of coal-smoke, threading our way between a swarm of iron-clads of every form and shape; ugly, dark, and diabolical-looking, as the errand they are constructed for, their sullen turrets, monstrous guns, and blood-curdling names, aptly and unmistakably assuring the beholder that their eventual port of destination lies on the shore of Hades. Steam-pinnaces and swift torpedo-boats are rushing about, and large tenders surging along, among whom we carefully steer, and look across with a glance of relief on the smart, clean, handsome three-deckers moored stern to stern in mid-stream; floating Othellos, that now with occupation gone, serve as nautical colleges for the sailor-boys, where they are instructed in such slender knowledge of seamanship as is at present deemed necessary.

How different was the measure of requirement in the early years of the first George, when the unfortunate Falconer wrote his poem of the _Shipwreck_, whose seamanship was apparently as dear to him as the muse, and so, delighted to cunningly array her with all the terms of the mariner's vocabulary, a feat never attempted by other poet, and of course a hopeless task to any but a true sailor,--

"But now, the transient squall to leeward passed, Again she rallies to the sudden blast. The helm to starboard moves; each shivering sail Is sharply trimmed, to clasp th' augmenting gale-- The mizzen draws; she springs aloof once more, While the fore-staysail balances before. The fore-sail braced obliquely to the wind, They near the prow th' extended tack confined: Then on the leeward sheet the seamen bend, And haul the bow-line to the bowsprit end, To topsails next they haste, the bunt-lines gone, Through rattling blocks the cluelines swiftly run; Th' extending sheets on either side are manned; Abroad they come, the fluttering sails expand; The yards again ascend each comrade mast, The leeches taught, the halyards are made fast, The bowlines hauled, and yards to starboard braced, The straggling ropes in pendent order placed."

We pass a magnificent white-clad troop-ship, with a beading of red-coats leisurably looking over the forecastle, and glide under the lee of one of those steam-winged brigands of the deep, a steel-built cruiser, whose towering trim spars, and beautiful lines, excite admiration, but chastened with the reflection of the capabilities for destruction she carries in her enormous propelling power and far-reaching guns. Woe, think we, to the peaceful merchantman who may venture to disregard, or seek to flee from the summons of her eagle eye!