mentes, or elles ye be not like to leave to your Successours whiche ye have receyved of your Ancestours.

For that I wolde have a vewe partlie of the grounde and situacion therof, (and for other causes) I (this last Sundaye morninge) rode thether from my house, and was there by vij. of the clok; the rather so sone, to prevent their cyvilitie of receyvinge, (as the maner is) and partlie to be present at ther wholl Service. But in the firste consideracion they prevented me: for, though the morninge was verie fowle and raynye, yet I founde the Mayer and his Jurattes redye at the towne gate to accumpanye me to my lodginge, and so to the churche, beinge men of honest civilitie, and comelie, grave parsonages of good understandinge: ther streets (as they might be for the straytnes of them) cleane, and not muche saverye, ther service songe in good distinct harmonie, and quiett devotion. The singinge men, beinge the Mayer and the Jurattes withe the head men of the towne, placed in the queere fayre and decent, in so good order as I cowde wishe. My Auditorye greate and attentyve to heare, and also to understande the Quenes pleasure in publication of the Generall Prayer and Faste: that I se not but the Quenes majestie shall have of them good subjectes & true Oratours. And furdermore, upon the erection of this Schoole; her Highnes shall have a nomber of yonge tender handes lifte up in prayer for her Highnes prosperous Raigne. The Strangers there, beinge verie

gòdlie in the Sabothe daye, and busie in ther worke on the weke daye, and their quietnes suche as the Mayer and his Brethren have no causes of variances comynge before them. As for other disorders reformable by ecclesiasticall lawes, I have before nowe deputed ther Minister (a grave learned man) to exercise (by myne authoritie) ecclesiasticall censures as he shall see cause. As hetherto litle hathe bene spied. By all the premisses aforesaide considered, I meane to comende the Townes requeste to the Quenes favour, so lawdablie behavinge themselves as I se them, and partlie to expresse to you someparte of my joy whiche I have here by them in this outwarde corner of my diocess. And therfore, I praye your Honor helpe them. In so doinge mercedem reportabis a Domino in resurrectione justorum, whiche God of his mercye make joyfull to the Quenes Highnes and to us all. From my house at Bekesbourne this xxvijth, daye of Auguste 1563.

Your honors assured,

To the right honorable Sir William Cecill knight principall Secretarie to the Quenes majestie at the Courte.

MATTHUE CANTUAR.

LETTER CLXI.

Lord John Gray of Pyrgo to Sir William Cecil, in behalf of his niece, the Lady Catherine Gray.

[MS. LANSD. Num. 7. art. 55. Orig.]

THE reader has been already made aware, that after the exclusion given by the Will of Henry the Eighth to the posterity of Margaret of Scotland, after the Acts of Parliament which he left unrepealed, and the publication of Edward the Sixth's Will, the right to the Crown of England was very generally considered to have devolved upon the House of Suffolk, of which THE LADY CATHERINE the sister of Lady Jane Gray was the heir.

This Lady had been married to Lord Herbert, the son of the Earl of Pembroke, whose father apprehending danger from an intermarriage with royal blood, obtained an immediate divorce. The Lady Catherine then entered into a secret contract with the Earl of Hertford, whose sister the Lady Jane Seymour resided with her in the Court; both, seemingly, as Maids of Honour to the Queen.

The Queen went one morning to Eltham to hunt, when Lady Jane and Lady Catherine, according to previous concert, leaving the Palace at Westminster by the stairs at the orchard, went along by the sands to the Earl's house in Chanon Row; Lady Jane then went for a priest, and the parties were married. The Earl accompanied them back to the waterstairs of his House, put them into a boat, and they returned to the Court time enough for dinner in Master Comptroller's chamber. Having consummated his marriage Lord Hertford travelled into France. The pregnancy of Lady Catherine became apparent, and was soon whispered through the Court. She first confessed it privately to Mrs. Sentlowe, and afterwards sought Lord Robert Dudley's chamber to break out to him that she was married, in the hope of softening the anger of the Queen: but Elizabeth committed her to the Tower, where she was afterwards delivered of a son. Lord Hertford was summoned home to answer for his misdemeanor; when, confessing the marriage, he also was comImitted to the Tower.

a See Naunton, Fragm. Regal.

A Commission of Inquiry was next issued, at the head of which were Archbishop Parker, bishop Grindal, and Sir William Petre; when the parties being unable within a time prescribed to produce witnesses of the marriage, a definitive sentence was pronounced against them: and their imprisonment ordered to be continued during the Queen's pleasure. By bribing their keepers, however, they found means to have further intercourse; the fruit of which was another child. The Queen's vexation was now increased, and Lord Hertford was fined fifteen thousand pounds in the Star Chamber for a triple crime; five thousand for deflouring a virgin of the blood-royal in the Queen's House; five thousand for breaking his prison; and five thousand for repeating his vicious act.

A Copy of the Proceedings of the Commission of Inquiry in 1561 is still preserved in the Harleian MS. 6286, with the examinations of the Earl of Hertford and the Lady Catherine. The particulars as the reader will expect are extremely minute.

The Interest which the families of this young couple took in their fate will be seen in this and some succeeding Letters.

IT is a great while, me thinckethe, Cowsine Cecill, since I sent unto you, in my Neeces behalfe, albeit I knowe, (opportunitie so servinge) you are not unmindfull of her miserable and compfortlesse estate. For who, wantinge the Princes favor, maye compt him selfe to live in any Realme; and becawse this time of all others hathe ben compted a time of mercie, and forgevenes, I cannot but recommende her woefull liffe unto you. In faithe, I wolde I were the Queenes Confessor this Lent, that I might joine her in pennaunce to forgeve and forget; or otherwise able to steppe into the pulpett, to tell her Highnes, that God will not forgeve her, unleast she frelye forgeve all the worlde. Thus restinge in hope of her Majesties further favor, shortlie to be extended, towardes my Neece,

VOL. II. SER. 2.

T

I committ you to Almightie god. From Pirgo the

sixthe of Marche 1563.

By your lovyng cousin
and assured frynd,

To my verye lovinge cowsigne Sir William Cecill knight cheife Secretarie to the Queenes majestie.

JOHN GREY.

A LIST of the furniture with which the Lady Catherine's prisonchamber in the Tower was supplied, in August 1561, from the Wardrobe there, will not be unamusing to the reader: It consisted of five pieces of Tapestry to hang the chamber; three window pieces of the like stuff; a sparver for a bed of changeable silk damask; a silk quilt of red striped with gold; a bed and boulster of downe with two pillows of downe; one white linnen quilt stuffed with wool; four pair of fustians, the one of six breadths the others of five; two carpets of Turkey making; one small window carpet; one chair of cloth of gold raised with crimson velvet, with two pommels of copper gilt, and the Quenes Arms on the back; one cushion of purple velvet; two footstools covered with green velvet; one cubbard joined; and one bed, one boulster, and a counterpane for her woman. It must be owned that this List looks royal; but some marginal notes in the hand writing of Sir Edward Warner the Lieutenant of the Tower, declare the whole to have been old, worn, broken, and dilapidated. Sir Edward Warner in a Letter to Sir William Cecill Sept. 8th. 1563, says that the Lady Catherine did further injury to this furniture" with her monkeys and dogs." b

Portraits of Lady Catherine, holding her infant son Edward Lord Beauchamp in her arms, are preserved both at Alnwick and at Warwick castles that at the former by Hans Holbein.

Sir Egerton Brydges in his edition of Collins's Peerage vol. i. p. 173. says that she had three children; Edward who died young, Edward Lord Beauchamp, and Thomas, who took to wife Isabel daughter of Edward Onley of Catesby in Northamptonshire.

MS. Lansd. Num. 5. art. 41.

b MS. Lansd. Num. 7. art. 32.