known to have been advanced was the1 rectory of Woodrising, in Norfolk, in the year 1591, when he was twenty-six years of age. His early and steady friends and patrons were the members of the ancient family of Southwell, especially that Sir Robert Southwell, of whose calm and happy death he speaks so feelingly in the Preface of his Disce Mori. Robert was the son of Sir Thomas Southwell, by Mary, daughter of Sir Rice Mansell, of Glamorganshire; and, as Rearadmiral, was present at the famous engagement with the Spanish fleet, in 1588. He married the Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Lord Howard of Effingham, afterwards Earl of Nottingham, and Lord High Admiral of England. Sir Robert died Oct. 12, 1599, leaving his widow with three daughters and an infant son, Thomas, then about five months old. She subsequently married the Earl of Carrick. To this "honourable and virtuous, his very good lady, who, as he was fully persuaded, truly reverenced God and served him, whom 1 Parkin says, that in 1603, Christopher Sutton made a return, that in Woodrising there were then forty communicants. This seems to be too large a proportion, unless the circumstances of the place have very much changed. At the last census the whole population of Woodrising did not exceed 127.-Parkin's Norfolk, vol. x. pp. 277. 280. to serve is blessed liberty, yea is the most honourable estate of all," Sutton dedicated his treatise, Disce Mori, at its earliest publication in 1600, during the first year of her widowhood, and also his latter work, Disce Vivere. It does not appear to have been elsewhere noticed, that "the two virtuous and modest gentlewomen2, the now Lady Verney and the Lady Rodney, sisters, sometime attending upon the late Queen in her honourable privy chamber," to whom Dr.Sutton subsequently dedicated his "Godly Meditations on the most Holy Sacrament," were the two youngest daughters of his patron and patroness, Sir Robert and Lady Elizabeth Southwell; Catherine, who married Sir Greville Verney, of Warwickshire; and Frances, who married Sir Edward Rodney, of Somersetshire. Nor must it be unnoticed, that the name of their eldest daughter, Elizabeth, does not appear in that dedication. The lamentable circumstances of her alliance with Sir 2 In the edition of 1613 (in black letter) the Dedication is "To the two virtuous, modest gentlewomen, Mris Katherine and Mris Frances Southwell, sisters, attending upon the Queen's Majesty, in her honourable privy chamber." This Queen was Anne, wife of James the First, who died March 2, 1619. Hence, in the editions subsequent to her death, the ladies are said to have been "sometime attending upon the late Queen." Robert Dudley1, forbade so rightminded a Christian as Sutton to include her, though the most splendidly connected of them all, in the same dedication with her two "right virtuous and modest sisters." It was pain and grief to him, when he witnessed so unhappy a stain blighting one of the fairest branches of a family, towards which he was ever forward to profess his gratitude and affection; and when earnestly calling upon his fellow Christians to "prepare them 1 This Sir Robert Dudley was the son of the celebrated Earl of Leicester, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, by Lady Douglas Howard. He had married Alice, daughter of Sir Thomas Leigh, of Stoneleigh, by whom he had five children. Failing to establish his legitimacy, he could not succeed to the estates and honours of his father, and leaving his native country in disgust, he settled in the Grand Duke of Tuscany's dominions. His learning and endowments procured him the patronage of the Emperor Ferdinand, who created him duke of the empire. Before he left England he had separated himself from his wife Alice, alleging, on a disgraceful pretence, that his marriage with her was originally void. When he went abroad he took with him Elizabeth Southwell, whom he afterwards married, having obtained a dispensation from the Pope. She is represented to have been a very beautiful and accomplished person. Alice Leigh, who survived him, was always acknowledged in England to be his lawful wife; and Charles the Second created her Duchess Dudley in her own right. Her residence, which adjoined the Church-yard of St. Giles in the Fields, she gave to the Rector of that parish for ever. selves dutifully to receive their Saviour in the state of grace, that they might be received by Him into the state of glory," he would make mention only of those who persevered in adorning the doctrine of the Gospel in all things. Elizabeth Southwell had become a duchess of the Empire, but she had forgotten her religious duties and devotion to God," without which," in Sutton's own words, "all the dignity of the world is worth nothing." The Dedication itself reflects honour upon our author's integrity and gratitude, bears his testimony to the worth of a family who were high in favour with Queen Elizabeth, and abounds with pious sentiments. Its first sentences will not be thought out of place here. "That desire you have, Right virtuous, to serve God in holiness of life, and very towardly disposition even from your tender years, so applicable to all goodness (wherein may you wax old by the grace of God), have often moved me to beseech Him who hath begun this good work in you, to continue the same even to an aged and happy end. For surely our religious duties and respective devotion to God is worth all the world's dignity besides; nay, without this, all the dignity of the world is nothing worth." In 1597, June 6, his patron, Sir Robert Southwell, presented Sutton to the vicarage of Rainham, in Essex, which however he retained only one year, resigning it on his presentation (Aug. 14, 1598) to Caston, in Norfolk-the Caston which Anthony a Wood says was in Sutton's own country. This living2 he held till the year 1618, when he was succeeded in it by John Sutton, probably Christopher's brother, mentioned in his will, and certainly the same person who was advanced by King James (during the minority of Thomas Southwell) to the rectory of Woodrising, which Sutton resigned in 1612, on his presentation to Much or Great Bromley, in Essex. This parish, called by Anthony a Wood Murley Bromley (as Newcourt3 presumes, from the Morleys, formerly lords of a moiety of this manor), Sutton held from the 27th November, 1612, till his death. His successor's institution is dated Aug 5, 1629, on "the death of Christopher Sutton." The difficulty which many have felt with regard to the name of this parish, as found in Anthony a Wood, is now seen to have origi 1 Anthony a Wood's expressions, which are somewhat vague, have led to another curious mistake here. He says that Sutton was an Hampshire man born, and that he was presented to Caston in his own country; which in the recent edition of his Meditations is rendered "in his own county," and by Newcourt, "He became parson of Caston in Hampshire." There is no Caston in Hampshire.Newcourt, vol. i. p. 927. 2 Blomefield's Norfolk, vol. ii. p. 283. |