The cause of this insurrection, as they bruit in all these places, is the Queen's marriage with the Prince of Spain. The Duke of Suffolk is on Friday also stolen from his house at Sheen, and run away, with his two brethren, into Leicestershire; for he was met at Stony-Stratford; my Lord of Huntingdon is gone into those parts after him, with against him. The Duke is proclaimed traitor. To the right honourable and my very good Lord the Earl of Shrewsbury, President of the Queen's Council in the North. No. V. (Talbot Papers, vol. C. fol. 23. 1553.) ROBERT SWYFT TO THE EARL OF SHREWSBURY. PLEASE it your Lordship to be advertised, that this day I received your Lordship's letter, sent by the post. And where in my letters, sent by Aaron, I advertised not your Lordship of your affairs committed to my charge, your Lordship shall understand that I have enrolled your letters patent the singular fortune to remain in the same blood for five hundred years. His second wife was Mary, daughter of Sir John Arundel of Llanherne in Cornwall, and widow of Robert Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex; by whom he had no issue. * He left London on the 25th; was betrayed by an old servant, and imprisoned in the Tower, Feb. 11; and was beheaded Feb. 23. with Mr. Noote, the auditor, and have been with Hutchinson, the auditor, for the like within his office; but, forasmuch as it appears, as well by your letters patent as by your particulars, that it has passed for a less value than the King has been answered ever since the dissolution of the house of Knaresborough,* I am troubled with the same, for he would know the Council's pleasure therein ere he made me any debenture to receive the rent of the same; but I intend to practise my old experience. And for your Lordship's fees, this troublesome time has been such that all men are commanded to pay no man as yet. And as touching any suits, no man has been, or, for any likelihood that I can see, shall be, heard for a time; wherefore but only for your Lordship's affairs I had been with you after Shrovetide. Since the taking of Wyat, as I wrote your Lordship, the Council is continually occupied about the search of this conspiracy, which is thought to be great. The Earl of Huntingdon, furnished with 200 horsemen with staves and bows, brought through London upon Saturday afternoon the Duke of Suffolk, and the Lord John,+ his brother, and *The little priory of Knaresborough in Yorkshire, founded in the reign of King John. It was found at the dissolution to be endowed with £35. 10. 11. per annum, and the site of it was granted to Francis Earl of Shrewsbury in the 7th of Edward VI. † Lord John Grey had the estate of Pyrgo in Essex; and marrying Mary, sister of Anthony Browne, first Viscount Montague, left a son, Henry, who was created by James I. Baron Grey of Groby, from whom the Earl of Stamford is descended. It does not appear in history that this Lord John was concerned in Wyat's rebellion. so conducted them to the Tower. The Lord Thomas was taken going towards Wales, and is coming up; and, notwithstanding that the said Duke, and Wyat, with the most part of his captains, remains as yet in the Tower, yet there is nightly watch in the court, in harness, both day and night in London. This day my Lady Jane was beheaded within the Tower, and the Lord Guildford, her husband, on the Tower Hill, and great execution shall be done this week, as well in London as in all other places where the rebels dwelt. This day my Lord of Devonshire * was sent to the Tower, with a great company of the guard. My Lady Elizabeth was sent for three days ago, but as yet she is not come, whatsoever the let is. This day my Lord Fitzwalter + was dispatched towards the Emperor's Court, accompanied with half a score gentlemen and their servants. I intend about the 20th day of this month to set forward towards your Lordship (if I hear not the contrary from you) by the grace of God, who send your Lordship long life, with much honour. * Edward Courtenay, lately restored (see No. II. in this reign) to his father's dignity of Earl of Devonshire. Wyat, in hopes of obtaining a pardon, had charged him with a design to marry Elizabeth, and to usurp the throne, but retracted in his dying declaration; yet the Princess was committed to the Tower on the 18th of March, and remained a prisoner there, and in other places, as well as the Earl, till April in the following year. This nobleman (to whom our historians erroneously give the title of Marquis of Exeter) was eldest son of Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter and Earl of Devon, who was beheaded in 1539-40. †Thomas Ratcliffe, Lord Fitzwalter, afterwards Earl of Sussex (see papers passim.) From London, the 12th day of February, To the right honourable my Lord and Master the Earl of Shrewsbury, deliver these with all speed, at York. ROBT, SWYFT.* No. VI. (Talbot Papers, Vol. P. fol. 263. 1554.) ROBERT SWYFT TO THE EARL OF SHREWSBURY. PLEASE it your Lordship to be advertised, that according to your commandment, after your de The family of Swyft, or Swift, had served the Earls of Shrewsbury for several years, as agents for their Yorkshire estates. Robert Swift, a native of the county of Durham, who settled in Yorkshire in consequence of his marriage with Anne, the daughter of William Taylor of Sheffield, and widow of a brewer in London, who had left her great wealth, was employed by the late Earl in that capacity. He lived at Rotherham, and is buried in the church there, with the following inscription, in a better style than we usually meet with in the epitaphs of that day: "Here under this tomb is placed and buried the bodies of Robert Swift, Esq. and Anne his first wife, who lived many years in this town of Rotherham, in virtuous fame, great wealth, and good worship. They were pitiful to the poor, and relieved them, and to their friends no less faithful than bountiful: truly they feared God, who plentifully poured his blessings upon them. The said Anne died in the month of June, in the year of our Lord God 1539, in the 67th year of her age; and the said Robert departed the 8th of August, in the year of our Lord God 1561, in the 84th year of his age: on whose souls, and all Christian souls, the omnipotent Lord have mercy. Amen. Respice Finem." Robert Swift, the son, who was the author of this and other letters in this collection so signed, was heir to his father, and after him Steward to the Earl of Shrewsbury. He considerably increased his large patrimony by trafficking in abbey lands after the dissolution, as well as by his marriage with Ellen, daughter and heir to Nicholas Wickersley, of Wickersley in Yorkshire, by whom he had three daughters; your parture I went unto my Lord Treasurer with Lordship's acquittance for your £100; and, when he read it, he said that would do him no pleasure unless he had a special warrant from the Queen. I answered him to that as I thought requisite ; and thereupon he commanded me to give my attendance on the day following, and he would move the whole Council for a special warrant to be directed to him for the payment of the said sum unto your Lordship, and, further, shew them that you had left a servant here for the receipt thereof; and when I came unto his Lordship on the other day, he willed me to come unto him on the morrow; and so every day, from morrow to morrow, he commands me to wait upon him, and nothing done in the matter; so that hitherto I can do nothing but wait upon his Lordship. I delivered him your rental of your tenements in London, and he said he would do the best he could in that matter. Frances, married to Sir Francis Leake, of Sutton in Derbyshire; Mary, to Francis Wortley, of Wortley; and Anne, to Richard Jessop, of Broomhall, both in Yorkshire. These coheiresses carried considerable estates into the families of their respective husbands, but much of their father's property went by entail to William, his younger brother, whose descendant, Barnham Swift, was created Viscount Carlingford, of Ireland, and left an only child, Mary, his heir, who in the decline of life married a person much younger than herself, and well known in the gay Court of Charles II. by the appellation of Beau, or Handsome Fielding; who, after her death in 1682, sold and dissipated the whole fortune of the Swift family. These particulars were obtained from the MS. collection of my valuable and ingenious friend J. C. Brooke, Esq., Somerset Herald, and F. S. A. to whom I am indebted for several other communications relative to Yorkshire families. |