bled themselves in Rochester, and there keep the passage. For this news, for this time, I thought good to signify unto your Lordship and as the rest shall succeed you shall hear so shortly as I can tell you. As knows God, who keep my Lady and your Lordship in good health, 28th of January, 1553, Your Lordship's own, H. ARUNDEL. Henry Fitz Alan, tenth and last Earl of Arundel of that very ancient house; Governor of Calais, and Lord Chamberlain to Henry VIII. President of the Council under Mary; Steward of the Household to that Princess and her successor, and Chancellor of the University of Oxford. This peer was distinguished by the two leading features of the character of an English nobleman in more remote times; a simplicity of conduct, derived from conscious integrity, and a vast ambition, founded on his high rank and great riches. He was one of the few powerful men who in the late reign adhered to the Protector to the last, and was therefore, under frivolous pretences, vexed with a fine of £12,000, an injury for which he afterwards obtained ample revenge, for he was the first mover in the convention of nobles against Lady Jane Grey's title, and was soon after appointed by the Queen to seize the person of the Duke of Northumberland, his mortal enemy. Somewhat late in life, he made a proposal of marriage to Elizabeth, which being refused, he desired leave to travel (see a letter of December 11, 1565), and remained abroad for some years. The disgust excited by this denial induced him to oppose the measures of the Court after his return. He publicly condemned the projected match with the Duke of Anjou, became a professed enemy to Cecil and Leicester, and an active party in the Duke of Norfolk's plans with regard to the Queen of Scots. The unhappy consequences of the latter probably gave him a distaste to public life, for he is not mentioned in history after that period. He died in March, 1579-80, and was buried at Arundel. The Earl of Arundel married, first, Katherine, daughter of Thomas Grey, second Marquis of Dorset, by whom he had three children: Henry, who died at Brussels, unmarried; Joan, married to Lord Lumley; and Mary, to Thomas Duke of Norfolk; in right of descent from whose son, Philip, first Earl of Arundel of the Howards, the present Duke of Norfolk holds that remarkable Earldom by the possession of the manor and castle of Arundel; the only peerage of that nature in England, and which hath had 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. 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, SW YFT.* 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; |