The Strife of the Roses and Days of the Tudors in the West

Extinct, for the White Rose

Leaving the antient town of Colyton by its south-western approach, the broad turnpike-road that leads over the hill to Sidmouth, at about half-a-mile’s distance up its ascent, a turn to the right takes us into the trackway of a winding and somewhat narrow Devonshire lane. A pleasant prospect opens across the valley below, through which the Coly sparkles along with sinuous course, and immediately in the mid-distance appears the old ruinous cradle of the Courtenay family, Colcombe Castle, grey-walled, ivy-clad, and orchard environed. Beyond and just under the further fir-topped hill-line, another grey dot strugglingly emerges from among the dense garnishing of foliage that surrounds it, and shews us what remains of old Shute House, while to its left, across the far valley, rises the beautiful tree-crested acclivity of Shute Park; localities of special importance pertinent to the interest of our little narrative, to be referred to by and by. In front a delightful and typical Devonian landscape extends itself. Sprinkled over with the deserted homes of the olden lesser squirearchy, the antient lords of the vale, and picturesquely varied alternate with copse, plantations, and well-timbered hedgerow, the two valleys of the Coly and the Brinkly bifurcate just at this point, meeting under the shadow of the remarkable pyramid-shaped hill, Waddon Pen, and then stretch away, variously broken into lesser knoll and vale, until lost in the misty outline of the high, far-distant curtain of the Farway hills, with their tiny clumps of trees that just break the even contour, and stand like sentinels on the rampart-appearanced outline against the grey sky. They recall also for the moment to the historic memory, the burthen of a pleasant story, connected with its breezy, and comparatively unfrequented altitude, one of the numberless traditions that throng the hills and vales of the olden region of the Danmonii.

A rest for awhile on the parapet of the bridge spanning the little Morganhayes brook, hastening to join the Coly a few fields’ distance below; a rivulet whose banks at Spring time are almost fairy-land with abundance of some of our finest wild flowers, broad stretches of daffodils, myriads of white-starred anemones, gleams of pale primroses and bleached lady-smocks, and sheen of golden-cups in their succession, but specially, when uncertain April brings her tears and sunshine, the haunt of the most gorgeous of them all

THE MEADOW RANUNCULUS.

Close by the rippling streams’ translucent marge,
Ranunculus of gold,
Bright to the sun in constellation large,
Thy glowing stars unfold

’Mid all the wealth Spring scatters without stint,
By meadow, bank or stream,
Gay daffodil, or king-cup’s myriad glint,
Spread like a golden dream;—

She brings no rival whose attractions may
With thee in all compare,
Brave thy full beauty in its strong array,
And matchless clusters dare.

No, nor sweet Summer when adown the land
Her flower-sprent steps incline,
Bearing the sceptred iris in her hand,

—
The glory still is thine.

Continuing our pilgrimage, about a mile’s distance further brings us to a bridge spanning another small stream, also flowing down to meet the Coly below at a place appropriately named Bournehayne, and immediately at the entrance of the little village of Southleigh. Passing under the shadow of some fine old yews, our steps lead up a little acclivity to the left, into the churchyard. There we halt for a minute to scan the Willoughby tomb, with its grand escutcheon and uncouth caligraphy, and then look inside the little sanctuary, where, owing to the necessity of almost entire rebuilding, only one monument of importance remains, preserved in the chancel, to be further referred to in the course of our little story. On the porch threshold the eye is arrested momentarily by an almost obliterated seventeenth-century flat stone, bearing the still-traceable yeoman-gentleman name of Starre of Beer, and the fragment of another leaning against a grave near, of contemporary date, inscribed with the patronymic of Clode—a name still existent in the parish,—and whose earthly calling is described as ‘goldsmith,’ a strange vocation to find chronicled here in this rural vale, and the memorial probably of one who practised the craft in busier scenes elsewhere, and returned to his native parish, when he finally laid down burnisher and graver, to find his last resting-place.

Down a small meadow below the church, to the rill we crossed on entering the hamlet, and our path inclines along its banks up the valley through which it flows, and a right pleasant vale it is, flanked on the left by extensive plantations of almost every species of useful conifer, which stretch down, exhibiting great luxuriance of growth, their different habits finely contrasting, and adding the great charm of variety; while the opposite ascent is also picturesquely wooded with ordinary foliage. So we leisurely continue a full mile or more, when the valley somewhat expands. Here some fine trees are scattered park-like in appearance around, with a small modern mansion in their midst, and this brings us to our present destination.

Who would imagine, viewing the peace and retirement of this delightful rural solitude, so far removed from the ken and the movements of busy, anxious, restless, ambitious man, and where only the voice of the thrush, the flicker of the butterfly, the hum of the bee, the rustle of the coney, the song of the lark, the bleating of the flock, or the low of the kine, is seen or heard, that a story of wondrous historic interest and significance “take hys begynnyng” from this spot? Yet an apt symbol of how small and comparatively unknown beginnings, at times end in being engrafted into the largest results, lies close beside us. Who shall predict the ultimate destiny of the humble ripple of water that sparkles along at our feet? Down through this valley it hastens to the Coly, then on to join the larger Axe, thence to mingle with the salt tide and be merged in the blue expanse of the Channel, and finally be found adding its tiny tribute to the grandeur of the great Atlantic.

As of the stream, so of the story that has origin here on its banks, and from him who was one of the earliest settlers thereon, back in the twilight of the days of the early Plantagenets, when a country gentleman with no recorded pretension to influence or fame, beyond the inalienable witness of Norman descent, betrayed by his name, to this place found his way and fixed his abode. After sundry generations the descendants of his race, although still holding their original home here, travelled far afield, away from the quietude and peace of these sylvan scenes, lured into the dangerous path of ambition, and became prominent actors in the great, stirring, troublous drama of mediæval English history, as active and devoted partizans in the contending factions, fighting to the death amid the strife of its kings, and shedding their blood unstintedly in the conflict. Then followed the great but dangerous honour of kinship with royalty and its fatal glamour, culminating at last in their aspiration to the possession of the crown itself, with the result, finally, of laying one of their last and most guileless representatives, headless on the steps of the throne to which they laid claim. A relation of real incidents that needs no garnishing of romance to enhance its extraordinary interest.

Wiscombe,—Wescombe, probably originally West-combe, is the name given to these historic precincts. The very earliest mention of its ownership assigns it as among the possessions of the Abbey of St. Michael de Monte, in periculo maris, in Normandy, and was at the beginning of the thirteenth century held of its Abbot by Roger de Daldich, of the family of Daldich of East-Budleigh. After awhile came a change of ownership, and then we get the first mention of the name of the family, the outline of whose succeeding generations we propose to attempt, albeit imperfectly, to chronicle. A story, nevertheless, of surpassing interest, even among the crowd of great traditions that form the historic heritage of the famed county of Devon.

This was, according to Pole, its grant, or sale, with the reservation of twenty shillings yearly rent, “about ye middest of the raigne of kinge Henry III.,” by the aforesaid Abbot and Roger de Daldich to Nicholas de Bonville, evidently a gentleman of that era, and whose name—de bonne ville—‘of the fair or good village’—unmistakably pointed to the original birthplace of his family, as being found in the land immediately beyond the southern sea, from which his ancestor doubtless also migrated in the train of the Conqueror.

All we know of the life of this Nicholas de Bonville, presumably the first of his name as possessor of Wiscombe, is that he married a lady named Amicia, and it was probably he, who in accordance with the religious custom of the age, was the donor of a rent-charge at ‘Tuddesheye,’ now Studhayes, in Kilmington, to the Abbey of Newenham, in the adjoining valley of the Axe, and in its Conventual church was buried, as described by Mr. Davidson, “lastly against the north wall of the choir, lay Sir Nicholas Bonville, a benefactor to the abbey who died in 1266.”11 He left a son named William.

But according to another account of the early generations of Bonville, the first recorded was Nicholas Bonville who was living in 1199. To him his son William Bonville (not Nicholas), who married Amicia, did homage for lands in Somerset, 6 Feb., 1265, and was succeeded by his son William, who married Joan, a widow.12

William Bonville wedded a lady named Joan,—in a list of the Guild Merchants of the antient borough of Totnes, dated 1260, and still preserved, the third name that occurs is Will’s de Boneuille, but whether to be identified with an owner of Wiscombe of that name, may not be determined, but the era accords. Of him we learn nothing further beyond the date of his death 2 Edward I., 1273; and that he was succeeded by his son Nicholas.

Nicholas de Bonville was styled also “of Shute,” by right of his wife Elizabeth de Pyne, of whom and her dower a few words.

The first recorded owners of Shute, and from whom it received its name, were Sir Lucas and Sir Robert de Schete, who held it early in the reign of Henry III. From them it passed to Sir Robert and Sir Thomas de Pyne, of the “antient progeny” of Pyne in east Devon. Sir Thomas who was Sheriff of Devon 56 Henry III., and successively 6, 9, and 10 Edward I., at his death left two daughters coheiresses. One of these distaffs, Matilda (otherwise Hawise), wedded Nicholas de Bonville of Wiscombe, to whom she brought Shute as her portion. “In this place (Shute) the famylye of Bonvill,” says Pole, “made their principall dwellinge, which had (longe before this Nicholas had the mansion howse, and mannor of Shute) divers lands within Shute, namely Sir Nicholas Bonvill (his grandfather) had Leggeshayes, and other lands their, his dwellinge beinge at yt tyme at Wiscombe.” The policy of this marriage is therefore apparent. Himself and wife appear to have both died the same year, 23 Edward I., 1295. They left a son and heir named Nicholas, and another son John, who married Joan, daughter of Waryn Hampton of Musbury, and she married secondly John Sachville, and thirdly John Faringdon of Faringdon.

Sir Nicholas Bonville of Shute and Wiscombe, married Johanna, daughter of Sir Henry Champernon of Clyst-Champernon (who died in 1320), by his wife Johanna daughter of Henry Bodrugan. He was two years old only at his father’s death, but the date of his own decease does not appear. There were four children, of whom Sir William was the eldest son and successor.

Alexander, the second son, married Hawise, daughter of Henry de la Forde in Musbury, and had a son Nicholas, styled “of Forde,” whose daughter Edith, married Richard Okebeare, through whose descendant, Pole, afterward of Shute, was the representative, before he purchased the Bonville’s forfeited inheritance, and through whom they quarter the arms of de la Forde; Sable, a poppy with roots and fruit or, and Bonville.

Isabel, who married Sir Roger de Nonant of Broad-Clyst, and last of that name; they left two daughters, Alice who married John Beauchamp of Ryme, and Eleanor. The beautiful monument with effigy in Broad-Clyst church is supposed to represent this knight, who reclines in a recess on the south side of the chancel, and is clad in plate armour with bascinet, mail-gorget, surcoat, and ornamented baudrick. The feet rest on a lion, the head on a tilting helmet, and angels are at the shoulders. A richly foliated canopy of screen-like character fronts the figure on the side toward the church.

Anne, the second daughter became a nun at Wherwell.

Sir William Bonville, of Shute, “a very sweet and noble seat, adorned in those days (as it still is) with a fair park and large demesnes,” the first prominent representative of this family, and who added greatly to its social status, was a wealthy and munificent man. He married first Margaret, daughter and coheiress of Sir William d’Aumarle of Woodbury, Devon, who died 15 Nov., 1361, by his wife Agnes de Meriet, daughter of George de Meriet, of Merriot, Somerset. By her he had four sons, and two daughters. She died 13 May, 1399.

Early in the succeeding century Sir William married secondly Alice (whose surname has not been recovered), widow of Sir John Rodney, who died 19 Dec, 1400. Sir William Bonville was her fifth spouse, for she had wedded three husbands previous to Sir John Rodney. Firstly, John Fitz-Roger, lord of the manor of Chewton-Mendip, Somerset; by whom she had a daughter, Elizabeth, who married John Bonville, her last husband’s eldest son by his first wife; secondly, she married Sir Edmond de Clyvedon, of Clyvedon, Somerset, who died 13 Jany., 1375-6; and thirdly, as his second wife, Sir Ralph Carminow of Menheniot, Cornwall, who deceased 9 Oct., 1386. Sir Ralph who is said to have been “by a brase of Greyhounds pulled over a Cliff and died,” was buried in Menheniot church, where there is a small brass,—probably the earliest remaining in Cornwall—to his memory, thus inscribed,—

Orate pro anima domini Radulphi Carmynow militis, cuius anime propicietur deus Amen.

Lady Alice Bonville survived all her husbands nearly twenty years, and died 27 March, 1426.

A glance at the numerous ventures of this much-married lady will give the uninitiated in the study of genealogy some idea of the difficulties which beset it, in sifting, tracing, and separating the tangle of relationship that wove together the leading families of the west during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. It was the custom to marry very early in life, often at fifteen or sixteen, and that short widowhoods and remarriage almost invariably followed decease on either side, and not uncommonly resulting further also, in the children of the previous marriages matching together, a “matter of mere attorneyship,” probably in many cases entered into to consolidate the family estates.

Beside his “mansion howse” at Shute, which was his principal residence, Sir William, as was usual, had a town house or hotel, in the parish of the Holy Trinity, Exeter. On 17 April, 1404, Bishop Stafford licensed John Govys rector of Holy Trinity, as the parish church was being rebuilt at the time, “ut in aula infra mansum domini Willelmi Bonevyle, militis, infra parochiam dicte ecclesie Sancte Trinitatis situatum, divina possis celebrare, ac per presbiteros ydoneos facere celebrari, necnon parochianis tuis quibuscumque Sacramenta et Sacramentalia conferre et ministrare valeas.”

Of Sir William’s sons, Richard the eldest died without issue before 1397. John the second son became his father’s heir and successor.

Thomas Bonville, third son, married Cicely, daughter of Sir John Stretche of Sampford-Arundell, Somerset, who died 6 Aug., 1390, by his wife Katharine daughter of Sir John Beaumont, of Sherwill, North Devon. They had two sons, William who died 28 Aug., 1412, and John in 1426. Both were styled “of Merriot, Somerset,” property that descended to them through their great-grandmother, and died without issue. He, Thomas, died about 1401, and his widow soon after married Sir William Cheney of Broke, Wilts, and died 18 Oct., 1430.13

William, the fourth son, died without issue; we hear nothing of him beyond his being a witness to his stepmother’s will.

Katharine, the eldest daughter, married first Sir John Cobham, of Blackborough, Devon, by whom she had a daughter Elizabeth, married to Walter Charleton. Secondly she married John Wyke of Nynehead-Florey, Somerset, and thirdly Humphry Stafford of Grafton, Worcestershire. She died 1 Aug., 1416.

Elizabeth, second daughter, married about 1390, Sir Thomas Carew of Ottery-Mohun, who died 25 Jan., 1431. She died 8 Feb., 1450-1.

Sir William who was Sheriff of Devon 13 Richard II., 1400, died on 14 Feb., 1407-8, and was buried before the great Cross in the choir of Newenham Abbey Church. Beside him was afterward laid Alice his second wife. This was during the abbacy of Leonard Houndalre, who presided over the Community 1402-13.

He bequeaths by his will,—a very long document written in French,—and made

“on the Saturday next before the feast of the Assumption of our Lady, 1404, my body to be buried before the High Cross of the church of Newenham; to Alice my consort my mansion at Exeter for her life, all my books, vestments with other apparel belonging to my chapel, all kinds of necessaries belonging to my hall, chambers, pantry, buttery, kitchen and fish-pond, within my manor of Shute, and all other chattels on my manors of Wescombe, &c., &c., elsewhere, 100 marks in money, and the half of my silver vessels, &c.; 100 marks, to assist in making and repairing the bridges and roads that are weak and fallen within my lordships of Devon and Somerset; to alienate by mortmain 50 marks of land and of rent per year for a Maison Dieu in Combestreet at Exeter, for 12 poor men and women to be lodged there always, also 300 marks to the said Maison Dieu in honour of God, and to sustain the said house, and the aforesaid poor men and women, all my rents in Exeter, except my mansion;—to Dame Anne Bonville, nun of Wherwell, 10 marks, a hanapp (drinking cup) with silver cover, and my best hoppelond (great coat) with the fur. To William my son 200 marks to assist him in getting married; to Thomas son of John Bonville £20 in money; to John son of Thomas Bonville to assist him in getting married 100 marks. To my daughter Dame Katharine Cobham £20; to my daughter Dame Elizabeth Carew, £20. I devise that all my debts be duly and fully paid, and if any offences or extortions by me have been committed against any persons I will that they be restored to them, according to the greatness of the offence; 24 torches of wax, and 24 poor men be clothed the day of the interment of my body, and to other poor people coming on the day of my burial £10, that each who comes may have one penny; and that my mansion and my retinue be kept just as it is for one quarter of a year after my death. Appoints Alice my consort, and six clerks executors; Monsieur Thomas Brooke and John Strecch, surveyors; nothing to be done without the counsel and assent of the said surveyors.”

There is also included a very large number of religious bequests to pray for the good estate of his soul, at various places, and legacies in money and kind, to the poor on his extensive estates.

John Bonville, son and heir of Sir William and Margaret d’Aumarle, married Elizabeth, only child and heiress of John Fitz-Roger, daughter of the first husband of his father’s second wife. She was heiress-general to the Fitz-Rogers and brought the manor of Chewton-Mendip, near Wells, Somerset, and much other property into the family. In the south aisle of the chancel of Chewton-Mendip church, on a high-tomb are the recumbent effigies of a knight and lady,—the knight in chain and plate armour, with bascinet, mail-gorget, baudrick and spurs. On his surcoat are embroidered three lions rampant, the arms of Fitz-Roger. The lady is in long robe, wimple and cover-chief. The armour and costume are assignable to this era. John Bonville had two sons, William eldest and heir, Thomas, and one daughter Isabel.

Thomas the second son, who was Sheriff of Cornwall, married first Johanna eldest daughter of Hugh de St. John, eldest son of Thomas de Poynings, Lord St. John of Basing, by his wife Elizabeth daughter of Martyn Ferrers of Beer-Ferrers. By her he had one son John. Secondly, he married Leva, daughter and heir of John Gorges of Tamerton-Foliot, Devon, and widow of John Wibbery. She died 16 Dec, 1461. Thomas died 11 Feb., 1467.

John Bonville son of Thomas, married first Johanna Wibbery daughter of his father’s second wife, by her first husband John Wibbery. By her he had two daughters, Anne married to Philip Coplestone, and Joanne married to John Elliot of Coteland. Secondly, he married Katharine, by whom he had two daughters, Florence who married first Sir Humphry Fulford, K.B., and secondly, Thomas Hext; and Elizabeth who married Thomas West, Lord Delawarr. John Bonville died 24 Aug., 1494.

Isabel, only daughter of John Bonville, son and heir of William Bonville, married Sir Richard Champernowne of Modbury, son of Sir Richard Champernowne, who died 26 Feb., 1418-19, and Katharine daughter of Sir Giles Daubeney, and who were both buried at Dodbrooke, near Kingsbridge.

John Bonville, her father, died in the lifetime of his father, 21 Oct., 1396, and Elizabeth Fitz-Roger, his widow, married secondly Sir Richard Stuckley of Trent, Somerset.

Leland thus speaks of the “maner places” of the Bonvilles, Wiscombe, and Shute:—

“on the west part, over an hille byyond Seton is Wiscombe, a fair maner place, sumtyme the Lord Bonvilles; now longging to the Marquise of Dorsete. The parkes and maner places of Wischum and Shoute abowte Axminster in Devonshire were the Lord Bonevilles, and after a knightes of that name or ever they came to the Marquis of Dorsetes hand.”

In Sir William Bonville, the eldest son of John Bonville and Elizabeth Fitz-Roger, we reach the most celebrated individual of his race, and practically the last male in the direct line, as his son and grandson died in his lifetime. His father having died in 1396, when he was quite a child, and his mother being married again to Richard Stuckley, it is probable the boy was in the custody of his grandfather at Shute up to his death in 1407, and subsequently in the guardianship of his step-grandmother the Lady Alice until his coming of age, and taking possession of his large property in 1414, which year his mother died, but his step-grandmother lived twelve years afterward, dying in 1426.

The particulars as to the birth and baptism of this wealthy and unfortunate man, as they were deposed to by the witnesses appearing before the escheator at the enquiry held to make proofs as to his coming of age, are very homely and interesting.14 This was taken at Honiton on “Tuesday, All Hallow’s Eve, in the first year of the reign of King Henry the Fifth after the Conquest, before Henry Foleford, the Lord the King’s Escheator in the county of Devon.” Numerous witnesses were examined, and John Cokesdene and two others deposed,—

“that William the son of John, is of the age of 21 years and upwards, having been born at Shute, on the last day of August in the 16th year of the reign of the Lord Richard, late King of England, the Second after the Conquest (1393), and baptized in the parish church of the same vill on the same day about the hour of vespers. And this they well know to be true, as they the said jurors were, on the said last day of August, together elected at Honiton, on a certain ‘Love Day’ to make peace between two of their neighbours, and on that very day there came there a certain Lady Katharine, widow of Sir John Cobham, knight, and then wife of John Wyke of Nynhyde, an aunt of the said William the son of John, proposing to drive to Shute, thinking that she should be Godmother to the said infant, and met there a certain Edward Dygher, servant to the said Sir William Bonevile, who was reputed to be half-witted in consequence of his being loquacious and jocular, and who asked her whither she was going. Who answering quickly said: ‘Fool, to Shute to see my nephew made a Christian,’ to which the said Edward replied, with a grin, in his mother tongue, ‘Kate, Kate, ther to by myn pate comystow to late,’ meaning thereby that the baptism of the child was already over. Whereupon she mounted upon her horse in a passion, and rode home in deep anger, vowing that she would not see her sister, to wit the said child’s mother, for the next six months, albeit she should be in extremis and die.”

Thus much for the Lady Katharine’s appearance, her disappointment and displeasure at not being able to be present at the child’s baptism, although she had adjournied so far for that purpose, and her immediate return. Then a certain John Prentys and two others testify that

“all the matters as to the said Lady Katharine are true, inasmuch as the whole took place in the said John Prentys’ house, where they themselves were present at the time, and saw and heard all.”

Then comes an interesting testimony shewing the lord of Shute still kept full interest in the older home of the family at Wiscombe, and at the date of his grandson’s birth was engaged near there in a business transaction with squire Walrond of Bovey, living thereby. Richard Lutrell and John Prustes relate,—

“on that day Sir William Bonevile was at his manor of Southleigh busy in setting up certain boundary marks between a parcel of his own land called Borcombe to the same manor belonging, and the land of one William Walrond, on which occasion the aforesaid Richard and John were present at the special request of the said Sir William Bonevile. And then and there came Andrew Ryden, a servant of the same Sir William, and told his master that his son John had a son born to him, upon hearing which the said Sir William rejoicing exceedingly lifted up his hands, and thanked God, and immediately mounting upon his horse rode home.”

Following this is the evidence of those who witnessed the ceremony of the christening in the little church on that summer evening, William Hodesfelde, and Richard Damarle, probably a relative of the child’s grandmother. They also speak of the grandfather’s delight and the present he made his grandson thereon, and say,

“they were present in the said church on that day at the time of the solemnization of the baptism of the said William the son of John, to hear vespers, and as soon as the ceremony was over there came one Walter Walsche, the said William Bonevile’s bailiff of his manor of Stapyldon in the county of Somerset, and told his master that he had well and finally completed the autumn gathering, both of his said manor of Stapyldon and his manor of Sokke, and had brought with him 400 lambs of that year’s produce of the manor of Sokke aforesaid, of which said lambs the said William Bonevile immediately gave 200 to the said infant then and there baptized.”

Finally we get the information as to who were the child’s sponsors and of the high ecclesiastic who was one of them, and doubtless came across specially from Newenham Abbey to perform the ceremony, making his distinguished godson a commensurate present. Thomas Bowyer and Ralph Northampton remember

“that they were personally present in the said church, and saw there three long torches burning, and two silver basins, with two silver ewers full of water, John Legge then Abbot of Newenham and Sir William Bonevile being the godfathers and Agnes Bygode the godmother of the same child, upon whom the said Abbot there bestowed a silver gilt cup of the value, as it was said, of 100 shillings, with 40 shillings in money told, contained in the same, which as it appeared to them was the most beautiful they had ever beheld in a like case.”

Poor child! The lambs bleating outside, and the glittering gift cup,—“the most beautiful they had ever beheld,”—and filled with silver pieces! The costly christening vessels and flaming torches, the abbot in his robes, the knights and ladies in their splendid apparel, the clustering parishioners gathered round, curiously and respectfully to witness the baptism of the heir, and the solemn evening twilight softly stealing through the casements of the little sanctuary. What a suggestive picture of country wealth and peace thus surrounding the first hours of the child, and what a contrast to the scene that was destined to environ that child’s last hours, of whose bitterness, what seer, had he been then present, would have been bold enough to predicate? When crushed by misfortune, his son and grandson having fallen by the sword before his eyes a few weeks previously, and although bowed by age, yet still attracted by the glamour of the deadly conflict,—far away from these happy precincts, with a captive king in his keeping as a ransom, but powerless to save him,—he stood an unfriended prisoner alone in the hands of a relentless enemy, surrounded by the ghastly wrecks of a battlefield, and then hastily perished amid the ghastlier paraphernalia of the scaffold, the axe and block, the executioner in his mask and the jeering soldiery. With what boundless mercy are the ultimate issues of these lives of ours hidden from us!

Being in possession of his large property, it was not likely that a young man of his distinguished station, in those stirring times should long remain “with idle hands at home.” Accordingly we find him three years afterward, in 1418, employed in the military service of his country, for “being then a knight” he proceeded to France in the retinue of Thomas, Duke of Clarence, brother to Henry V., in that king’s expedition to Normandy. In the first year of Henry VI., 1422, he served the office of Sheriff of Devon.

In 1428 we get an interesting incident recorded, of amenities passing between Sir William and his neighbour the Lady Joan Brooke, widow of Sir Thomas Brooke, of Weycroft, near Axminster, and Holditch Court, Thorncombe, “on the 14th April of that year Nicholas Wysbeche, Abbot of Newenham,” says Mr. Davidson,

“was appointed with five of his neighbours a mediator in a dispute between Sir William Bonville of Shute, and Joan widow of Sir Thomas Brooke, arising from the obstruction of several public roads and paths in the formation and enclosure of the park at Weycroft by the lady and her son. The transcript of an instrument has been preserved which recites the circumstances of the case at great length, and concludes with an award, which as the abbot was nominated by the lady Brooke, does credit to his justice as an umpire, as well as to his hospitality; for after deciding on every point in favour of Sir William Bonville, and directing all the ways in question to be thrown open to the public, that the knight and the lady should ride amicably together to Newenham Abbey on a day appointed, where they should exchange a kiss in token of peace and friendship and dine together at the abbot’s table. The deed is dated at Axminster 13 August, 1428.”

The brass effigies of Sir Thomas and his lady are in Thorncombe church, still very perfect.

Amicably and pleasantly settled, and justly too withal by the good Abbot Wysbeche, and with proper regard to the rights of way exercised by the public at large, which seem to have been duly cared for and protected by the lord of Shute.

Nearly fourteen years now elapse before we hear further of him, and then in 1442, he appears to have held a maritime command, and “sailed from Plymouth to Bordeaux with twenty-five ships and four thousand men,” and the year following was employed on land service, being “retained by indenture to serve the king a whole year with twenty men at arms, and six hundred archers, and was made Seneschal of Acquitaine.”

In 1449, he was commissioned “to serve the king upon the sea, for the cleansing of robbers and pirates,” and the same year he held Taunton Castle, but was compelled to surrender it to the Duke of York. In 1450 a letter was sent to him amongst others, by the king requesting help for the preservation of Lower Normandy from the French.

Doubtless in consideration of these military and other services, actively and faithfully rendered to Henry VI., he was by that king raised to the honour of the peerage, by writ of summons dated 23 September, 1449,—26 Henry VI.,—to Parliament by the title of Baron Bonville of Chewton (from Chewton-Mendip in Somerset), where he inherited a large property, derived from his mother as heiress of the Fitz-Rogers. He was also created a Knight of The Garter, being the one hundred and eighteenth in the succession of that noble Order.

In 1453 he was ordered to France with a force sent for the relief of Guienne. While there it is probable he was a participator in the engagement wherein the gallant Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, lost his life. The same year “in consideration of his further services he was constituted Governor of the Castle of Exeter, and the year following, 1454, made Lieutenant of Acquitaine.”

From this partial relation of his public services, our thoughts wander for a time, to the domestic surroundings of his home life.

Lord Bonville married first a lady named Margaret, but who she was the labours of investigators have as yet failed to discover. By her he had one son, William, and two daughters,—Philippa, who married William Grenville, brother to Sir John, and second son of Sir Theobald Grenville, by Margaret daughter of Sir Hugh Courtenay of Haccombe, by his third wife Matilda daughter of Sir John Beaumont, and was thus grandson to Earl Hugh and Margaret Bohun of Colcombe,—and Margaret, second daughter, who married Sir William Courtenay of Powderham, Sheriff of Devon in 1483, and who died in 1485.

Lord Bonville wedded secondly, Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Courtenay, third Earl of Devon, known as “the blind Earl,” who died in 1419, and was presumably buried at Ford Abbey; by his wife Matilda, daughter of Thomas Lord Camoys. She was then the widow of Sir John Harington, fourth Baron Harington of Aldingham in the County of Lancaster, and who died 11 Feb., 1417-18. She died 28 October, 1471, thus surviving her second husband ten years, and her first husband fifty-three years!—and was probably buried with her first husband in Porlock church, where they founded a perpetual Chantry, and where their splendid tomb still exists, with effigies recumbent; moved probably from its antient position, and now much shorn by time and ill usage of its original glory, but still displaying ample evidence of the taste and skill of the mediæval craftsman. By his second marriage Lord Bonville left no issue.

The figures on the monument at Porlock are sculptured in alabaster, and Lady Harington-Bonville wears cote-hardie and gown, with mantle over, fastened across the breast by cordon and tassels. Around the hips is a rich cincture, and a double chain with dependant jewel encircles the neck. The head-dress is horned, the hair secured in a reticulated caul splendidly embroidered, and with jewelled ornaments filling the interstices. Just over the brow is a band-coronet, studded with pearls and crested by fleurs-de-lys, and her fingers are ornamented with rings. Angels support the cushions on which her head rests, and an animal, probably intended for a boar, as allusive to her family, is at her feet. Lord Harington is in plate armour, orle around his bascinet, plate gorget, large epaulières with deeply scolloped terminations, diagonally placed sword-belt with sword, rich baudrick across the hips with anelace, small tuilles, gauntlets, and about his neck a chain of ornamented link-work, with the usual trefoil clasp and small pendant. The head reclines on a helmet with crest of a lion’s head couped at the shoulders, and angels were originally on each side supporting it. The feet rest on a lion. The armour is of an interesting character, and of later date than that worn at the death of the knight, being referable to what was in use about the middle of the fifteenth century, accounted for by the appearance of his wife by his side, who survived him more than half a century. There is a fine canopy over the effigies.

We broke off our little personal history in the year 1454, when presumably Lord Bonville had returned from Aquitaine, of which province he had been made Lieutenant. The next glimpse we get of him is in the year following, and the incident, that brings him before us, is quite in keeping with the belligerent spirit of the times, and which seems to have invaded both public and private life at this turbulent and lawless era. The old historian, Westcote, gives a succinct outline of this remarkable quarrel,

“In this parish (Colyton) are yet remaining the two antient seats of two illustrious families, Colcombe of Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire, and Shute alias Sheet, of the Lord Bonvile; each of them having their parks and large lati-funds (broad-acres), but seldom any good neighbourhood, familiarity, or friendship between them. This emulation increased at length to a quarrel, and eagerly taken a both sides, about a couple of dogs, or hounds, if you will, which could not by any mediation of friends, or intercession of their equals, be qualified or appeased, until it was valiantly tried in a single combat (which is now by a fitter word termed a duel,) upon Clist-Heath, which manfully and constantly performed by both parties, and after they had well tried one the other’s strength and valour, and with their sharp swords, they at last lovingly agreed and embraced each other, and ever after there continued great love and amity between them.”

Shute was antiently part of Colyton, its church being a dependant chapelry,—it now forms a distinct parish.

A very singular spectacle, this valiant performance, between these noble neighbours, and ending according to the gossiping topographer in genuine three-volume style. Dugdale says, Lord Bonville had the best of the encounter, and Prince, after narrating the bellicose transaction and “the great love and amity” said to have existed between the combatants afterward, naïvely adds, “which I can hardly believe for a reason, which hereafter may be observed in reference to this Lord.” Cleaveland however gives probably the truer version of its cause, observing

“But Hollingshed and others do say, that several men on both sides were slain in the quarrel, and that the Lord Bonvile prevailed and went to Exeter, and had the gates opened to him. And this is most likely to be true, for there was a great animosity between those two great men, before this quarrel happened, they being engaged in different parties; the Earl of Devonshire was zealous for the house of Lancaster, and the Lord Bonvile for the house of York, and the civil war between these houses did then begin to break out, and no wonder the city of Exeter opened its gates, to the Lord Bonvile, for the Duke of York had at that time all the power in his hands, and no doubt the city favoured those of the prevailing side. But whoever had the better of it in this quarrel, both the Earl of Devonshire and Lord Bonvile were great sufferers by that bloody and unnatural war, for the Earl’s three sons, successively Earls of Devon, lost their lives for that quarrel for the house of Lancaster, and it is said by some the Earl himself came to an untimely end by it. And the Lord Bonvile lost both his son and grandson in the battle of Wakefield, and the Lord himself was put to death after the second battle of St. Alban’s. The Earl’s family became extinct as to the first branch of that illustrious house, and the Lord Bonvile’s became wholly extinct.”

A large and melancholy history in a few lines, and a pertinent illustration of the effects and horrors of civil war, but this new position of affairs requires careful scrutiny, as far as the slender means at disposal afford.

Up to 1454, at least, Lord Bonville’s allegiance must have been true to the interests of the king, Henry VI. He had been employed, as would be usual with men of his position and military aptitude, in the warlike expeditions of the time abroad, and in the command of the forces on land and sea, at home. In this respect he was evidently esteemed an able and trusted servant, and the king had rewarded these services by conferring on him a peerage, and investing him with the order of the Garter, two of the highest honours at the sovereign’s disposal, and it would be presumable, in view of the foregoing, that Lord Bonville’s sympathies would naturally be on the side of Henry VI., and the cause of the Red Rose, in the bitter conflict then just beginning to be developed.

Although we have no direct testimony to the contrary in the earlier stages of the warfare, as to Lord Bonville’s then actually throwing in his lot with the partizans of the White Rose, still the inferential evidence remaining seems to point to it. The quarrel between Courtenay and himself, although said to be over a couple of dogs,—if it really happened as described,—had its basis probably in the absorbing social questions that then stirred men’s hearts to the deepest. A strange and fierce development of ill-feeling, such as is related, between neighbours and almost relatives of such distinguished station, could scarcely arise except over some very weighty cause. Lord Bonville was then married to the aunt of the Earl Thomas Courtenay he is said to have fought with, and it is also fairly presumable they were close neighbours, living within a mile of each other, the one at Shute and the other at Colcombe. The Earl of Devon had married Margaret Beaufort daughter of John, Earl of Somerset, and grand-daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; three of their children were buried at Colyton, and the beautiful monument in the church is considered to be the memorial of his wife, the Countess Margaret herself, so the Earl and his family must have been in residence there about that time.

Beyond this encounter, presumably begotten through the combatants holding opposite views in the contending factions, we have no direct evidence for four or five years as to Lord Bonville’s active participation in the fortunes of the White Rose.

Before proceeding further, we had better resume our notes as to the family relationships following in Lord Bonville’s domestic circle, and their possible influence eventually on him.

William Bonville, Lord Bonville’s only son by his first wife, was probably born about 1416-17, soon after which date his father wedded his second wife, Elizabeth Courtenay, widow of John, fourth Lord Harington.

He married about 1440, Elizabeth sole daughter and heir of William, fifth and last Lord Harington of Aldingham, who died 3 March, 1458, brother and heir to his stepmother’s first husband. One son, William, was the issue of this marriage; the mother appears to have died in the lifetime of her father, Lord Harington, for at the inq. post mortem following his death, held April, 1458, this grandson William, son of his daughter Elizabeth, was found his next heir, and then aged 16 years. The above William Bonville, the father, fell at the battle of Wakefield, 31 Dec., 1460, fighting on the side of the White Rose. Between the date of his wife’s father’s death in March, 1458, and his own decease in Dec., 1460, he would by courtesy bear the title of Lord Harington, jure uxoris.

William Bonville, only son of the foregoing William Bonville, jure uxoris Lord Harington, and grandson of Lord Bonville, was born about 1441-2.

He made a distinguished match indeed, having married Katharine, fifth daughter of Sir Richard Nevill, K.G., eldest son of Sir Ralph Nevill, K.G., the first Earl of Westmoreland, who died in 1425, by his second wife the Lady Joan Beaufort, daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and Katharine Swynford.

Her mother was the Lady Alice Montacute, daughter and heir of Sir Thomas de Montacute, K.G., Earl of Salisbury, Baron Montacute and Monthermer, who died 1428,—by his wife the Lady Elizabeth Plantagenet, daughter of Thomas, and sister of Edmund, Earl of Kent; and in her father Sir Richard Nevill, was revived in 1442 the title of Earl of Salisbury, and the Baronies of Montacute and Monthermer.

Thus the Lady Katharine Bonville was sister to Richard Nevill, the “great Earl of Warwick, the king-maker,” and aunt to his daughters, the Lady Isabel who married George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward IV., drowned in a butt of malmsey in the Tower, whose son Edward was cruelly beheaded by Henry VII., and whose daughter Margaret, the aged Countess of Salisbury was remorselessly butchered by Henry VIII.; and also to the Lady Anne, married first to Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VI.,—so foully slain by Edward IV. and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, or by their orders, immediately after the battle of Tewkesbury,—and to whom, as that poor prince’s widow, Gloucester, afterward king Richard III., was subsequently married.

The Lady Katharine Bonville was also sister to George Nevill, Bishop of Exeter, between 1455-65,—and afterward Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor. Of this prelate the only remaining remembrance of his ten years’ supervision of the diocese appears on the shield in the east window of Branscombe church.

William Bonville, her husband, only son of William Bonville, Lord Harington jure uxoris,—and grandson of Lord William Bonville, K.G.,—also fell with his father at the battle of Wakefield, fighting on the side of York and the White Rose, and when he could have been scarcely twenty years of age.

He left one infant daughter, Cecilia or Cicely Bonville, at her father’s untimely death probably under a year old.

Lady Katharine Bonville married secondly Sir William de Hastings, the first Lord Hastings of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. He was the eldest son and heir of Sir Leonard de Hastings, who died in 1456, by his wife Alice, daughter of Thomas, Lord Camoys. The career of this prominent man, and his tragic death, form one of the most remarkable episodes in English history, is strangely, but directly interwoven with our little narrative, and the relation of which, however well worn, could not be passed over here.

He acted a conspicuous part in the political events of the time, was a devoted Yorkist, to whom Edward IV. was greatly attached, and who literally heaped appointments, honours, and possessions upon him. He was constituted at various times, Master of the Mint (coining, during his term of office, the first new gold piece, value eight shillings and four pence, called the “Noble”), Steward of numerous Royal manors, and Ranger of Royal Forests,—Constable of Leicester, Nottingham, and several other Castles,—Captain of Calais and its dependencies, Chamberlain of the Exchequer, Lord Chamberlain of the Household, and Chamberlain of Wales. On 26 July, 1461,—1 Edward IV.,—he was created by patent Baron Hastings of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and afterward invested with the dignity of the Garter.

Then comes a curious and special bit of family history, strongly reflecting the habits and policy of the age, that has a most interesting bearing on our annals. On 14 April, 1464, he entered “into an agreement with Dame Elizabeth Grey, late wife of Sir John Grey, knt., son and heir of Edward Grey, late Lord Ferrers, that he should have the wardship of her son Thomas (afterward Marquis of Dorset), on whose part it was stipulated, that he should, within five or six years afterward, marry the eldest daughter of Lord Hastings that might then be living.”

A monstrous arrangement, thus to betroth young people, mere children often, nolens volens, but a very common one at the period. Now it so happened that the mother of Thomas Grey became Queen to Edward IV., and Lord Hastings had married the Lady Katharine Bonville, whose only child by her first husband was Cicely. It is true that by Lord Hastings she subsequently had another daughter, Anne, who married George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, but Cicely Bonville was one of the greatest heiresses in England, which the young man’s mother, the Queen, and her husband, Edward IV., were quite aware of. Thomas Grey, however, Lord Hastings’ ward, who must have been considerably older than Cicely, does not seem to have waited for her, but married first, Anne daughter of Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter,—she however appears to have died sufficiently in time for him to marry Cicely. Lord and Lady Hastings had been legally constituted the guardians of Cicely, together with the custody of her estates, and her coming of age was fixed at sixteen years. Immediately after this, which would be about 1476-7, she appears to have been married to the Marquis, but at the time the “arrangement” for her marriage was entered into by her step-father, Lord Hastings, she could not have been more than four or five years old.

Thus one nice little family compact was negociated, and contained the secret of Cicely’s alliance, which altogether turned out to be happy enough. The agreement of marriage with the eldest daughter of Lord Hastings was thus construed to include his wife’s also, if that was not really intended to be the essence of the contract in the first instance. The step-son of the king was to be married to the step-daughter of his friend and favourite, a rich heiress in her own right and also to the titles of Bonville and Harington.

The ward, or guardianship, of fatherless or orphan children of noble parentage, was a trust practically vested in the king, or crown, and by him was usually given to some Court favourite, being eagerly sought after as a rule, because it generally conferred the almost absolute control both of the ward’s property and future destiny, and of wedding him or her, if desirable, to a child of the guardian nominated. Lord Hastings, from his position and influence, appears to have acquired and exercised this questionable position to the utmost, as will be seen.

For this was only one of the wardships obtained by Lord Hastings, because he had sons as well as daughters to be wedded. He further procured the wardship of Mary, only daughter of Sir Thomas Hungerford, who was tried and beheaded at Salisbury, 8 Edward IV., and entered into an agreement with her mother and step-father, that Edward his son and heir should in due time take her to wife, and in the event of Edward’s death, then George or Richard, the younger brothers. Edward Hastings however lived to marry Mary Hungerford, sole heiress of the elder descent, and to the baronial titles of Hungerford, Bottreaux, Molyns, and Moels, which were afterward revived in his person by Henry VII.

We have mentioned Lord Hastings had one daughter also, by his wife Katharine Neville-Bonville, named Anne, and she had to be provided for. The Marquis of Dorset had been allotted to his step-daughter Cicely Bonville, and therefore from a clause in his will we learn that he had yet another “ward and marriage to him granted,” in the person of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and if George should die, then the contract was to extend to his next brother Thomas. But George lived to marry the young lady. So these family compacts were arranged and went merrily forward. Property, honours, and influence, appear to have been the sole objects of these unnatural arrangements; love and natural predilection not considered at all, and nowhere, being evidently not deemed of the least importance,—marriage being treated in all respects as a “matter of mere attorneyship.” And do not these transactions afford a clue to the amours and intrigues that infested the age? The vengeful results of outraged hearts, and the sure outcome.

Shakspeare well describes this ‘brokerage’ of marriageable maidens, in the fourth act of the third part of Henry VI.—

Hastings. ’Tis better using France than trusting France: Let us be back’d with God, and with the seas, Which he hath given for fence impregnable, And with their helps only defend ourselves; In them, and in ourselves, our safety lies.

Clarence. For this one speech, Lord Hastings well deserves To have the heir of the Lord Hungerford.

King Edward. Ay, what of that? it was my will, and grant; And, for this once, my will shall stand for law.

Gloucester. And yet, methinks, your grace hath not done well, To give the heir and daughter of Lord Scales Unto the brother of your loving bride; She better would have fitted me, or Clarence: But in your bride you bury brotherhood.

Clarence. Or else you would not have bestow’d the heir Of the Lord Bonville on your new wife’s son, And leave your brothers to go speed elsewhere.

King Edward. Alas, poor Clarence! is it for a wife That thou art malcontent? I will provide thee.

Clarence. In choosing for yourself, you show’d your judgment; Which being shallow, you shall give me leave To play the broker in mine own behalf; And, to that end, I shortly mind to leave you.

In 1470 Hastings accompanied Edward IV. in his hasty flight from Lynn, in Norfolk, to Holland, when he also so narrowly escaped capture by the Easterlings, and the king had nothing beyond his “gown lined with martens” to pay the captain of the ship for his voyage. He also returned with that monarch, when he landed at Ravenspur, to reclaim the kingdom,—the place where Henry of Bolingbroke, a century and a half previously, had disembarked to dethrone Richard II. Although his wife’s brother was the ‘king-maker,’ and engaged in the opposite interest, Hastings remained loyal to Edward IV., and at the battle of Barnet, on April 14, which ended so disastrously for Warwick, was one of the king’s principal commanders. So also he took active part in the decisive action at Tewkesbury on 4th of May following. Then comes the darkest episode in this nobleman’s career. The Queen Margaret and her son, the Prince Edward, were made prisoners, and the royal youth was ushered into Edward’s presence, who, flushed with success, ungenerously asked him “How he dared to invade his dominions,” to which question, the answer was proudly but perhaps imprudently given, “To claim my father’s crown and mine own inheritance.” Stung probably by the conscious truth and nobleness of the reply, Edward unmanfully struck the youth on the mouth with his gauntlet, whereon the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, the Lords Hastings and Dorset, taking this as a signal for further violence, hurried the prince away from Edward’s presence, and despatched him with their swords. Pity evaporates over any misfortunes that may overtake men guilty of such deeds as this. In 1474 he got leave from the king to ‘unpark’ some seven thousand acres at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and elsewhere, and to ‘fortify’ his mansions on his different manors, specially the magnificent castle he erected at Ashby. He was in the retinue of Edward at the inglorious peace of Pecquigny, and got his share of the spoil, “his French Majesty at one time making him a present of plate valued at ten thousand marks.” He is said to have refused at first to accept the pension awarded him on this occasion by the king of France, but “after some courteous and friendly correspondence” consented to receive it in a left-handed way, refusing to give any receipt for it, saying, “put it (the gold) here into my sleeve, for other acknowledgment you get none from me, for no man shall say, that king Edward’s Lord Chamberlain hath been pensioner to the French king, nor that my acquittances be found in his Chamber of Accounts.” So these ‘great’ men magnanimously salved their qualms of conscience, and satisfied the questions of their pride; and it is further added, his pension was ever after paid without further acquittance.

Then came his amour, or rather passion, for the beautiful Jane Wainstead, afterward Jane Shore. It is related he was smitten by her charms while still under her father’s roof, and his attentions aroused the suspicions of her father, who thereupon, to save his daughter, got her suitably married to Mr. Matthew Shore, the goldsmith of Lombard Street. Hastings not to be baffled, followed his prey after her marriage, until on an occasion, when he attempted to pass the boundary of honour, he got indignantly discharged and interdicted all future communication. Thereon he is said, out of revenge, to have sent the royal spoiler on the track, with a success but too well known. Hastings’ old affection however appears to have survived, and at Edward’s death he took her,—all sullied in reputation as she was,—under his protection, until the day of his own death, his acquaintanceship with her being made a chief accusation against him by the relentless Gloucester.

Although so devoted to the king, Edward IV., he was by no means friendly disposed toward his Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, and at king Edward’s death this dislike evidently greatly increased, which was in great measure the Queen’s fault, as she manifested considerable antipathy toward the older nobility, being much wrapt up in the welfare of her own family, but recently ennobled. Doubtless Hastings and others saw this, and it had its due influence on them; but he was perfectly loyal to the king’s children. Almost immediately after Edward’s decease Hastings and Buckingham were sent for to confer with Gloucester at Northampton, the young king being then with his uncle and governor the Earl Rivers at Ludlow Castle, and his brother, the Duke of York, with the Queen-mother in London. At this meeting was urged the danger of the Queen-mother’s influence, the necessity of removing the young princes from her control, the advisability of Gloucester’s assuming the Protectorate, and the securing and, if necessary, destroying the persons of the Rivers and Grey families as dangerous to the common peace. All this the well-pleased and astute Gloucester cleverly managed, and Hastings was sent on to London to pacify the city, where he had great influence, and when the citizens in alarm at hearing of the apprehension of Rivers and others, the young king’s attendants, and that they had been sent northwards toward Pontefract, he deceived them with the assurance that they were simply transported thither for conspiring against Gloucester and Buckingham, and would be duly put on their trial; and Gloucester completed the illusion by bringing the young king with much ceremony to London. Soon after, Hastings “readily gave his assent” to the execution of the Earl Rivers and others in custody at Pontefract, although still ignorant of Gloucester’s final design, and still more so of the grim fate that was hanging over his own head, for it was also agreed on by those in the secret, that he himself,—whose interest for the young king was well known,—should be gained over in harmony with the project, or dispatched out of the way, if necessary.

Although Hastings does not seem to have seen through Gloucester’s designs, his companion and friend Lord Stanley, “a man of deep penetration,” appears to have comprehended the whole situation, and spoke his mind fully thereon to his colleagues, then assembling day by day making preparations for the young king’s coronation, of which council Hastings was a member with others, the young king’s friends, but Hastings, it is related, still doubted Gloucester’s plotting, and also that the other council, sitting under Gloucester’s presidency at Crosby Place, were engaged in no design against the young king, and that he would “pawn his life” if anything detrimental to the youthful monarch were transacted there, he should be instantly informed of it by a trusty member thereof, devoted to the king’s interests; moreover he was still prepossessed of Gloucester, and believed his council were only desirous of humbling the Queen’s party, whom he, Hastings, so greatly disliked.

This ‘trusty member’ was none other than Richard Catesby, “a lawyer, who had, through Lord Hastings’ means, been placed in a position of considerable trust, in the counties of Northampton and Leicester, where Hastings’ property lay,” and this man, his friend and confidant as he supposed he was, eventually betrayed him. Stanley’s fears, it seems, were greatly modified or allayed by Hastings’ assertions, and they quietly proceeded with their arrangements for the coronation, while Gloucester was carefully doing all he could to prevent it, and secretly and busily laying his dark plans for a very different issue. Catesby, who had become the creature of Gloucester, unknown to Hastings, was despatched by Gloucester to sound Hastings, “with all the caution imaginable,” most carefully guarding the grand secret. The part was well played, and Hastings, not distrusting Catesby, told him of Stanley’s suspicions, and that for himself, rather than the late king’s children should be deprived of their rights, he would see ruin and destruction overtake Gloucester and Buckingham, and that he would employ every means in his power, even to his very life, to prevent its succeeding.

All this intelligence Catesby carefully transmitted to Gloucester. Its receipt appears to have greatly embarrassed him, as Gloucester greatly desired to secure Hastings’ adherence, knowing the importance his assistance would afford. Wishing therefore to be perfectly assured of the attitude Hastings was likely to assume, and to a considerable extent fearing his influence if exerted for the king, Gloucester sent Catesby to him a second time, with instructions to get as complete an answer as possible. Catesby appears to have spoken plainly in this second interview of Gloucester’s designs, and to have received similar answer to that given at their first parlance, and he left Hastings with the knowledge that he had discovered Gloucester’s intentions, and also revealed to him his own treachery. Gloucester in due time was made acquainted with the fact that in Hastings he had, under the circumstances, now only an adversary to deal with. The Protector’s mind was soon made up, and Hastings’ death resolved on; no one was to stand between him and the throne, and live.

On June 15, 1483, Gloucester called a council at the Tower, ostensibly to finish the preparations for the king’s coronation. Rapin, from information condensed from the various old chroniclers, thus circumstantially describes the final scene,—

“The Protector came himself at nine o’clock in the morning with a cheerful countenance, courteously saluting the lords, as if he had nothing in his mind that gave him the least uneasiness. After that he went out and desired the council to continue their deliberations in his absence.

“About an hour after, he returned with an angry countenance, knitting his brows, and biting his lips, and shewing all possible signs of perturbation of mind. Remaining some time without speaking, he broke silence with these words,—My Lords, what punishment do they deserve who have plotted against my life?’ The Lords not immediately answering, Lord Hastings replied, ‘Whoever is guilty of that crime ought to be punished as a traitor.’ The Duke answered, ‘It is that sorceress my sister-in-law, with her accomplices.’ These words astonished many of the council who favoured the Queen, being afraid this accusation concerned them. But the Lord Hastings was far from any such fear. All knew he was a sworn enemy to the Queen, and consequently there was no likelihood of his joining her in such a design. Besides, he had lately approved of the order sent to Pontefract to behead the lords prisoners, who were to be executed that very day.

“After a short pause the Protector, unbuttoning his left sleeve, shewed the Council his arm, dried and withered, saying with extreme emotion, ‘See what that sorceress, and Shore’s wife have done by their witchcrafts. They have reduced my arm as you see, and my whole body would fain have been the same, if by God’s mercy their infamous plot had not been discovered.’ These words caused a greater surprise than the former, the whole Council knowing the Duke’s arm had long been in that condition; besides, if the Queen had framed such a project, Jane Shore would have been the last person she would have imparted it to, since of all women she most hated her.

“The Lord Hastings who, since Edward’s death, had kept Jane Shore, perceiving she was involved in the accusation, could not forbear to shew how much he doubted her being guilty by saying, ‘If they had committed such a crime they deserved to be punished.’

“Then the Protector raising his voice said, ‘What, dost thou answer me with ‘Ifs’ and ’Ands,’ as if I forged this accusation? I tell thee they have conspired my death, and thou thyself art accessory to the crime.’ As he ended these words he struck the table twice with his fist, and immediately the room was filled with armed men.

“As soon as they were in, the Protector turning to Lord Hastings said to him, ‘I arrest thee for High Treason.’ ‘Who, me, my Lord,’ answered Hastings. ‘Yes, thee traitor,’ replied the Protector. At the same time he delivered him to the custody of the soldiers.

“During the bustle one of the soldiers would have cleft the Lord Stanley’s skull, with a battle-axe. But he avoided part of the blow by sinking under the table, however he was dangerously wounded. Probably the soldier had orders to kill him as it were by chance, under pretence that he would have defended the Lord Hastings. It is not hard to guess why the Protector desired to be rid of him. Having missed his aim, Stanley was arrested with the Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of Ely, it being the Protector’s interest to put it out of their power to hurt him, whom he knew to be zealously affected for the young king.

“As for the Lord Hastings, he would scarce give him time to make confession to the next priest that came, swearing ‘By St. Paul,—he would not dine until his head was struck off.’ Accordingly he was beheaded upon a log that was found on the green before the Tower Chapel, the time fixed by the Protector being too short to erect a scaffold.”

So miserably and brutally perished the Lady Katharine Bonville’s second husband, one of the chief friends and favourites of Edward IV., through the remorseless malice aforethought of that king’s brother, the Duke of Gloucester. Lord Hastings was a prominent, it may be said, representative character of that age of intrigue and unscrupulous ambition. Although loyal to Edward and his sons, he was a “sworn enemy” to Queen Elizabeth Woodville, notwithstanding his wife’s daughter, Cicely Bonville, was married to her eldest son, and he is said to have “greatly contributed” to the execution of the prisoners at Pontefract, Anthony, Earl Rivers, and Richard, Lord Grey, the Queen’s brothers, and near relatives of his step-daughter Cicely Bonville’s husband, the Marquis of Dorset; by a most remarkable retribution he was awarded a similar fate to theirs, said to have occurred on the same day, and at the same hour. His hands too are reputed to have been imbrued with the blood of Margaret of Anjou’s unfortunate youthful son. His amour with Jane Shore was made the handle of Gloucester’s accusation, and sudden and cruel as his fate was, it was perhaps merciful as compared with the suffering that was reserved for her. While Hastings, her protector, lived, her position was one of comparative safety, but at his death none dared befriend her, and true to the hideous completeness of the part Gloucester was acting, she was to be the next victim. Then the poor, frail, beautiful and withal amiable creature,—Edward used to call her the ‘holiest’ of his three mistresses, the other two being respectively the ‘wittiest’ and the ‘merriest’—one to whom a king, and ‘the handsomest man in Europe’ to boot, had paid court, amid unstinted opulence and luxury, was dragged forth and exposed to the gibes, jeers, and insults of a vulgar mob, with studied opprobrium publicly disgraced, and finally with contumely driven away to eke out the remainder of her days in the most abject poverty, misery, and distress. The purist,—forgetful his mother was a woman,—may say the degradation was deserved; but there is no human shortcoming that gives justification for unmanliness, the most detestable of all crimes.

By his wife Katharine, widow of William Bonville, and daughter of Richard Nevill, Earl of Salisbury, Lord Hastings had issue four sons:—1. Edward, eldest son and heir; he married Mary, grand-daughter and heiress of Robert, Baron Hungerford, Bottreaux, Molyns, and Moels, and in right of his wife was summoned to Parliament, though still a minor, in 1483, by the title of Baron Hastings of Hungerford; he died in 1507.—2. Sir Richard.—3. Sir William.—4. Sir George; and one daughter, Anne, married to George Talbot, fourth Earl of Shrewsbury.

Lord Hastings made his will 27 June, 1481, bequeaths his body to be buried in the “Chapel of Seynt George at Wyndesore,” and “that there be ordeigned a tumbe convenient for me by myne executors, and for the costs of the same I bequeath c marks.” After many religious bequests,—“also when George, Erle of Shrewsbury, whose warde and marriage to be, me is granted, &c.,—hath married Anne my daughter, I woll that if the same Erle should die, which God defend, &c., that then Thomas brother of the said Erle take to wife, her the same Anne, &c.,”—gives to “Kateryn myn entirely beloved wyff,” sundry manors and constitutes her one of his executors, and “ordaynes John, Lord Dynham,” a contemporary of west-country fame, as one of the surveyors.

Katharine, Lady Hastings, made her will 22 Nov., 1503, and orders her body “to be buried in our Lady Chapell, within the parish church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch,” gives numerous religious bequests, and “where I owe unto Cecilie, Marquesse Dorset, certain summes of money which I borrowed of her at diverse times, I woll that the said Cecilie in full contentation of all summes of money as I owe unto her, have my bed of arres, tittor, tester, and counterpane, which she late borrowed of me; and over that I woll that she have my tabulet of gold that she now hath in her hands for a pledge, and three curtains of blew sarcionet, and three quishons of counterfeit arres with imagery of women, a long quishon, and two short of blew velvet, also two carpets;” and “makes and ordaines Cercell, Marquis Dorset, widow,” one of her executors. She died in 1504.

Lord Hastings was buried in the Chantry erected by his widow, and dedicated to St. Stephen, in the north arcade of the choir of St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. The screen that separates it from the aisle, is of three stories, the two upper of open work with tracery. Above is a cornice with Tudor flower cresting, and in the centre, an open-vizored helmet with mantling, supporting the Hastings’ crest, from out a ducal coronet, a bull’s head affrontée, couped at the shoulders. Below are the arms of Hastings, a maunch sable, and this device with the Garter appears in a series below. The screen was originally richly painted and gilded. There is no monument within it, and probably there never was such. In general design the Hastings’ Chantry has much in common with Canon Oxenbridge’s, on the opposite side of the choir.

To return to Lord Bonville. We have thus traced as clearly and succinctly as may be, this somewhat tangled genealogy of their descents, and its bloodstained surroundings, to clear the ground, and get a more comprehensive view of the circumstances that may have had their influence on the last years of Lord Bonville’s life, and also to afford some reason as to when, and why, he finally transferred his influence and allegiance from the Red to the White Rose.

Our last glimpse of him was in 1455, when he was said to have “valiantly performed” the duel on Clyst-Heath, with Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon, the real basis of which quarrel it is inferred, but not authenticated, was his presumed sympathy then with the cause of the White Rose, and so raised the anger of his antagonist, who was warmly interested on the side of the Red.

Apart from this rather apochryphal incident, there does not appear to be any direct evidence of his identification, at least actively, with the cause of York for the next five years. There were reasons why perhaps this might not be so. He was then married to his second wife, a Courtenay, the member of a family strongly identified with the fortunes of the Red Rose. She was the widow of a wealthy peer, and her present husband’s son was married to the heiress of her first husband’s house, in the person of her niece, the only daughter of his brother; and there does not appear to be any evidence as to which way the Haringtons leant toward the impending struggle, that may have influenced him. Lord Bonville may from conviction have passively inclined toward the interest of York, but no mention is made of his being at the first battle of St. Albans (which took place the same year as the duel on Clyst-Heath) 22 May, 1455, nor as to his being in any way concerned with the fluctuating aspects of the strife during the next four years, up to and including the battle of Bloreheath, which occurred 23 Sep., 1459.

But about 1458-9 a new and very powerful factor found admission into Lord Bonville’s family, in the marriage of his grandson with Katharine Nevill, the sister of the king-maker, Richard, Earl of Warwick, the central point around which the hopes of the White Rose concentrated, while her other brother George Nevill presided over the diocese of Exeter. It is difficult to estimate the important influence this relationship would naturally exercise on the Bonvilles, especially if already inclined that way, and doubtless it did add considerable weight to turn the scale promptly, and as it turned out irremediably, on the side of York, as immediate events shew.

Taking the foregoing speculations and surmises, however, only for what they are worth, by the middle of the year 1460, there could be no doubt as to the side Lord Bonville had taken, whether by the “subtile insinuations” of his grandson’s wife’s family or otherwise. The battle of Northampton took place 10 July, 1460, and the unfortunate half-demented Henry VI. being taken prisoner, we are told by Prince, with probable correctness, the king was, “among others, committed to the care and custody of the Lord Bonvil.”

Doubtless afterward, Lord Bonville, accompanied by his son and grandson, found distinguished places in the retinue of the king-maker, in their triumphal march back to London, escorting the captive monarch in the train.

Short spell of success and victory, soon to be followed by a terrible nemesis! The scared but determined Margaret of Anjou, and her son Edward had escaped into Scotland, and presently the dark war-clouds were again gathering north and south for another sanguinary conflict. Six months of preparation brought the combatants together, and on the 31 Dec., in the same year, the frightful and merciless battle of Wakefield shattered, for the time, the hopes of York to the centre.

Among the nobles fighting on the side of Queen Margaret, was Lord Bonville’s neighbour and old antagonist, Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon; and on the other, arrayed in the cause of York, were the three generations of the Bonvilles, two of whom were destined never to come out of that fearful conflict alive. Whether in the thick of the battle, or in the pursuit that followed, may not be related, but both son and grandson perished, and Prince intensifies its horror by relating “that both were slain before his (the grandfather—Lord Bonville’s) face.”

In the carnage fell also Richard, Duke of York, whose head Margaret, in womanish revenge, then caused to be struck off and displayed over one of the gates of York, decorated with a paper crown; while immediately after, his second son, the Earl of Rutland, a beautiful boy of thirteen was stabbed to the heart by the savage Clifford. Eleven years intervened of ceaseless anxiety, and then at Tewkesbury, Margaret’s own son Edward shared a similar dreadful fate at the hands of his captors.

In the pursuit that followed the battle of Wakefield, during the night, the Earl of Salisbury—the Lady Katharine Bonville’s father—was captured, taken to Pontefract Castle, and the next day beheaded. The brother also, Sir Thomas Nevill, was killed in the engagement,—so that she lost husband, father, and brother in the fight; misfortunes almost greater than Lord Bonville’s.

Thus died in the prime of life William Bonville (Lord Harington), the father,—and also before he had scarcely emerged from his teens, William Bonville the son. Probably both found common sepulture on the battle-field, or unrecorded graves in some sanctuary near. The Earl of Salisbury’s body, and that of his son Thomas, were subsequently conveyed to Bisham Abbey in Berkshire, and there interred, with others of their ancestors and kindred.

It would be supposed that the aged Lord Bonville, satiated and stunned with these accumulated horrors, would have quietly withdrawn from the desperate dangers of further participation in these conflicts, and devoted the remainder of his declining days to a more peaceful life, and the preservation and guardianship of his baby great-grand-daughter, the last green branch of his antient stock, the infant Cecily. But no, his very name was now practically extinguished, his son and grandson were not, and the iron of misfortune had probably entered and seared his soul. Determined and perhaps reckless of the future on thus seeing all his hope and ambition blasted, he still followed on, for good or for evil, to the bitter end, regardless of consequence, the fortune of the cause he had espoused, and for which he had sacrificed so much. Who may enter into, or estimate fully the feelings that convulsed the stricken heart of this old man, under such an avalanche of misery?

But this misery, sharp as it was, was mercifully of short duration. Six weeks only intervened, in which interval it is probable Lord Bonville retreated from Wakefield, with such of the discomfited army that remained unslain, back to join the Earl of Warwick, then waiting on the outskirts of London to effect a junction with the forces of Edward, Duke of York, who had just fought and won a decisive victory over Jasper and Owen Tudor, with a Lancastrian army at Mortimer’s Cross, near Hereford.

Before however this could be accomplished, the energetic Margaret, flushed with success, and hurrying southward in hope to secure the metropolis, was upon him; and the furious battle of St. Albans on the 18 Feb., 1460-1, was the result. There she at first received a check, but by turning the position she fell on Warwick’s army, and the combat was carried on over the undulating country, between St. Albans and Barnet, in which two thousand Yorkists are said to have perished. At nightfall, Warwick found himself beaten at all points, and made precipitate retreat, leaving the King, who was accompanying the army as a prisoner, behind.

It would require no seer to divine the vindictive thoughts of Margaret, on regaining possession of her captive husband, and the consummate danger environing those in whose custody she found him, whether for preservation or otherwise. The Queen and her son discovered the helpless man in his tent with one personal attendant only, Lord Montague his Chamberlain. But there were at least two other distinguished men near, who were said to have remained to guard him from the lawless soldiery, one was the brave Sir Thomas Kyriel, and the other Lord Bonville. Both could doubtless have fled with the rest of the fugitives, had they been so minded, but it is recorded, that out of chivalrous feelings, when urged by the King to remain by him and protect him, they did so, under the assurance from him that their lives should be preserved.

A fatally hazardous undertaking in those days of merciless reprisals, and so it turned out. Whatever the well-meaning King may have promised and perhaps really wished, his wife, the determined Margaret, was the “master of the situation,” and the arbiter of their destiny; nor was she probably wanting in prompters calculated to urge her to wreak the worst vengeance upon her husband’s guardians. However that may be, it is recorded, that as she turned from the battle-field in the evening, she left orders for their decapitation the next day, and the barbarous sentence was promptly carried out.

Weever says,—

“Sir Thomas Kiriell was beheaded with the Lord Bouvile the day after the second battell at St. Albons, in the raigne of king Henry the sixth: or slain in the battell according to John Harding.

‘The Lords of the north southward came,
To Sainct Albones, vpon fasting gang eve
Wher then thei slewe the Lord Bouvile I leve
And Sir Thomas Kyriell also of Kent,
With mekell folke, that pitee was to se.’”

The old chronicler Hollingshed describing this unhappy transaction tells us with greater truth,—

“When the daie was closed, those that were about the king (in number a twenty thousand) hearing how euill their fellowes had sped, began utterlie to despair of the victorie, and so fell without anie long tarriance to running awaie. By reason whereof, the nobles that were about the king, perceiving how the game went, and withall saw no comfort in the king, but rather a good will and affection toward the contrarie part, they withdrew also, leauing the king accompanied by the Lord Bonneuille and Sir Thomas Kiriell of Kent, which vpon assurance of the king’s promise, tarried with him and fled not. But their trust deceived them, for at the queenes departing from Saint Albons they were both beheaded, though contrarie to the mind and promise of her husband.”

No record exists of Lord Bonville’s burial place. At the first battle of St. Alban’s, in 1455, the Abbot craved the bodies of the slain nobles from the victors, and buried them in the choir of the Abbey Church. But after this second engagement, Margaret’s ill-paid, freebooting soldiers pillaged the town and abbey, so that probably those that perished were hastily interred near where they fell. This plundering the abbey “entirely changed the worthy Abbot Whethamstede’s politics, and from being a zealous Lancastrian, he became a Yorkist.”

Lord Bonville’s ancestors in the direct line were mostly, if not all, buried in the choir of Newenham Abbey Church, near Axminster, of which hardly a trace now remains.

At the death of Lord Bonville, his brother Thomas of Tamerton-Foliot, was still alive, and survived until 11 Feb., 1467. He left one son John, who deceased in 1494, leaving a daughter Anne, married to Philip Coplestone. Some years anterior to this, the little child-heiress of Shute, Cicely Bonville, grown to woman’s estate, was wedded,—and so, before the fifteenth century had closed, the antient and influential name of Bonville was extinct.15

It is with feelings of relief that we turn away, at least for a time, from these scenes of horror. The Wars of the Roses appear to us, we regret to say, to have been imbued with very little, if any, chivalry. They were in the main, only fought for the selfish purpose, lust of power, and as a consequence, were attended by the congenial sinister characteristics of cruelty, treachery, and revenge. It is noteworthy however, that notwithstanding so many of the common people shed their blood and lost their lives thus freely, and it may be added ignorantly, partly lured and partly compelled probably to take part in these conflicts, at the bidding of their superiors in station and wealth striving for the mastery, it was not upon them as a class the great social misfortunes of the war fell. As a general result, the engagements being over, their little houses and surroundings were scarcely ever ravaged or destroyed, the humble partizans in these sanguinary encounters, if victors, do not seem to have laid waste or appropriated their beaten neighbours’ possessions, but simply kept their legions together, until their antagonists had time to rally, and again gather themselves in array for another trial of strength; an extraordinary, in its way, but by no means uncommon hallucination, that has first and last, in the world’s history, cost millions of lives, wasted to determine the unmanly and degrading sentiment as to who should be a nation’s master and rule over them;—a totally opposite aspiration to a people engaged fighting against a tyranny for liberty. But not thus comparatively scatheless, did the great actors in and promoters of this sanguinary drama, come off from the effects of the internecine strife. These men were desperate gamblers for high stakes, and the loss of the game to them was a fatal mischance, resulting in the deprivation of their lives, the confiscation of their estates, and occasionally—as with Bonville and the elder strain of Courtenay, extermination of their race also. No such terrible social quarrel ever convulsed England, nor heart-rending dissension so bitter, sown between the nearest and dearest relatives and friends, that the very commonest ties of humanity were outraged, dyed in blood, and trampled under foot, until at last the majority of the most illustrious families in the land were wrecked in misery and destruction.

Over such a relation as this, friend of mine, fraught with contingencies and evils so desperate, let us close the record for awhile.

---

Old Shute Park! A royally descending gift of demesne,—as such, sacred from the intrusion of despoiling hands, and therefore happily preserved to us undesecrated of Nature’s abounding charms and native beauty.

Here we are, seated on one of its pleasant knolls, throned in luxuriant ferns, surrounded by magnificent trees, and a calm, sunny, summer evening. Overhead a congregation of noisy rooks are flapping about, quarrelling with us apparently for thus intruding on the solitude of their domain. Below, across the openings of a densely foliaged avenue, a shadowy train of flying horn and bounding hoof has passed noiseless as an apparition into the adjoining covert, where they presently assemble in timorous conclave, at safer distance, alert and watchful.

“Gold of the reddening sunset, backward thrown
In largess on these old paternal trees,
Thou with false hope or fear did’st never tease
His heart that hoards thee; nor is childhood flown,
From him, whose life no fairer boon hath known
Than that which pleased him earliest, still should please:
And who hath incomes safe from chance as these,
Gone in a moment, yet for life his own?”

Such is the commentary Nature suggests, as we linger on this delightful acclivity. But what to us is the inspiration of the hour, whose minds are now busy in contemplation of the olden doings of her sons?

Look along that glade of venerable oaks, huge, gnarled, and twisted, the duration of whose lives may be reckoned by centuries, yet still hale, vigorous and leaf-arrayed, whose outward and visible aspect during the little cycle of mortal existence that at present looks upon them, has shewn no appreciable change, and will probably with unvarying regularity continue to display their perennial Spring garniture, to many succeeding generations, long after the eyes that now behold them have closed for ever.

Among them yonder is a veteran with a regal appellative—called after him, surnamed of Lackland,—“King John’s Oak,” with which monarch, tradition delivers it was in existence contemporary. And who is to say the legend is not correct, especially as every lineament of this aged grandee of the forest’s appearance, goes to confirm it. Could a tongue be given thee, old tree, what a history mightest thou relate. Then, probably in the vigour of early youth, thou mayest have witnessed the first Bonville, that claimed the ownership of this acclivity, pass cross-bow in hand under thy branches. His influential descendant who lies at rest in the valley of the far distance, and his still more celebrated but unfortunate grandson—both, when in the flesh,—with little doubt thou hast seen. Aye, even the little Lady Cicely—the last hope of their unfortunate race,—may have toddled and prattled beneath thy shade, and afterward escorted by her noble husband, accompanied by his august relative, the moody and astute Henry VII., and followed by her fine family, rested beside or near thee, when that monarch and his host exercised their skill as bowmen in these delightful glades.

Then a season of desertion and gloom fell for a time over these erstwhile pleasant precincts; but when the star of the last Tudor sovereign was in the ascendant, then it again became thy destiny to welcome the new owner of this historic and time-honoured appanage, and thenceforward from time to time to greet each succeeding inheritor down to its genial possessor of the present hour. Here, may we not appropriately say,

“Beneath thy shadowing leafage dense
What stories have been told;—
Perchance of booty won and shared
Beneath the starry cope,—
Or beauty kept an evil tryste,
Ensnared by love and hope,—
Of old intrigues,
And privy leagues,
Of traitor lips that muttered plots,
Of kin who fought and fell;
Performed long generations since,
If trees had tongues to tell.”

Notwithstanding all the devices of man, for perpetuity of remembrance,—Nature, changing yet changeless, silent, unobtrusive and unobserved, often continues and preserves the clue that binds all our generations together, long after our own mortal schemes and efforts, though projected with the utmost care, have passed away; and carefully and lovingly bridges the void of Time, if not by actual record, by the even more true and gracious message of association.

And well it is so; in her tender keeping alone the memory of Bonville is now seemingly vested, for of their former existence, residence, or sepulture, otherwise not a vestige recalling their direct line, we believe, remains. On the capitals of the pillars of Powderham church, are shields displaying the torteaux of Courtenay, impaling the mullets of Bonville, allusive to the marriage of Sir William Courtenay, the Lord of Powderham, who died in 1485, with Margaret Bonville, daughter of the noble and unfortunate victim of St. Albans, and a further shield similarly charged, having relation to the same alliance, is found on the capital of a pillar in Stockland church. Beyond this, and until the girl-heiress of Shute had been many years married, if not in her widowhood,—mementos which in due time will engage our attention—no further trace has been discovered.

We descend from our pleasant elevation, and our steps lead us a short distance over to what is now called Old Shute. The church stands on a little acclivity to the left, but in addition to the tower, whose supporting arches are of Early English type, coeval probably with the first Bonville,—and were in being when the interesting christening ceremony, previously recorded, took place,—there is apparently little of the fabric that was in existence when the name was extinguished.

It is equally doubtful if any part of the present Old Shute House was erected by them. The portion of the main fabric remaining, as also the gate-house, are both of Elizabethan origin, and retain evidence of having been erected by William Pole, Esq. (whose initials W. P. occur in the spandrels of one of the doorways), who purchased the Bonville’s confiscated inheritance here of Secretary Petre, to whom Queen Mary gave it, after the attainder and execution of the Duke of Suffolk, last male representative of the Bonville blood.

And the mention of the name of the Duke of Suffolk brings us back again to our little annals, and to Cicely, the girl-possessor of this antient inheritance and a vast accumulation of other family property, a baroness with the two titles of Bonville and Harington,—altogether an heiress of the first magnitude.

After her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather’s untimely deaths, her mother the Lady Katharine, and her second husband Lord Hastings, were constituted, as we have mentioned, her legal guardians, and had custody of her estates until she was of age, which was fixed at the mature period of sixteen. But this was considered quite a marriageable age at that era; and which would have arrived at about 1476-7. We have also described how her stepfather Lord Hastings had the wardship of her future husband, and so it fell out that in due time “a convenient marriage was purveyed for her.”

Thomas Grey was the eldest son of Sir John Grey of Groby, by his wife Elizabeth,—daughter of Richard Widville, afterward Earl Rivers,—who subsequently became Queen to Edward IV. Sir John Grey was killed fighting on the side of the Red Rose at the second battle of St. Albans, 18 Feb., 1460-1, the same engagement, after which Cicely’s great-grandfather lost his head.

He was first created Earl of Huntingdon 4 Aug., 1471, a title he afterward relinquished on his being advanced to the Marquisate of Dorset, an honour which was performed with great state ceremony 18 April, 1475, “per cincturam gladii, et capæ honoris et dignitatis impositionem, the coronet being omitted. Upon which day he sate in his habit at the upper end of the table among the knights in St. Edward’s chamber.”

The rich girl-bride was his second wife, and presumably he was considerably her senior in years. His first wife was both of royal descent and alliance, being his step-father’s niece, Anne daughter of the unfortunate Henry Holland, the last Duke of Exeter, found drowned between Calais and Dover in 1473,—by his wife Anne, daughter of Richard, Duke of York, and sister to Edward IV. There does not appear to have been any issue of this marriage.

By his second wife Cicely Bonville, the Marquis is said to have had the large family of fifteen (Leland makes it only fourteen) children, seven sons and eight daughters.

Of the sons, Thomas the eldest succeeded his father to the title.

Leonard, was in 1536 created Viscount Graney in the peerage of Ireland, and same year authorized to execute the office of Deputy of Ireland under Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, natural son of king Henry VIII., by Elizabeth daughter of Sir John Blount, and widow of Gilbert, Lord Talboys. In 1540 he was recalled, and the next year articles of high treason were exhibited against him, and although he had shewn the king good services formerly both in France and Ireland, was charged with a purpose to join Cardinal Pole and other the king’s enemies, and to that end had left the king’s ordnance in Galloway, and consented to the escape of his nephew Gerald (son of his sister Eleanor), and being brought to trial confessed all. He was thereupon beheaded on Tower Hill, and attainted by the Parliament then sitting.

This nephew, he had consented to the escape of, was Gerald, his sister’s eldest son, who subsequently became the eleventh Earl of Kildare. He was born in 1525, and at the time of his half-brother’s execution about ten years of age. Henry VIII., “being very averse to his whole family, and offering large sums of money for his apprehension,” the poor youth’s peril was imminent, and his escapes almost marvellous, from the treachery that environed him, and plots laid to get possession of his person; besides disease and accidents of extraordinary nature that otherwise threatened his existence. But he contrived to keep safe until after the death of Henry VIII., when Edward VI. reinstated him in much of his forfeited property, and Queen Mary, at the intercession of Cardinal Pole, restored him, 13 May, 1554, to the titles of Baron Offaley and Earl of Kildare.

George was in holy orders. Edward and Anthony died young, and John, of whom we have no further account.

Of the daughters,—Dorothy married first, Robert, the second Lord Willoughby de Broke, and secondly, William Blount, seventh Lord Montjoy, who died in 1594.

Cicely married John Sutton, seventh Lord Dudley,—“a man of weak understanding, who became entangled in usurer’s bonds, and at last became exposed to the charity of his friends for subsistence, and spending the remainder of his life in visits among them, was commonly called Lord Quondam.”

Mary, as his first wife, to Walter Devereux, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, and Bourchier, created first Viscount Hereford, 1549, and K.G.

Margaret, as his second wife, to Richard Wake, of Hartwell, Northamptonshire, second son and heir of Roger Wake of Blisworth in the same county, who died 19 Henry VII., 1504.

Elizabeth, as his first wife, to Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, Cornwall. He was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Arundell, K.B., who died 1 Oct., 1485, by Katharine, third daughter of Sir John Dinham, and coheir to her brother John, Lord Dinham; their daughter Elizabeth was wife of Giles, Lord Daubeney, K.G. “Sir John Arundell was made a Knight of the Bath on the eve of All Saints, 31 October, 1494, Knight of the Garter, 1501, and Knight Banneret in the expedition to Terouenne and Tournay at the battle of ‘the Spurs,’ in 1513, Receiver of the Duchy of Cornwall in 1506, and Receiver General for life, 1509” (Dunkin). He died 36 Henry VIII., 1545. Their second son Thomas was ancestor of the Lords Arundel of Wardour.

Their splendid and originally richly enamelled brass still exists in the church of St. Columb-Major, Cornwall, in a fairly complete state, the knight bare-headed, but otherwise in complete armour, between his two wives (the second was Katharine, daughter of Sir Thomas Grenville), in gowns, mantles, and pedimental head-dresses. Below them were two smaller male figures, one partly perfect in armour, and underneath again, six female children, of whom two remain. The inscription, partly missing, is on a ledger-line,—

✠ John Arundell Knyght of ye Bath and Knyght Banneret Recey... ye Duchye of Cornewall ffirst Ma... Elizabeth Grey Daughter to the Lorde Marques Dorset & after Kateryn ye Daughter of Syr Thomas Gre... ght of ffebruary the xxxvi yere of the raigne of Kyng Henry the Eyght an^o domine 1545 and ye and ye yere of his age

There were formerly eight shields of arms; of these six remain quartered as follows,—

(1.) Baron, quarterly of six:—1. Arundell.—2. Dinham.—3. Arches.—4. Chideock.—5. Carminow.—6. Arundell;—impaling femme, quarterly of eight,—1. Grey.—2. Hastings.—3. Valence. 4. Ferrers of Groby.—5. Astley.—6. Widville.—7. Bonville.—8. Harington. For Sir John Arundell, and the Lady Elizabeth Grey, his first wife.

(2.) Baron, quarterly of six as before, impaling femme, quarterly of four:—1 and 4. Grenville.—2 and 3. Whitley. For Sir John Arundell and Katharine Grenville his second wife.

(3.) Baron, as before, impaling femme, quarterly of four:—1. Howard.—2. Brotherton.—3. Warren.—4. Mowbray. For Sir Thomas Arundell (second son of Sir John), and his wife Margaret Howard, daughter of Lord Edmund Howard, and sister of Queen Katharine Howard.

(4.) Baron, quarterly of four:—1 and 4. Edgcumbe.—2 and 3. Holland;—impaling femme, Arundell and other quartered coats as before. For Richard Edgcumbe and Elizabeth daughter of Sir John Arundell.

(5.) Baron, quarterly of eight:—1. Ratcliffe.—2. Fitz-Walter.—3. Burnell.—4. Botetourt.—5. Lucy.—6. Milton.—7. Mortimer of Norfolk.—8. Culcheth?;—impaling femme, Arundell with quartered coats as before. For Mary (daughter of Sir John Arundell and his second wife Katharine Grenville;) and her first husband, Robert Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex.

(6.) Baron, quarterly of four:—1. Fitz-Alan.—2. Fitz-Alan of Bedale.—3. Widville.—4, quarterly, 1 and 4 Maltravers. 2 and 3 Clun;—impaling femme, Arundell, &c., as before. For Mary Arundell, as above, and her second husband, Henry Howard, Earl of Arundel.

Although, from his memorial brass, Sir John Arundell is presumably buried here, Weever, in his notice of St. Mary Woolnoth, London, gives this inscription as being found in that church for him,—

“HERE LIETH SIR JOHN ARUNDELL KNIGHT OF THE BATH, AND
KNIGHT BANERET, RECEIVOR OF THE DUCHY......................
GREY DAUGHTER TO THE LORD MARQUESE DORSET, WHO
DIED 8 FEBR: THE 36 OF THE REIGNE OF KING HEN. THE 8.”

Of the three remaining daughters of Cicely Bonville, Marchioness of Dorset, Eleanor married as his second wife Gerald Fitzgerald, ninth Earl of Kildare, for a considerable time Lord Deputy of Ireland during the reign of Henry VIII. In his prime, he is said to have been “one of the fairest men then living,” and led a very eventful and troubled life, was greatly disliked by Wolsey, who twice got him cited to England and sent to the Tower on charges of maladministration, and on his third committal in 1534 to that fortress, he never emerged again alive. During his incarceration his son—“called ‘Silken Thomas,’ of tall stature, comely proportion, amiable countenance, flexible and kind nature, and endowed with many accomplishments and good qualities”—together with his five brothers, engaged in open insurrection in Ireland. The news of this so “oppressed him with grief,” that it is said to have hastened his death, which took place in 1534. Six months afterward, the five brothers and their nephew, his son, “were all six condemned to suffer the punishment of traitors, and were accordingly executed at Tyburn, on 2 Feb., 1535-6,—being hanged up, cut down before they were dead and quartered.” The Earl was buried in the Tower Chapel, and on digging a grave therein for Ralph, son of Sir Owen Hopton, Lieutenant of the Tower in 1580, his coffin was found with this inscription on it,—

HERE LYETH THE CORPES OF THE L. GERALD FITZ-GERALD,
EARLE OF KYLDARE, WHO DECEASED THE 12TH OF DECEMBER,
IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD M.CCCCC.XXXIIII. ON WHOSE SOLE
JESU HAVE MERCY

Of this Earl, Hollingshed relates that he was

“A wise, deep, and far reaching man; in war valiant and without rashness; and politic without treachery; such a suppressor of rebels in his government, as they durst not bear armour to the annoyance of any subject. He was so religiously addicted to the serving of God, as what time soever he travelled to any part of the Country, such as were of his chapel should be sure to follow him. He was also well affected to his wife, as he would not at any time buy a suit of apparel for himself, but he would suit her with the same stuff; which gentleness she recompensed with equal kindness; for after that he deceased in the Tower, she did not only ever after live a chaste and honourable widow, but also nightly before she went to bed, she would resort to his picture, and there, with a solemn congé she would bid her lord good night.”

Not the least interesting, and almost romantic account, of one of the many of Cicely Bonville’s daughters. The poet Earl of Surrey’s ‘Fair Geraldine’ was one of this Earl’s children.

Of the Marchioness’s two remaining daughters, Anne was married to Richard Clement; and Bridget died young.

Leland, making note of this large family, remarks,—

“The sole doughtar of the Lorde Harington cawlid (Cecily) was maried to Thomas the first Marquese of Dorset that favorid the cummynge of Henry the vii, and he had by hir a 14 children, bothe men and wimen of excedinge goodly parsonage, of which the first sune lyvyd not longe, and then had Thomas the name of Lorde Harington, and aftar was the second Marquese of Dorset.”

The Marquis of Dorset with Lord Hastings commanded the rear-guard at the battle of Tewkesbury, and after the engagement was over, and the young Prince Edward taken prisoner, who being introduced to Edward’s presence, and interrogated, was brutally struck by him on the mouth with his gauntlet, and was thereupon dragged out of the king’s presence and murdered by the attendant nobles, the Marquis of Dorset is said to have been among the savage conclave. Mercy and pity appear at the time to have fled from the earth.

Naturally all went well with the Marquis during the reign of his father-in-law, Edward IV., but at that king’s death the machinations of Gloucester, Buckingham, and Hastings, the entrapping Earl Rivers, and getting possession of the persons of the young king and his brother, placed him in considerable peril. The Duke of York was under his custody in London, as Governor of the Tower, but on the approach of Gloucester to London, with the young king, the Marquis, together with the Duke of York, the Queen-Mother and her family at once took sanctuary at Westminster.

Events rapidly succeeded each other. Gloucester got first named Protector, a stepping-stone merely to his assumption of the Crown; the Earl Rivers and his companions, and Lord Hastings, were mercilessly disposed of; the young king and his brother sent to the Tower. Nothing now remained calculated to give Richard any cause for uneasiness, or lie in the way of his ambition, but the fact that these two poor boys, his nephews, were still alive. This difficulty did not exist long, and they perished under the influence of the same hideous resolve.

But the retribution was surely coming, if delayed for a time. Buckingham had retired in dudgeon to his castle at Brecknock, and his astute prisoner Morton, soon became the capturer of his gaoler, at least in mind, and then bade him adieu. Then followed the series of intrigues between Buckingham, the Countess of Richmond, and the Queen-Widow, with Sir Reginald Braye as ambassador, and Dr. Lewis as go-between, which ended in the unfortunate rising of Buckingham, so disastrously extinguished by the Severn flood. The Marquis of Dorset then appears to have quitted sanctuary, and gone into Yorkshire, presumably to raise forces, with the intention of joining the other contingents to be gathered in Kent under Sir Richard Guilford, and from the west under the Courtenays, Cheney, Daubeney, and others, the place of rendez-vous being at Salisbury. Before however this could be accomplished, or rather while measures were being taken in preparation, Buckingham’s misfortune took place, and these, the other chief actors, fled for their lives, and were fortunate to escape and get across the channel to Brittany, and to the Earl of Richmond.

Richard promptly attainted the fugitives, and, says Rapin,—

“issued a Proclamation against Buckingham, and the Marquis of Dorset, with others of his adherents, whom he supposed to be in league with him. But as the Marquis had not appeared in arms, and so could not be styled a rebel, he made use of another pretence to involve him in the sentence. He said that having taken oath at his coronation to punish vice and wickedness, he was obliged to punish the Marquis of Dorset, notorious for his debaucheries, who had seduced and ravished several virgins, being guilty of sundry adulteries, &c. A reward of a thousand marks, or one hundred marks a year (in land), was promised to anyone who would bring the Marquis to justice, and sums in proportion for the rest that were named in the Proclamation.”

They got safely across however, and so foiled the tender intentions of this amiable potentate. Richmond appeared soon after, returning from his fruitless voyage across the channel, and,

“when he arrived he heard of the Duke of Buckingham’s death, and found the Marquis of Dorset, and other English gentlemen who had made their escape. They all swore allegiance to him, and he took his corporal oath on the same day, the 25th of December, that he would marry the Princess Elizabeth, when he had suppressed the usurper Richard, and was in the possession of the Crown.”

Richard, however, who was kept well informed of all that went on abroad, had determined if possible to check-mate this scheme of Richmond, by marrying the lady himself,—

“and to that end did his utmost to ingratiate himself with her mother the Queen Elizabeth. He sent flattering messages to her in Sanctuary, promised to advance the Marquis of Dorset and all her relations, and won upon her so much by his fair speeches, that forgetting the many affronts he had cast upon the memory of her husband, on her own honour and the legitimacy of her children, and even the murder of her dear sons, she complyed with him, and promised to bring over her son, and all the late king’s friends from the party of Richmond, and went so far as to deliver up her five daughters into his hand. She also wrote to her son the Marquis of Dorset, to leave Richmond and hasten to England where she had procured him a pardon, and provided all sorts of honours for him.”

Then, of course, followed the “illness” of Richard’s poor Queen, now completely in the way of these delicate arrangements, who hearing

“what was reported against her, believed it came from her husband, and thence concluding that her hour was drawing nigh, ran to him in a most sorrowful and deplorable condition, and demanded of him, ‘what she had done to deserve death.’ Richard answered her with fair words and false smiles bidding her ‘be of good cheer for to his knowledge she had no other cause.’ But whether her grief, as he designed it should, struck so to her heart, that it broke with the mortal wound, or he hastened her end, as was generally suspected, by poison, she died in a few days afterward.”

Thus another victim was removed from this ghastly panorama of treachery and guilt. She was the daughter of the Earl of Warwick, the ‘king-maker,’ and, when Richard married her, widow of Prince Edward (heir to Henry VI.), so foully murdered after the battle of Tewkesbury. The Lady Katharine Bonville was her aunt, and Cicely Bonville, her daughter, was the poor Queen’s cousin.

Richard’s new matrimonial project did not go on so smoothly as he expected, his former Queen “was scarcely cold in her grave, before he made his addresses to the Princess Elizabeth, who held his pretended love in abhorrence, and the whole kingdom averse to so unnatural a marriage,”—she was his own niece. He therefore put off for a time further prosecuting his suit, and “deferred his courtship until he was better settled on the throne.”

Richmond, who in his turn had full knowledge of all Richard’s proceedings, was quite equal to the occasion, and determined to foil his rival both of wife and kingdom, which he successfully accomplished.

In the meantime the Queen-Mother, to oblige Richard, continued

“to write her son the Marquis of Dorset, to leave Richmond. The Marquis fearing the Earl would not succeed in his enterprise, gave way to his mother’s persuasions, and King Richard’s flattering promises, left the Earl, and stole away from Paris by night, intending to escape into Flanders. But as soon as the Earl had notice of his flight, he applied to the French Court to apprehend him in any part of his dominions, for both himself and his followers, were afraid of his discovering his designs if he got to England.

“Having obtained license to seize him, the Earl sent messengers every way in search of him, and among the rest Humphrey Cheney, Esq., who overtook him near Champaigne, and by arguments and fair promises prevailed with him to return.

“By the Marquis’s disposition to leave him, the Earl began to doubt, that if he delayed his expedition to England longer, many more of his friends might grow cool in their zeal for him. So he earnestly solicited the French Court for aid, ‘desiring so small a supply of men and money, that Charles could not in honour refuse him; yet for what he lent him, he would have hostages, that satisfaction should be made. The Earl made no scruple of that, so leaving the Lord Marquis of Dorset (whom he still mistrusted), and Sir John Bourchier, as his pledges at Paris, he departed for Rouen, where the few men the French king had lent him, and all the English that followed his future, rendezvous’d.’”

Rather an ignominious dénouement, but doubtless Richmond, quite estimated the quality of his man, and would not allow the Marquis to play any possible double game by taking him to England with the expedition. So he remained at Paris, in this kind of semi-imprisonment, until after the battle of Bosworth, Henry’s coronation, and the end of the Parliament in 1485, when the king was possessed of some means to pay off his debt to the French king.

This being obtained, he sent across to Paris and redeemed the Marquis and Bourchier, and invited them over to England. On the 18 Jan. following, Henry married the Princess Elizabeth, half-sister to the Marquis. Soon after the king restored him to all his honours, called him to the Privy Council, and created him a Knight of the Garter, being the two hundred and fortieth in the succession of that noble Order.

Henry however still distrusted him, for on his pilgrimage to Walsingham in 1487,—

“being come to St. Edmunds-bury, he understood that Thomas, Marquis of Dorset, was hasting toward him, to purge himself of some accusations that had been made against him. But the King, though he kept an ear for him, yet was at the time so doubtful, that he sent the Earl of Oxford to meet him, and forthwith carry him to the Tower; with a fair message nevertheless, that he should bear that disgrace with patience, for that the King meant not his hurt, but only to preserve him from doing hurt, either to the King’s service or to himself, and that the King should always be able (when he had cleared himself) to make him reparation.”

Very wise of Henry, doubtless, and done in kindness to prevent his not too strong-minded brother-in-law getting into mischief. The Marquis remained in the Tower until after the coronation of the Queen,—when Henry, who had locked him up “rather upon suspicion of the time, than of the man, set him at liberty without examination, or other circumstance.”

He was with the large army taken across the channel to France in 1492, in the flotilla under the command of Lord Willoughby de Broke, which was apparently designed, but really never intended, to assist the Emperor Maximilian. The Marquis also held a command in the royal forces in 1497, at the defeat of the Cornish insurgents on Black-Heath.

It is probable also he accompanied Henry into the west, at the suppression of Perkin Warbeck’s attempt in October of the same year. Respecting this Mr. Davidson writes,—

“The king left Exeter on 3 November, and passed the night at the College of St. Mary, at Ottery, and on the next day proceeded to Newenham Abbey. At this place the king remained nearly a week until the 10th, when he resumed his progress to London. It is difficult indeed to imagine for what reason the king remained so long a time at Newenham at this period, unless he was engaged in making enquiry for such of the men of consideration in the Counties of Devon and Somerset as had taken part with the rebels, and in appointing the commissioners for detecting them. Among those commissioners the name of Sir Amias Paulet appears, whose residence in Somersetshire was at no great distance from this place. It may be conjectured also, that the king was entertained by the lord Marquis of Dorset, at his manor and mansion of Shute, which is nearly adjoining the Abbey demesnes, for this nobleman appears to have been on terms of familiar intercourse with his sovereign. The following items appear in the king’s privy purse expenses;—‘1492, 7 July. To my lord Marquis for a ring of gold, £100.—1495, March 20.—Loste at the buttes to my lord Marques £1.’”

Four years after Warbeck’s rebellion, on the 10 April, 1501, the Marquis died; by his will, without date, he “bequeathed his body to be buried in his College at Astley, before the image of the Blessed Trinity, in the midst of his closet, within the same College; and that his executors should cause to be said for his soul, in every of the four orders of Friars in London, a hundred masses, and at the time of his burial, one hundred marks to be distributed in alms to the poor people.”

On a boss over the organ-gallery in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, are the arms of the Marquis, quarterly of eight:—1. Barry of six argent and azure, in chief three torteaux (Grey).—2. Or, a maunche gules (Hastings).—3. Barry of ten argent and azure, an orle of martlets gules (Valence). Over these three quarterings a label of three points ermine—4. Gules, seven mascles, three, three, and one, or (Quincy).—5. Azure, a cinquefoil ermine (Astley).—6. Argent, a fess and a canton gules (Widville).—7. Sable, six mullets argent, pierced gules (Bonville).—8. Sable, a fret argent (Harington).

On his banner he bore the same quarterings. The “tenan,” an unicorn ermine. His standard, per fess white and murrey. The badges are “bunches of daisies, tufted proper” (this from Widville). The motto, “A MA PUISSANCE” (Willement).

Cicely Bonville, Marchioness of Dorset, married secondly Henry Stafford, second son of Henry Stafford, second Duke of Buckingham (by his wife Catherine daughter of Richard Widville, Earl Rivers), who, rising in revolt against Richard III., was beheaded at Salisbury, 1483.

He was created Earl of Wiltshire by Henry VII., in 1509, and constituted a Knight of the Garter by the same monarch, being the two hundred and fifty-eighth on the roll of the Order.

The Marchioness of Dorset was his second wife. His first was Muriel, daughter of Sir Edward Grey,—created Viscount L’Isle, 1483,—brother to Sir John Grey, father of the Marquis of Dorset, and therefore cousin to the Marchioness’s first husband. The Earl of Wiltshire left no issue by either of his wives. He died 6 March, 1523, when his title became extinct.

On a boss in the vaulting of the choir of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, is his badge, a Stafford knot argent, differenced by a crescent sable, and on a stall-plate below are his arms, quarterly:—1. France and England within a bordure argent (Plantagenet).—2. Bohun.—3. Stafford.—4. Bohun, Earl of Northampton; there are no supporters. The crest, in a ducal coronet, per pale sable and gules, a demi-swan argent, beaked gules, the wings endorsed. Motto, “”HUMBLE ET LOYAL” (Willement).

The carved escutcheon of this Earl, quartered as above, with crescent for difference, and encircled by the Garter, was found among the ruins of the Cluniac Priory of St. Mary Magdalene at Barnstaple, and is now preserved in a modern residence built on the site. The knot and crescent are found on the churches of Axminster, Ottery St. Mary, and Seaton, and will be further referred to.

We do not hear much more of the Marchioness, but she evidently stood very high in the Court of Henry VIII., for in September, 1533, at the christening of the Princess, afterward Queen Elizabeth, daughter of Queen Anne Boleyn, at Greenwich, Hall relates that “the old Marchioness of Dorset, widow,” was one of the child’s god-mothers, and in the grand procession the Marquis her son, bore the Salt, and she afterward made the infant-princess “a present of three gilt bowls pounced with a cover.”

By her will, dated 6 March, 1528-9, 19 Henry VIII., she “bequeathed her body to be buried in the Chapel of Astley, in the tomb where her husband the late Lord Marquis lay, and a thousand masses to be said for her soul. That a goodly tomb should be made in the Chapel of Astley over the Lord Marquis her husband, and another for herself, and two priests daily to sing in the said Chapel of Astley by the space of eighty years, to pray for the soul of the said Lord Marquis and her own soul.”

The exact date of her death does not appear to have been ascertained, but probably before, or by 1530, when she would have been about seventy years old.

With the death of Cicely Bonville—last of her name and race—the main personal interest of our little narrative ceases, and it is not intended, in bringing our story to its conclusion, to give a long detailed account of the two next succeeding generations of the Greys, which belongs rather to national history.

Thomas Grey, eldest son of Thomas Grey, first Marquis of Dorset, and Cicely Bonville, was summoned to Parliament in 1509, as Lord Ferrers of Groby, and in 1511, as the second Marquis of Dorset. He married first Eleanor, daughter of Oliver, Lord St. John, by whom he had no issue, and secondly Margaret, daughter of Sir Robert Wotton of Bocton in Kent, by whom he had Henry, his successor;—John, ancestor of the Earls of Stamford;—Elizabeth, married to Thomas, Lord Audley of Walden, K.G., Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII., who sat as High Steward at the trial of Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, and who died in 1544;—Catherine, to Henry Fitzalan, eighteenth and last Earl of Arundel of that family, Lord High Steward to Queen Elizabeth, and K.G., who died 1579;—and Anne, to Henry Willoughby of Wollaton, Nottinghamshire.

He appears to have enjoyed the favour and confidence of that dangerously uncertain despot Henry VIII., and in 1512 was constituted Commander-in-Chief of the expedition sent into Spain, designed as an augmentation of the forces of the Emperor Ferdinand in the invasion of Guienne, and with him were associated the second Lord Willoughby de Broke and other noblemen. In 1514, he was with Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, in France at the jousts of St. Denis, and acquired considerable renown; as afterward at the meeting of Henry and Francis in 1521 on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He was one of the lords who signed the celebrated letter to Pope Clement touching the king’s divorce, and subscribed to the articles of impeachment against Cardinal Wolsey. Altogether a pliant and observant courtier probably, who carefully noted, studied, and complied with the errant phases of his grim master’s will, the only safe way of getting on with him, and keeping his head on his shoulders, but, of course, requiring the aid of a not too-exacting conscience.

He made his will 1530, “ordered his body to be buried at Astley, near his father, and his executors to make and build a Chapel at Astley, according to the will of his father, with a goodly tomb over his father and mother, and where he himself resolved to be buried.” Together with further bequests “to found an alms house for thirteen poor men, who were to have twelve pence a week, and a livery of black cotton yearly at a cost of four shillings, and three honest priests to pray for his soul, &c.”

Relating to the burial of this nobleman, we append the following, given as a quotation by Burke,—

“The Collegiate church of Astley, founded by Thomas third Lord Astley, whose heiress-general married the ancestor of this Marquis, a most rare and beautiful piece of workmanship, having fallen down, a new chancel was erected by the parishioners. When on opening the vault where the body of the Marquis was laid, a large and long coffin of wood was found, which at the curious desire of some, being burst open, the body which had lain there for seventy-eight years, appeared perfect in every respect, neither perished nor hardened, but the flesh, in colour, proportion, and softness, alike to any corpse newly interred. The body was about five feet eight inches in length, the face broad and the hair yellow. All which seemed to be well preserved from the strong embalming thereof.”

Henry Grey, third and last Marquis of Dorset, was constituted Lord High-Constable of England for three days at the coronation of Edward VI., 1547. In 1551 made Justice in Eyre of all the King’s Forests, and in 1552 Warden of the East, West, and Middle Marches toward Scotland, and 11 October of the same year was created Duke of Suffolk, and installed Knight of the Garter.

He married first Katharine, daughter of William, Earl of Arundel, but by her had no issue.

Secondly, he espoused Frances, daughter of Charles Brandon, created Duke of Suffolk in 1514, and K.G.,—by his third wife the Princess Mary, second daughter of king Henry VII., widow of king Lewis XII., and so Queen-Dowager of France. The issue of this marriage was three daughters, Jane, Katharine, and Mary.

The Lady Jane Grey married the Lord Guilford Dudley, son of John Dudley, created Duke of Northumberland in 1551 and K.G.; by his wife Jane daughter of Sir Edward Guilford, knt. The Duke his father, was beheaded on Tower Hill 22 Aug., 1553.

The Lady Katharine Grey, married first Henry, Lord Herbert, eldest son of William, Earl of Pembroke, from whom she was divorced. Secondly she married Lord Edward Seymour, son of the Protector Somerset, who was beheaded on Tower Hill, 22 Jan., 1552. Lord Edward Seymour was created by Queen Elizabeth in 1559, Baron Beauchamp of Hache, and Earl of Hertford. But for marrying the Lady Katharine without the permission first obtained of the imperious and unfeeling Queen, they were both committed to the Tower. He was fined five thousand pounds, and endured nine years imprisonment. His wife bore him three sons during her captivity, and she died while still a prisoner in that fortress 26 Jan., 1567. He died at an advanced age in 1621.

The Lady Mary Grey married Martin Keys, Groom-Porter to Queen Elizabeth.

It is not necessary here to enter into the mournful circumstances of the deaths,—perhaps the most sad in English history—of the youthful Lady Jane Grey and her husband Lord Guilford Dudley,—they are fully known to all who have the slightest acquaintanceship with our national annals. The event occurred on 12 Feb., 1554.

The same remark will apply to the fate of the Duke of Suffolk, her father,—his participation in Wyatt’s rising, the story of his fleeing from his pursuers, hiding in a hollow tree in his park at Astley, and betrayal (under circumstances somewhat similar to Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham), by Underwood, one of his own park-keepers to whom he had confided the secret of his life,—need only the outline of relation here, to give semblance of completion to our little history. He found his death also by the executioner’s hand on Tower Hill, 23 Feb., 1554.

The Duchess of Suffolk, his widow, married secondly Adrian Stokes, Esq. She was buried in St. Edmund’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey, where, on a high-tomb of the same costly material, reclines her effigy in alabaster, clad in the rich costume of the period, with a crowned lion at her feet. On one side of the tomb is this inscription,—

HERE LIETH THE LADIE FRANCES, DVCHES OF SOVTHFOLKE,
DOVGHTER TO CHARLES BRANDON, DUKE OF SOVTHFOLKE,
AND MARIE THE FRENCHE QVENE;
FIRST WIFE TO HENRIE, DUKE OF SOVTHFOLKE,
AND AFTER TO ADRIAN STOCK, ESQVIER.

and on the other the following,—

IN CLARISS: DOM: FRANCISCÆ SVFFOLCIÆ QVONDAM DVCISSÆ EPICEDION.

NIL DECVS AVT SPLENDOR, NIL REGIA NOMINA PROSVNT
SPLENDIDA DIVITIIS, NIL JVVAT AMPLA DOMVS;
OMNIA FLVXERVNT, VIRTVTIS SOLA REMANSIT
GLORIA, TARTAREIS NON ABOLENDA ROGIS.

NVPTA DVCI PRIVS EST, VXOR POST ARMIGERI STOKES;
FVNERE NVNC VALEAS CONSOCIATO DEUS.

Below in panels are sculptured the arms of France and England, Brandon and Stokes with numerous quarterings.

Of this lady says Dean Stanley,—

“She had thrown herself headlong into the Protestant cause. She had dressed up a cat in a rochet to irritate the bishops; and had insulted Gardiner, as she passed by the Tower, ‘It is well for the lambs when the wolves are shut up.’ Naturally in her own turn she had to fly after her husband’s and her daughter’s bloody death, and lived just long enough to see the betrothal of her daughter, Catherine Grey to the Earl of Hertford, and to enjoy the turn of fortune which restored her to the favour of Elizabeth, and allowed her sepulture beside her royal ancestors. The service was probably the first celebrated in English in the Abbey since Elizabeth’s accession; and it was followed by the Communion service, in which the Dean (Dr. Bill) officiated, and Jewell preached the sermon. Could her Puritanical spirit have known the site of her tomb, she would have rejoiced in the thought, that it was the first to displace one of the venerated altars of the old Catholic saints.”

The effigy, a very noble one, clasps a book, presumably intended for the Bible, in her hands, doubtless another evidence of her “Puritanical spirit,” and which she probably deemed of more importance than the choicest relics of “saints” preserved in the “venerated altars” that teemed around.

Adrian Stokes, or Stock, Esq., who married the Duchess of Suffolk, 1 March, 1555, just twelve months after the Duke’s death, is said to have acted as her Master of the Horse. In spite of this disparity of social position, and also of age (he being about seventeen, and the Duchess thirty-two years old at the date of their marriage), the union appears to have been a happy one (she only survived four years), for at her death in December, 1559, she left him in possession of large estates in Warwickshire and Leicestershire. In 1571 Stokes was returned to Parliament for Leicestershire, having under his charge the Lady Mary Grey, his step-daughter, and about that period, married secondly, Anne, widow of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton. He died without issue 30 Nov., 1586. He erected this fine monument to her memory.

His ward the Lady Mary Grey appears to have had no higher ambition in the selection of a husband, than her mother’s second venture, having married, as previously related, Martin Keys, Groom-Porter to Queen Elizabeth. It may be, her step-father’s social position was against anything better.

The memorials of Cicely Bonville, Marchioness of Dorset, are fairly numerous and interesting. “The walls of many churches,” says Mr. Davidson, “in the neighbourhood of this lady’s extensive possessions testify by the arms and devices of her family and connections, that she employed a part of her immense wealth by assisting in their erection.”

The most considerable of these, is the beautiful Chapel on the north side of the nave of the Collegiate Church of St. Mary, at Ottery, and known as the “Dorset aisle,” which without doubt she built. It is of considerable size, and its fan-traceried vaulting very rich; on the pillars of the arcade are the arms of Bishop Oldham, and his rebus, an owl holding a label in its beak inscribed with the last syllable of the prelate’s name, ham,—1504-19; and also of Bishop Vesey his successor, 1519-51. This shews that its erection occurred within those dates, after her marriage with the Earl of Wiltshire, but before her death, which took place about 1530. Studding the moulding under the parapet outside are the family badges, the Harington fret, Stafford knot, bull’s-head of Hastings, and Bourchier knot, often repeated, while over the porch-entrance are the denuded remains of what was evidently the armorial achievement of this lady. There is a shield surrounded by the Garter, but the bearings are quite undecipherable, except the traces of a fret, the supporters appear to have been a lion on the dexter side, and on the sinister an antelope. Above the shield is a helmet, and remains of a crest. At the top and in the base of the panel is the Stafford knot, of large size, and on each side this device is repeated alternately with the mullet of Bonville.

These arms together with some other sculpture within the porch, appear to have been designedly mutilated, perhaps after the attainder and execution of the Duke of Suffolk, by order of Queen Mary, similarly to the manner the heraldic achievements of the Countess of Salisbury in her beautiful Chantry in the Priory Church of Christ Church, Hants, were commanded to be obliterated (“delete”) by Henry VIII., after her savage beheading.

The outer armorial panel is supported by columns with a crocketted canopy, and figures of angels stand on the pillars; at their base are small shields with the merchant’s mark and initial of Goodwyn of Plymtree, who held that manor of the Hastings family at the time. There are several of the original bench-ends within the Chapel; on one is a large double rose and on another pomegranates, but they are of comparatively plain character in carved detail.

At the meeting of Henry VIII. and Maximilian at Terouenne in 1515, Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham was “attired in purple satin, his apparel full of antelopes, and swans (of Bohun) of fine gold bullion, and full of spangles.” Henry Stafford, Earl of Wiltshire, his brother, and second husband of Cicely Bonville, bore on his banner the swan (of Bohun) amid semée of Stafford knots, with the motto, “HUMBLE ET LOYAL.”

Knightstone, in Ottery St. Mary, originally the inheritance of the Bittlesgate family, became the property of the Marchioness of Dorset in 1494, the remainder having previously been vested in William, Lord Bonville. On the attainder of her grandson, the Duke of Suffolk, in 1554, it was purchased by Mr. William Sherman, a merchant of Ottery, who died in 1583, and whose brass effigies are on the pavement of the south aisle of the church.

In the church of Limington near Ilchester, Somerset, two memorials are found, but whether they are to be considered mementoes of Cicely Bonville, or of her son the second Marquis, is not so clear. These consist of two finely carved bench-ends, in the chancel. They are of considerable height, having fleur-de-lys shaped finials on the top, and below occurs, on one the rose, and on the other the pomegranate, of Henry VIII. Then follows a large shield, quarterly,—1 and 4, six mullets pierced, three, two, one (Bonville).—2 and 3, a fret (Harington); and under this the initials W. C. joined by a cordon. Beneath are four roses, single and very thickly double, alternate.

The Bonvilles acquired considerable property in Limington, Somerset, of the representatives of the De Gyvernay family. The last of them Henry de Gyvernay died seized of the manor 35 Henry III., leaving a daughter Joan married to William de Shareshull. The very fine and well-preserved effigy in the uniquely-groined north transeptal Chantry, was probably placed to the memory of one of them (although the armour and appointments are comparatively late), and the other three earlier effigies on the floor doubtless represent preceding generations.

The initials W. C. on the bench-end evidently allude to Walter Cocks, incumbent of the parish, who was inducted in 1535, patron the Marquis of Dorset. This would be about five years after Cicely Bonville’s death, and in the lifetime of her son, but the marshalling of the arms seems to allude more directly to his mother.

On escutcheons in the panels of the carved parapet of Axminster church are the Harington fret, and the Stafford knot, surmounted by a crescent; this last badge having allusion to Henry Stafford, Earl of Wiltshire, her second husband, he being the second son of Henry, Duke of Buckingham. “As the manor of Uphay in the parish belonged to her,” remarks Mr. Davidson, “it is not surprising she should have contributed to the enlargement of the church at Axminster.”

Among the shields shewing the descent of Walrond, that formerly had place on a screen in their Chantry in Seaton church, is one charged with the Stafford knot and crescent, probably included out of compliment by the squire of Bovey to his noble neighbour of Wiscombe. It also occurs over the tower door at Hawkchurch, together with the arms of Daubeney, and the Abbey of Cerne.

But the most interesting of all, is the presumed effigy of Cicely herself, in the portion remaining of the once beautiful church of Astley, in Warwickshire. This, for a long time fixed upright in the wall of the tower, at the west end of the choir, now reclines on a low tomb. The figure is of alabaster, with pyramidal head-dress, gown richly embroidered and gilt, and mantle, on which are traces of crimson colour, the head rests on a cushion originally guarded by angels. From her girdle are suspended an aumônière on the right side and a rosary on the left.

There are two other effigies, also in this church, sculptured in alabaster. One, a knight with hair polled, in full plate armour, and collar of S.S. His head rests on a helmet, and his feet on a lion. The other, a lady, has long flowing hair to the shoulders, on her head a coronet with traces of fleurs-de-lys and pearls, necklace, and wearing also the rare Yorkist collar of Suns and Roses, from which is suspended the Lion of March. The remains of angels support the cushions on which her head rests.

The ladies are much shorter in stature than the knight, and the probability is they all occupied separate tombs, which stood in the side chapels originally existing attached to the antient chancel, before it fell down and was rebuilt at the time the body of the second Marquis was discovered, at the end of the seventeenth century.

The knight is apparently the earlier effigy of the three, probably dating about 1480-90, the lady with the coronet next, or about contemporary, and the lady in the pyramidal head-dress considerably the latest, as shewn by her costume, which would accord very nearly with that worn at the era of Cicely Bonville’s death.

Sir Edward Grey, uncle to Thomas Grey, first Marquis of Dorset, married Elizabeth, sister and heir of Thomas Talbot, Viscount L’Isle. 15 Edward IV. he was created Baron, and 1 Richard III. Viscount L’Isle, died in 1492, and bequeathed his body to be buried in the new chapel of Our Lady, begun to be built by himself in the College of Astley, where the body of his late wife Elizabeth lay interred. His daughter Muriel was the first wife of Henry Stafford, Earl of Wiltshire, second husband of Cicely Bonville. A guess may be hazarded that these figures represent Sir Edward Grey and his wife Elizabeth.

Before we close our account of the Bonville and Grey memorials, we propose to include—from its uniqueness of example—another remembrance to a presumed second-cousin of the Lady Cicely, that we discovered among the fine series of bench-ends in a visit to the little church of Barwick, near Yeovil, on our way back from Limington. It is one of a pair in the chancel, almost alike, the only difference being—and here note the evident purpose conveyed in all mediæval symbolism—that one shield, the earliest in the succession is suspended by a guige from a hawthorn tree in blossom, and the later one from a hawthorn tree in fruit. The arms on the first are, dexter, quarterly of four:—1 and 4. On a chief a fleur-de-lys, in base a mullet pierced (Rogers).—2 and 3. Fretty, and a chief (Echyngham); impaling,—In chief quarterly, 1 and 4, six roundels, 2 and 3, three camels; in base, guttée (——?). On the second bench-end are Rogers and Echyngham, quarterly as before, impaling Courtenay and De Redvers quarterly.

“The family of Roger or Rogers,” says Mr. Batten, “whose chief seat was at Bryanstone, Dorset, held Barwick for six generations, extending to the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.” John Rogers married Anne, daughter of Thomas de Echyngham, Lord of Echyngham in Sussex. His grandson Sir John, married presumably—for singularly her name does not as yet appear to be identified in the pedigree—Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Courtenay of Powderham, who died in 1512, by his wife Cicely, daughter of Sir John Cheney of Pinhoe.

Sir William Courtenay’s mother was Margaret Bonville, daughter of Lord William Bonville, and so great-aunt to Cicely Bonville, and Elizabeth Rogers of the Barwick panel, was her second cousin.

They were buried at Bryanstone, and on the floor of the chancel of that church, without the rails, says Hutchins, “on the gravestone are the brass effigies of a man and a woman kneeling and their hands elevated. Over are the arms of Rogers and Echyngham quarterly, and under the woman, Rogers impaling Courtenay, and this inscription:—

Of your charitie pray for the soules of John Rogers esquyer and Elizabeth his wyfe which John decessed the day of in the ye’r md^c and Elizabeth decessed the first day of October in the ye’r of our Lord m d^c xviii on whose soules J’hu have m’cy

on other bench-ends at Barwick are the initials W. H. and date 1533, probably for William Hooper, patron of the benefice at that time. The date of the Limington bench-ends is almost contemporary.”

A round-about digression, you will say, gentle reader, but how interesting is it, thus in our little pilgrimage, to connect the relationship of these old sculptures, and make their personal history live again; verily, if there be any charm belonging to these researches into the past, herein it is found.

Of the early inheritances of the Bonvilles, Wiscombe, and Shute, on the attainder of the Duke of Suffolk both fell to the Crown, and Queen Mary granted them to her Secretary, Sir William Petre.

Wiscombe, toward the end of the sixteenth century, appears to have been the residence of Robert Drake, Esq., probably under grant from the descendants of Sir William Petre. He was the son of John Drake, Esq., of Ashe, Musbury, who died 4 Oct., 1558, by his wife Amy daughter of Roger Grenville, Esq., of Stow, who died 18 Feb., 1577-8. He married Elizabeth—daughter of Humphrey Prideaux of Theuborough, north Devon, who died 8 May, 1550, by his wife Joan daughter of Richard Fowell, of Fowells-combe, in south Devon,—by whom he left a large family.

William, the eldest son, was of Wiscombe. He married Philippa, sister of Sir Thomas Denys, died in 1619, leaving six children, of whom Thomas the eldest succeeded him at Wiscombe, and died in 1661.

Henry was of Childhay, an old picturesque seat in the parish of Broad-Winsor, Dorset. This he acquired by his marriage with Amy, daughter of John Crukerne, of Childhay, and widow of Sir Arthur Champernowne, of Modbury, Devon. He died in 1640.

Nicholas, a pensioner of James I., died 1640. He married Jane, daughter of William Tothill, “youngest of thirty-three children,” she died 1622.

Robert, a colonel in the army, together with Humphrey his brother, a captain, were both killed at Ostend early in 1604.

Bernard, also described as of Wiscombe, married Elizabeth Densloe, and John, died without issue. Three of the daughters were named Gertrude, Ursula, and Amy.

The old historian, Westcote, thus refers to the untimely death of these soldier-brothers,—

“Wiscombe; where liveth a generous family of Drake; of which race there were lately two brothers, (besides others) Robert and Henry: (the sons of Robert:) the first, a colonel of much worth and esteem with the Prince of Orange in the Netherlands; and the other a captain: both taken away in the flower of their age: a great grief to their friends and loss to their country.”

And Risdon, his contemporary, adds in almost similar words,—

“Here (Wiscombe) now inhabits a generous tribe of the Drakes, of which, besides other brothers, were Robert and Henry, the sons of Robert; the first a colonel in the Netherlands, of great esteem with the Prince of Orange and the States, of his valour, who in all his actions was said to make use of the spur of courage, and the reins of judgment; the other a captain, of much hope, both taken away in the flower of their age, in defence of Ostend, to the great grief of their friends, and loss of their country.”

The monument of Robert Drake, the father of these unfortunate men,—and who was mercifully prevented by death from experiencing the great trial of their early decease,—occurs on the north side of the chancel of Southleigh church. It is of Ionic character with arabesque ornamentation, and bears the following inscription,—

ARMIGER AURATUS ROBERTUS NOMINE DRACUS
HIC JACET ILLE PIUS PAUPERIBUSQUE BONUS
SEPTE GNATOS FRUGI ET GNATAS QUINQUE VENUSTAS
PARTURIIT CONJUX ELIZABETHA SIBI
OBIIT 1600. MARCH 30.

Thus translated,—“An ennobled Esquire; Robert Drake by name, lies here, one who feared God and remembered the poor; his wife Elizabeth bore him seven thrifty sons and five comely daughters. Died 30 March, 1600.”

Below are five shields:—1. A wyvern with wings displayed (Drake), impaling A chevron enhanced by a fleur-de-lys and charged with two roundels, between three crescents.—2. Grenville.—3. A chevron charged with a mullet, a label of three (Prideaux).—4. Ermine, three battle-axes in pale (Denys).—5. A fess between three fleurs-de-lys.

Robert Drake was the brother of Sir Bernard of Ashe, who died of jail fever in 1586, and of Richard Drake of Esher, who died in 1603.16

The Wiscombe estate appears to have remained in the possession of the Petre family, until disposed of by Lord Petre in 1794, to Mr. J. M. How.

Speaking of Wiscombe, Risdon says,—

“It some time belonged to the priory of Otterton, which was in the time of K. Hen. 3., by the prior granted unto sir Nicholas Bonvile, kt., which he made his dwelling, and had here a large park for deer, not long since disparked by the Lord Petre whose inheritance it now is.”

And Westcote, albeit with no special genealogical accuracy, thus soliloquises,—

“This place is memorable for being the habitation of Lord Bonvile, an unfortunate man: (for unwise I dare not nor may not term him:) yet this may I say by the way, good fortune and wisdom, folly and ill-fortune or mischance, go masked, and that very often under one hood; yea, unmasked do so near resemble one the other, that they are hardly known or rightly distinguished (by those that look them directly in the face) each from other, and therefore one bears very often the other’s faults, and on the contrary one steals away the other’s praise and commendation; which is truly avered by Athenæus, when he saith,

‘Longissime a sapientia sors dissidet
Sed multa perfecit tamen simillima.’

Seldom the traitor, though much haste he make,
Lame-footed vengeance fails to overtake.

The extreme mischief succeeded; first his only son was taken from him by untimely death, and his nephew (the third William, Lord Harrington by his mother’s right,) slain at the battle of Wakefield; and immediately after (that his old age might want no kind of misery,) while he waited still and long expected better days, himself was taken (at the battle of St. Alban’s,) prisoner, and having now run out his full and long course of nature, could not yet come to the grave in peace, but lost his head; leaving behind him for heir, Cicely, his grandson’s daughter; a damsel of tender years, who brought a large and rich inheritance to Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, half-brother, by the mother, to king Edward V.”

Wiscombe, although disparked by the Petres, and all the old forest trees swept away; their successors in its possession have in comparatively late years planted the hill-sides of the estate with large breadths of the conifera; these have flourished with great luxuriance, and it would be difficult at present to find a more richly wooded landscape than it exhibits. The different habits of the trees, fringed and interspersed with those of the ordinary species, form a delightful contrast, especially when clothed in all the varying tints that give such charm to the

AUTUMNAL HOURS.

The quiet Autumn hours,—so cool and calm,
When the bright sun hath stayed his blazing wheels,
And o’er the earth there seems to steal a balm,
Of peace full-satisfied, as the heart feels
When after some strong fight, and conquest won,
That brings no grief,—we rest and count the spoil,
Rich with the crowned content of something done,
Forgetful of the conflict and the toil.

How blessed comes each change;—with sobering tints,
The fading flowers have to rich fruitage turned,
The golden leaves lit with faint sunny glints,
Flame mid the dews like patient martyrs burned,—
The robin pipes his lay,—the bee speeds home,—
And o’er the soul a sweet repose doth come.

Shute also became the property of Secretary Petre, “from whom,” says the Antiquary, “my father had the howse and park, and dwelled theire duringe his lief, and left it unto mee, and my eldest son John Pole holdeth it from mee”; it is now held by his descendant, the ninth baronet.

Once more we are back in Southleigh churchyard in the Wiscombe valley, from which our footsteps originally set out to thread the mazes of our imperfectly told but eventful history. We look into the little church for traces of Bonville, but nothing is visible, reflecting their memory in this their earliest home. A few years since in clearing the foundations of an old picturesque cottage, not far from the church, some fragments of sculpture, of Perpendicular character, were found, being part of a cornice of rich vine-tracery, together with scrolls, and winged angels holding shields, canopies of niches, panelled shafting, the emblem of St. Luke, &c.,—the colours and gilding still fresh on them. These were apparently portions of the antient reredos, and from their rich character, were probably relics of the taste and munificence of the Bonvilles; or of their last descendant “that devout woman Cecilia, Marchioness of Dorset, Lady de Bonville, and Haryngton,” the patron of numerous benefices in Devon, and other counties; and generous benefactor toward the ornamentation, repair, or additions to, the various parish churches in which her extensive possessions were situate. Pleasing remembrances, left to attest her memory, and which still stand out in grateful relief, long after the turbulent scenes of treachery and bloodshed amid which they found their existence, have passed away; for is it not written,—

“The meek shall inherit the land;
And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.”

One further circumstance, referable only to the realms of conjecture, but unique in its way, detains us a minute, as we turn to leave the village graveyard. Just outside the chancel is a high-tomb, commemorating the burial of Henry Willoughby, 28 Sept., 1616.17 At its end is the grand escutcheon of Willoughby de Eresby, with crescent for difference. It has not yet been explained who he was, or how he found sepulchre here. We remember that Anne, younger daughter of Thomas Grey, second Marquis of Dorset, and so grand-daughter to Cicely Bonville, married Henry Willoughby, of Wollaton, Nottinghamshire, which would not be far from the home of the Willoughbies de Eresby in Lincolnshire. Is this the memorial of her husband? The date would accord with the presumption.

Here we conclude this desultory outline of the history of Bonville, and as our feet make homeward, many thoughts haunt us over the marvels—for they are nothing less—that fill its phases of human relation. In the middle of its recital, which concluded with the untimely death of Lord Bonville, we said it was a relief to turn aside from the atrocities mingled with the strife of the Roses. In its continuation, for a while, under the more settled rule of Tudor, there were comparatively fewer horrors to chronicle, but the union of the royal houses, emblemed by the rival flowers, was cemented with blood, its ghastly trail followed into the spirit of the new dynasty, and gathering strength as the three generations of Grey passed, culminated at length in a tragedy for size and importance unsurpassed in the annals of our national history. Its last representative, although a subject only, had wedded the grand-daughter of one, and cousin of another of the reigning Kings, and who had herself also been a Queen in her own right. Here the topmost pinnacle of alliance with the highest worldly station had been reached, but only to experience the fate of that often-witnessed terrific downfall, which follows the promptings engendered by the unsatisfied ambition of attaining to such dangerous altitude. Within three short years, three headless dukes—of foremost station in their native land, and allied to each other by ties of relationship—passed from the scaffold on Tower Hill to obscure and unmarked graves in the little Chapel of that fortress; and with them went also, after experiencing the same terrible ordeal, following her youthful husband, a young and guileless victim, almost the sole representative of the new stock, into which the last tender branch of the extinct house of Bonville had been engraffed.

Enough, sayest thou, friend of mine, of this harrowing relation;—quite so,—our story is ended. Life was indeed intended for happier results than these, and how much better the simple delights, enjoyments and pleasures of unenvied station, that in their possession are ever

“Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne;”

and unsmote by the glamour of the basilisk Ambition, whose fascination lives on the ever unsatisfied desire for fame or station, until often, when too late and past recall, the illusion vanishes as the victim disappears over the verge of the unseen, treacherous precipice of irretrievable ruin.

The shadows grow deeper between the hedgerows as we saunter homeward, a dewy mist is settling down the valley, and a cheery glint salutes us here and there from the cottage windows as we pass along. Listen! What melody do we hear, with greeting so soft and soothing? Aye, artless as it is, that, which in this world, for sweetness knows no rival, even

A MOTHER’S SONG.

’Tis eve, and dusky twilight falls;
Here is a home that men call poor,
A glimmer lights its humble walls,
A strain comes through its half-closed door;
Sweet as from Sappho’s soul might spring,
Song, none but mother’s voice may sing.

Look through the casement dim and old,
A shadow fronts the ingle’s glow,
Whose arms a tiny form enfold,
Sits gently rocking to and fro;
With cadence measured to its swing,
Comes song that mothers only sing.

Her tears fall on the baby’s brow,
Too full her heart with very joy,
Hark! with her voice is blending now,
The sleepy murmurs of her boy;
Faint—fainter—hushed and slumbering,
By song but mother’s lips may sing.

Why bends, O friend, thy brow with thought,
At glimpse of Paradise so fair?
Doth memory fill thy heart unsought
With echo, whose ‘divine despair’
Brings sadness past imagining?
Song that thy mother used to sing!

O soft sweet voice, O simple strain,
Where love ne’er bids the measure cease,
Until the charm of its refrain,
Lulls the complaining soul to peace;
Come back again on angel wing,
O song my mother used to sing!

It may not be, earth hath one heaven,
Our childhood’s days, a mother’s care,
When life is o’er, will other given
Restore to us these joys so rare?
Yes, and its pure delight shall bring,
The songs our mothers used to sing.