"To make a warrant for the beheading Sir Thomas Arundell, and Sir
Michael Stanhope, and to perform the process of hanging of Sir
Rauf Vane and Sir Miles Partridge, who are appointed to be
executed on fryday next between ix. and xi. before noone."
The warrant was duly made out and dated the 25th,--the next day
Friday, the 26th February, was fixed for their execution. Machyn thus
describes the event,--
"The xxvj. day of Feybruarii the wyche was the morrow after saynt
Mathuwe day, was hedded on the Tower hill, sir Myghell Stanhope
knyght and ser Thomas Arundell, and incontenent was hangyd the
seylff sam tyme sir Raff a Vane knyght, and ser Mylles Parterege
knyght of the galowse besyd the ---- and after ther bodys wher
putt in to dyvers new coffens to be bered, and heds, in to the
Towre in cases, and ther bered."
Both Sir Thomas Arundell and Sir Michael Stanhope were interred in the
Tower Chapel. Thus he followed in the same dire way, and was buried
beside his two headless kinswomen laid there a few years previously.
What is to be said as to all these proceedings, and their melancholy
termination, had guilt or innocence anything to do with it, or was it
expediency only, that controlled the result? Sir John Hayward
apparently supplies the true key as to the object of the nefarious
transaction,--
"Not long after the death of Somerset, _because it was not
thought fit that such a person should be executed alone, who
could hardly be thought to offend alone_, Sir Ralph Vane and Sir
Miles Partridge were hanged on Tower Hill, Sir Michael Stanhope
and Sir Thomas Arundell were there also beheaded.
"All these took it upon their last charge, that they never
offended against the King, nor against any of his Council. God
knows whether obstinately secret or innocent, and in the opinion
of all men Somerset was much cleared by the death of those _who
were executed to make him appear faulty_."
But their deaths were not destined to go long unavenged. He who had
poured the "leperous distilment" into the young king's ear, that sent
Sir Thomas to his doom, and others, in company with his rival
Somerset, lame-footed vengeance was on the trail of his unscrupulous,
ambitious footsteps, it speedily overtook him, and the next headless
body that was brought to find unconscious entrance to the Tower Chapel
was that of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.
As the grave closes over the unfortunate Sir Thomas Arundell our
thoughts next follow to those he left behind him. The usual fate was
awarded his possessions as a traitor, he was attainted, and they were
confiscated to the Crown; but King Edward, two years after his death,
restored to his widow, the Lady Elizabeth Arundell, her full dower out
of her deceased husband's property.
Of course there is no direct memorial existent to Sir Thomas Arundell,
but it is singular, that in the fine brass to the memory of his
father, mother, and his father's second wife in St. Columb church,
Cornwall, one of their children, a little _headless_ armoured figure
still remains, and beside it is Sir Thomas' escutcheon,--Arundell with
six quarterings, impaling Howard with four. The diminutive effigy is
undoubtedly designed to represent Sir Thomas,--the label over his head
that contained his name is gone. The corresponding indents of figure,
shield, and label, were originally filled with a representation of his
brother Sir John, his name and arms.
Sir Thomas Arundell, by his wife Elizabeth Howard, left two children,
Sir Matthew, who succeeded him, and Margaret, married to Sir Henry
Weston.
Sir Matthew married Margaret, daughter of Henry Willoughby[46] of
Wollaton, Notts, by his wife Anne, third daughter of Thomas Grey,
second Marquis of Dorset, and sister to Henry, afterward Duke of
Suffolk. They were second cousins, both being the grandchildren of
Cicely Bonville.
[46] The ghost of his name, and the tomb in Southleigh
churchyard, seem to haunt our little narratives, see pages 35 and 85.
With the accession of Queen Mary, matters wore a very different aspect
toward the Arundells. Doubtless the Queen fully recognized and
esteemed their allegiance to the antient faith, which she held in
common with them, and so we find in the first year of her reign, she
restored by patent to Sir Matthew, all his deceased father's lands.
This does not seem to have included Wardour Castle, which appears to
have been granted by lease or otherwise to the Earl of Pembroke, who
greatly embellished it, but Sir Matthew subsequently, by purchase,
acquired its possession from that family; it was not, however, free of
the claims of the Crown as will be seen. He probably resided before
this at Shaftesbury, in the house he had built out of the ruins of the
Abbey.
Sir Matthew was knighted, with twenty-two other west-country
gentlemen, who "were dubbed in the progress to Bristowe, anno d'ni,
1574," by Queen Elizabeth.
Once more we find ourselves in Tisbury church, and in this chancel,
where the succeeding generations of the Arundells of Wardour, after
the vicissitudes of this life,--and in their earlier days they had
their ample share of them,--were over,--and one after another were
here gathered together in the fold of death.
Sir Matthew was buried 24 Dec., 1598. This inscription commemorates
him,--
IESUS.
MAT' ARUNDEL, EQUES ORDINE, INTUS DORMIT IN PULVERE.
IGNOSCAT ILLI OMNIA QUI NOSTRA TULIT CRIMINA.
DELICTA JUVENTUTIS MEE ET IGNORANTIAS MEAS NE
MEMINERIS DOMINE.
I. H. S.
Thomas, his son, succeeded him. "Prompted by the ardent and chivalrous
spirit of adventurous enterprise prevalent in the reign of Elizabeth,
he obtained the Queen's permission to enter the service of Rudolph
II., Emperor of Germany, to whom she addressed a personal letter of
recommendation of her 'kinsman.'" This was correct enough,--Queen
Elizabeth was the daughter of Queen Anne Boleyn, and so grand-daughter
of Lady Elizabeth Howard,--Thomas Arundell was the great-grandson of
Lord Edmund Howard, her brother. In 1595, at the siege of the city of
Gran, or Strigonium, in Hungary, then held by the Turks, he gave great
proofs of his valour, "and that in forcing the water tower, near
Strigonium, he took from the Turks their banner, slaying the bearer
with his own hand." For this and other services Rudolph created him a
Count of the Holy Roman Empire, which he had the temerity to accept,
without getting sufficient leave from his jealous and imperious
'kinswoman' at home, and for which he appears to have suffered some
confinement. It raised a dispute also at Court as to what precedence,
or otherwise, this foreign distinction was entitled to, and the matter
being brought before the Queen for her opinion, she characteristically
replied,--
"that there was a close tie of affection between the prince and
subject; and that as chaste wives should have no glances but for
their own spouses, so should faithful subjects keep their eyes at
home, and not gaze upon foreign crowns, and she, for her part,
did not care her sheep should wear stranger's marks, nor dance
after the whistle of every foreigner."
and she intimated to the Emperor, that she had forbad him any place or
precedence in England.
It is probable Queen Elizabeth had no great liking for the Arundells,
being prejudiced against them, it may be on account of their religious
principles. Some years before, in 1575, when Sir Matthew Arundell had
re-acquired Wardour Castle and Park, she seized upon it to enforce the
payment of an old Crown debt, that seems to have been owing on
property Sir Thomas Arundell acquired of Henry VIII., and had not been
cleared off, and which it was probable from his relationship to that
monarch was never intended should be paid. The Queen, we believe, did
not insist on the payment, but it shewed her semi-hostile attitude
toward them then, and this incident of the acceptance of a foreign
title, did not tend to improve it. King James, however straitened and
antagonistic in his religious views, and natural distaste to the Roman
communion, nevertheless, recognized his merits, by creating him in the
second year of his reign, 4 May, 1605, Baron Arundell of Wardour, but
neither Queen Elizabeth, nor that King, we believe, ever recognized
his foreign title. He died at Wardour Castle, and was buried in this
chancel. The following inscription is to his memory,--
THOMAS DOMINUS ARUNDELIUS,
PRIMUS BARO DE WARDOUR, SACRI ROMANI IMPERII COMES,
OBIJT 7^MO DIE NOVEMBRIS,
AETATIS SUAE 79, ANNO DOMINI 1639.