Kilkenny, Feb. 10. 1851.
The Cardinal's hat, with arms beneath, on a pillar near the poet Gower's
monument, in St. Saviour's, Southwark, refers directly to the beneficence
of that busy cardinal and very remarkable man, {170} Cardinal Beaufort,
Bishop of Winchester, and who in that capacity resided in the adjoining
palace; indirectly it refers to the marriage of James V. of Scotland with
Jane Beaufort, the Cardinal's niece: and it is something to the honour of
St. Mary Overies, (the church in question,) to add that it was within its
walls that the ceremony took place. Besides Gower, the parish registers
state that Edmond Shakspeare ob. 1607 (one of the brothers of the great
dramatist), John Fletcher ob. 1625, and Philip Massinger ob. 1640. (See Mr.
Knight's _Old England_, eng. 548. p. 147.)