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HER MAJESTY'S TOWER.

VOL. II.

Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive

in 2010 witii funding from

University of Toronto

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HER MAJESTY'S TOWER.

BY

WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON.

VOLUME 11.

loiirti] iMtioiT.

LONDON: HUEST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,

13 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1870.

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PIEFACE.

^>riiins the story of the Anglo- s'; a stoiy which has not yet patches, and only then with- tijr bands.

. ted these Studies as a work Among other things now made cat in the To\irt. may be named : — the situation iji our early :' King's Bench and Court of

Common Pleas,- the connexion of St. Thomas of Canterbury ith the Water Gate, — the lodg- ings of Lady Jane Grey, — the crypt of Sir Thomas Wvat and the Men of Kent, — the chamber of Arcbishop Cranmer, — the apartments of BLsh p Lesl, — the various towers in which Raleigh . " _ -the two prisons of Lc»rd Grey. — the duniTr .. ruy Fawkes and Father Fisher. — the localitv otche or-nferences of Father Garnet with Father Cdcome, — ^the home of the Wizard Eari and t^.- iree Magi, — the tower from which

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PREFACE.

This volume contains the story of the Angio- Spanish Consph-acy ; a story which has not yet been told, except in patches, and only then with- out the connectmg bands.

I have already noted these Studies as a work of identification. Among other thmgs now made out m the Tower, may be named : — the situation of our early Court of King's Bench and Court of Common Pleas, — the connexion of St. Thomas of Canterbury with the Water Gate, — the lodg- ings of Lady Jane Grey,— the crypt of Sir Thomas Wyat and the Men of Kent, — the chamber of Archbishop Cranmer, — the apartments of Bishop Leslie, — the various towers in which Raleigh lodged, — the two prisons of Lord Grey, — the dungeon of Guy Fawkes and Father Fisher,-^ — the locality of the conferences of Father Garnet with Father Oldcorne, — the home of the Wizard Earl and the three Magi, — the tower from which

VI PREFACE.

Seymour escaped, — the room in which Overbiiiy was poisoned, — and the lodgings in which the Earl and Countess of Somerset lived. The new facts will enter into a good deal of our history and biography.

But the mterest of this volume (it may be hoped) is general rather than local ; lying mainly in the new lio-hts under which recent research

o

permits a student to tell the great story of our national life.

In making; these Studies — the occasional labour of my pen for more than twenty years — I have received much help from Sir Thomas D. Hardy, Deputy-Keeper of the Public Records, and from Lieut. -Colonel F. C. Whimper, Major of the Tower. J. E. Gardner, Esq, has oj)ened to me his unrivalled Collection of Old Prints and Drawings ; and A. Kingston, Esq. has lent me his critical eye and ready hand in readmg and copying the State Papers in Fetter Lane. I tender them my warmest thanks.

6 St. James's Terrace,

Regent's Park.

CONTENTS.

CHAP.

I. THE ANGLO-SPANISH PLOT

II. FACTIONS AT COURT

III. LORD GREY OF WILTON

IV. OLD ENGLISH CATHOLICS V. THE ENGLISH JESUITS

TI. WHITE WEBBS .

VII. THE priests' PLOT

VIII. WILTON COURT .

IX. LAST OF A NOBLE LINE

X. POWDER-PLOT ROOM

XI. GUY FAWKES

XTI. ORIGIN OF THE PLOT

XIII. VINEGAR HOUSE

XIV. CONSPIRACY' AT LARGE XV. THE JESUITS MOVE

XVI. IN LONDON

XVII. NOVEMBER, 1605

XVIII. HUNTED DOWN .

PAGE. 1

12

22

32

39

47

57

70

83

90

101

111

125

137

148

154

168

178

VI 11

CONTENTS.

CHAP,

XIX. IN TIIK TOWER .

XX. SEAKCll FOR CiARXET XXT. END OF THE ENGLISH JESUITS XXn. THE CATHOLIC LORDS

XXI II. HARRY PERCY

XXIV. THE WIZARD EARL XXV. A REAL ARAHELLA PLO'l

XXVI. WILLIAM SEYMOUR XXVII. THE ESCAPE XXVIII. PURSUIT

XXIX. DEAD IN THE TOWER XXX. LADY FRANCES HOWARD XXXI. ROBERT CARR XXXII. POWDER POISONING XXXIII. THE END . INDEX

PAGE 190

203

216

229

240

248

258

269

278

288

296

306

315

327

339

355

HER MAJESTY'S TOWER.

CHAPTER I

THE ANGLO-SPANISH PLOT.

During the fourteen years through which Raleigh wrote m the Bloody tower and lit his fires in the Garden house, a line of prisoners, more or less closely linked with his fortunes, passed into the Tower ; some of them to spend within these vaults a week of doubt and pain ; others to die in them a daily death for years ; this man to baffle his keeper and slip his chain ; that man to fret out his soul against bolt and bar ; while most of their fellows in mishap were only too glad to escape from damp and gloom, from wheel and cord, by way of either the hangman's rope or the heads- man's axe.

The first of these prisoners, in point of time, was Thomas, Lord Grey of Wilton Castle, who

VOL. IL B

2 HER MAJESTY S TOWER.

lived nine years in the Brick tower on the northern wall. With Grey came William Wat- son and William Clarke, two Secular priests, the alleged companions of his crime. These men were followed by Guy Fawkes and his companions, who were thro^vn into the dun- geons of the Keep ; by Fathers Garnet and Oldcome, who were lodged in the lower rooms of the Bloody tower ; by Father Fisher, who has left his name on a door-post in the White tower ; by the Earl of Northumberland, ' the Wizard Earl,' who lay in the Martin tower ; by Lady Arabella Stuart, who lived and died in the Belfry and the Lieutenant's house ; by her hus- band, William Seymour, who escaped from the Water gate ; by the Countess of Shrewsbury, who occupied the Queen's lodgings ; by Sir Thomas Overbury, who was poisoned in the Bloody tower ; and on the morrow of Baleigh's liberation, by Lord and Lady Somerset, who lived and quar- relled in the Bloody tower and the Garden house. All these prisoners may be called the Baleigh group.

The story of this group of prisoners is that of the rise and fall of a great conspu-acy, the Anglo-Spanish Plot, This conspiracy endured

THE ANGLO-SPANISH PLOT. 3

tlii'ough many yeai^s, survived various chiefs, and put on divers shapes. It had a foreign bui:h and a foreign end, though it was conducted on the EngKsh soil by English hands. Conceived in the cabinet of King Philip, it was prepared in the Enghsh Colleges of Douai and VaUadoHd, and put into action in our London suburbs and our midland shires. The men who began it were Jesuits, and the pupils of Jesuits ; the men who continued it were Councillors and Peers; but whether the work was done by Persons and Garnet, or by Cecil, Suffolk, and Northampton, the piu'pose kept in \'iew at Madrid was ever the same — the subordination of our national life to that of Spain.

While the Jesuits held the reins, the motive power was religious zeal ; when the Councillors held the rems, the motive power was gold. Though trained m a foreign school, the Jesuits could only be persuaded to serve the King of Spain so long as they felt that, in serving him, they were doing their duty to God and Holy Church. The Peers who succeeded to their office as ' Friends of SpaiQ,*^ allowed no such scruples to stay their course. Having a country to sell, they made then* infamous bargains with the Spanish ambassador, and built

4 HER MAJESTY S TOWER.

sucli palaces as those of Hatfield and Cliaring Cross on the wages of their shame.

This Anglo-Spanish Plot was the mother of many treasons. The Essex rising — the Priests' Plot — the Main and the Bye — the Seymour Escape — and the Powder Poisoning, were but details springing from a common source.

The chief of this plot for many years was Henry Garnet, Prefect of the English Jesuits.

The Prefect, a square bluff man, of middle age, much worn by care, if not by drink, and looking ten years older than he was, had a string of different names. In Flanders he was known as Father Greene, Father Wlialley, and Father Poberts. In England he passed under the priestly names of Father Garnet, Father Darcy, and Father WaUey ; under the lay names of Mr. Farmer and Mr. Mese. He had as many homes as names ; not to speak of the houses of his penitents and pupils, which were to him as homes. He had a house called Wliite Webbs, in Enfield Chase; a lodging iii Thames Street, near Queenhithe ; a secluded residence on Wandsworth Common ; an old manor at Eilth, which he used for the coming and going of his agents by the Thames.

This man of many names and domiciles is said

THE ANGLO-SPANISH PLOT. 5

to have kept a merry table. He was accused of a fondness for female society which ill became a priest, and the name of Helen Brooksby was coupled with this hmt of frailty, even more than that of her sister Ann Yaux. These hints of an imdue fondness for wine and women rest, not on the words of his Protestant enemies, but on those of his Cathohc friends — most of all, on the words of his fellow-confessors.

It would be unfair to urge against Gar- net all that was said of hun, even by his fellows, after he had played his game and lost his life ; for the whole body of the Secular clergy hated him as an upstart and intruder in theh Church, while many of his brethren in the Society, blessed with more patient tempers and more moderate hopes, disliked his memory as that of a man who had brought discredit on their craft,. From neither side had Garnet much in the way of mercy to expect ; a balance must be struck between the words which were spoken and the facts which were proved.

The Prefect was a fine Imguist, a subtle reasoner, a good divine ; but no one who knows the story of his time will say that he lived a perfectly blameless life. Wlien a lad at Win-

6 HER MAJESTY S TOWER.

Chester scliool, he was flogged for oflences which have no name ; and the conditions under ^^'llich he resided as a grown man in ItaUan cloisters, in Flemish camps, and in English country-houses, were in high degree unfavourable to personal virtue. Most of his days and nights were spent in evading spies, in studying tricks and masks, in passing under false colours, in conducting spurious business. One day he was a rich mer- chant from the City, next day a poor soldier from the wars ; here a married man, there a smgle one ; now a tavern-rufller, with rapier ready on his thigh; anon a starving curate, full of ardour for his Queen. Each day was to him a fight for Hberty and life. The fate of his old companions weighed upon his mind. Southwell had been hung. Weston still lingered in the Clink — a daily warninof, that if he meant to live and labour for his Church, he must put on every disguise that natural craft and wide experience could suggest as a cover for what he was. Short of this masking, he would fail at once. Yet while it would be harsh to urge against Garnet that his changes of name and dress were in them- selves immoral, as tending to deceive, it would be idle not to see that a life so spent implies a

THE ANGLO-SPAXISH PLOT. 7

vast deal of lying, and that lying, for wliatever purpose it may be done, is utterly corrosive to heart and soul. A saint could not live a daily lie.

That Father Garnet loved good wine and plenty of it, we know from the highest source — himself. Claret was his table-drink, and he liked to wind up his repast with sack. Sometimes he drank so freely that his servants had to put hun to bed. Now and then he got drunk. But there is no reason to believe, with Bishop Abbott, that he was a constant sot ; the very life he led being evidence against such a calumny. That he was fond of female society, and indulged his weakness to the point of public scandal, there can be no doubt. The ladies hving under his roof may have thought themselves the Martha and Mary of a new reign of grace ; but the Prefect knew that the world would not judge theu- conduct in this pious vein. The world condemned them. The Church condemned them. In the writmgs of the Secular Priests, this weakness of the Jesuit Prefect was denounced m teiTas which leave no room for doubt as to what was meant.

The rival and destroyer of Father Garnet was his successor as chief of the Anglo-Spanish

8 HER majesty's TOWER.

Plot in the second phase. This man was Lord Henry Howard, better knowTi as Earl of North- ampton, the title which he bore in the reign of James the First.

Northampton was the second son of Lord SuiTey, singer of the Songs and Sonnets, lover of the Fair Geraldine. An Italian soothsayer pro- mised the poet that his child would pass through a youth of want and trouble — a manhood of honour — an old ao-e of wealth. The noble Poet may have smiled at such augimes for a son of the ducal house of Howard ; but these words of the Italian wizard were called to mind when the poet had fallen beneath the axe and his son was an outcast and a beggar in a foreign land, A dark Greek fate appeared to pursvie Northampton's race; his father, the Poet, had perished on the block— his brother, Duke Thomas, the lover of Mary, had perished on the block — his nephew, Philip the Confessor, had died in the Tower. A pauper in the land of his birth, an exile in Italy and France, the future patron of learning was unable to buy a new book, and the designer of Audley End was forced to seek shelter in a barn. Is it strange that miseries which few men could have borne at all, should have unstrimg in the Poet's son a mind

THE ANGLO-SPANISH PLOT. 9

that was quick and fertile, rather than great and strong ? He had hved in Borne, where his hfe was gracious, but not pure. In Home he became a Cathohc — a Cathohc of Itahan rather than of Enghsh type. From the Tiber he passed to the Amo, where he studied art in the Pitti Palace and morals in the Piazza dei Signori. In Florence he left behind him that best companion and guide of genius, a loyal and manly heart ; for in the court of Cosmo de Medici he learned the art of changing sides with the time, of urging and denying with the same soft speech, of seeming to be all things to all men ; a Prelatist in the com- pany of bishops, a Reformer in that of Puritans, a Cathohc in that of priests, a Poyalist m that of kiners. With one lesson learned from the Tower, corrected by a second lesson learned from the Lateran, he lost his faith in creeds, in comicils, and m men. Peligion, Coimtry, Virtue, were to him but words ; words sounding in his ears like the idle wind. Place, Power, and Money, he could understand ; and after these things had been won, he could taste the delights of pomp and rank. His taste was fine and his learning wide. He loved to build great mansions, to buy fine pictures, to store up costly

10 HER MAJESTY S TOWER.

jewels, to collect rare books. All these things cost large sums, and money was to him a need, like his daily bread.

Bent on building up once more the fallen house of Howard, he never paused to debate the means. Show him a road that led to place, he took it ; show him a road that led to gold, he took it ; never stopping to inquu-e if the path were such as an honest man could take. The brother of a Duke who had lost his title and estates, how could Northampton afPord to be an honest man ? A little was gained on the coming in of James ; he was made Earl of Northampton ; his nephew Thomas was made Earl of Suffolk ; his grand- nephew, the son of Philip, restored in blood, was created Earl of Arundel and Surrey. But the family was poor, and the ducal coronet of his race was lost.

Northampton, now growing old, and fretted by a foul disease, was still stout in purpose and stanch in brain. No sense of shame ever checked his tongue. If a man could help him to get on, he was willing to serve that man in ways which w^ould have degraded the vilest slave. Wliile Cecil reigned, he pandered to that sly and secret volup- tuary by putting in his way the Comitess of

THE ANGLO-SPANISH PLOT. 11

SufPolk, his lovely and. venal niece ; just as, some years later, he encouraged her still more beautiful and profligate daughter, Lady Essex, to violate her nuptial vows with Carr.

This hoary smner, having a keen sense of the value of virtue, as an article of trade, kept a large •assortment of moralities on sale. No lord of the court could make a finer speech. His maxims were always noble ; his words were always chaste. He never sold a niece for money without boasting of his honour, and never hung a priest without protesting his devotion to his Church.

The first part of this Anglo-Spanish conspiracy ended with the executions following on the Pow- der Plot ; the second part, with the executions following on the Powder Poisoning. Garnet, the master-spirit of part the first, was hung in St. Paul's Churchyard ; Northampton, the master- spirit of part the second, escaped the penalty of his crimes by dying on the eve of his arrest.

12

CHAPTER 11.

FACTIONS AT COURT.

While the Queen's ashes were yet warm at Kichmond, a schism broke out m her council at Wliitehall, not only in words which pass, but in acts which live. A part of her council was f&r making terms with the King of Scots, now known to be her heu' ; such terms as then- fathers had often made with uncrowned kings ; such terms as their sons had afterwards to impose on William the Thh-d, Lord Grey was one of those who urged that James should be asked for pledges to respect our English rights and to follow our English laws. Sir John Fortescue supported the views of Grey; while Cecil, and the two Howards (soon to be known as the Earls of Suffolk and Northampton) contended that all such things could wait, that subjects must not make conditions, and that the wisest com^se would be to trust their king.

FACTIONS AT COURT. 13

Cecil knew too well in what lie placed his trust. For three years past he had employed Lord Henry in a secret correspondence with the Scottish court, from which he had learned enough of James to see his drift and gauge his strength. The Scottish prince, he found, was bent on peace ; peace with the Austrian Cardinal, peace with the Spanish court ; peace on every side and on any terms ; even though it might have to be the 'King of Hungary's peace.' This pohcy suited Cecil, who felt that in case of war the public power would pass away from clerks and secre- taries into the hands of warriors, such as Raleigh, Nottingham, and Grey.

The war party wished to shape the pohcy of James so as to give him glory abroad and peace at home ; a government that should be a living force, a people who should be content and free. The way to these ends, they said, was to raise the siege of Ostend, to drive the Jesuit missionaries out of London, to unite the English people in defence of public hberty and public law. The peace party wished to leave the question of pohcy to the King ; well knowing that he spoke of the Dutch as rebels, that he wished the Cardinal success, and that, in reference to the treaties which bound

14 HER majesty's TOWER.

him to aid his allies, he openly announced his intention not to be tied by the contracts of a woman and a fool.

Thus, in the gardens of Whitehall, on the day of the Queen s death, before the King of Scots was yet proclaimed, two parties were in line ; an English party, having an English platform, on which stood Ealeigh, Fortescue and Grey ; a 'Spanish party, having a Spanish platform, on which stood Cecil and his friends. The first party wanted liberty and war, and the cry of their partisans in the streets was, ' Down with the Austrian ! Ho for the Dutch !' The second party wanted peace and place ; they had no public cry, for they had no partisans in the street ; but their purpose was to become the ' Friends of Spain.'

These factions fell into a strife, which raged until the King arrived at the Tower and made known his will. James wanted money and quiet ; neither of A^'hich he could receive so long as the guns were booming over Dover straits. Cecil pro- mised him money and quiet in return for place and power ; blessings which he persuaded James no other man could give. The King could not know, in that early time, that his Secretary of State would sell his secrets and his services for

FACTIONS AT COURT. 15

Spanish gold ; and had he known the truth, he might only have chuckled in his sleeve, sworn a coarse oath, and begged some portion of the spoil. Any way, the new King gave his confidence to that smooth and serpentine clerk, so that Cecil, in any war he might have to wage against Grey and Raleigh, would have the crown, the army, and the judges, at his back.

The King came in without terms ; in fact, these terms were not made until the times of his son and of his son's son.

People in the Strand and Cheape, who heard that theii' young Prince was bent on forsaking the Holy War, could not believe it. How, they cried, betray the Dutch ! How could we betray them and not ourselves ? Was not the war of the Armada burning ? Had not Montjoy just smitten the Spaniards at Kinsale ? Was not Vere at Ostend ? Had we not thousands of troops in the Netherlands? Were not Flushing, Pamme- kins, and Briel, in oiu' power ? Were we not bound by treaties ? Were we not fighting our enemies on a friendly soil, in lieu of having to fight them on our own ?

Such was the view then taken by every one, except the King's friends and those who wished to

1 G HER majesty's TOWER.

be tliouolit liis friends. So stroncr and wide was this popular feeling for the Dutch, that James could not help seeing that to recall his troops from Ostend and Flushing might be fatal to his peace, if not perilous to his crown. The change must be A\Tought out step by step. Ere such a course could be safely taken, the war must have lost its charm for the public mind ; and the fighting generals must have been tarnished by some dubious charsre. Could Yere be starved out of Ostend ? Could Raleigh and Grey be compromised with the partisans of war ? The first was easy, the second not so easy. Vere had only to be dropt ; liis letters to be left unread, his prayers unnoticed, liis supplies unsent. A cold intelhgence, working in a chamber at Whitehall, could count the very hours of Yere. One day the height of human daring would be reached. Brave hands w^ould faint through famine, stout hearts would fail in force, the city would fall into the Austrian's power, and James coidd affect a sorrow which he woidd not feel. But neither Grey nor Baleigh could be ruined by leaving him alone. If Grey was to be got out of Cecil's way he must be lodged in the Tower.

Now Cecil was a perfect master in the art of

FACTIONS AT COURT. 1 7

snaring men into suspicion ; yet he could hardly have succeeded in so short a time in meshing his powerful rivals, had he not been aided in his work by an unexpected group of spies. These spies were the Jesuit missionaries whom Grey and his Puritan friends proposed to harry from the land.

For many years past, a few cautious Jesuits, under their Prefect, Garnet, had been hiding in the country, chiefly in the London suburbs and in the midland shires ; but on the Queen's death becoming known abroad, a larger body came over sea from Flanders and Castile, to aid in promoting the peace with Spain. In crossing the straits, they knew they were breaking the English law, since no member of their Order could then reside on English soil ; but they reckoned, not mthout cause, on the Secretary of State being pur- posely blind to their coming over, since their object was to promote the King's most ardent wish. In Cecil these Jesuits met their match. The men who moved the Order were no strangers to him ; some of them were in his pay, still more of them were in his power. A list of the fathers lay in his desk ; a hst giving their true names and their false, with an account of the houses in which thev lodgred, and

VOL. II. C

1 8 HER majesty's TOWER.

of the persons who helped them to come and go. He knew something of Father Fisher, otherwise Percy, otherwise Fairfax, who lived in Sir Everard Digby's house. He was acquainted with Father Oldcorne, the Confessor of Mrs. Abington of Hendlip Hall. Garnet was his neighbour, and might almost be called his chum. Father Creswell ^vi'ote to him from Yalladolid, Father Persons from Rome. By these and other means he held the threads of their purpose in his grasp, and felt that should the day for a tussle with the Order ever come, he would be strong enough to drag them do^vn.

The fathers were allowed to land and spread themselves through the London suburbs and the country districts; but they were not suffered to come and go unwatched. The Secretary had his agents on the quay of every j)ort and the deck of every ship. The jovial skipper who gave the fathers a passage in his bark, and who seemed to them the pink of good fellows, was his spy. The bland old priest, who welcomed them on shore and igave them such wise counsels, was in liis pay. One iband of Jesuits came over in the Golden Lion, Trancis Burnell commander. Fresh from Antwerp,

FACTIONS AT COURT, 19

where the Austrian Cardinal and the Spanish Infanta had been proclaimed King and Queen of England, these fathers were hot with zeal, and finding the skipper a man of their own muid, they were free in talk about the King of Scots. They said the King was doomed, and talked of the speedy destruction of all his house. Be- fore they were put on shore, Captain Bumell had reported their words to one of Cecil's spies in Harwich, who sent a copy of then* speeches to WhitehaU.

The spy who watched the coming and going of these fathers in Harwich Avas Francis TUletson, a priest.

A part of Cecil's craft in dealing mth political rivals, lay in the adroit advantage which he took of the bitter feuds then ragmg in the ancient church ; so as to gain from each party in that church the means of crushing the other, when a policy of repression happened to serve his turn. Blood ran so high between sections of the Catholic clergy — between the Secvilar priests and the Jesuit missionaries — that each was ready to betray the other into his hands. Tilletson was not more eager to denounce the Jesuits in Harwich, than

20 HEJl majesty's tower.

Garnet was to destroy the Seculars in London. Eacli rejoiced when his rival fell. If Jesuits and Seculars were both opposed in theory to the crown, they opposed it in a different spirit, and sought their ends by a different -psiih. Each had a purpose and a plot ; and the purpose dearest to each was to betray his fellow priest to the law.

From his neighboui's of Eniield Chase, Cecil got the clue to a wild, spent plot, in which two members of the Secular priesthood, who had made themselves hateful to the Fathers, were much concerned. The plot had failed, the plotters had dispersed. Some ale had been drunk in Carter Lane ; a gang of rufflers called the Damned Crew had been raised; and two or three secret conferences had been held between persons of stni higher rank; but the dream was past, and the design would have been shrouded in a spy's report, and laid in the grave of all dead things, had not one of the names, which inci- dentally occiured in the papers, been that of Grey.

A Priests' Plot — there was a name to strike the public ear ! A charge was wanted against Grey, the Puritan peer, the enemy of

FACTIONS AT COURT. 21

Philip, the advocate of war. Now, Grey was said to have given two or thi-ee private meetings to Sir^Griifin Markham, a notorious Papist, and an agent for the- priests. AATiat more could men lite Cecil and Northampton ask ?

22

CHAPTER III.

LORD GREY OF WILTOX.

Among the yoimg men of high rank who strove in the later years of Gloriana's reign to make a true rehgion of then* daily lives — to be at once brave soldiers, faithful citizens, and pious sons — to Hve in the world, yet also live to God — and the roll of these high and noble men was not a short one — the most eminent for his birth, his genius, and his misery, was Thomas Grey, the sixteenth baron of his line ; in whom was to expire, in a cell of that Water-gate which Henry the Third had built, the last male heir of a house which that same Henry the Tliird had summoned to his side.

Grey was nursed under a mother's eye. Until he was ten years old, he lived at Wliaddon hall in Bucks, the family seat, where he was taught to read the Word of God, as well as to

LORD GREY OF WILTON. 23

ride and fence, to leap the barriers, and to run the ring. As he grew in size, the playmate of a tiny sister, Bridget, and of a baby-brother, who was taken from him at an early day, his mother Sibyl saw with pride and love that he was growing rich, not only in the arts which adorn high rank, but in that spiritual grace which she prized in her son above all the accomplishments of earth. At ten he was called a man and sent into the world. The Greys had always been men of war, and a Grey of Wilton Castle could have no other home than a camp. His chair was to be a saddle, his coat a corslet, his cap a casque of steel. But Lady Grey was anxious that her boy should be a faithful soldier of Jesus Christ, no less than a stout defender of his Queen ; and she hved to see him all that she hoped he would become.

Grey was happy in both his parents. Arthur Grey, his father, that reno\^Tied Lord Deputy of Ireland who was the patron of Gascoyne, and the friend of Spenser, is known to lovers of great books as Artegal, the Knight of Justice,. in the Faery Queen ; a princely figiu'e, noble as it is spotless ; not more true to the poetic art than to the human life.

In court and camp young Grey was ever at

24 HER majesty's tower.

his father's side, often in the tliickest of bloody

fields.

For Arthur's son Held Arthur's spirit.

Once, when he was hardly twelve years old, in a sudden fight, some English horsemen giving way before a swarm of kernes, the Lord Deputy, who had seen the waving line, pricked up, the lad at his heels, and shouting ' Grey and his heu' for the Queen,' dashed in among the foe and cut them through. That Irish camp was a terrible school of arms ; for a gang of reckless devils, the sweepings of Italian bagnios and Spanish gaols, had been flung into Connaught, where they had built a fortress, called the Fort Del Oro. Roaming through Gal way and parts of Kerry, these gangs had ravaged two counties before the Lord Deputy could move against them; but when Artegal leapt to horse, it was to strike a blow that men should not be able to forget. Never since the Lion of Judah went forth to battle, had a sterner spirit ruled a camp than he who led the English force against Del Oro. Grey asked no quarter, and he gave none. The fort was taken, and the enemy destroyed.

It was in this action under Grey, that Raleigh,

LORD GREY OF WILTON. 25

then a yoimg captain, won liis first red laurels in the field.

From this fierce school of war, the boy was .-sent to Oxford. Robert Marston, who wrote a life of Grey in verse, declares that now

Arms entered into league with arts,

but the young soldier was too busy with his work to stay over-long at college. Like his father, and like his comi^ade Raleigh, he vowed his sword to the Good Old Cause ; and while he was yet in his teens he crossed into the Low Countries, to iinish his education in the trench and field. The Dutch received him with open arms ; and in the front of every charge, his countrymen saw with pride the trail of his crimson plume. Grey brought into the patriots' camp, not only a soldier's sword, but a statesman's thought ; not only a dauntless eye, but a clear and resolute mind. He knew, not merely how to fight, but how to turn the tide of battle to a righteous end. He saw what should be done, and how it should be done. Nursed on the passions which breathe in the Faery Queen, the legend of his house, he loathed Grantorto with all his soul, and spumed

26 HER majesty's TOWER.

the Idol as he would have spurned the nether fiend.

Loving his Queen and countiy, as he loved his mother and his sister Bridget, Grey was with the foremost in every enterprise by land and sea. He served against the Irish rebels ; he sailed on the Island Voyage ; he fought on Nieuport sands.

On his return from camp to court he found the Earl of Essex, his old companion of the Island Voyage, commencing that evil course which was ta bring hun, in a few mad months, to the Devereux tower and to St. Peter's church. Grey warned his friend, and heard his warning received mth gibes. Less vexed than pained by his rebuff, he stood apait in silence, until he saw that Essex was falHng away from all his English friends, and taking hold of an Anglo-Spanish crew ; giving up Bacon and Raleigh for the pupils of Father Garnet ; for men like Monteagle, Father Wright, and Captain Lea. Then he spake to the Earl once more. But all was vain ; the Earl having entered on a course from which neither love nor fear could draw him back. Grey told these faith- less peers and tavern-plotters to count him in future as a foe.

LORD GREY OF WILTOX. 27

Lord Southampton, a young fellow like him- self, but weak and fitful, heard this warning- with open scorn, and put such words on Grey as a soldier could not bear. Grey stopped him and beat him in the pubhc street. This quarrel of the young peers so stirred her court, that the Queen had to send Lord Grey to the Prince of Orange, who was lying in front of Grave, until the storm passed by.

The mettle of the young man having now been proved, he was courted by the chiefs of every side. He joined the party of Raleigh, Notting- ham, and Cecil, against the Earl of Essex. He went over to Dublin in command of a regiment of horse to watch the plotters, and when Essex swept back to London, Grey was quickly in his front. When the Earl's folly maddened into crmie, the pious young soldier was commissioned by the Queen as her General of the Horse.

Grey's heart was thrown into these courtly broils only so far as they formed a part of that war wliich his country had to wage against the King of Spain. Not against Essex the courtier, not even against Essex the politician, would he have drawn his sword. The foe whom he smote in the guise of Essex was Grantorto ; the Earl,

•28 HER majesty's tower.

Avho had fought by his side, having gone over to the enemy, making a companion of Robei't Catesby and a counsellor of Father Wright. When the court was purged of factions, Grey turned his eyes once more towards the fields in which liis country's battles were being fought on a foreign soil. Most of all, he -^itrained his vision towards Ostend.

For in those last days of the Queen, a roar of guns was booming above the straits, which spoke to the heart of England as no other crash of earth's artillery could speak. An Austrian Cardinal, married to the Infanta, Clara Isabel, * hen-ess of France and England,' lay with a mighty host before Ostend, the last rampart ot the Refonned rehgion in Flanders ; the hues ot which were held by a garrison of Dutch and English troops, commanded by Sir Francis Yere.

Lying low in the sands, behind a wall of mud with narrow streets, stone houses, and a place of aims, Ostend was a fishing port and village of barely three thousand souls. The tovm itseli was nothing ; but this speck of coast was strong in the dykes and sand-liills, in the line of sea, and in the thews of a gaUant race. The folk were Pro- testant, eager to be free ; and the people, both in

LORD GREY OF WILTON. 29

London and the Hague, were conscious that the battle of their freedom was being fought, and might haply be decided, in the trenches of Ostend. The strength of Spain was planted before this village in the sands, and month after month went by without giving her the prize. Assaults were made with a vigour which has rarely been seen in war, and never except in a rehgious war. Yet the town stood out. A rash vow, made