Part 23 (2/2)

Just three years afterward and on the 19th of the same month of May, 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn was from the Tower, ”a little before noon, led down to the green, where the young gra.s.s and the first daisies of summer were freshly bursting into suns.h.i.+ne. A single cannon stood loaded on the battlements, the motionless cannoneer was ready, with smoking linstock at his side; and when the crawling hand upon the dial of the great Tower clock touched the mid-day hour, the cannon would tell London that all was over. The Yeomen of the Guard were there, and a crowd of citizens; the Lord Mayor too, and the deputies of the guilds, and the sheriffs, and the aldermen; they were come to see a spectacle which England had never seen before,--a head which had worn the crown falling under the sword of the executioner.”[40]

[40] Froude.

But there was a much more interested listener for the fatal boom of that cannon than any heart-struck citizen of London, as we learn further, ”An old tradition strongly depicts the impatience with which Henry expected her death. On the fatal morning he went to hunt in Epping Forest, and while he was at breakfast his attendants observed he was anxious and thoughtful. But at last they heard the report of a distant gun--a preconcerted signal. 'Ah! it is done,' cried he, starting up--'the business is done! Uncouple the dogs, and let us follow the sport.' In the evening he returned gaily from the chase, and on the following morning he married Anne's maid of honour, Jane Seymour, who on Whitsunday, the 29th, clad in royal habiliments appeared in public as Queen.”[41]

[41] _Comprehensive History of England._ Macfarlane and Thompson.

So perished poor Queen Anne Boleyn, niece to Sir Thomas. A fortnight or so before her death, on her arrival at the Tower, she agonizedly asked of Cromwell, ”I pray you tell me where my Lord Rochford ys? and I told her I saw hym afore dyner in the Cort. O wher is my swete brother? I said I left hym at York Place: and so I dyd.” Never to see him again--he was beheaded on Tower Hill two days previous to her own execution.

This fresh marriage of the king with Jane Seymour, the sister of the man with whom Sir Thomas was eventually implicated and suffered, continues incidentally, pertinent interest to our little story. Queen Jane Seymour, although she escaped the wretched fate of her immediate predecessor and successor in the royal preference, fell a victim to an even more painful death, at the birth of her son, which took place 12 October, 1537.

At the ceremonial of the christening of the infant prince Sir Thomas was present, and also, as a matter of course, the child's uncle, Sir Edward Seymour (afterward Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector), on that occasion one of the most honoured guests. Little wot these men as they gazed on, and took part in the splendid ceremony, that those helpless, motherless, baby hands were destined at some future and not very distant day to sign their death warrants, which consigned them to the scaffold, and both for alleged partic.i.p.ation in the same offence.

Henry VIII. having become tired of, and also got divorced from Anne of Cleves, and Cromwell, the promoter of the distasteful marriage, having been summarily disposed of by the usual method of the axe, another event in the king's matrimonial projects was about to happen, which brought Sir Thomas into still closer relations.h.i.+p with him. Henry had this time set his eyes on Katharine Howard, a daughter of Lord Edmund Howard, cousin to the unfortunate Anne Boleyn, and sister to Elizabeth, wife of Sir Thomas Arundell. She was proclaimed Queen 8 August, 1540, but the king had been privately married to her some time before. Thus the knight now stood in the double capacity of being by marriage both cousin and brother-in-law to his most august and cruelly inclined sovereign, by whom Sir Thomas was made 'Chancellor' to the new Queen.

This relations.h.i.+p to Henry must have given him great influence, and as the spoliation of the Abbeys and Monastic inst.i.tutions was then busily going forward, he would have good opportunity of advancing his suit, or claims for a portion of the large landed possessions of these inst.i.tutions then being distributed with lavish hand. In this distribution Sir Thomas appears at different times to have acquired by grant and purchase a considerable share. Concerning this a short notice presently.

Queen Katharine Howard at the time of her marriage with Henry could not have been more than twenty years of age. Two short years only pa.s.sed by, and then a fearful charge of similar nature to that which had sent her hapless cousin to the block, was alleged against herself, and on the 13 February, 1542, after almost unexampled mental suffering, she perished in like manner on the Tower green. With her died also, and by the same means, Jane, Lady Rochford, the wife of Queen Anne Boleyn's brother George. All three of these headless women were laid side by side in the Tower Chapel.

Thus was severed by like circ.u.mstances, in each case equally deplorable, the living tie that had connected Sir Thomas Arundell with his dread sovereign. He appears, however, to have been endowed with the rare faculty of keeping himself clear of the difficulties that would naturally arise amid such mournful conditions, and to have enjoyed apparently the friends.h.i.+p, if not the confidence of the grim king, and which does not appear to have been afterward disturbed. This was manifest by what followed.

In 1541,--which must have been during the lifetime of Katharine Howard, and while she was Henry's Queen,--Sir Thomas purchased of the king for 761--14--10, the Manor and Grange of Tisbury, late the property of the Abbey of Shaftesbury, and advowson of the living, the manor and advowson of Dorrington in Wilts, and sundry other lands.

In 1545,--this was also the year his father, Sir John Arundell, died,--King Henry VIII., by letters patent, granted to him a large number of manors, late the possessions of the Abbey of Shaftesbury, in the counties of Wilts, Dorset, and Somerset (including also probably the site of the Abbey), and other property in London.

The Benedictine Abbey, or Nunnery of Shaftesbury, was one of the most antient religious foundations in the west of England, and existed probably before the time of King Alfred, who was a great benefactor, and one of its princ.i.p.al Founders, about A.D. 888. ”It was first dedicated,” says Hutchins,

”to the _Blessed Virgin Mary_, but it lost that name, at least for several ages, upon the translation hither of the body of St.

Edward the Martyr, who was murdered at Corfe-Castle 18 March, 978, and first clandestinely buried at Wareham, whence, according to Leland, he was next year, or as others on better grounds say, three years afterwards removed to this abbey by Elpher, or Alpher, duke of Mercia. This unfortunate king being esteemed a martyr, and canonized a saint, his shrine was much resorted to by superst.i.tious pilgrims, and persons of all ranks and qualities, and even by some of our kings, particularly Canute who died here.

On account of the burial of St. Edward, the abbey and the church received their names from him; and the abbess was styled Abbess of St. Edward, and the very town almost lost its old name, and was called for some time _Burgus Sancti Edwardi_, and _Edwardstowe_.”

Upwards of thirty abbesses from the foundation, presided over this important community, to its surrender by Elizabeth Zouch, its last Abbess, to the King Henry VIII., 23 March, 1539, when there were fifty-five nuns within it.

”It was one of the largest and best endowed nunneries in England, except Syon in Middles.e.x, its revenues at the suppression being estimated at between eleven and fourteen hundred pounds per annum. This occasioned a proverb, mentioned by Fuller in his _Church History_,--'That if the Abbot of Glas...o...b..ry might marry the Abbess of Shaftesbury, their heir would have more land than the King of England.' The abbess was of such quality, that she was one of the four who held of the king by an entire barony, and had by tenure privilege of being summoned to parliament, &c., though upon account of their s.e.x it was omitted. They had writs directed to them, to send their quota of soldiers into the field, in proportion to their knight's fees. The three others were those of Barking in Ess.e.x, St. Mary in Winchester, and Wilton.”

Thus much for the Abbess, her wealth, importance and high station; the buildings of the Abbey, and Abbey church, appear to have been of commensurate grandeur, but, continues Hutchins,--

”There now remain not the least vestiges of it. It seems to have stood parallel with Holy Trinity churchyard, which anciently belonged to it, at the east end of the abbey, on Park-Hill, as appears by bones and coffins found there. It was the glory and ornament of the town, the mother church, and almost the only place of sepulture, there being but one ancient in any of the present churches, which is in St. Peter's, and seems to have been removed hence. It was a most magnificent building, if we may judge from the traditions the townsmen retain of its largeness and height, and from the spire, which Camden and others, derive the name of the town. By its great height, and advantageous situation on the top of the hill, it must have had a very fine effect, and been seen over a great part of the counties of Dorset and Somerset. It is greatly to be lamented it was not left standing and made parochial, being so great an ornament to the town and county.

”The arms of the Monastery were, _Azure, a cross between four martlets or_,--Dr. Tanner in his _Not.i.tia Monastica_ says they were, _Azure, on a pale sable, cotised argent, three roses or_.

The former are in Wolveton house, and are those commonly given to King Alfred.”

The fine buildings of the Abbey having been demolished, St. Peter's church in Shaftesbury appears to be the only building of any size,--and this not very large,--of antient date now left remaining, and is the ”mother, princ.i.p.al and presentative” church of the place.

Hutchins enumerates nearly a dozen little churches and numerous chantries that once had their station at Shaftesbury, cl.u.s.tering around the Monastery, the major portion of which seem now to have disappeared. St. Peter's is of late character, and very plain architectural detail, erected probably toward the end of the reign of Henry VII. The single ornamental portion is the cornice or frieze toward the street, temp. Henry VIII., on which appears the _double rose_, _portcullis_, _pomegranate_, arms of the See of Winchester, some other local coats, a merchant's mark, &c.

Within, on the altar step, is the only monumental remembrance left of the Abbey, and apparently removed hither from it, a large blue stone, having in the centre a small bra.s.s plate, now almost obliterated, with this inscription as copied by Hutchins,--

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