1 your often most gracious, grave counsels and advertisements, then it had not been with me as now it is. Yet our Lord, if it be his will, can do with me as he did with Susan, who was falsely accused. . . . If I would not.. willingly die for your comfort, I would I were in hell, and I would I should receive a thousand deaths." All this may not be thought very dignified; but it seems to betray strength of conviction if not strength of character, and rather an excessive ardour of temperament than that cold Machiavelism and absence of all principle which is imputed to Cromwell by the Romish writers. He went to his death in that perplexing manner of which we have several other examples in this reign, leaving the true character and meaning of his whole life and conduct uncertain and disputable if we were to attempt to make it out only from his dying words. He was beheaded on Tower Hill on the 28th of July, and in a speech which he made on the scaffold, after thanking God for having appointed him such a death for his offences, and remarking that he had been a great traveller in the world, and, being but of a base degree, had been called to great estate, and since coming thereunto had offended his prince, for which he heartily asked him forgiveness, he added, "And now I pray you that be here to bear me record, I die in the Catholic faith, not doubting in any article of my faith, no, nor doubting in any sacrament of the Church. Many hath slandered me, and reported that I have been a bearer of such as have maintained evil opinions, which is untrue; but I confess, that, like as God by his holy spirit doth instruct us in the truth, so the devil is ready to seduce us, and I have been seduced but bear me witness that I die in the Catholic faith of the Holy Church." It seems hardly possible to interpret these expressions as meaning any thing else than that he had at one time held certain heretical opinions which he now renounced; if not this, what did he mean by saying that he had been seduced, but that he now died in the Catholic faith? Nevertheless Burnet, although he confesses that, by what he spoke at his doath, he left it much doubted of what religion he died." insists that it is certain he was a Lutheran. "The term Catholic faith," Burnet goes on, "used by him in his last speech, seemed to make it doubtful; but that was then used in England in its true sense, in opposition to the novelties of the see of Rome. . . So that his profession of the Catholic faith was strangely perverted, when some from thence concluded that he died in the communion of the Church of Rome. But his praying in English, and that only to God through Christ, without any of those tricks that were used when those of that church died, showed he was none of theirs." LORD SURREY JOHN HOWARD, Duke of Norfolk, perished at Bosworth Field in the year 1485, bravely fighting for Richard III. Being attainted by the first parliament of Henry VII., all his great estates and property of every kind were forfeited to the crown. His son Thomas, who had been created Earl of Surrey during his father's life-time (in the year 1483, and by Richard III.), was also in the battle of Bosworth Field; and, after fighting valiantly, and being severely wounded, he was taken prisoner. The earl was also attainted; he was thrown into the Tower, and was for some time thought to be in imminent danger of losing his head. He lay in close prison more than three years, but was liberated and restored to the earldom of Surrey in 1489. He had conciliated Henry VII. by his prudent and cautious behaviour. When re-admitted at court, he rapidly rose in the good graces of the politic sovereign. His son, Lord Thomas Howard, was allowed to marry, about the year 1495, the VOL. IJI. C |