" to the friars and crier, 8d." What they had to do
with one another, that they should twice be linked
together, does not appear. It must not be over-
looked that our Knight, on the occasion of his visit
to London, "gained at play £y 3s. 3|d.," which was
a very considerable sum at that period.

Then came another short journey to London
for a few daj's in the month of March ; and on his
return a journey into Gloucestershire, with six
servants, to purchase the manor of Lasborow, near
Tetbury, from William Nev3'le, Esq., and to take
possession of that of Bradeston, which he had
previously bought.

Poor man ! When he got home on March
the 25th, he found Swallow, the King's messenger,
waiting for him, bringing him Mr. Cromwell's
letters to come to the King's Grace ; and, paying
the messenger 3s. 4d,, he started for London that
day and remained there till March the 30th,
" Monday the morrow after Palm Sunday, that is
five [days] in all on't, 28," which he enters as his
" costs to and at London in Passion Week." What
he was summoned for we do not know, but the
Parliament which had passed the Act of Succession
was prorogued on the same March the 30th, " and
there every lord, knight and burgess and all other
were sworn to the Act of Succession and subscribed
their hands to a parchment fixed to the same." ^
The oath was imposed by an Act passed on the very

^ Holinshed, vol. iii. p. 792.



440 BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE

last day of the session. It was on April the 13th
that Blessed John Fisher and Blessed Thomas More
refused to take the oath of succession, and went
into the imprisonment from which death set them
free more than a year later. It is not known that
Sir Adrian was called upon to take the oath of
succession, but he must have returned home with a
lively consciousness of coming dangers. " During
the Parliament time every Sunday at Paul's Cross
preached a Bishop, declaring the Pope not to be
supreme head of the Church." ^ The Act of
Supremacy was not passed until the next Parlia-
ment which met in November, but there was quite
enough in these sermons and in the Acts of
Parliament of 1533-4 which he bought and took
home with him, and especially in the terms of the
oath of succession, to make him resolve to be
prepared.

He came home by Assenden, staying at Hochtyde
Court, and on his return to Shirburn, he gave
presents " to the wives "' of the neighbouring
parishes, Salley, Pishull, Pirton and Shirburn " for
the church." He also gave "to the bonfires, to-
drink, besides wood, 8d. To the wives to drink on^
St. Thomas's even at the fire, 8d."^ Again his stay

^ Holinshed, vol. iii. p. 792.

2 The eve of the Translation of St. Thomas, July the 6th, seems
to have been thus kept. For instance, at Canterbury, in the accounts
of the City Chamberlain, we have " 1517-18. For lolbs. of gun-
powder against the watch on St. Thomas's even, pretium libra, 8d.
1521-2. For a staff and a banner to bear before the Mayor's
pikes and the guns on St. Thomas's eve. 1527-8. For g lbs. of
corn powder for the watch on St. Thomas's even." (Dr. Brigstocke



BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE 441

at home was very short, for on April the 2gth
he started once more for London. This time his
business was the conclusion of his lawsuit with Sir
Walter Stonor. He was met on reaching London
by two King's messengers, and he enters in his
accounts the names of the lawyers he employs
and the fees he gives them "for devising answers
to Sir Walter Stonor's articles." His own plea
was that " by the courtesy of England " he was
entitled to his wife's property for his life and her
children after him. He went to Greenwich, where
the King probably was, on Ascension Day, again on
the Friday, and on Sunday, May the loth, paying a
couple of shillings boat hire each time. Among his
various expenses we have the simple entry, " Paid
for 4 pair of small shoon for my little son John and
Mary, iid."' His costs in London were £.[ 8s. for
himself and two servants, and he reached home once
more on May the 22nd. During this absence his
second son Thomas was born.

On June the 9th he set out for London again
and he returned on Sunday the 21st. On July the 3rd
his face was turned towards London once more, and
in the midst of this absence he paid 8d. " for
carrying a letter to my wife in haste." His business

Sheppard's report ; Hist. MSS. Commission, 9th rep. App. p. 152.)
The First Vespers were always solemnly kept. Thus in 1504 the
offerings at " the Martyrdom " in Canterbury Cathedral were, on
the e\e 7s., and the feast of the Translation, 3s. 4d. {Ibid. p. 126.)
It was on the eve that Blessed Thomas More was martyred.
" To-morrow," he wrote to his daughter Margaret, " is St. Thomas
of Canterbury's eve, and the Utas [octave-day] of St. Peter; and
therefore to-morrow I long to go to God."



442 BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE

in the Archbishop's court must now have ended,
for he enters, " Given to Mr. Chancellor Dr. Cox's
servants to make merry, 4s. 8d. For writing the
two acquittances and releases, 2s. Given to Mr.
Dr. Cox's porter, 4d." His return home this time
■was on July the nth, 1534.

After attending the Assizes at Oxford to carry on
his suit against Ambrose Pope, he returned to
Shirburn, and after the entry, " for laces for the
maidens, 4d.," he quietly records: "Memorandum.
Here I was committed to the Knight Marshal's
ward at Woodstock," on the 29th of August, 1534.
Vaughan, the groom of the King's chamber, came
for him to Shirburn, and got 5s. for his fee. They
started off by Watlington, and there they had to
wait for the horses to be shod, which cost i8d.
Then on to Woodstock, where he paid for his
servants' dinner and for " horsemeat " — in another
place he called it " horsebread '' — i6d. To appear
before the authorities he had to change his riding
dress, so he records, " Given for house room at
Sygewyke's [Sedgwick's] to shift me in, i2d." He
received orders to leave Woodstock, for his costs
were 8s. " at Thame that Saturday at night," and
6s. 8d. he had to pay " to a man who was sent to
fetch me again back to Woodstock and to Sir
Thomas Wentworth's servant ; " and so next comes
a payment of 8d. this time " to Sygewyke's wife
again for room at Woodstock,"' and then he is at
Thame on Sunday at night, paying gs. ; and i6d.
was " given to the priest to say Mass two days at
my inn." It is curious to see that Mass was said



BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE 443

for Sir Adrian " at his inn," both at Woodstock and
at Thame, for he was not two nights in any one
place. Was the prisoner not allowed to hear Mass
in the church ? For prisoner he was, travelling in
the custody of Richard Wentworth, the Knight
Marshal's namesake and servant, as a gift to whom
his wife here gave 2od. Lady Fortescue will have
come to Thame to meet him, anxious to know the
result of the examination to which he was sub-
jected at Woodstock, and doubly anxious on account
of the delay caused by his recall there after he had
once left it. The payments at Thame are heavy
because Lady Fortescue was there. The gift to the
officer in charge of him is in perfect keeping with
the ways of the time ; and it was always most
galling to have to pay pursuivants and King's
messengers when they were most unwelcome.

On Monday night he was at Uxbridge, and from
the double cost, 4s., it is plain that he paid his
warder's expenses, as well as his own. On Tuesday,
September the ist, he went from Uxbridge to his
lodging at Southwark by boat for 5d., and his
" gear," that is his luggage, cost id. more than
himself. That same day then, he was taken to
the Marshalsea Prison, which was in Southwark.
When he got there he had to send out for six-
pennyworth of " trussing cord to truss his beds,"
and he bought ten faggots for 4d. and two
lbs. of candles for 3d. His dinner was at his
lodging on Wednesday, and it cost him i2d., and
*' a quart of wine on Wednesday at dinner, 2d."
The quart of wine seems to have lasted him for



444 BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE



three days, if not four ; for his next entry for his
food is " wine on Saturday, at night, and pears and
beer, 6d ; " and then he laid in something of a
stock, "wine on Sunday and pears, i6d.," and he
gave the same sum to his man, Robin, who brought
him venison and " a fardell," a parcel of provisions
for his wants, sent by the good wife at home,
" Thome," his other man, stayed with him all the
time of his imprisonment, — Thomas Honychirch
was his name ; and another man, John Hawcliff,
came from Shirburn through " Wykm " (Wycombe)
to London, but on September the 13th he received
his year's wages in full, " for he shall be shortly
married," and he " went clearly from me on Wednes-
day, the 23rd," having been three weeks in the prison
with his master. Sir Adrian paid the Knight Marshal
los. a week for his own board, and 3s. 4d. a week
for each of his men. On September the loth he
had Mr. Whitton to sup with him, his second boy's
godfather, the old friend who had accompanied him
ten years before, when he carried his wife's body to
Bisham. That supper cost him 2s. yd,, and he spent
2S. " for wine and nuts on Sunday and Holy Rood
day [Monday the 14th] in all, with part thereof
given to Mr. Prior at my two suppers with him."
This was probably Robert Strowddyll, Prior of the
Dominicans, with whom he will have been intimate
in consequence of the nearness of his house in
London to the Convent of the Black Friars.^ Prior

' Stow savs that the Dominican Friars "sometime had their
house in Olde-borne [Holborn], where they remained for the space
of fifty-five years, and then in the year 1276 Gregory Rocksiey,



BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE 445



Strowddyll, alas ! had signed the repudiation of
the Pope and the acknowledgment of the King's
Supremacy on the 17th of the preceding April.

Lady Fortescue was at Woodstock " at St.
Matthew's-tide in September," where the Court was,
and Dolphin brought his master letters, we may
well suppose that they were from her, on Michaelmas
Day. They were followed by herself on Thursday,
October the ist, and 31s. gid. were her "costs with
four servants and three horses at London from
Thursday afternoon to Monday in the morning, in
all, besides her baiting at Colnbrook the 5th day of
October." It was an awkward time for the heads
of the family to be absent from home, for Stonor
was now being given up. Mr. Richard Crispe wrote
" the Inventory indented of the deliverance of
Stonor Place," divers persons were paid " to help to
truss stuff at Stonor," the cattle were driven and
marked at removing, and carts were hired for 28s.
to carry his stuff and goods from Stonor at
Michaelmas, " besides gift carts and mine own two
carts." Lady Fortescue saw to it, but she wanted
to be with her husband in prison, and so no wonder
that her baby was put out to nurse and her little
Mary sent to the care of her mother. Lady Rede.

On October the i8th Sir Thomas Wentworth
rode northward, the prisoner having been live weeks

mayor, and the Barons of this city, granted and gave to Robert
Kilwardby, Archbishop of Canterbury, two lanes or ways next the
street of Baynard's Castle and also the Tower of Mountfichet, to
be destroyed ; in place of which the said Robert builded the late
new church of the Black Friars, and placed them therein." (Survey
of London, 1603, p. 341.)



446 BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE

and two days in his custody. Accounts were settled
between them and a new arrangement made.
" Thenceforth I boarded myself and provided for
all manner of necessaries for myself, my wife, my
servants, and for all other in the house there, at my
charge, as it appeareth in the household book there^
entered and written, at the desire and request of the
same Sir Thomas, and so continued during the time
of my being in his ward and custody." Lord
Clermont understands this to mean that Sir Adrian
went to live in his own house, but if that had been
so, the whole entry was needless. " The house
there " was evidently the Marshalsea, and " the
household book there " that kept by the Under-
Marshal. At the time of this change Sir Adrian
gave Richard Wentworth " a lion and a collar "
that cost i2d., and he contributed 8d. to Mrs.
Under-Marshal to her servant's marriage offering.
" Item, paid to Sir Thomas Wentworth's servants
for going three times with me to my house, I2d."

His wife then came to live with him at the
Marshalsea, and he bought "a low turned chair"
for her. His servants, Richard Gregory and John
Horsman had new tawny liveries that Michaelmas,
and among many domestic entries, we have " a lye
pot and two pictures of our Lady," and " a holy
water stoup of pewter with the sprinkler," to give
the place a Christian look. And there the sad year
ran out. The kind-hearted old Knight *' lent to
Harry, Sir Thomas Darcy his servant, to be repaid
by his master or by him, to help him out of the
King's Bench, in ward for a fray in Southwark,



BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE 447

7s. 6d." And there are New Year's gifts. "A velvet
bonnet for to give Mr. Marshall, us." and " a
dozen gloves to give Mr. Marshall, 3s." — more
probably, it would seem, Mrs. Under-Marshal was
the recipient ; and Mr. Mynton had 2od. and two
young boys, 8d. — New Year's gifts, be it noted, not
Christmas-boxes.

An entry respecting Lady Fortescue is signifi-
cant. " For my wife's boat hire to Greenwich before
Christmas, and three times in Christmas, and on
Sunday after Christmas, los.'' From which we
gather that the Court was at Greenwich that
Christmas, and that Lady Fortescue went there
again and again to intercede for her husband.

The account-book now comes to an end, and I
hope that my readers are as sorr}' as I am. The
last entry is "paid for the Acts of this last Parlia-
ment yd.," and a very bad seven pennyworth they
were. "The 3rd of November the Parliament began
again," says Holinshed, " in the which was con-
cluded the Act of Supremacy, which authorized the
King's Highness to be Supreme Head of the Church
of England, and the authority of the Pope abolished
out of the realm." It would take a higher power
than Parliament to do either the one or the other,,
and Sir Adrian Fortescue died for his faith in Him
whose acts Parliament was not competent to repeal.

But the end was not quite yet. How long"
Sir Adrian continued in the custody of the Knight
Marshal we do not know ; but the last date men-
tioned in his accounts is Shrove Sunday, or the
Sunday before Lent [February 7], 1535, when he



44S BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE

paid Richard Hall for "his costs home." He will
probably have been no longer a prisoner on May the
4th, when Blessed Richard Reynolds, the three
Carthusian priors, and John Haile were martyred
at Tyburn, or on June the 19th, when three other
Blessed Carthusian martyrs were executed, and
again on June the 22nd and July the 6th, when
Blessed John Fisher and Blessed Thomas More
were beheaded. Whether he was a prisoner in
London or a free man at home, he knew what these
events foreboded.

The year 1536 came, and on Januar}' the 7th,
Catherine of Arragon, the ill-used Queen of England,
died. On May the igth, Anne Boleyn was beheaded,
and on the following day Henry married Jane
Seymour.

Sir Adrian Fortescue possessed a Missal, which
yet exists, in possession of Miss Fortescue Turville,
to be regarded as the relic of a martyr. It is, of
course, according to the Sarum rite, a book printed
at Rouen in 1510. In it he entered his father's obit,
and that of his first wife ; and it bears the words, in
his own handwriting, Liber pertinet Adriano Fortcscu
viiliti. This Missal serves to record Sir Adrian's
opposition to the religious pretensions of King
Henry VIII. It has inserted in it, " An order and
form of bidding of beads by the King's command-
ment, anno 1536," the year after the deaths of our
first Blessed Martyrs, the year of the deaths of Anne
Boleyn and of her victim, Queen Catherine of
Arragon, the j-ear of Henry's marriage to Jane
Seymour. Through the words that are printed here



BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE 449

in italics Sir Adrian Fortescue drew his pen, an act
that was high treason by King Henry's laws.

" Ye shall pray for the whole congregation of
Christ's Church, and especially for this Church of
England.

"Wherein I first commend to your devout prayers
the King's most excellent Majesty, Supreme Head immedi-
ately under God of the spirituality and temporality of
tlie same Church, and the most noble and virtuous
Lady, Queen Jane, his most lawful wife.

"Secondly, ye shall pray for the Clergy, and
Lords temporal and Commons of this realm,
beseeching Almighty God to give every one of
them in his degree grace to use themselves in such
wise as may be to His contentation, the King's
honour, and the weal of the realm.

" Thirdly, ye shall pra}^ for the souls that be
departed, abiding the mercy of Almighty God, that
it may please Him the rather at the contemplation
of our prayers to grant them the fruition of His
presence.

" God save the King."

All is now ver\- nearly told. We have already
seen that on the 14th of March, 1538, he bought for
29s. 6d. a marble tomb and another great laystone
at the pulling down of Abingdon Abbey Church,
and he left it with William Wykes, " dwelling in
Abingdon, at the sign of the White Hart." Perhaps
he meant it for his own tomb, but his body was to
receive no honour from men.

DD



450 BLESSED ADRIAN FORTES CUE

In February, 1539, he was arrested. On the
loth he wrote from London a letter to Henry
Bourchier, Earl of Essex, ^ begging him earnestly
to relieve him of a charge of /"loo due to the
Crown by Lord Essex, for which he was being sued
as one of the sureties, and he wrote on the same
subject to Thomas Knyghton, Gent., dwelling at
Bayford in Hertfordshire, signing it "with the hand
of your old loving and acquainted friend, Adr3'an
Fortescue, Kt." On the 27th of April, 1540,
Cromwell was made Earl of Essex (the Earl just
mentioned having been thrown by a horse and
killed on March the 12th), and his Act of Attainder
followed just two months after his elevation to the
peerage. The attainder of Cromwell for heresy and
treason was unanimously passed by Parliament on
June the 19th, and he was beheaded on the 28th of
July, 1540.

To return to 1539, and Sir Adrian Fortescue. It
must have been on February the 14th that he was
sent to the Tower, for a letter to Arthur Plantagenet
Viscount Lisle, from a servant of his, named John
Husee, dated the 17th, ^ says that " within these
three days Sir Adrian Fortescue has been committed

^ The Earl had long been on these terms with the Fortescues.
"July I, 1511, Henry Bourchier Earl of Essex and John Fortescue
of Punsborne in the county of Hertford, Esquire [Sir Adrian's
father], are bound by an obligation to pay £1,514 within two
months." (Henry VHI. Accounts, Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 21,480.)
" Henry Earl of Essex to Cromwell. Sir Adrian Fortescue and
others who are bound with him to the King in 100 marks, call
extremely upon him to save them harmless." June 9, 1533. {Letters
and Papers, vol. vi. n. 611.)

^ Letters and Papers, vol. viii. n. 231, places this letter in 1535.



BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE 451

to the Tower and shall lose his head." On the i8th
an inventory was made of all his furniture, as well
of his house at Brightwell, as of his " lodging beside
the Black Friars in London." On June the 28th,
that is between his attainder and his death, his plate
was seized by the King, and it is entered by John
Williams, Master and Treasurer of his Grace's
jewels, in the list of plate received for his Majesty's
use from divers and sundry surrendered monasteries.
It consisted of two basons and two ewers parcel
gilt, weighing 164 oz,, and two pots parcel gilt,
weighing 84 oz. The family must have succeeded
in saving the greater part of Sir Adrian's plate and
other property from confiscation.

Parliament met at Westminster on Monday, the
28th of April, 1539. The work that Henry and
Cromwell, his Vicar-General in spiritualities, wanted
of it was the suppression of the greater monasteries,
and this work it performed. It was therefore the
last Parliament in which the Abbots sat as Peers.
In this Parliament an entirely new proceeding was
introduced, by which sentence of death might be
passed, without any trial of the person accused,
without evidence or any defence.

This Parliament, which suppressed the religious
houses and passed the Six Articles, the most servile
Parliament that ever sat in England, adopted at
Cromwell's bidding the device by which Cromwell
himself just a year later was condemned unheard.
Margaret, Countess of Salisbury first cousin to the
King's mother, her son Reginald Cardinal Pole,
styled "one Reginald Pole, late Dean of Exeter,"



452 BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE

Gertrude^ the widow of the recentl}^ executed
Marquess of Exeter, Sir Adrian Fortescue and Sir
Thomas Dingley, were with some others attainted
of high treason without trial.

On the Parhamentary Roll is the attainder of
Adrian Fortescue, of Brightwell, Oxon, for sedition, ^
and that of Sir Thomas Dingley, Knight of St. John
of Jerusalem, with Robert Granceter, merchant, for
going to several foreign princes and persuading them
to make war with the King. Sir Adrian and Hugh
Vaughan of Bekener, who is mentioned on the Roll
with the Countess of Salisbury, were condemned as
"confederates of the above." The "above," besides
those mentioned, include Nicholas Throgmorton,
John Helyard, clerk, Thomas Goldwell, clerk,^
William Peto, of West Greenwich, Observant, who
have not only " adhered themselves to the Bishop of
Rome," but " have taken and perceived worldly
promotions of the gift of the same Bishop of Rome,"
which was true certainly of Cardinal Pole, " and
also stirred up the people against the King," which
was true of none of them. The Bill of Attainder
was brought in and read twice on May the loth,
and the third time on the day following.



^ Her attainder was reversed in IMary's first Parliament.

- The Parliavientary History of England, London, 1751, vol. iii.
p. 141. Cobbett, in his edition of this book, has omitted all mention
of Sir Adrian's attainder, but he relates it in his State Trials.

^ I am not aware that it has ever been noticed that Thomas
Goldwell, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, was attainted in his
absence at this time. I can find no record of the reversal of that
attainder by Parliament in Queen Mary's reign. Dr. Hilliard was
an orthodox priest of some note, then in exile.



BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE 453

The clause of the Act relating to Fortescue
states that he had " not only most traitorously
refused his duty of allegiance, which he ought to
bear to your Highness, but also hath committed
divers and sundry detestable and abominable
treasons, and put sedition in your realm." ^ The
precise acts, which were called treasons, do not
seem to be distinctly specified. The tyranny of
Henry was becoming more and more capricious,
and life could be taken without any reason being
alleged. In this case there would seem to have
been no proceedings, no pleadings, not even definite
accusations. We can only ascertain the crime
imputed to our martyr by a consideration of the
company in which he was condemned, and from the
traditions concerning him. A similar argument may
be deduced from the names and professions of his
companions m death.

"The 8th of July," says John Stow, "Griffith
Clark, Vicar of Wandsworth, with his chaplain and
his servant, and Friar Waire, were all four hanged
and quartered at St. Thomas Waterings. The loth
of July Sir Adrian Fortescue and Thomas Dingley
were beheaded." The Grey Friars Chronicle says
that, on "July the gth was beheaded at Tower Hill
Master Foskew and Master Dyngle, Knights ; and
that same day was drawn to Tyburn two of their
servants, and there hanged and quartered for
treason." Charles Wriothesley, Windsor Herald,
in his Chronicle, also gi\es the day as July the 9th,

i Roll of Parliiiment, Henry VIII. 147, m, 15, quoted in the
Dictionary of National Biography.



454 . BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE

and he too makes mention of the execution for
treason of the two serving-men. The Knights of
St. John give July the 8th as the day of the martyr-
dom, but Sander gives the same date as Stow.

That the two Knights should have died by
beheading instead of the frightful death with which
English law punished high treason, can have been
only by the King's having extended to them the
"mercy" that he had shown to Sir Thomas More;
which had caused Blessed Thomas to answer, '• God