Occham; and in modern days it received a still more philosophic culture at the hands of Hobbes, Berkeley, and Dugald Stewart. The other, though triumphant for a time, also in its turn sunk under the prevailing influence of Realism, which had enlisted into its ranks the talents of Scotus and Aquinas, and, after enduring even a longer slumber than its old opponent, the leading principles of the same theory were again asserted in the writings or Locke and of Reid. And it must be, I think, attributed to the fact of the two systems both containing more or less of indubitable truth that they still exist, whilst the former object of their mutual attack has long since joined the sphere which Ariosto has assigned to other fantasies equally valueless and unsubstantial. Yours, &c. Doctors' Commons. H. C. C. THE FEMALE BIOGRAPHIES OF ENGLISH HISTORY.-No. II. ELIZABETH DUCHESS OF NORFOLK. ELIZABETH, the second wife of Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, was the eldest daughter of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, by Lady Elinor Percy, daughter of Henry Earl of Northumberland. The facts of her biography are to be gathered from some letters of her own writing, which furnish materials more abundant than are generally met with, and will also with some study be found to supply those dates without which all biography and all history is incoherent and unsatisfactory.1 These letters, which are preserved in the Cottonian collection, were consulted by Lord Herbert of Cherbury for his History of the Reign of Henry VIII. as will be noticed hereafter, and are printed by Dr. Nott in the appendix to his Life of the Earl of Surrey. They occur in the volume (Titus B. 1.) but disarranged, and the three midmost of them are also printed by Dr. Nott in an inverted order. The following list shows their places in the volume, their numbers in Nott (excepting that his xxx. is misprinted xxix), and their true dates. In one respect her testimony is vague and indeterminate, but it is that on which it is generally accounted unreasonable to expect precise information she states herself to be forty years of from a lady in middle life. In 1537 age, which would place her birth in 1497 but at another time she says she was twenty years younger than the Duke her husband, which takes her birth back to the year 1494.2 The Duke of Norfolk's marriage with the Lady Elizabeth Stafford was previously she had been engaged to very hastily concluded. For two years marry the Earl of Westmerland, an alliance with whom had been purchased for her by her father. By this 1537 (and again, June 26, 1538). Besides, Cromwell, to whom the letters were addressed, was not Lord Privy Seal until 1536, and he was beheaded in 1540. The letters were probably among his papers seized at his attainder. 2 The use of such round numbers as twenty and forty does not, of course, imply intentional deception or concealment, and might have been passed without remark, had not Dr. Nott stated that "the Lady Elizabeth could not have been more than fifteen years old at the time of her marriage," founding that assertion on the "forty" only; and in this assertion, as well as others, he has been implicitly followed by Mr. Howard of Corby, in his "Memorials of the Howards." It may be noticed, in connection with this point, that Dr. Nott was unable to ascertain the date of the Earl of Surrey's birth, but was inclined to place it in the year 1516. 3.66 my lorde my father had bo3th my lorde of Westmereland for me: he and I had loved to-gether ij 3ere." The im. portant word bought Dr. Nott has mis, name we must understand Ralph Neville fourth Earl of Westmerland, who succeeded to that dignity in 1523, and was the Earl living when the lady wrote. To this person the Lady Elizabeth Stafford would have been married before the Christmas then next ensuing, had not Lord Howard, immediately on the death of his first wife, made suit to the Duke of Buckingham, and stayed that match. At Easter tide following he repaired to the Duke's residence (the place is not mentioned), and there declared he would not accept any other of the Duke's daughters, but only the Lady Elizabeth. The Lord Neville was in consequence obliged to content himself with the next daughter, the Lady Katharine Stafford. The Duke of Buckingham paid 2000 marks (13337. 6s. 8d.) with the Lady Elizabeth, beside other charges; and a jointure of 500 marks (3337. 6s. 8d.) was settled by her husband. Her marriage with Lord Howard was completed soon after Easter 1512, which was not many months after the death of Anne Lady Howard," the subject of the preceding memoir: which, remarks Mr. Howard," "certainly looks like unbecoming precipitancy, and a want of due respect to the memory of his illustrious wife, with whom he seems to have lived in harmony. It may in extenuation be alleged that she had probably long been ill; that he had lost four children, and was without an heir; that his next brother, Sir Edward Howard, had no child; and that we were actually at war with France; and a war with Scotland, in which he was to have a command, was on the eve of breaking out; and also that he was probably to join his brother Sir Edward in the attack on the French fleet, where he fell the ensuing month." Lord Howard became Earl of Surrey when his father was restored to the Dukedom of Norfolk in 1514; and Duke of Norfolk on his father's death, May 21, 1524. During the early part of her married life the Countess of Surrey resided at Court. "I was," she says, "daily waiter in the Court sixteen years together;" during which time her husband was for more than a year away from her on the King's wars. One of the residences of the Howards in the reign of Henry VIII. was the castle of Sheriff Hutton near York, formerly the mansion of Richard Duke of Gloucester, and other members of the royal family. "This castel," says Leland, "was wel maintained, by reason that the late Duke of Northfolk lay there x. yeres, and sins the Duke of Richemonde." Thus talkyng we went forth in at a postern gate; printed chose. The fact evidently is that the Duke of Norfolk had purchased of the crown the wardship of the young Lord Neville. 4 Nott, Life of Surrey, p. viii. unadvisedly says the third Earl. In her letter written Oct. 24, 1537, the Duchess states she had been married twenty-five years. Dr. Nott (followed by Mr. Howard of Corby) from some miscal culation fixes the marriage in 1513. 6 Dr. Nott (p. vii.) says the Lady Anne was living Nov. 22, 1511; on that day 8 she had a grant of several manors to herself and the heirs of her body. (Pat. Roll, Hen. VIII. p. 1.) It is now clear that she died shortly after that date, and that Dr. Nott placed her death, as well as the marriage of her successor, a year too late. 7 Memorials of the Howard Family, Appendix vi. p. 29. 8 I have not thought myself justified to follow my predecessors in styling the Countess of Surrey a "patron of literature," on the slight grounds of this poem, and Skelton calling himself her "clerk.” "Come forth, jentylwomen, I pray you," she sayd; A cronell of lawrell with verduris light and darke I have devysyd for Skelton, my clerke; For to his servyce I have suche regarde "For of all ladyes he hath the library, Ther names recountyng in the court of Fame; For yet of women he never sayd shame, But if they were counterfetes that women them call, The saumpler to sow on, the lacis to enbraid; Some to embrowder put them in prese,2 Well gydyng ther glowtonn3 to kepe streit theyr sylk, In castyng, in turnynge, in florisshyng of flowris, The bevy of ladies which formed this industrious company are afterwards named. They were, in addition to the Countess, the lady Elizabeth Howarde, lady Mirriell Howarde, lady Anne Dakers of the Sowth, mastres Margery Wentworth, mastres Margaret Tylney, maystres Jane Blennerhasset, maystres Isabell Pennell, maystres Margaret Hussey, mastres Gertrude Statham, and maystres Isabell Knight. Many of these could doubtless be shown to be of kin to the ducal house, though the means of their identification are not immediately at hand. Lady Elizabeth is supposed to have been the younger daughter of the second Duke, who was afterwards Countess of Sussex; the "lady Mirriel" was a To each of the eleven ladies Skelton addresses a short poem. His encomiums have little that is personally characteristic, and form a strange string of allusions to the heroines of former ages; but we must not omit that addressed to the Countess of Surrey : To the ryght noble Countes of Surrey. After all duly ordred obeisaunce, In humble wyse as lowly as I may Unto you, Madame, I make reconusaunce, The passynge of your noble astatė, Of honour and worshyp which hath the formar date. The noble wyfe of Polimites 2 kynge, Prudent Rebecca, of whome remembraunce Whome ye represent and exemplify, Dame Agrippina also I may reherse, Of jentyll corage the perfight memory; It does not appear when the discord of the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk first commenced. She bore him five children; and at a period long after the event, she charged him with great cruelty at the time of the birth of the Duchess of Richmond; but this he absolutely denied. One principal cause of alienation was the Duke's attachment to a lady whom the Duchess terms " that drab, Bess Holland,"4 and which attachment commenced, or was supposed by the Duchess to have commenced, nearly seven years before her separation from him. It added to the Duchess's mortification that her daugh ter the Duchess of Richmond associated with this person. On this sub. ject the following curious passage occurs in one of the Duchess's letters: "I know, my lorde, my husbondes crafty ways of olde, that he hath made me many tymes promysys under a colur, weche he never performed; I wylle never make more sute to hym, nether for prisonment nor for lasse lyvynge duryng my lyff. And by sydes thatt my dogter of Rechemonde and Besse Holand ys cummen up wyth hyr, that harlott weche has putt me to al thys trobulle; and ytt ys a xi yere synsse my lord my husbonde furst fell in love wyth hyr, and yet sche ys but a churles dogter and off no gentyll blode, but that my lorde my husbonde hath sett hym up the Lord Hussey; and Dr. Nott has shown that her own family was of some rank in Norfolk. Her brother was the Duke's secretary. She retained her influence over the Duke until the time of his attainder, as is amply shown by the inventories of her apparel and jewels, which were seized on that occasion, but afterwards restored to her. See Appendix to Nott, Nos. XLIV. and XLV. 5 i. e. neither for fear of imprisonment or reduction of maintenance. for hyr sake, by cawce he was so nye a kynne to my lord Hussy that was late made, that dyed last, and was by-heddett, and was the hed off that drabbe Besse Holondes blode; and kepys her stylle in hys house, and his chylder mayntenne the mater: therefore I will never cum att hym duryng my lyff. Another cauce he sett hys women to bynde me tyll blode came out att my fyngars endes; and pynnacullyt me; and satt on my brest tylle I spit blode; and he never ponysched them, and all thys was done for Besse Holand sake; and he sende me word by Mayster Conysbe that he wolde serve me so, ij yere afore he put me away. I know welle yff I schulde cum home agayne my lyve schude be but schortt.' It was in 1534 that the final quarrel and separation took place. "It is four years," says the Duchess, writing on the 24th Oct. 1537, "come the Tuesday in Passion week, that he came, riding all night, and locked me up in my chamber, and took away all my jewels and all my apparel." Afterwards the Duke sent the lady proposals, by his two chaplains, master Burley and sir Thomas Seymer, that, if she would consent to a divorce, he would restore her jewels and apparel, together with a great part of his plate, and of his stuff of household. But the lady "rebuked his priests," and returned the like answer to a letter which the Duke wrote with his own hand to her the next day for, though many counselled her to accept the offer, she would not do so for her children's sake, notwithstanding they were unkind to her. : After this, the Duchess resided at Redborne in Hertfordshire, which she describes as a "hard" or expensive country. Her household consisted of Misprinted Cornish (in two places) by Dr. Nott, who has also Rothwell fo Sothwell (Southwell); and in his letter XXIX has converted the passage "My lorde, Arnolle and hys wyffe" &c. (which Arnoll is also mentioned in letter XXX) into "My lord Arnoll (Arundel)." Indeed, the errors in Nott's copies are so numerous, that the letters should be here reprinted, if space permitted. 2. The Duchess must have been sepe. rated in 1533" (Nott, app. p. lxx.) a calculation proceeding from the same error as before. 3 Letter of 24 Oct. 1537. Also in that of 26 June 1538; "I lye in Harforthschyre .... I colde lye better cheppe in Lon twenty persons; and these she kept on an allowance of fifty pounds a quarter, or three hundred marks a year. It was in order to obtain an increase of this allowance that she addressed the letters to Cromwell, the Lord Privy Seal, which have furnished the foregoing particulars. It appears that both the King and Cromwell took some trouble to mediate between the angry pair, but either party was too proud to yield. In the summer of 1536 the Duchess repaired to the court at Dunstable, to urge her suit to the King for “a better living," or greater allowance, from her husband. The King recommended her to write gently to the Duke, which she says she did. Again she went up to the court in London, to try what effect a personal interview with the minister might have. The Duke, hearing of this, wrote to Cromwell the following letter of exculpation : knowlege that my wilfulle wiff is come to "My veray gode lord, it is come to my London, and hath be wt you intendyng to come to me to London. My lord, I assewre you aslong as I lyve I uolle never come in her company unto the tyme she hath furst wryten to me that she hath untrewly slandered me in wryting and sayng that when she had be in chyld-bed ij nyghtes and a day of my doghter of Richmond I shuld draw her out of her bed by the here of the hed aboutes the howse and wt my dager geve her a wonde in the hed. My gode lord, if I prove not by witnes and that w many honest personys that she had the skar in her hed xv monethes before she was delyverd of my seid doghter, and that the same was cutt by a surgeon of London for a swellyng she had in her bed of drawyng of ij tethe, never trust my worde after-reportyng unto yo' gode lordshipe whether I shuld play the fole or no, to put me in her danger that so falsly wille slander me and so wilfully styk therby. Sewerly I think there is no man on lyve that wold don then I do here: ytt may welle be cald Herfothschyre." The Duchess's pun (apparently) belongs to the word hard. I have made sute to hym iij tymes with iij gentylle letters; one off them was by the kynges comaundement, when I was with his grace at Dunstabulle." Letter of June 26, 1538. Again, in the letter of Jan. 29, 1539-40, she recurs to her interview with the King at Dunstable, saying it was then three years and a half ago. 5 Misprinted "felo" by Nott. |