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, an English poet and warrior, was born of a genteel family, educated at Oxford, and afterwards spent some time in travelling abroad. In 1522, he attended, in a military capacity, the earl of Surrey on his expedition to the coast of Britany, and commanded the troops in the attack of the town of Morlaix, which he took and burnt. For this service he was knighted on the spot by the earl, which Tanner says took place in Germany, 1532, instead of Britany, 1522. In 1528 he was in Spain, but in what service is doubtful. In 1529 he was sent ambassador to France, and the following year ta Rome on account of the king’s divorce. He had also been therein 1522, in the same capacity, when cardinal Wolsey’s election to the holy see was in agitation. In 1533 he was one of those sent by Henry to be witnesses to the interview between the pope and the king of France at Marseilles. He was gentleman of the privy chamber to Henry VIII. and to his successor Edward VI. in the beginning of whose reign he marched with the protector against the Scots, and after the battle of Musselborough in 1547, in which he commanded the light horse with great bravery, he was made banneret. In 1549 he was appointed chief governor of Ireland, by the title of lord chief justice, and there he married the countess of Ormond. He appears to have died in 1550, and was buried at Walerford. He was nephew to John Bourchier, lord Berners, the translator of Froissart.

The Spring of 1782 opened a new scene of great political importance. The American war had continued seven years, and having been unsuccessful, not only the people, but very nearly a majority of the parliament, became tired of it. The minister was now attacked with great force, and the several motions which the opposition introduced, relative to the extinction of the war, were lost only by a very small minority. Finding the prospect of success brightening, the opposition determined to put the subject at issue. Accordingly on the 8th of March, lord John Cavendish moved certain resolutions, recapitulating the failures, the misconduct, and the expences of ‘the war, the debate on which lasted till two o’clock in the morning, when the house divided on the order of the day. which had been moved by the secretary at war, and which was carried only by a majority often. This defection on the side of administration gave heart to the minority, and they rallied with redoubled force and spirits on the 15th of March, when a motion of sir John Rous, “That the house could have no further confidence in the ministers who had the direction of public affairs,” was negatived only by a majority of nine. The minority followed their fortune, and on the 20th of the same month (the house being uncommonly crowded) the earl of Surrey (now duke of Norfolk) rose to make his promised motion, when lord North spoke to order, by saying, “he meant no disrespect to the noble earl; but as notice had been given that the object of the intended motion was the removal of his majesty’s ministers, he meant to have acquainted the house, that such a motion was become unnecessary, as he could assure the house, on authority, that the present administration was no more! and that his majesty had come to a full determination of changing his ministers; and for the purpose of giving the necessary time for new arrangements, he moved an adjournment,” which was instantly adopted. During this adjournment a new administration was formed under the auspices of the marquis of Rockingham, on whose public principles and private virtues the nation seemed to repose, after the violent struggle by which it had been agitated, with the securest and most implicit confidence. The arrangements were as follow: The marquis of Rockingham first lord of the treasury, the earl of Shelburne and Mr. Fox joint secretaries of state, lord Camden president of the council, duke of Grafton privy seal, lord John Cavendish chancellor of the exchequer, and Mr. Burke (who was at the same time made a privy counsellor) paymaster-general of the forces.

, a voluminous poet of the sixteenth century, w,as born in Shrewsbury about the year 1520. Wood, who has given a long account of him, says he was of a genteel family, and well educated; and that at the age of seventeen, his father gave him a sum of money, and sent him to court, where he lived in gaiety while his finances lasted. He does not seem, however, to have gained any thing by his attendance at court, except his introduction to the celebrated earl of Surrey, with whom he lived some time as domestic, and by whose encouragement he produced some of his poems. He certainly had no public employment either now or in queen Elizabeth’s reign, although some have denominated him poet laureat, merely, as Mr. Malone thinks, “because he had addressed many of the noblemen of Elizabeth’s court for near forty years, and is called by one of his contemporaries, the old court poet.” He appears, however, to have continued with the earl of Surrey, until this virtuous and amiable nobleman was sacrificed to the tyrannical caprice of Henry VIII. Churchyard now became a soldier, and made several campaigns on the continent, in Ireland, and in Scotland. Tanner is inclined to think that he served the emperor in Flanders against the French in the reign of Henry VIII.; but the differences of dates between his biographers are not now so reconcileable as to enable us to decide upon this part of his history. Wood next informs us that he spent some time at Oxford, and was afterwards patronized by the earl of Leicester. He then became enamoured of a rich widow; but his passion not meeting with success, he once more returned to the profession of arms, engaged in foreign service, in which he suffered great hardships, and met with many adventures of the romantic kind; and in the course of them appears to have been always a favourite among the ladies. At one time, in Flanders, he was taken prisoner, but escaped by the “endeavours of a lady of considerable quality;” and at another time, when condemned to death as a spy, he was reprieved and sent away by the “endeavours of a noble dame.” On his return he published a great variety of poems on all subjects; but there is reason to think that by these he gained more applause than profit, as it is very certain that he lived and died poor. The time of his death, until lately was not ascertained; Winstanley and Cibber place that event in 1570, Fuller in 1602, and Oldys in 1604, which last is correct. Mr. George Chalmers, in. his “Apology for the believers in the Shakspeare Mss.” gives us an extract from the parish register, proving that he was buried April 4, of that year, in St. Margaret’s church, Westminster, near the grave of Skelton. Mr. D'Israeli, who has introduced him in his “Calamities of Authors,” very aptly characterises him as “one of those unfortunate men, who have written poetry all their days, and lived a long life, to complete the misfortune.” His works are minutely enumerated by Ritson in his “Bibliographia Poetica,” and some well- selected specimens have lately appeared in the Censura Literaria. The best of his poems, in point of genius, is his “Legende of Jane Shore,” and the most popular, his “Worthiness of Wales,” 1580, 8vo, of which an edition was published in 1776. It may be added, as it has escaped his biographers, that he is mentioned by Strype, in his life of Grind*!, as “an excellent soldier, and a man of honest principles,” who in 1569 gave the secretary of state notice of an intended rising at Bath (where Churchyard then was) among the Roman catholics.

, knt. one of the gentlemen of the privy chamber to king Henry VIII., was the second son of Thomas Denny, of Cheshunt, in the county of Hertford, esq. by Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Mannock. He had his education in St. Paul’s school, London, under the celebrated grammarian Lilly; and afterwards in St. John’s college, Cambridge; in both which places he so improved himself, that he became an excellent scholar, as well as a person of great worth. His merit having made him known at court, he was constituted by Henry VIII. one of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber, groom of the stole, and a privy counsellor; and likewise received the honour of knighthood from that prince; with whom being in great favour, he raised a considerable estate on the ruins of the dissolved monasteries. In 1537, Henry gave him the priory of Hertford, together with divers other lands and manors; and in 1539, Dec. 15, the office of steward of the manor of Bedwell and Little Berkhamstead, in Herts; besides which sir Anthony also obtained the manor of Buttenvick, in the parish of St. Peter in St. Alban’s, the manors of the rectory and of the nunnery, in the parish of Cheshunt; and of Great Amwell, all in the county of Hertford. In 1541, there was a large grant made to him by act of parliament, of several lands that had belonged to the abbey of St. Alban’s, lately dissolved; and not content with all this, he found means to procure a thirty-one years’ lease of the many large and rich demesnes that had been possessed by Waltham-abbey, in Essex; of which his lady purchased aftenvards the reversion. In 1544 the king gave him the advantageous wardship of Margaret, the only daughter and heir of Thomas lord Audley, deceased. On the 31st of August, 1546, he was commissioned, with John Gate and William Clerk, esquires, to sign all warrants in the king’s name. Though somewhat rapacious, he was liberal; in this reign he did eminent service to the great school of Sedberg in Yorkshire, belonging to the college wherein he had received his education; the building being fallen to decay, and the lands appropriated thereto sold and embezzled, he caused the school to be repaired, and not only recovered, but also settled the estate so firmly, as to prevent all future alienations. He was also a more faithful servant than his brother courtiers, for when Henry VIII. was on his death-bed, he had the courage to put him in mind of his approaching end, and desired him to raise his thoughts to heaven, to think of his past life, and to call on God for mercy through Jesus Christ. So great an opinion had that capricious monarch of him, that he appointed him one of the executors of his will, and one of the counsellors to his son and successor Edward VI. and hequeathed him a legacy of 300l. He did not live long after this; for he died in 1.550. By his wife Joan, daughter of sir Philip Champeruon, of Modbury, in Devonshire, a lady of great beauty and parts, he had six children; of whom, Henry, the eldest, was father of Edward Denny, knighted in 1589, summoned to parliament in 1605, and advanced Oct. 24, 1626, to the dignity of earl of Norwich. Of sir Anthony Denny’s personal character, one of his contemporaries informs us, that his whole time and cares were employed about religion, learning, and the care of the public, and has highly commended him for his prudence and humanity. He was the early friend and patron of Matthew Parker, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. The learned Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, wrote an excellent epitaph for him some years before his decease; tfnd sir John Cheke, who had a great esteem for him, honoured his memory with an elegant heroic poem.

Mr. Fox, for some time after his going to the university, was attached to the popish religion, in which he had been brought up, but afterwards applied himself to divinity, with somewhat more fervency than circumspection; and discovered himself in favour of the reformation then going on, before he was known to those who maintained the cause, or those who were of ability to protect the maintainers of it. In order to judge of the controversies which then divided the church, his first care was to search diligently into the ancient and modern history of it; to learn its beginning, by what arts it flourished, and by what errors it began to decline; to consider the causes of those controversies and dissensions which had arisen in the churd), and to weigh attentively of what moment and consequence they were to religion. To this end he applied himself with such zeal and industry, that before he was thirty years of age, he had read over all the Greek and Latin fathers, the schoolmen, the councils, &c. and had also acquired a competent skill in the Hebrew language. But from this strict application by day and by night while at Oxford, from forsaking his friends for the most solitary retirement, which he enjoyed in Magdalen grove, from the great and visible distractions of his mind, and above all, from absenting himself from the public worship, arose suspicions of his alienation from the church; in which his enemies being soon confirmed, he was accused and condemned of heresy, expelled his college, and thought to have been favourably dealt with, that he escaped with his life. This was in 1545. Wood represents this affair somewhat differently he says in one place, that Fox resigned his fellowbliip to avoid expulsion, and in another that he was " in a manner obliged to resign his fellowship/ 1 The stigma, however, appears to have been the same, for his relations were greatly displeased at him, and afraid to countenance or protect one condemned for a capital offence; and his father-in-law basely took advantage of it to withhold his paternal estate from him, thinking probably that he, who stood in danger of the law himself, would with difficulty find relief from it. Being thus forsaken by his friends, he was reduced to great distress; when he was taken into the house of sir Thomas Lucy of Warwickshire, to be tutor to his children. Here he married a citizen’s daughter of Coventry, and continued in sir Thomas’s family, till his children were grown up; after which he spent some time with his wife’s father at Coventry. He removed to London a few years before king Henry’s death; where having neither employment nor preferment, he was again driven to great necessities and distress, but was reIjeved, according to his son’s account, in a very remarkable manner. He was sitting one day, he says, in St. Paul’s church, almost spent with long fasting, his countenance wan and pale, and his eyes hollow, when there came to him a person, whom he never remembered to have seen before, who, sitting down by him, accosted him very familiarly, and put into his hands an untold sum of money; bidding him to be of good cheer, to be careful of himself, and to use all means to prolong his life, for that in a few days new hopes were at band, and new means of subsistence. Fox tried all methods to find out the person by whom he was so seasonably relieved, but in vain; the prediction, however, was fulfilled, for within three days he was taken into the service of the duchess of Richmond, to be tutor to the children of her nephew, the celebrated earl of Surrey. Upon the commitment of this amiable nobleman and his father the duke of Norfolk to the Tower, these children were sent to be educated under the care and inspection of their unnatural aunt the duchess of Richmond.

, an eminent prelate, and the munificent founder of Corpus Christi college, Oxford, was the son of Thomas Fox, and born at Ropesley, near Grantham, in Lincolnshire, about the latter end of the reign of Henry VI. His parents are said to have been in mean circumstances, but they must at least have been able to afford him school education, since the only dispute on this subject between his biographers, is, whether he was educated in grammar learning at Boston, or at Winchester. They all agree that at a proper age he was sent to Magdalen-college, Oxford, where he was acquiring distinction for his extraordinary proficiency, when the plague, which happened to break out about that time, obliged him to go to Cambridge, and continue his studies at Pembrokehall. After remaining some time at Cambridge, he repaired to the university at Paris, and studied divinity and the canon law, and here, probably, he received his doctor’s degree. This visit gave a new and important turn to his life, and introduced him to that eminence which he preserved for many years as a statesman. In Paris he became acquainted with Dr. Morton, bishop of Ely, whom Richard III. had compelled to quit his native country, and by this prelate he was recommended to the earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII. who was then providing for a descent upon England. Richmond, to whom he devoted himself, conceived such an opinion of his talents and fidelity, that he entrusted to his care a negotiation with France for supplies of men and money, the issue of which he was not able himself to await; and Fox succeeded to the utmost of his wishes. After the defeat of the usurper at the battle of Bosworth, in 1485, and the establishment of Henry on the throne, the latter immediately appointed Fox to be one of his privy-council, and about the same time bestowed on him the prebends of Bishopston and South Grantham, in the church of Salisbury. In 1487, he was promoted to the see of Exeter, and appointed keeper of the privy seal, with a pension of twenty shillings a day. He was also made principal secretary of state, and master of St. Cross, near Winchester. His employments in. affairs of state both at home and abroad, were very frequent, as he shared the king’s confidence with his early friend Dr. Morton, who was now advanced to the archbishopric of Canterbury. In 1487, Fox was sent ambassador, with sir Richard Edgecombe, comptroller of the household, to James III. of Scotland, where he negociated a prolongation of the truce between England and Scotland, which was to expire July 3, 1488, to Sept. 1, 1489. About the beginning of 1491, he was employed in an embassy to the king of France, and returned to England in November following. In 1494 he went again as ambassador to James IV. of Scotland, to conclude some differences respecting the fishery of the river Esk, in which he was not successful. Having been translated in 1492 from the see of Exeter to that of Bath and Wells, he was in 1494 removed to that of Durham. Jn 1497, the castle of Norham being threatened by the king of Scotland, the bishop caused it to be fortified and supplied with troops, and bravely defended it in person, until it was relieved by Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey, who compelled the Scots to retire. Fox was then, a third time, appointed to negociate with Scotland, and signed a, seven years truce between the two kingdoms, Sept. 30, 1497. He soon after negociated a marriage between James IV. and Margaret, king Henry’s eldest daughter, which was, after many delays, fully concluded Jan. 24, 1501-.

In 1500, the university of Cambridge elected him their chancellor, which he retained till 1502; and in the same year (1500) he was promoted to the see of Winchester. In 1507 he was chosen master of Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, which he retained until 1519. In 1507 and 1508 he was employed at Calais, with other commissioners, in negociating a treaty of marriage between Mary, the king’s third daughter, and Charles, archduke of Austria, afterwards the celebrated Charles V. In 1509-10, he was sent to France with the earl of Surrey, and Ruthal, bishop of Durham, and concluded a new treaty of alliance with Lewis XII. In 1512 he was one of the witnesses to the foundation charter of the hospital in the Savoy. In 1513 he attended the king (Henry VIII.) in his expedition to France, and was present at the taking of Teroiiane, and in October following, jointly with Thomas Grey, marquis of Dorset, he concluded a treaty with the emperor Maximilian against France. In 1514, he was one of the witnesses to the renunciation of the marriage with prince Charles of Spain by the princess Mary; one of the commissioners for the treaty of peace between Henry VIII. and Lewis XII. of France; and for the marriage between the said king of France and the princess Mary, the same year. He was also one of the witnesses to the marriage treaty, and to the confirmation of both treaties; to the treaty of friendship with Francis I. and to its continuation in the following year.

This appears to be the last of his public acts. During the reign of Henry VII. he enjoyed the unlimited favour and confidence of his sovereign, and bore a conspicuous share, not only in the political measures, but even in the court amusements and ceremonies of that reign. Henry likewise appointed him one of his executors, and recommended him strongly to his son and successor. But although he‘ retained his seat in the privy-council, and continued to hold the privy-seal, his influence in the new reign’ gradually abated. Howard, earl of Surrey and lord treasurer, had been his rival in Henry the Seventh’s time, and learned now to accommodate himself to the extravagant passions of his new master, with whom he was for a considerable time a confidential favourite; and the celebrated Wolsey, who had been introduced to the king by Fox, in order to counteract the influence of Surrey, soon became more powerful than either. After remaining some time in office, under many mortifications, our prelate, together with archbishop Warham, retired from court in 1515. Such was the political life of bishop Fox, distinguished by high influence and talent, but embittered at length, by the common intrigues and vicissitudes to which statesmen are subject.

After almost begging his way to England, as Patin tells us, he found an easy admittance to the lord-chancellor, sir Thomas More, having brought with him Erasmus’s picture, and letters recommendatory from him to that great man. Sir Thomas received him with all the joy imaginable, and kept him in his house between two and three years; during which time he drew sir Thomas’s picture, and those of many of his friends and relations. One clay Holbein happening to mention the nobleman who had some years ago invited him to England, sir Thomas was very solicitous to know who he was. Holbein replied, that he had indeed forgot his title, but remembered his face so well, that he thought he could draw his likeness; and this he did so very strongly, that the nobleman, it is said, was immediately known by it. This nobleman some think was the earl of Arundel, others the earl of Surrey. The chancellor, having now sufficiently enriched his apartments with Holbein’s productions, adopted the following method to introduce him to Henry VIII. He invited the king to an entertainment, and hung up all Holbein’s pieces, disposed in the best order, and in the best light, in the great hall of his house. The king, upon his first entrance, was so charmed with the sight of them, that he asked, “Whether such an artist were now alive, and to be had for money?” on which sir Thomas presented Holbein to the king, who immediately took him into his service, with a salary of 200 florins, and brought him into great esteem with the nobility of the kingdom. The king from time to time manifested the greac value he had for him, and upon the death of queen Jane, his third wife, sent him into Flanders, to draw the picture of the duchess dowager of Milan, widowto Francis Sforza, whom the emperor Charles V. had recommended to him for a fourth wife; but the king’s defection from the see of Rome happening about that time, he rather chose to match with a protestant princess. Cromwell, then his prime minister (for sir Thomas More had been removed, and beheaded), proposed Anne of Cleves to him; but the king was not inclined to the match, till her picture, which Holbein had also drawn, was presented to him. There, as lord Herbert of Cherbnry says, she was represented so very charming, that the king immediately resolved to marry her; and thus Holbein was unwittingly the cause of the ruin of his patron Cromwell, whom the king never forgave for introducing him to Anne of Cleves.

, earl of Surrey, and duke of Norfolk, an eminent commander in the reign of Henry VIII. was born in 1473, and brought up to arms, and soon after the accession of Henry was decorated with the knighthood of the garter. He served with his brother sir Edward, against sir Andrew Barton, a Scotch free-booter, or pirate, who perished in the action. Wuen his brother, sir Edward, was killed in an action near Brest, in 1513, he was appointed to the office in his stead, and in the capacity of high admiral he effectually cleared the channel of French cruisers. The victory of Flodden-field, in which the king of Scotland was slain, was chiefly owing to his valour and good conduct. For this his father was restored to the title of duke of Norfolk, and the title of earl of Surrey was conferred on him. In 1521 he was sent to Ireland as lordlieutenant, chiefly for the purpose, it was thought, of having him out of the way during the proceedings against his father-in-law, the duke of Buckingham. Here he was very instrumental in suppressing the rebellion, and having served there two years he returned, and had the command of the fleet against France. By the death of his father he succeeded to the title and estates as duke of Norfolk. Notwithstanding his great services, Henry, at the close of his tyrannical life and reign, caused the duke to be sent to the Tower on a charge of high treason, and his son to be beheaded in his presence. The death of the king saved the duke’s life. He was, however, detained prisoner during the whole of the reign of Edward VI. but one of the first acts of Mary, after her accession to the throne, was to liberate him. He was, after this, the principal instrument in suppressing the rebellion excited by sir Thomas Wyatt. He died in August 1554, having passed his eightieth year. He was father to the illustrious subject of our next article.

, Earl of Surrey. This highly accomplished nobleman has been peculiarly unfortunate in his biographers, nor is there in the whole range of the English series, a life written with less attention to probability. Even the few dates on which we can depend have been overlooked with a neglect that is wholly unaccountable in men so professedly attentive to these matters, as Birch, Walpole, and Warton. The story usually told consists of the following particulars:

Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, was the eldest son of Thomas, the third duke of Norfolk, lord high treasurer of England in the reign of Henry VIII. by Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham. He was born either at his father’s seat at Framlingham, in Suffolk, or in the city of Westminster, and being a child of great hopes, all imaginable care was taken of his education. When he was very young he was companion, at Windsor castle, with Henry Fitzroy, duke of Richmond, natural son to Henry VIII. and afterwards student in Cardinal college, now Christ Church, Oxford. In 1532 he was with the duke of Richmond at Paris, and continued there for some time in the prosecution of his studies, and learning the French language; and upon the death of that duke in July 1536, travelled into Germany, where he resided some time at the emperor’s court, and thence went to Florence, where he fell in love with the fair Geraldine, the great object of his poetical addresses, and in the grand duke’s court published a challenge against all who should dispute her beauty; which challenge being accepted, he came oft victorious. For this approved valour, the duke of Florence made him large offers to stay with him; but he refused them because he intended to defend the honour of his Geraldine in all the chief cities of Italy. But this design of his was diverted by letters sent to him by king Henry VIII. recalling him to England. He left Italy, therefore, where he had cultivated his poetical genius by the reading of the greatest writers of that country, and returned to his own country, where he was considered a one of the first of the English nobility, who adorned his high birth with the advantages of a polite taste and extensive literature. On the first of May, 1540, he was one of the chief of those who justed at Westminster, as a defendant, against sir John Dudley, sir Thomas Seymour, and other challengers, where he behaved himself with admirable courage, and great skill in the use of his arms, and, in 1542, served in the army, of which his father was lieutenant-genera!, and which, in October that year, entered Scotland, and burnt divers villages. In February or March following, he was confined to Windsor castle for eating flesh in Lent, contrary to the king’s proclamation of the 9th of February 1542. In 1544, upon the expedition to Boulogne, in France, he was field-marshal of the English army; and after taking that town, being then knight of the garter, he was in the beginning of September 1545, constituted the king’s lieutenant and captain-general of all his army within the town and country of Boulogne. During his command there in 1546, hearing that a convoy of provisions of the enemy was coming to the fort at Oultreau, he resolved to intercept it; but the Rhingrave, with' four thdusand Lanskinets, together with a considerable number of French under the marshal de Blez, making an obstinate defence, the Englisii were routed, anil sir Edward Poynings, with divers other gentlemen, killed, and the earl of Surrey himself obliged to fly; though it appears by a letter of his to the king, dated January 8, 1545-6, that this advantage cost the enemy a great number of men. But the king was so highly displeased with this ill success, that, from that time he contracted a prejudice against the earl, and, soon after, removed him from his command, appointing the earl of Hertford to succeed him. On this sir William Paget wrote to the earl of Surrey to advise him to procure some eminent post under the earl of Hertford, that he might not be unprovided in the town and field. The earl being desirous, in the mean time, to regain his former favour with the king, skirmished against the French, and routed them; but, soon after, writing over to the king’s council, that as the enemy had cast much larger cannon than had been yet seen, with which they imagined they should soon demolish Boulogne, it deserved consideration, whether the lower town should stand, as not being defensible, the council ordered him to return to England, in order to represent his sentiments more fully upon those points, and the earl of Hertford was immediately sent over in his room. This exasperating the earl of Surrey, occasioned him to let fall some expressions which savoured of revenge, and a dislike of the king, and an hatred of his counsellors; and was, probably, one great cause of his ruin soon after. His father, the duke of Norfolk, had endeavoured to ally himaelf to the earl of Hertford, and to his brother, sir Thomas Seymour, perceiving how much they were in the king’s favour, and how great an interest they were likely to have under the succeeding prince; and therefore he would have engaged his son, being then a widower (having lost his wife Frances, daughter of John earl of Oxford), to marry the earl of Hertford’s daughter, and pressed his daughter, the duchess of Richmond, widow of the king’s natural son, to marry sir Thomas Seymour. But though the earl of Surrey advised his sister to the marriage projected for her, yet he would nol consent to that designed for himself; nor did the proposition about himself take effect. The Seymours could not but perceive the enmity which the earl bore them; and they might well be jealous of the greatness of the Howard family, which was not only too considerable for subjects, of itself, but was raised so high by the dependence of th whole popish party, both at home and abroad, that they were likely to be very dangerous competitors for the chief government of affairs, if the king should die, whose disease was now growing so fast upon him that he could not live many weeks. Nor is it improbable, that they persuaded the king, that, if the earl of Surrey should marry the princess Mary, it might embroil his son’s government, and, perhaps, ruin him. And it was suggested that he had some such high project in his thoughts, both by his continuing unmarried, and by his using the arms of Edward the Confessor, which, of late, he had given in his coat without a diminution. To complete the duke of Norfolk’s and his son’s ruin, his duchess, who had complained of his using her ill, and had been separated from him about four years, turned informer against him. And the earl and his sister, the duchess dowager of Richmond, being upon ill terms together, she discovered all she knew against him; as likewise did one Mrs. Holland, for whom the duke was believed to have had an unlawful affection. But all these discoveries amounted only to some passionate expressions of the son, and some complaints of the father, who thought he was not beloved by the king and his counsellors, and that he was ill used in not being trusted with the secret of affairs. However, all persons being encouraged to bring informations against them, sir Richard Southwel charged the earl of Surrey in some points of an higher nature; which the earl denied, and desired to be admitted, according to the martial law, to fight, in his shirt, with sir Richard. But, that not being granted, he and his father were committed prisoners to the Tower on the 12th of December 1546; and the earl, being a commoner, was brought to his trial in Guildhall, on the 13th of January following, Jbefore the lord chancellor, the lord mayor, and other commissioners; where he defended himself with great skill and address, sometimes denying the accusations, and weakening the credit of the witnesses against him, and sometimes interpreting the words objected to him in a far different sense from what had been represented. For the point of bearing the arms of Edward the Confessor, he justified himself by the authority of the heralds. And when a witness was produced, who pretended to repeat some high words of his lordship’s, by way of discourse, which concerned him nearly, and provoked the witness to return him a braving answer; the qarl left it to the jury to judge whether it was probable that this man should speak thus to him, and he not strike him again. In conclusion, he insisted upon his innocence, but was found guilty, and had sentence of death passed upon him. He was beheaded on Tower-hill on the 19th of January 1546-7; and his body interred in the church of All Hallows Barking, and afterwards removed to Framlingham, in Suffolk.

Such is the account drawn up by Dr. Birch for the “Illustrious Heads,” from Anthony Wood, Camden, Herbert, Dugdale, and Burnet’s History of the Reformation. The principal errors, (corrected in this transcription,) are his making the earl of Surrey son to the second duke of Norfolk , and the duke of Richmond natural son to Henry the Seventh.

"It is not precisely known at what period the earl of Surrey began his travels. They have the air of a romance. He made the tour of Europe in the true spirit of chivalry, and with the ideas of an Amadis: proclaiming the unparalleled charms of his mistress, and prepared to defend the cause of her beauty with the weapons of knight-errantry. Nor was this adventurous journey performed without the intervention of an enchanter. The first city in Italy which he proposed to visit was Florence, the capital of Tuscany, and the original seat of the ancestors of his Geraidine. In his way thither, he passed a few days at the emperor’s court ^ where he became acquainted with Cornelius Agrippa, a celebrated adept in natural magic. This visionary philosopher shewed our hero, in a mirror of glass, a living image of Geraidine, reclining on a couch, sick, and reading one of his most tender sonnets by a waxen taper. His imagination, which wanted not the flattering F represeniations and artificial incentives of illusion, was heated anew by this interesting and affecting spectacle. Inflamed wiih every enthusiasm of the most romantic passion, he hastened to Florence and on his arrival, immediately published a defiance against any person who could handle a lance and was in love, whether Christian, Jew, Turk, Saracen, or Canibal, who should presume to dispute the superiority of Geraldine’s beauty. As the lady was pretended to be of Tuscan extraction, the pride of the Flo-, rentines was flattered on this occasion: and the grand duke of Tuscany permitted a general and unmolested ingress into his dominions of the combatants of all countries, till this important trial should be decided. The challenge was accepted, and the earl victorious. The shield which he presented to the duke before the tournament began, is exhibited in Vertue’s valuable plate of the Arundel family, and was actually in the possession of the late duke of Norfolk.

Mr. Warton observes, that “it is not precisely known at what period the earl of Surrey began his travels;” but this is a matter of little consequence in refuting the account usually given of those travels, because all his biographers are agreed that he did not set out before 1536, At this time he had ten years only of life before him, which have been filled up in a very extraordinary manner. First, he travels over a part of Europe, vindicating the beauty of Geraldine in 1540 he is celebrated at the justs at Westminster in 1542 he goes to Scotland with his father’s army in 1543 (probably) he is imprisoned for eating flesh in lent ^in 1544 5, he is commander at Boulogne and lastly, amidst all these romantic adventures, or serious events, he has leisure to marry the daughter of the earl of Oxford, and beget five children, which we may suppose would occupy at least five or six of the above ten years, and those not the last five or six years, for we find him a widower a considerable time before his death. Among other accusations whispered in the ear of his jealous sovereign, one was his continuing unmarried (an expression which usually denotes a considerable length of time) after the period when a second marriage might be decent, in order that he might marry the princess Mary, in the event of the king’s death, and so disturb the succession of Edward. The placing of these events in this series would render the story of his knight-errantry sufficiently improbable, were we left without any information respecting the date of Surrey’s marriage, but that event renders the whole impossible, if we wish to preserve any respect for the consistency of his character. Surrey was actually married before the commencement of his travels in pursuit or in defence of Geraldine’s beauty. His eldest son, Thomas, third duke of Norfolk, was eighteen years old when his grandfather died in 1554. He was consequently born in 1536, and his father, it is surely reasonable to suppose, was married in 1535. It would, therefore, be unnecessary to examine the story of Surrey’s romantic travels any farther, if we had not some collateral authorities which may still show that whatever may be wrong in the present statement, it is certain that there is nothing right in the common accounts, which have been read and copied without any suspicion.

If it be said that Surrey’s age is not exactly known, and therefore allowing 1536, the date of his travels, to be erroneous, it is possible that he might have been enamoured of Geraldine long before this, and it is possible that his travels might have commenced in 1526, or any other period founded on this new conjecture. This, however, is as improbable as all the rest of the story, for it can be decidedly proved that there was no time for Surrey’s gallantries towards Geraldine, except the period which his biographers, however absurdly, have assigned, namely, when he was a married man. The father of lady Elizabeth, the supposed Geraldine, married in 1519, one of the daughters of Thomas Grey, marquis of Dorset, and by her had five children, of whom Elizabeth was the fourth, and therefore probably not born before 1523 or 1524. If Surrey’s courtship, therefore, must be carried farther back, it must be carried to the nursery; for even in 1536, when we are told he was her knight-errant, she could not have been more than eleven or twelve years old. Let us add to this a few particulars respecting Geraldine’s husband. She married Edward lord C'linton. He was born in 1512, was educated in the court, and passed his youth in those magnificent and romantic amusements which distinguished the beginning of Henry VIII.'s reign, but did not appear as a public character until 1544, when he was thirty-two years of age, Geraldine about twenty-four, and Surrey within two years of his death, and most probably a widower. This earl of Lincoln had three wives; the date of his marriage with any of them is not known, nor how long they lived, but Geraldine was the third, the only one by whom he had no children, and who survived his death, which took place in 1584, thirty-eight years after the death of Surrey. Mr. Warton, in his earnest desire to connect her with Surrey, insinuates that she might have been either cruel, or that her “ambition prevailed so far over her gratitude as to tempt her to prefer the solid glories of a more splendid title and ample fortune, to the challenges and the compliments of so magnanimous, so faithful, and so eloquent a lover.” On this it is only necessary to remark, that the lady’s ambition might have been as highly gratified by marrying the accomplished and gallant Surrey, the heir of the duke of Norfolk, as by allying herself to a nobleman of inferior talents and rank. But of his two conjectures, Mr. Warton seems most to adhere to that of cruelty^ for he adds, that “Surrey himgelf outlived his amorous vows, and married the daughter of the earl of Oxford.” This, however, is as little deserving of serious examination, as the ridiculous story of Cornelius Agrippa showing Geraldine in a glass, which Anthony Wood found in Drayton’s “Heroical Epistle,” or probably, as Mr. Park thinks, took it from Nash’s fanciful “Life of Jack Wilton,” published in 1594, where, under the character of his hero, he professes to have travelled to the emperor’s court as page to the earl of Surrey. But it is unfortunate for this story, wheresoever borrowed, that Agrippa was no more a conjurer than any other learned man of his time, and that he died at Grenoble the year before Surrey is said to have set out on his romantic expedition. Drayton has made a similar mistake in giving to Surrey, as one of the companions of his voyage, the great sir Thomas More, who was beheaded in 1535, a year likewise before Surrey set out. Poetical authorities, although not wholly to be rejected, are of all others to be received with the greatest caution, yet it was probably Drayton’s “Heroical Epistle” which led Mr. Warton into so egregious a blunder as that of our poet being present at Flodden-field, in 1513. Dr. Sewell, indeed, in the short memoirs prefixed to his edition of Surrey’s Poems, asserts the same; tut little credit is due to the assertion -of a writer who at the same time fixes Surrey’s birth in 1520, seven years after that memorable battle was fought.

Surrey’s poems were in high reputation among his contemporaries and immediate successors, who vied with each other in compliments to his genius, gallantry, and personal worth. They were first printed in 1557, by Tottel, in 4to, with die title of “Songes and sonnettes by the right honorable Henry Howard, late earl of Surrey, and other.” Several editions of the same followed in 1565, 1567, 1569, 1574, 1585, and 1587. So many editions prove a degree of popularity which fell to the lot of very few poems of that age. But after the time of Elizabeth they became gradually obscure, and we find no modern edition until Pope’s incidental notice of him (in Windsor-Forest), as the “Granville of a former age,” induced the booksellers to employ Dr. Sewell to be the editor of Surrey’s, Wyat’s, and the poems of uncertain authors. But the doctor performed his task, with so little knowledge of the language, that this is perhaps the most incorrect edition extant of any ancient poet. It would have been surprizing had it contributed to revive his memory, or justify Pope’s comparison and eulogium.

, earl of Northampton, second son of the preceding, but unworthy of such a father, was born at Shottisham in Norfolk about 1539. He was educated at King’s college, and afterwards at Trinity-hall, Cambridge, where he took the degree of A. M. to which he was also admitted at Oxford, in 1568. Bishop Godwin says, his reputation for literature was so great in the unU versity, that he was esteemed“the learnedest among the nobility; and the most noble among the learned.” He was at first, probably, very slenderly provided for, being often obliged, as Lloyd records, “to dine with the chair of duke Humphrey.” He contrived, however, to spend some years in travel; but on his return could obtain no favour at court, at least till the latter end of queen Elizabeth’s reign, which was probably owing to his connections. In 1597, it seems as if he was in some power (perhaps, however, only through the influence of his friend lord Essex), because Rowland White applied to him concerning sir Robert Sydney’s suits at court. He was the grossest of flatterers, as appears by his letters to his patron and friend lord Essex; but while he professed the most unbounded friendship for Essex, he yet paid his suit to the lord treasurer Burleigh. On the fall of Essex, he insinuated himself so far into the confidence of his mortal enemy, secretary Cecil, as to become the instrument of the secretary’s correspondence with the king of Scotland, which passed through his hands, and has been since published by sit David Dalrymple. It is not wonderful, therefore, that a man of his intriguing spirit, was immediately on king James’s accession, received into favour. In May 1603, he was made a privy-counsellor; in January following, lord warden of the Cinque Ports; in March, baron of Marnhill, and earl of Northampton; in April 1608, lord privy seal; and honoured with the garter. In 1609, he succeeded John lord Lumley, as high steward of Oxford; and in 1612, Robert, earl of Salisbury, as chancellor of Cambridge. Soon after he became the principal instrument in the infamous intrigue of his great niece the countess of Essex with Carr viscount Rochester. The wretch acted as pander to the countess, for the purpose of conciliating die rising favourite and it is impossible to doubt his deep criminality in the murder of Overbury. About nine months afterwards, June 15, 1614, he died, luckily for himself, before this atrocious affair became the subject of public investigation. He was a learned man, but a pedant dark and mysterious, and far from possessing masterly abilities. It causes astonishment, says the elegant writer to whom we are indebted for this article, “when we reflect that this despicable and wicked wretch was the sou of the generous and accomplished earl of Surrey.” One of his biographers remarks, that “his lordship very prudently died a papist; he stood no chance for heaven in any other religion.”

, a learned popish writer, whose name is so much connected with some protestant writers of eminence as to deserve a brief notice here, was born at Maxfield, near Winchelsea, in Sussex, and was admitted one of the original scholars of St. John’s college, Oxford, in 1557, by sir Thomas White, the founder. In 1564 he proceeded M. A. and was afterwards taken into the family of Thomas, duke of Norfolk, as tutor to his children, and particularly to Philip, earl of Surrey. Such had been Martin’s reputation at college, that when the duke paid a visit to St. John’s, one of the society, in a Latin address to his grace, introduced his name with this panegyric: “Habes, illustrissime dux, Hebraeum nostrum, Grsecum nostrum, poetam nostrum, decus et gloriam nostrum,” implying that Martin was their best Hebrew and Greek scholar and poet, and an ornament to their college. Having embraced the Roman catholic religion, which he chose no longer to conceal, he went to the English college at Douay in 1570, where he was ordained priest in 1573, and licentiate in divinity in 1575. After a visit in the following year to Rome, he returned to Doway and taught Hebrew, and gave lectures on the Scriptures. When the college was removed to Rheims, he undertook to translate the Bible into English from the Vulgate, and Dodd is of opinion that what is called “The Rheims translation,” may be entirely ascribed to him. It was. not, however, published at one time. The New Testament appeared first atRheims and Antwerp, with Bristow’s notes, and the Old Testament several years afterwards, with the editor, Dr. Worthington’s notes. The New Testament, as we have noticed, under their respective articles, was answered by Fulk and Cartwright. Martin died Oct. 28, 1582, atRheims. He published some other works, a list of which may be seen, in Wood and Dodd, but is scarcely worth transcribing. Camden says that in 1584 a book of his appeared in which queen Elizabeth’s gentlewomen were exhorted to serve her as Judith had served Holofernes. The catholic "writers, however, deny this, and apparently with justice.

Thomas was educated at the school of Banbury, kept by Thomas Stanbridge, of Magdalen college, an eminent tutor, and was thence removed to Eton college, from which he is supposed to have gone to Gray’s Inn, where ie studied the law. Of his progress at the bar we have no account; but his talents must have discovered themselves at an early period, and have recommended him to the notice of his sovereign, as in October I 533, when he was only twenty-seven years old, he was constituted by letters-patent of Henry VIII. clerk of the briefs of the star-chamber at Westminster, and the same month received a reversionary grant of the office of clerk of the crown in Chancery. Of this last he soon after became possessed, with an annual fee of twenty pounds from the hanaper, and also a robe with fur at the feast of Christmas and Pentecost, from the king’s great wardrobe. Two years after, in November 1535, he was constituted warden of the mint, exchange, and coinage, in the Tower of London, which his biographer thinks he quitted about eight years after for some more valuable preferment. The same year he received a patent for a new coat of arms to be borne by him and his posterity, which are those of Trinity college. In October 1536, he received the honour of knighthood, at the same time with Henry Howard, afterwards the gallant and unfortunate earl of Surrey. In December, he was appointed to exercise, jointly with William Smythe, the office of clerk of all the briefs in the star-chamber at Westminster. In Feb. 1538, he obtained at his own instance, a new royal licence for exercising the office of clerk of the crown in conjunction with John Lucas, afterwards an eminent crown, lawyer in, the reign of Edward VI.

, lord Buckhurst and earl of Dorset, an eminent statesman and poet, was born at Withyam in Sussex, in 1527. He was the son of sir Richard Sackville, who died in 1566, by Winifred Brydges (afterwards marchioness of Winchester), and grandson of John Sackville, esq. who died in 1557, by Anne Boleyne, sister of sir Thomas Boleyne, earl of Wiltshire and great grandson of Richard Sackviiie, esq. who died in 1524, by Isabel, daughter of John Digges, of Digues 1 s place in Barham, Kent, of a family which for many succeeding generations produced men of learning and genius. He was first of the university of Oxford, and, as it is supposed, of Hart-hall, now Hertford-college; but taking no degree there, he removed to Cambridge, where he commenced master of arts, and afterwards was a student of the Inner Temple. At both universities he became celebrated both as a Latin and English poet, and carried the same taste and talents to the Temple, where he wrote his tragedy of “Gorboduc,” which was exhibited in the great hall by the students of that society, as part of a Christmas entertainment, and afterwards before queen Elizabeth at Whitehall^ Jan. 18, 1561. It was surreptitiously printed in 1563, under the title of “The Tragedy of Gorboduc,” 4to; but a correct edition under the inspection of the authors (for he was assisted by Thomas Norton), appeared in 1571, entitled “The Tragedie of Ferrex and Porrex.” Another edition appeared in 1569, notwithstanding which, for many years it had so feompletely disappeared, that Dryden and Oldham, in the reign of Charles II. do not appear to have seen it, though they pretended to criticise it; and even Wood knew just as little of it, as is plain from his telling us that it was written in old English rhyme. Pope took a fancy to retrieve this play from oblivion, and Spence being employed to set it off with all possible advantage, it was printed pompously in 1736, 8vo, with a preface by the editor. Spence, speaking of his lordship as a poet, declares, that “the dawn of our English poetry was in Chaucer’s time, but that it shone out in him too bright all at once to last long. The succeeding age was dark and overcast. There was indeed some glimmerings of genius again in Henry VIII's time but our poetry had never what could be called a fair settled day-light till towards the end of queen Elizabeth’s reign. It was between these two periods, that lord Buckhurst wrote; after the earl of Surrey, and before Spenser.” Warton’s opinion of this tragedy is not very favourable. He thinks it never was a favourite with our ancestors, and fell into oblivion on account of the nakedness anil uninteresting nature of the plot, the tedious length of the speeches, the want of discrimination of character, and almost a total absence of pathetic or critical situations. Yet he allows that the language of “Gorboduc” has great merit and perspicuity, and that it is entirely free from the tumid phraseology of a subsequent age of play-writing.

, a celebrated warrior and patriot, was born, according to the account of his poetical biographer Henry, or Blind Harry, in 127G. He was the younger son of sir Malcolm Wallace of Ellerslie, near Paisley, in the shire of Renfrew, Scotland, and in his sixteenth year was sent to school at Dundee. In 1295, he was insulted by the son of Selby, an Englishman, constable of the port and castle of Dundee, and killed him; on which he fled, and appears to have lived a roving and irregular life, often engaged in skirmishes with the English troops which then bad invaded and kept Scotland under subjection. For his adventures, until he became the subject of history, we must refer to Henry. Most of them appear fictitious, or at least are totally unsupported by any other evidence. Wallace, however, is represented by the Scotch historians as being about this time the model of a perfect hero; superior to the rest of mankind in bodily stature, strength, and activity; in bearing cold and heat, thirst and hunger, watching and fatigue; and no less extraordinary in the qualities of his mind, beirrg equally valiant and prudent, magnanimous and disinterested, undaunted in adversity, modest in prosperity, and animated by the most ardent and inextinguishable love of his county. Having his resentment against the English sharpened by the personal affront abovementioned, and more by the losses his family had sustained, he determined to rise in defence of his country, and being joined by many of his countrymen, their first efforts were crowned with success; but the earl of Surrey, governor of Scotland, collecting an army of 40,000 men, and entering Annandale, and marching through the South-west of Scotland, obliged all the barons of those parts to submit, and renew the oaths of fealty. Wallace, with his followers, uuable to encounter so great a force, retired northward, and was pursued by the governor and his army.

When the English army reached Stirling they discovered the Scots encamped near the abbey of Cambuskeneth, on the opposite banks of the Forth. Cressingham, treasurer of Scotland, whose covetousness and tyranny had been one great cause of this revolt, earnestly pressed the earl of Surrey to pass his army over the bridge of Stirling, and attack the enemy. Wallace, who observed all their motions, allowed as many of the English to pass as he thought be could defeat, when, rushing upon them with an irresistible impetuosity, they were all either killed, drowned, or taken prisoners. li> the heat of the action, the bridge, which was only of wood, broke down, and many perished in the river; and the earl of Surrey, with the other part of his army, were melancholy spectators of the destruction of their countrymen, without being able to afford them any assistance: and this severe check, which the English received on Sept. 11, 1297, obliged them to evacuate Scotland. Wallace, who after this great victory was saluted deliverer and guardian of the kingdom by his followers, pursuing the tide of success, entered England with his army, recovered the town of Berwick, plundered the counties of Cumberland and Northumberland, and returned into his own country loaded with spoils and glory.

This event, important as it was to the kingdom, was of no disadvantage to Wolsey, who saw in the young king, Henry VIII. a disposition that might be rendered more favourable to his lofty views; yet what his talents might have afterwards procured, he owed at this time to a court intrigue. Fox, bishop of Winchester and founder of Corpus Christi college, introduced him to Henry, in order to counteract the influence of the earl of Surrey (afterwards duke of Norfolk), and had probably no worse intention than to preserve a balance in the council; but Wolsey, who was not destined to play a subordinate part, soon rose higher in influence than either his patron or his opponent. He studied, with perfect knowledge of the human heart, to please the young king, by joining in indulgencies which, however suitable to the gaiety of a court, were ill becoming the character of an ecclesiastic. Yet amidst the luxuries which he promoted in his royal master, he did not neglect to inculcate maxims of state, and, above all, to insinuate, in a manner that appeared equally dutiful and disinterested, the advantages of a system of favouritism, which he secretly hoped would one day center in his own person. Nor was he disappointed, as for some time after this, his history, apart from what share he had in the public councils, is little more than a list of promotions following each other with a rapidity that alarmed the courtiers, and inclined the people, always jealous of sudden elevations, to look back on his origin.