the object of his youthful affections. Before either had passed the age of minority, she had drunk deeply of the cup of adversity; from being the affianced bride of the heir-apparent to the throne, and receiving homage at the French court as Princess of Wales, she was degraded to assume the disguise of a kitchen-girl in London, reduced to utter poverty by the attainder of herself and parents. Such was the condition of Warwick's proud but destitute child, the ill-fated co-heiress of the Nevilles, the Beauchamps, the Despencers, and in whose veins flowed the blood of the highest and noblest in the land. The Croyland historian exonerates Richard from the unfounded charge of seeking the affection of 'young Edward's bride' before the tears of widowhood' had ceased to flow; and equally so of his outraging a custom most religiously and strictly observed in the fifteenth century, which rendered it an offence against the Church and society at large for a widow' to espouse a second time before the first year of mourning had expired.”

The Sanctuary of Westminster, the precinct under the protection of the abbot and monks of Westminster, adjoined Westminster Abbey, on the west and north sides. In this sanctuary, Edward V. was "born in sorrow, and baptised like a poor man's child." In 1483, her cause being lost, and the Duke of Gloucester having seized the young Edward, the queen "gate herself in all the hast possible, with her yoonger son and her daughters, out of the palace of Westminster, in which she then lay, into the sanctuarie, lodging herself and her company there in the abbot's place.' When the Archbishop came from York Place to deliver the Great Seal to her, he arrived before day.

"About

her he found much heavinesse, rumble, hast, and businesse, carriage and conveiance of her stuffe into sanctuarie, chests, coffers, packers, fardels, trussed all on men's backes, no man unoccupied, some lading, some going, some discharging, some comming for more, some breaking downe the wals to bring in the next way. The Queen herselfe sate alone on the rushes all desolate and dismaied, whom the Archbishop comforted in the best manner he could, shewing her that he trusted the matter was nothing so sore as she tooke it for, and that he was put in good hope and out of feare by the message sent him from the Lord Chamberlaine." "Ah! wo worth him," quoth she, " for he is one of them that laboureth to destroy me and my blood." The Archbishop returned "yet in the dawning of the day, by which time he might in his chamber-window see all the Thames full of boates of the Duke of Gloucester's servants, watching that no man should go to sanctuary, nor none pass unsearched." Soon after, the Cardinal and the Lords of the Council came from the treacherous Protector, desiring her to surrender up her child. "She verilie thought she could not keepe him there, nowe besett in such places aboute. At the last, shee tooke the yoong Duke by the hand, and said unto the Lordes, Heere I diliver him, and his brother in him, to keepe, into your handes, of whome I shall aske them both afore God and the worlde.'

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Therewithall shee said unto the child, Farewell! mine owne sweete sonne, God sende you good keeping; let mee kisse you yet once ere you goe, for God knoweth when wee shall kisse together againe.' And therewith shee kissed him, and blessed him, turned her backe and wept, and went her waie, leaving the child weeping as faste."

THE HUNGERFORDS AT CHARING CROSS.

THE histories of the noble houses which anciently skirted the northern bank of the Thames, between London Bridge and Westminster, present many dark deeds, vicissitudes of fortune, and terrible enormities of crime. One of these mansions was centuries ago a portion of the possessions of the Hungerfords of Wiltshire; and, although the face of the property was materially changed two centuries ago, the Hungerford name lingered in the market, bridge, and street, until last year.

Nearly three centuries and a half ago, one of this family, Dame Agnes Hungerford, was attainted of murder, her goods were forfeited to the king's grace, and the lady suffered execution at Tybourn, on the 20th of February, 1523, and was buried in the church of the Grey Friars, of which we have the following record in their chronicle: "And this yere in feverelle the xxth day was the lady Alys Hungrford was lede from the Tower unto Holborne, and there put into a carte at the churchyard with one of her servanttes, and so caryed unto Tyborne, and there both hongyd, and she burryed at the Gray freeres, in the nether end of the myddes of the church on the North syde."

A great mystery hangs about the records of this heinous crime. Stow states that the lady died for murdering her husband, which is, by no means, clear. No other Alice Lady Hungerford, identifiable with the culprit, could be discovered but the second of the three wives of Sir Walter, who was summoned to Parliament as Lord Hungerford of Heytesbury, in 1536; and, considering that the extreme cruelty of that person

to all his wives is recorded in a letter written by the third and last of them, and that his career was at last terminated with the utmost disgrace in 1540, when he was beheaded (suffering at the same time as the fallen minister, Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex), it was deemed not improbable that the unfortunate lady might have been condemned for some desperate attempt upon the life of so bad a husband which had not actually effected its object, or even that her life and character had been sacrificed to a false and murderous accusation.

In this state the mystery remained until the discovery of the inventory of the goods of the lady attainted; when, although the particulars of the tragedy remain still undeveloped, we find that the culprit must have been a different person from the lady already noticed; and the murdered man, if her husband, of course not the Lord Walter.

It is ascertained by the document before us, that the Lady Hungerford who was hung at Tybourn on the 23rd of February, 1523, was really a widow, and that she was certainly attainted of felony and murder; moreover, that her name was Agnes, not Alice, as stated in the Grey Friars' chronicle. This inventory further shows that the parties were no other than the heads of the Hungerford family; and it is made evident that the lady was the widow of Sir Edward Hungerford, the father of Walter, Lord Hungerford, already mentioned; and we are led to infer that it was Sir Edward himself who had been poisoned or otherwise murdered by her agency. It is a remarkable feature of the inventory, that many items of it are described in the first person, and consequently from the lady's own dictation; and towards the end is a list of

"the rayment of my husband's, which is in the keping of my son-in-lawe." By this expression is to be understood step-son, and that the person so designated was Sir Walter Hungerford, Sir Edward's son and heir. From this conclusion it follows that the lady was not Sir Walter's mother, who appears in the pedigree as Jane daughter of John Lord Zouche of Haryngworth, but a second wife, whose name has not been recorded by the genealogists of the family.

To this circumstance must be attributed much of the difficulty that has hitherto enveloped this investigation. The lady's origin and maiden name are still unknown. The inventory describes her as "Agnes, Lady Hungerford, wydowe;" and there is evidence to show that she was the second wife of Sir Edward Hungerford, of Heytesbury, who, in his will, after bequeathing small legacies to churches and friends, gives the residue of his goods to "Agnes Hungerforde my wife."

But though the inventory assists materially in clearing up three points in this transaction, viz. 1, the lady's Christian name; 2, whose wife she had been; and, 3, that her crime was "felony and murder;" the rest of the story remains as much as ever wrapped in mystery. It is not yet certain who was the person murdered; and of the motives, place, time, and all other particulars, we are wholly ignorant. Stow, the chronicler, who repeats what he found in the Grey Friars' Chronicle, certainly adds to that account the words, "for murdering her husband." But, as Stow was not born until two years after Lady Hungerford's execution, and did not compile his own chronicle until forty years after it, and as we know not whether he was