"The cat, the rat, and Lovel our dog,

Rule all England under a hog!"

Many a hearty laugh no doubt greeted the promulgation of these lines; but the unfortunate author had to repent of his wit upon the scaffold at Tower Hill.

The battle of Bosworth Field, at length, in 1485, terminated Richard's dark career, and placed his rival, Henry, Earl of Richmond, on the throne. Our subject now brings us to speak of the

Fourth Period-the Tudor Race. The hero of Agincourt, Henry V., left by his early death, a young widow, Katherine, daughter of Charles the Simple, King of France. She afterwards married a Welsh gentleman, Owen Tudor. Henry, Earl of Richmond was the grandson of this pair, hence his claim to be representative of the House of Lancaster, a claim which the nation's hatred of Richard III. made them more ready to own. His marriage to the fair Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's daughter, thus uniting the rival roses, completed the general satisfaction.

In Henry VII.'s reign the last male of the Plantagenets was a captive in the Tower. The young Earl of Warwick was the son of that Duke of Clarence who died in the Bowyer Tower. A victim to Henry's jealousy of his royal descent, after spending his life in prison, he was beheaded on Tower Hill, charged with attempting to escape from the fortress with "Perkin Warbeck," the name given to a young man who had presented himself before the nation a few years after Henry's accession. Warwick had been confined by Henry VII. in the Tower for fifteen years in such complete seclusion, says Stowe, "from the company of men and beasts, that he was said not to know a goose from a capon." Perkin Warbeck bore a striking resemblance to Edward IV. Highly accomplished and of princely bearing, he announced himself to be Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the royal princes supposed to have been murdered by Richard III. Henry committed him to the Tower, and caused him to be hanged at Tyburn. His whole history is enveloped in mystery.

The reign of Henry VIII. presents us with a long list of eminent prisoners. The chief crime of Edward, Duke of Buckingham, appears to have been his royal descent, which, coupled with some incautious expressions, led to his trial and conviction. As was usual, the Duke left the Tower for Westminster Hall in a barge, furnished with its carpets and cushions befitting the rank of the prisoner; but on his return, with a touching, and yet dignified humility, he refused to take again the same seat. "When I came to Westminster" said he, "I was Lord High Constable and Duke of Buckingham, but now, poor Edward Bohun !"

Sir Thomas More next follows, a still more illustrious victim. The Tower seems to have had little horrors for him, unless. indeed, it were from seeing their effect upon others. From his first entrancewhen, according to custom, the porter demanded his uppermost garment as his fee, meaning no doubt, his cloak, or some such valuable article, and Sir Thomas, taking off his cap (with a kind of latent consciousness, perhaps, that he should have little further need of it), said that was his uppermost garment, and that he wished it were of more value-to his final departure for the scaffold, where he remarked to the executioner, as he laid his head on the block, "Prythee let me put my beard aside, for that hath never committed treason," the light-hearted and high-minded Chancellor still preserved all the delightful playfulness of manner which made him as much the beloved of his friends as his more important qualities made him the admiration of his contemporaries and of posterity. One little moment, however, no temperament or fortitude could ward off. As he returned to the Tower after condemnation, Margaret Roper, the most beloved of his daughters, who had placed herself in waiting at the gate, suddenly rushed from among the crowd as he approached, tore her way through the guards and flung herself, bathed in tears, on his neck, imploring in broken expressions his blessing. The officers

were obliged at last to take her away by force, but she broke from them, and again threw herself upon his breast, crying, "Oh my father, oh my father!" The very guards partook of the general anguish. With Sir Thomas, Bishop Fisher had also been committed to the Tower, and for the same reason-refusing to acknowledge the King's supremacy. This aged and distinguished prelate was nearly eighty years old when he was thus dragged from the quiet home he so much needed. In a letter written to Cromwell, the Bishop says, "Furthermore I beseech you to be good master in my necessity; for I have neither shirt, nor suit, nor yet other clothes that are necessary for me to wear, but that be ragged and rent too shamefully. Notwithstanding I might easily suffer that, if they would keep my body warm. But my diet also, God knoweth how slender it is at many times. And now, in mine age, my stomach may not agree but with a few kind of meats, which if I want, I decay forthwith." Bishop Fisher's residence was in the Bell Tower. The crimson tide rolls on with increased velocity. The executions of More and Fisher were followed in the same year by that of Ann Boleyn.

The unparalleled magnificence of the reception which Henry VIII. gave to his queens in the regal halls of the Tower previous to their nuptials, and the brilliancy of their coronation processions, seem a cruel mockery when we remember their subsequent fate. The river Thames was a scene of unprecedented pomp on the 29th May, 1533, when Henry received Lady Ann Boleyn at the postern of the Tower. The Lord Mayor and his civic train, arrayed in scarlet, with large gold chains round their necks, attended by the Bachelor's and City Companies, had escorted her in their gay barges from Greenwich to the Tower of London, where she was welcomed by the King, who kissed her and led her with great show of joy and affection, amid noises of sweet music and peals of great guns, into the royal apartments, there to remain until the happy morning of the next day, which was appointed for her solemn coronation. Next day she proceeded from the Tower with "all the pomp of heraldry and pride of power" to Westminster, arrayed in silver tissue, and a mantle of the same lined with ermine: her dark tresses flowing down her shoulders, and her head encircled with precious rubies. Henry was married to Anne Boleyn on the 25th of January, 1533, in a garret, at the western end of the palace at Whitehall. She is described by a contemporary chronicler as "a fair young creature, so exquisitely moulded in form and feature, and gifted with wit so sparkling and pleasant, that she enslaved alike the eyes and understandings of all whom she encountered."

Thus all was bright to Queen Anne in 1533. How was it with her in May, 1536? On the first day of that month a splendid tournament was held at Greenwich, at which the King and Queen were present. Henry abruptly quitted the gay scene, and the following day, whilst Anne was dining, officers arrived with a warrant to commit her to the Tower. The traitor's gate opened to receive the royal prisoner, and as she passed underneath its lowering arch she read her fate in its aspect, and falling on her knees prayed God to defend her, as she was unspotted by the crime of which she was accused. Anne was not allowed to see the King after he quitted her at Greenwich. She was arraigned before her uncle the Duke of Norfolk, in the great hall of the Palace, charged with unfaithfulness to Henry. She manifested much dignity and composure in the presence of her judges. They pronounced her guilty, and on the 19th of May a mournful procession passed over the Tower Green-Anne was on her way to the scaffold. She was attended by two or three of her faithful maidens, and after addressing a few calm words to those around, she laid her head upon the fatal block, which the executioner severed from her body with one stroke of his axe. Her body was thrust into a chest made to contain arrows, and buried without form or ceremony in the vaults of the Tower Chapel, in front of which the scaffold was erected. Thus closed the brilliant career of the beauteous

Anne Boleyn. The marriage of Henry with the new idol of his affection, Jane Seymour, on the morning after the axe had dissolved his last contract, speaks volumes in confirmation of the popular belief that Anne Boleyn was the victim of a foul conspiracy, and that her only crime was having outlived her husband's likings.

The next notable victim in this reign was the gifted Cromwell. His father was a blacksmith. Spurning this humble employment, he travelled to Rome; became Cardinal Wolsey's steward, then his secretary, and a member of parliament. Introduced to Henry, whose discernment made him appreciate his exalted talents, he was speedily raised to the highest offices in the kingdom. He was a zealous friend of the Reformation; caprice and the rising of an opposing party, made Cromwell's fall more rapid than his rise. He was seized in the Council chamber of Westminster on some frivolous charge of treason, committed to the Tower, and beheaded on Tower Hill in the summer of 1540.

The Romish party regained an influence over Henry's mind when the capricious monarch withdrew his favor from Cromwell. The Lady Katherine Howard, a niece of the powerful Duke of Norfolk, had inspired the monarch with an extreme passion. This unfortunate young lady was brought up by her grandmother, the old Duchess of Norfolk. A young and lovely creature, left in the princely old mansion without companions suited to her exalted rank, Katherine was ruined in early youth by association with the unworthy dependants of the family. When afterwards introduced at court, Henry was fascinated by her maidenly and winning manners. Her portrait by Holbein, at Windsor, represents her as a fair girl with ruby lips and bright blue eyes. Marillac, the French ambassador, writing to the King of France, describes her as "a young lady of moderate beauty, but of most sweet and sprightly manners." In this marriage Henry considered himself perfectly blessed; the agreeable person and disposition of Katherine had entirely captivated his affections, and in the height of his transport he publicly in his chapel returned solemn thanks to Heaven for the unspeakable felicity the conjugal state afforded him. His bliss was soon fated to terminate, and in the bitter disappointment he experienced in Katherine, Heaven seemed to revenge upon him the cruelty with which he had sacrificed his former wives. Many terrible accusations were made against Katherine since she had been Queen. She was arraigned for high treason, and brought to the scaffold in 1542—her transition from the throne to the scaffold occupied but eighteen months.

After the death of Cromwell no one remained who had power to stem the torrent of persecution of the Reformers as he had done. The Tower dungeons were, during the remainder of Henry's reign, filled with learned divines holding reforming views. In 1546, Anne Askew, a lady of cultivated mind and good family, was tortured in the Tower and burnt at Smithfield, for having denied, in conversation, the doctrine of transubstantiation.

The last of Henry's victims that can be noticed, is Margaret, the Countess of Salisbury, the sister of the Earl of Warwick, and the daughter of Edward IV.'s brother, the murdered Clarence. This now venerable lady was the mother of Cardinal Pole. Her crime seems to have been her royal blood. When brought to the green before the chapel, she refused to lay her head on the block, steadfastly declaring "So traitors used to do, and I am no traitor." A terrible scene ensued, which ended by the headsman dragging the Countess by her grey hair to the block. So perished the last of the Plantagenets of whole blood!

The reign of Edward VI. witnessed the death on the scaffold of two of the young King's maternal uncles, Lord Thomas and Lord Edward Seymour, through the machinations of Dudley, afterwards Duke of Northumberland. Lord Edward Seymour, the Protector, and also called the "good Duke of Somerset," was brought to the block on the 22nd of January, 1552, on the ground of his having intended

seizing the King's person, and taking upon himself the government. He met his fate with calmness and dignity, protesting his innocence, and praying for the King's safety and the Protestant faith. So generally was the Duke a favourite with the people, and so greatly were they affected by his death, that many dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood, to preserve in remembrance of him; and a lady on seeing Northumberland himself, a few years afterwards, led a prisoner to the Tower, condemned for treason, is said to have shaken one of these tokens, saying, "Behold! the blood of that worthy man, which was shed by thy malicious practices, doth now begin to revenge itself on thee."

Dudley was the son of Henry VII's unpopular minister, the lawyer of that name. His insatiable ambition sought to place the wife of his son, Lord Guildford Dudley, on the throne, after the death of Edward VI. 1554. Lady Jane Grey was the great grand-daughter of Henry 7th, through the Suffolk family, and her claim to the throne was founded on a law which Northumberland had induced Edward VI. to make, which set aside the rights of the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth. The guiltless usurpation of this excellent and much lamented youthful victim of an ambitious faction was brief enough. Within ten days after her proclamation and exhibition as Queen, and her taking up her residence in that character in the Tower of London, the rightful heiress, Mary, was in full possession of all of which it had been attempted to deprive her, and Queen Jane and her young consort, had to come down from their thrones, and to bid an eternal farewell to all their glory. The Tower palace became almost instantaneously the Tower prison. Northumberland perished at once on the block, but Lady Jane and her husband had probably been spared, but for Wyatt's ill-managed insurrection, which broke out on the news of the Queen's intended marriage with the cruel bigot of Spain, King Philip, and was supported by Lady Jane Grey's father, the Duke of Suffolk. Within a week after Wyatt's discomfiture it was determined that Lady Jane and her husband should both die, and on the same day-Lady Jane on the Green and Lord Guildford on Tower Hill. The document in the British Museum, bearing Lady Jane's signature as queen, is supposed to have been the immediate cause of Mary's signing the warrant of her execution.

Fecknam, a Catholic dean of St. Paul's, was sent to endeavour to change her faith, but all his learned arguments failed with one who was more than his equal in controversy. Lady Jane preserved her fortitude admirably through the closing scenes of her life; and that it might not be shaken, she refused a farewell meeting with Lord Guildford, on the morning of the fatal day; it would foment their grief, she said, rather than be a comfort in death, and they would shortly meet in a better place, and more happy estate. But she had a severer trial than this would have been. From the window of "Master Partridge's house," where she was lodged, she beheld Lord Guildford going to execution, and exchanged with him her last parting signal. He passed on to Tower hill, was brought back in a cart to be buried in the Tower chapel, and she looked upon his headless trunk, "at the same instant that she went to her death, which miserable sight was to her a double sorrow and grief." That such an exhibition was not spared to such a wife shows the brutal insensibility of those in authority who regulated the proceedings. "O Guildford, Guildford!" exclaimed the unhappy lady, rising even in her agony to the highest sublimity of Christian heroism, "the antepast is not so bitter that thou hast tasted, and which I shall soon taste, as to make my flesh tremble; it is nothing compared to the feast of which we shall this day partake in Heaven." She immediately went forth to her own scaffold, which for privacy was on the Tower Green, in countenance nothing cast down, neither her eyes anything moistened with tears, although her gentlewomen, Elizabeth Tilney and Mistress Helen wonderfully wept. Holding a book in her hand, she prayed till she came to the scaffold; there, in a modest address to the bystanders, she stated that she had justly

deserved punishment, for suffering herself to be made the instrument, though unwilling, of the ambition of others; and that she hoped her fate might serve as a memorable example in after times. The executioner beginning to disrobe her, she desired him to let her alone, and turned to her attendants, who performed this melancholy office, giving her a fair handkerchief to bind about her eyes. The executioner then requested her to stand upon the straw, which she did, saying, "I pray you despatch me quickly." As she knelt she enquired, “Will you take it off before I lay me down?" "No, madam," was the reply. Then she tied the handkerchief about her eyes, and feeling for the block, she said, "Where is it? where is it?" One of the standers-by guided her thereunto, and she laid her head down, and stretched forth her body, and said, "Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit," and so died, at seventeen years old. Such was the melancholy end of that pattern of female excellence Lady Jane Grey, who fell a victim to the rashness and ambition of her misguided parents. Under the tuition of Aylmer, who was afterwards Bishop of London, she made great progress in learning, and though but seventeen years of age when she suffered, she had evinced, by the variety and extent of her acquirements, a most extraordinary capacity and mind.

We are told by Sir Thomas Chaloner, that Lady Jane was well versed in the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, French, and Italian languages; that she had a natural wit, which was improved by art and study, that she played on instrumental music, wrote a curious hand, and was excellent at her needle; and that notwithstanding all these rare endowments, she was of mild, humble, and modest spirit, and never evinced an elevated mind till she showed it at her death.

Fuller remarking upon her, observes that though but seventeen, "She had the innocency of childhood, the beauty of youth, the solidity of the middle, the gravity of old age, the birth of a princess, the learning of a clerk, the life of a saint, yet the death of a malefactor for her parent's offences." The rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt, brought many captives to the Tower, (those who have left autographs in Queen Elizabeth's. Armoury amongst them).

The Princess Elizabeth herself was suspected by Mary of being in correspondence with Sir Thomas, and was committed to the Tower where she was treated with considerable rigour. Bayley's account of her imprisonment is worthy of transcript here. "When the barge which brought the princess from Whitehall came to the Tower, it was directed to that dismal entrance known by the name of the Traitor's Gate, where she spurned the degradation of landing till she was resolutely told that she should not choose. It rained, and the lord who had the charge of her offered her his cloak; but putting it back with her hand with a good dash, she indignantly refused it; and as she set her foot upon the stair, she said with her wonted spirit, "Here landeth as true a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs, and before Thee, O God, I speak it, having none other friends than Thee." On her ascending into the fortress she found the guards and warders drawn out in order, at which she expressed surprise, and on being informed that it was a custom when prisoners entered, she desired if it were so for her cause they might be dismissed; whereat the poor men kneeled down, and with one voice prayed God to preserve her; for which on the next day they were all discharged. Passing a little further, she sat down on a stone and rested herself. The lieutenant pressed her to rise out of the rain, but she answered, "Better sit here than in a worse place, for God knoweth whither you will bring me;" and turning to her gentleman-usher, who was weeping, she said. "you ought rather to comfort than thus dismay me, especially, for that I well know my truth to be such that no man shall have cause to weep for my sake." She then rose and was conducted to her prison, in which she was locked and close shut up. Her confinement was of the meanest and most severe description: mass was constantly intruded upon her in her apartment, she was examined