XII.

THE BLESSED ADRIAN FORTESCUE,

KNIGHT OF ST. JOHN.

Tower Hill, 9 July, 1539.

THE Blessed Adrian Fortescue, Knight of St. John of Jerusalem, is the only one of our beatified martyrs whose picture was not painted on the walls of the English College Church at Rome. He was therefore not included in the first Decree, but the fact that his picture appears at Malta with the aureola of a Beato, has secured him a place in the Decree of 1895.

The late Lord Clermont's History of the family of Fortescue contains a full account of the martyr, illustrated with copies of two portraits.

The House of Fortescue is said to date from. the Battle of Hastings, where Richard le Fort having saved the Conqueror's life by the shelter of his "strong shield," was henceforth known as Fort-Escu. In reference to this tradition, his modern descendants have taken for their motto Forte scutum salus ducum, "a strong shield the safety of leaders." Richard's eldest son, Sir Adam, settled at Winstone in South Devon. The

founder of the Salden branch to which Sir Adrian belonged was his great-grandfather, Sir John Fortescue, Governor in 1422 of Meaux, in France. The martyr's father, Sir John, held important posts at Court, and fought on the side of Richmond on Bosworth field. He married Alice Boleyn, and thus Sir Adrian was cousin to the future Queen.

Sir Adrian was born about the year 1476. He is first mentioned in 1499, when he was already married to Anne Stonor, daughter of Sir William Stonor of Stonor, near Henley-upon-Thames.

The two families were doubly connected, for in 1495 his wife's brother, John Stonor, married his sister, Mary Fortescue. On the death of her brother John, Lady Fortescue inherited Stonor, but her right to it was disputed by her uncle Sir Thomas, and after his death, by her cousin Sir Walter. Stonor Park was, however, retained by Sir Adrian Fortescue till Michaelmas, 1534. Leland describes it as "a fair park, and a warren of conies, and fair woods. The mansion house standeth climbing on an hill, and hath two courts builded. with timber, brick, and flint." The fair woods and park are there still, to speak for themselves, and, better still, the ancient domestic chapel remains, dating from the year 1349, and it, like the equally ancient chapel of the Eystons at East Hendred in the adjoining county, has never been used for Protestant service. The old walls at Stonor speak to us, not only of the Blessed Adrian Fortescue, but also of the Blessed Father Campion, whose Decem Rationes was printed at Dame Cecilia Stonor's

park near Henley, and who himself stayed there to see his book through the press. Blessed Edmund could hardly have failed to know that a martyr had lived there before him.

To return to earlier days. In 1503, when Prince Henry, a boy of twelve, was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, on February the 18th, Sir Adrian was created a Knight of the Bath. Prince Arthur's marriage to Princess Catherine of Spain had been celebrated on the 14th of November, 1501, and his death followed on April the 2nd. That marriage, so eventful in its consequences, and the other Royal marriage of the King's daughter Margaret to the King of Scotland, which conveyed to the Stuarts the right of succession to the Crown of England, were both officially brought before Sir Adrian Fortescue, as he was one of the Royal Commissioners for levying, from his county of Oxford, aids on those occasions for Henry VII. In 1511 he was put on the Commission of the Peace for the county, his name being the first named in the Commission.

Sir Adrian and his elder brother John of Herts -it is curious that the names, when mentioned conjointly, come in this order-are named together in bonds to pay various sums to the King as fines for murder, riot, &c., between 1503, in Henry VII.'s time, and 1511, when Henry VIII. was King. This does not mean that they were personally guilty of these offences, but that the fines were laid on their estates when the malefactors could not be found. In 1512 the two brothers

were amongst those who agreed to send a certain number of men for war service abroad, and accordingly, in the following year, they took part with the young King, Henry VIII., in his expedition into France. At that time the King of England was in league with his wife's father, Ferdinand King of Arragon, with the Emperor Maximilian and with Pope Leo X., and the object of his invasion of France was to create a diversion in favour of Italy and the Papal States by attacking Louis XII. in Flanders. The King crossed the sea with twentyfive thousand men, of whom fourteen thousand formed "the King's ward," or division. The Fortescues had received their orders on the 18th of May, 1513, to be shipped, each of them with fifty archers and fifty bills, from Dover or Sandwich in the "middle ward," but they were afterwards transferred to the King's ward. The ship in which they crossed was the Mawdelen of Pole, or in modern spelling, the Magdalen of Poole, of one hundred and twenty tons, with eighty-seven men; Sir Adrian Fortescue is called "captain," and the charge for the use of the ship for the month was £31 15s. 4d. The standards borne by the brothers are given in a manuscript in the College of Arms. It will be enough to give the bearings of one of Sir Adrian's banners, on which of course the crescent appears, to mark that he was the second son. "Vert, a heraldic tiger passant argent, maned and tufted or, charged on the shoulders with a crescent sable, between (in the dexter base and sinister chief) two antique shields argent, each charged with the

word tort, and three mullets also argent, charged with the crescent as before." Sir Adrian's motto was Loyalle Pensée, his brother's Je pense loyalement. The proper coat of the Fortescues-I omit the quarterings and escutcheon of pretence-was Azure, on a bend engrailed argent, cottised or, a mullet sable.

The brothers will have been witnesses of the sights of this brief campaign. The first and most memorable event was the Emperor Maximilian, "wearing a cross of St. George," and serving under the orders of the King of England. Some great military sights there were to see. On the 16th of August, 1513, the French were struck by panic at the Battle of the Spurs, so called, says Holinshed, "forasmuch as they instead of sword and lance used their spurs, with all might and main to prick forth their horses to get out of danger." Another was the sad burning of Therouenne; followed by a display of a different kind, the tournament held by King Henry, in the presence of Margaret Duchess. of Savoy, in Tournay, when he had taken it. The Chronicle of Calais tells us that Sir Adrian Fortescue landed at Calais for this campaign on June the 21st, and Sir John with the King on the last day of the month. They re-entered Calais on October the 19th, and returned forthwith to England.

Sir John Fortescue was at a royal banquet at Greenwich just a month before his death in 1517. Sir Adrian was there too, and as both were present in a menial capacity, it may be as well to describe

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