paring all unconsciously for the martyr's crown and palm. The Book of Hours is now reverently preserved as a relic in the beautiful little Catholic church adjoining the old hall of Husbands Bosworth. Above all things love God with thy heart. Desire His honour more than the health of thine own soul. Take heed with all diligence to purge and cleanse thy mind with oft confession, and raise thy desire or lust from earthly things. Be you houseled1 with entire devotion. Repute not thyself better than any other persons, be they never so great sinners, but rather judge and esteem yourself most simplest. Judge the best. Use much silence, but when thou hast necessary cause to speak. Delight not in familiarity of persons unknown to thee. Be solitary, as much as is convenient for thine estate. Banish from thee all grudging and detraction, and espe cially from thy tongue. And pray often. Also enforce thee to set thy house at quietness. Avaunce not thy words or deeds by any pride. Be not too much familiar with thy servants, but [show] to them a sad [serious] and prudent countenance with gentle ness. Show before all people good example of virtues. Use to rebuke charitably the light and wanton people. Love cleanliness in thy house and in especial to young persons. Show thyself a sore enemy to vice, and sharply reproving all vile and reprobrious words and deeds that be not honest. 1 Housel, i.e., Holy Communion. Be not partial for favour, lucre, nor malice, but according to troth, equity, justice and reason. Be pitiful unto poor folk and help them to thy power, for there you shall greatly please God. Give fair language to all persons and especiall[y] to the poor and needy. Also be sesy [sic] and diligent in giving of alms. In prosperity be meek of heart and in adversity patient. And pray continually to God that you may do that that is His pleasure. Also apply diligently the inspirations of the Holy Ghost, whatsoever thou have therein to do. Pray for perseverance. Continue in dread and ever have God afore thine eye. What thou hast to do, do it diligently. If by chance you fall into sin, despair not, and if you keep these precepts, the Holy Ghost will strengthen thee in all other things necessary, and this doing you shall [be] with Christ in Heaven, to whom be given laud, praise and honour everlasting. ADRYAN FORTESCUE. Lady Fortescue, the martyr's widow, was held in high favour by Queen Mary. She attended the Queen as she went in state on the 30th of September, 1553, from the Tower to her palace at Westminster, and she is the first named of ten ladies "who rode in crimson velvet, their horses trapped with the same." Sir Adrian's daughter Margaret, Lady Wentworth, had a place in the same procession. In the fifth year of Queen Mary's reign, several manors in Gloucestershire were granted by the Crown to "Anne Fortescue, widow of Sir Adrian Fortescue, and to the heirs male of Sir Adrian." It is singular that she should be called in the grants by the name of Fortescue, for she was already married to Sir Thomas Ap-harry, or Parry. Her second husband was a Protestant, and was sworn of the Privy Council by Queen Elizabeth at the first Council held after her accession. He had been "a servant much about her" as Princess Elizabeth, and she at once made him Comptroller of her Household. Sir Adrian's "little son John was a boy of eight at the time of his father's death, born in the same year as Queen Elizabeth. He was brought up a Protestant, and his father's attainder was reversed in 1552 in his favour in the reign of Edward VI. He was soon after chosen to be preceptor to the Princess Elizabeth, and when she became Queen she made him Keeper of the Great Wardrobe. In 1591 he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer,1 and when he died in 1607, having outlived Elizabeth, he was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He acquired the manor of Salden, Bucks, from his step-father, Sir Thomas Parry, and he was the founder of the Salden branch of the Fortescue family, which became extinct in the male line in 1729, but in the female line is now represented by the Turvilles and the Amhersts. It must have seemed that the main line of the Fortescues of Salden was irretrievably lost to the Church. Sir Francis, son and heir of Sir John, 1 Father Tesimond (Greenway) has confused him with his nephew, John Fortescue, son of Sir Antony, Blessed Adrian's third son. He was a Catholic. (Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, First Series, p. 174.) was made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of James I. But yet, during his father's lifetime Francis is described by Father John Gerard 1as "a Catholic by conviction, but conforming externally to the State religion for fear of offending his father." His wife, Grace Manners, Father Gerard converted, but though her husband, Sir Francis, "made no difficulty of receiving priests, and at last went so far as to be fond of dressing the altar with his own hands and of saying the breviary, yet with all this he remains outside the ark," wrote Father Gerard in 1609, " for he presumes too much. on an opportunity of doing penance before death." Father Anthony Hoskins was their first resident priest, and Salden continued to be a Jesuit mission even after it had ceased to belong to the Fortescues. It is very singular that no trace of the fact that this branch of the family was Catholic should have reached Lord Clermont when he was compiling his admirable and most painstaking family history. Adrian Fortescue, the great-grandson of our martyr, was a Jesuit, and Sir Francis, the fourth baronet, in whom the male line expired, was at one time a Novice in the Society. J. M. AUTHORITIES.-Thomas Fortescue, Lord Clermont, A History of the Family of Fortescue in all its Branches, 1880, pp. 255 to 311. An article by G. K. Fortescue in the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xx. p. 36. 1 Life of Father John Gerard, p. 335. XIII. THE BLESSED THOMAS ABEL, THE BLESSED EDWARD POWELL, AND THE BLESSED RICHARD FETHERSTON, SECULAR PRIESTS. Smithfield, 30 July, 1540. THE Blessed Thomas Abel, or Able, or Abell (the martyr himself used the last spelling), was educated at the University of Oxford, but we are not informed of what College or Hall he was a member. He took the degree of Master of Arts in the year 1516, and afterwards proceeded in Theology and became a Doctor in that faculty. Besides being a learned. man, he had acquired many accomplishments, was acquainted with modern languages, and had a knowledge of music.1 When the cause of the divorce was introduced, Abel devoted his learning and his labours to the Queen's defence, and was one of her advocates in conjunction with the other two martyrs, who some years 1 Bourchier says that he was the Queen's instructor in playing musical instruments and also in languages. (Historia Ecclesiastica de Martyrio Fratrum Ord. Minorum in Anglia, &c., Ingolstadt, 1583, fol. 42.) |