that can and will deliuer me. Bis.
Then comfort came with clothes of ioy,
whose seames were faithfull stedfastnes;
and did bedeck the naked boy,
that earst was full of wretchednesse.
and said be glad for God is he.
That shortly will deliuer thee. Bis.
Finis. W. Hunnis.
Whether the whole period between March 1556 and the accession of Elizabeth was spent by William Hunnis in the Tower or not, we are certain he would be freed at once by the new queen, “his sweet Lady Elizabeth,” and restored to his “living” as gentleman of the chapel (if he ever had been formally deprived of it). Early in the new reign he passed through great personal sorrow, as well as joys. His friend Nicholas Brigham did not survive his Queen long. And his widow, having lost her only child Rachel before the death of her husband, married William Hunnis. His predecessor William Crane in the office of Master of the Children of the Chapel was a married man. Until I learned the fact, I had not thought the laws, or at least the customs of the time, would have permitted this. And the marriage of Hunnis was also surprising, especially in connection with the gossip of Dethicke, which implied undue familiarity between Hunnis and Brigham’s wife. Nevertheless the testimony is irrefragable. On 2nd June 1559, “Margaret Hunnis, alias Brigham, alias Wariner, wyfe of William Hunnys, gentleman of the Queene’s Majesties Chappell,” made her testament nuncupative, in which, by consent of her husband, she left to her “Cousin Francis Brigham all that her tenemente and mansion house lyinge and beyinge at Westminster, commonly cawled ‘The Allmes House,’”[44] founded by Henry VII, and sold by Vincent to Brigham in 34 Hen. VIII. All her other goods, movable and immovable, she left to her husband, William Hunnis, whom also she named her executor. This testament was proved by Thomas Willot for William Hunnis, 12th October 1559. Her will in Somerset House is strangely involved with that of her husband, and clears up much.
Chalmers’ “Biographies” and Wood’s “Athenæ Oxonienses” say that “Nicholas Brigham died in his prime in December, 1559, at Westminster, leaving some MSS.: (1) ‘De Venationibus Rerum Memorabilium,’ a collection of notices of characters and events of which Bale has made much use; (2) ‘Memoirs,’ in the form of a diary in twelve books; and (3) ‘Miscellaneous Poems.’ None of these is probably in existence.” Wood thinks he was buried near Chaucer, whose tomb he had restored in 1556. But he is in error in the date; he died in 1558, leaving, by a verbal will, everything to his wife. She was granted powers of administration 20th February 1558-9, and at least before the following June, Hunnis had married Brigham’s widow. The entry among the wills, December 1559, is an objection to William Hunnis succeeding his wife, widow of Nicholas Brigham. Considerable litigation ensued in consequence of her bequests.