Knights and their days

by Dr. Doran

Lady Somerset pleaded guilty, evidently under the influence of a promise of pardon, if she did so, and of fear lest Bacon’s already prepared speech, had she pleaded not guilty, might send her to an ignominious death. She was confined in the Tower, and she implored with frantic energy, that she might not be shut up in the room which had been occupied by Overbury.

Somerset appeared before his judges in a solemn suit, and wearing the insignia of the Garter. He pleaded not guilty, but despite insufficiency of legal evidence he was convicted, and formally condemned to be hanged, like any common malefactor. But the ex-page won his life by his taciturnity. Had he, in his defence, or afterward, revealed anything that could have displeased or disturbed the King, his life would have paid the forfeit. As it was, the King at once ordered that the Earl’s heraldic arms as knight of the Garter should not be taken down. For the short period of the imprisonment of the guilty pair, both guilty of many crimes, although in the matter of Overbury there is some doubt as to the extent of the Earl’s complicity, they separately enjoyed the “Liberty of the Tower.” The fallen favorite was wont to pace the melancholy ramparts with the George and collar round his neck and the Garter of knighthood below his knee. He was often seen in grave converse with the Earl of Northumberland. Sometimes, the guilty wife of Somerset, impelled by curiosity or affection, would venture to gaze at him for a minute or two from her lattice, and then, if the Earl saw her, he would turn, gravely salute her, and straightway pass on in silence.

When liberated from the Tower, the knight of the Garter, convicted of murder, and his wife, confessedly guilty, went forth together under protection of a royal pardon. Down to the time of the death of Lady Somerset, in 1632, the wretched pair are said never to have opened their lips but to express, each hatred and execration of the other. The earl lived on till 1645—long enough to see the first husband of his wife carry his banner triumphantly against the son of James, at Edgehill. The two husbands of one wife died within a few months of each other.

Such was the career of one who began life as a page. Let us contrast therewith the early career of one whose name is still more familiar to the general reader.

Toward the middle of the sixteenth century there was established at York a respectable and influential Protestant family of the name of Fawkes. Some of the members were in the legal profession, others were merchants. One was registrar and advocate of the Consistory Court of the cathedral church of York. Another was notary and proctor. A third is spoken of as a merchant-stapler. All were well to-do; but not one of them dreamed that the name of Fawkes was to be in the least degree famous.

The Christian name of the ecclesiastical lawyer was Edward. He was the third son of William and Ellen Fawkes, and was the favorite child of his mother. She bequeathed trinkets, small sums, and odd bits of furniture to her other children, but to Edward she left her wedding suit, and the residue of her estate. Edward Fawkes was married when his mother made her will. While the document was preparing, his wife Edith held in her arms an infant boy. To this boy she left her “best whistle, and one old angel of gold.”

The will itself is a curious document. It is devotional, according to the good custom of the days in which it was made. The worthy old testator made some singular bequests; to her son Thomas, amid a miscellaneous lot, she specifies, “my second petticoat, my worsted gowne, gardit with velvet, and a damask kirtle.” The “best kirtle and best petticoat” are bequeathed to her daughter-in-law Edith Fawkes. Among the legatees is a certain John (who surely must have been a Joan) Sheerecrofte, to whom, says Mistress Fawkes, “I leave my petticoat fringed about, my woorse grogram kirtle, one of my lynn smockes, and a damask upper bodie.” The sex, however, of the legatee is not to be doubted, for another gentleman in Mrs. Fawkes’s will comes in for one of her bonnets!

The amount of linen bequeathed, speaks well for the lady’s housewifery; while the hats, kirtles, and rings, lead us to fear that the wife of Master Edward Fawkes must have occasionally startled her husband with the amount of little accounts presented to him by importunate dressmakers, milliners, and jewellers. Such, however, was the will of a lady of York three centuries ago, and the child in arms who was to have the silver whistle and a gold angel was none other than our old acquaintance, known to us as Guy Faux.

Guy was christened on the sixteenth of April, 1570, in the still existing church of St. Michael le Belfry; and when the gossips and sponsors met round the hospitable table of the paternal lawyer to celebrate the christening of his son, the health of Master Guy followed hard upon that of her gracious highness the queen.

Master Guy had the misfortune to lose his father in his ninth year. “He left me but small living,” said Guy, many years afterward, “and I spent it.” After his sire’s decease, Guy was for some years a pupil at the free foundation grammar-school in “the Horse Fayre,” adjacent to York. There he accomplished his humanities under the Reverend Edward Pulleyne. Among his schoolfellows were Bishop Morton, subsequently Bishop of Durham, and a quiet little boy, named Cheke, who came to be a knight and baronet, and who, very probably went, in after-days, to see his old comrade in the hands of the hangman.