[155] Queen Eleanor was a remarkable woman. At the age of thirteen she was the author of a heroic poem, and in the following year became a wife. Piers of Langtoft describes her as
"The fayrest Maye in lyfe, Her name Elinore of gentle nurture, Beyond the sea there was no such creature."
[156] Naunton's "Fragmenta Regalia," p. 38.
[157] "The Fyrste Dyaloge in Englys, between a Doctoure of Dyvynyte and a Student in the Lawes of England" (1539).
[158] Judicature Act of 1873, section 24.
[159] His barbarous treatment of the wretched Anne Askew is notorious. For denying that the sacramental blood and wine lost their material elements after consecration, Anne was condemned to be tortured, and the Lord Chancellor with his own hands stretched the rack on which the unfortunate woman was bound, in the hope of extracting a confession. It must, however, be admitted that Wriothesley's heart was not entirely impervious to emotion, for when, as Lord Chancellor, he announced the death of Henry VIII. in the House of Lords, he could not refrain from bursting into tears.
[160] He was, however, an able lawyer, and reserved his orgies for private life. "If my Lord Jefferies exceeded the bounds of temperance now and then in an evening, it does not follow that he was drunk on the bench or in council." (Campbell's "Lives," vol. iii. p. 595 note.)
[161] Roger North's "Life of Lord Guilford," vol. ii. p. 167. (The word roiled, so we are informed, was an import from the American plantations.)
[162] "If we wish to be in a state of security," he said, in 1859, "if we wish to maintain our great interests, if we wish to maintain our honour, it is necessary that we should have a power measured by that of any two possible adversaries."
[163] H. Crabb Robinson's "Diary," vol. iii. p. 453.