The Reign of Mary Tudor

by James Anthony Froude

Footnote 79: August 1553. Debts of the crown. Irish debt, £36,094 18s. Household debts, £14,574 16s. Further household debts, £7450 5s. Berwick debt, with the wages of the officers, £16,639 18s. Calais debt, beside £17,000 of loans and other things, £21,184 10s. Ordnance Office, £3134 7s. Public works, £3200. Admiralty debt, £3923 4s. Debts in the Office of the Chamber, £17,968. Debts beyond the seas by Sir Thomas Gresham's particular bill, £61,068. Alderney's debt, £3028. Scilly debt, £3071.—MS. Mary, Domestic, vol. i. State Paper Office.[(Back to Main Text)]

Footnote 80: Note of things to be attended to: MS. Mary, Domestic, vol. i.[(Back to Main Text)]

Footnote 81: Another natural feature of these curious days was the arrest of suspected persons; one of whom, Edward Underhill, the Hot Gospeller, has left behind him, in the account of his own adventures, a very vivid picture of the time. Underhill was a yeoman of the guard. He had seen service in the French wars, but had been noted chiefly for the zeal which he had shown in the late reign in hunting Catholics into gaol. He had thus worked his way into Court favour. During the brief royalty of Jane Grey, his wife was confined. His child was christened at the Tower church, and Suffolk and Pembroke were "gossips," and Jane herself was godmother. The day that Mary was proclaimed, he put out a ballad, which, as he expected, brought him into trouble. "The next day," he is telling his own story, "after the queen was come to the Tower, the foresaid ballad came into the hands of Secretary Bourne, who straightway made inquiry for the said Edward, who dwelt in Lymehurst; which he having intelligence of, sent the sheriff of Middlesex with a company of bills and glaives, who came into my house, being in my bed, and my wife newly laid in childbed. The high constable, whose name is Thomas Joy, dwelled at the house next to me, whom the sheriff brought also with him. He being my very friend, desired the sheriff and his company to stay without for frighting of my wife, and he would go fetch me unto him; who knocked at the door, saying, he must speak with me. I, lying so near that I might hear him, called unto him, willing him to come unto me, for that he was always my very friend and earnest in the gospel, who declared unto me that the sheriff and a great company was sent for me. Whereupon I rose and made me ready to come unto him.

"Sir, said he, I have commandment from the council to apprehend you and bring you unto them.

"Why, said I, it is now ten of the clock at night; you cannot now carry me unto them.

"No, sir, said he, you shall go with me to my house in London, where you shall have a bed, and to-morrow I will bring you unto them in the Tower.

"In the name of God, quoth I, and so went with him, requiring him if I might understand the cause. He said he knew none."

Underhill, however, conjectured that it was the ballad. He "was nothing dismayed;" and in the morning went readily to the Tower, where he waited in the presence chamber talking to the pensioners.

Sir Edward Hastings passed through, and as he saw him, "frowned earnestly." "Are you come?" said Hastings, "we will talk with you ere you part, I warrant you." They were old acquaintances. Underhill had been controller of the ordnance at Calais when Lord Huntingdon was in command there. The earl being in bad health, his brother Sir Edward was with him, assisting in the duties of the office; and Underhill, being able to play and sing, had been a frequent visitor at the Government House. The earl, moreover, "took great delight to hear him reason" with Sir Edward, on points of controversy—chiefly on the real presence—where the controller of the ordnance (according to his own account) would quote Scripture, and Sir Edward would "swear great oaths," "especially by the Lord's foot;" on which Underhill would say, "Nay, then, it must needs be so, and you prove it with such oaths," and the earl would laugh and exclaim, "Brother, give him over, Underhill is too good for you."

Hastings, it seemed, could not forgive these passages of wit, and Underhill was too smart for them. While he stood waiting, Secretary Bourne came in, "looking as the wolf at the lamb," and seeing the man that he had sent for, carried him off into the council room. Hastings was gone, Bedford sat as President, "and Bedford," says Underhill, "was my friend, for that my chance was to be at the recovery of his son, my Lord Russell, when he was cast into the Thames by Lymehurst, whom I received into my house, and gate him to bed, who was in great peril of his life, the weather being very cold."