The Beauchamp Tower.
The late Duke of Norfolk printed, from the original MSS. kept at Arundel Castle, in 1857, a record entitled “The Lives of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, and of Anne Dacres his wife.” At the close of the book we read that “Whilst he (Arundel) was prisoner he was not only an example, but a singular comfort to all Catholicks. No one ever heard him complain either of the loss of his goods, or of the incommodities of the prison, or the being bereaved of his liberty; and such as he heard complain or understood to be aggrieved, he endeavoured by his words and courteous usage to comfort, strengthen, and confirm. His delight was in nothing but in God, and the contemplation of heavenly things; much of the money which the Queen did allow him for his maintenance (for to every prisoner in the Tower something is assigned, more or less according to each man’s degree) he gave to the poor, contenting himself with a spare and slender diet.” Lord Arundel rests in that most beautiful of England’s mausoleums, the chapel at Arundel.
In this chamber are more memorials of the family of Dudley—one an elaborate carving commemorating the magnificent Leicester and his four brothers, John, Ambrose, Guildford, and Henry. Within a frame formed by a garland of roses, geraniums, honeysuckles, and oak sprigs, are a bear and a lion supporting a ragged staff, the Dudley crest, with these lines beneath—
“You that these beasts do wel behold and se,
May deme with ease therefore here made they be,
With borders eke wherein four brothers names who list to serche the ground.”
One line is missing, but the Rev. R. Dick, in his interesting work on the Beauchamp Tower, thus completes the verse with the words, “these may be found.”
Prison in the Beauchamp Tower.
Of these four Dudley brothers, John was the eldest of the Duke of Northumberland’s sons, and became Earl of Warwick. It was he who helped his father in his attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne, and was imprisoned here until his death in 1554 in consequence. He was succeeded in the earldom of Warwick by his brother Ambrose, who is represented by the acorn in the garland on the wall; the rose stands for Robert, the geranium for Guildford, and the honeysuckle for Henry. All these suppositions are from Mr Dick’s work on the inscriptions, and whether correct or not, they are at any rate ingenious, and explain the lines.