A book of prayers on their pillow lay;
Which once, quoth Forrest, almost changed my mind;
But, O, the devil—then the villain stopp’d;
When Dighton thus told on,—We smothered
The most replenished and sweet work of nature,
That from the prime creation, e’er she fram’d.
Hence both are gone with conscience and remorse,
That could not speak; and so I left them both,
To bear the tidings to the bloody King.”
A curious event occurred to one of the State prisoners in this reign, Sir Henry Wyatt—the father of the poet, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and grandfather of the Thomas Wyatt who lost his life for the part he played in the rebellion against Mary in favour of Jane Grey—was a Lancastrian in politics, and had been imprisoned in the fortress on more than one occasion; “once,” the Wyatt papers say, “in a cold and narrow tower, where he had neither bed to lie on, nor meat for his mouth. He had starved then, had not God, who sent a crow to feed his prophet, sent this and his country’s martyr a cat both to feed and warm him. It was his own relation unto them from whom I had it. A cat came one day down into the dungeon unto him, and, as it were, offered herself unto him. He was glad of her, laid her on his bosom to warm him, and, by making much of her, won her love. After this she would come every day unto him divers times, and when she could get one, bring him a pigeon. He complained to his keeper of his cold and short fare. The answer was, ‘he durst not better it.’ ‘But,’ said Sir Henry, ‘if I can provide any, will you promise to dress it for me?’ ‘I may well enough,’ said the keeper, ‘you are safe for that matter’; and being urged again, promised him, and kept his promise; dressed for him, from time to time, such pigeons as his acater the cat provided for him. Sir Henry Wyatt, in his prosperity, for this would ever make much of cats, as other men will of their spaniels or their hounds; and perhaps you shall not find his picture any where, but like Sir Christopher Hatton, with his dog, with a cat beside him.”