The second Ambassador to our Court of this illustrious family was François de Noailles, brother of the last named, who was born on 2nd July 1519. He was a very zealous Catholic and extremely pious. He entered the Church when he was only twelve years of age, to eventually become Bishop of Acqs in 1556. His extraordinary ability for diplomatic intrigue led the King, Henry II, to send him to various countries on sundry diplomatic missions, even at the same time as his brother, and he first appeared in England on the occasion of Mary’s victory over the rebels in 1553. He remained in England altogether about two years, and his dispatches are frequently confounded with those of his brother. François de Noailles died in 1560.
Both brothers were greatly opposed to the policy of Queen Mary, and thought her unnecessarily harsh and cruel. On more than one occasion they were very outspoken to her, especially in the matter of the extraordinary number of executions which took place immediately after the quelling of the Wyatt insurrection; and they both appear to have thought that she made her own unpopularity by her bigotry, and her abject subservience to the wishes of her husband.
[315] Noailles was certainly not present at the execution in the Tower. He gives, however, a very concise account of it, including her speech. His version of the tragedy follows that of Foxe very closely.
[316] Peter Derenzie states that “the corpse was interred in the Chapel of St. Peter-ad-Vincula within the Tower, close by that of her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, and between the decapitated bodies of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, without any religious ceremony.”
[317] See Zurich Letters (Parker Society), pp. 154, 515, 686.
[318] Francis, Earl of Huntingdon, having ridden out of London against Mary in company of Northumberland, was arrested at Cambridge on 19th July and conveyed to the Tower of London a day or two later. He was indicted with Lady Jane and the others, but was released before the following January, by which time he had so completely re-established himself in the Queen’s favour that he was given the command of Her Majesty’s troops sent into Leicestershire against Suffolk, whom he brought back to the Tower a prisoner.
[319] Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, vol. ii. p. 1467.
[320] It is strange and significant that both in his prayer and in his request for haste, Suffolk should have acted exactly as his daughter had done!
[321] Did the Duchess of Suffolk cause her husband’s head to be removed to his own house, which stood on the site now occupied by the buildings adjacent to this Church? The mansion in question had been the convent of the Order of Religious known as the Poor Clares, or in Latin, Sorores Minores (from which “Minories” has been formed) and was given to Suffolk by Edward VI. The Church known as Holy Trinity was the convent chapel. It is not altogether improbable that the Duchess had the head brought there; on the other hand, Suffolk’s will may have contained a request that it should be placed in the chapel.
[322] See Machyn, pp. 56, 64.