Henry Arundell, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour (c. 1607-1694), son of Thomas, 2nd baron, and of Blanche, daughter of Edward, earl of Worcester, was born on the 21st of July 1607, and succeeded on his father’s death in 1643 to the family title and estates. A strong royalist and Roman Catholic, he supported the king’s cause, and distinguished himself in 1644 by the recapture of his castle at Wardour from the parliamentarians, who had taken it in the previous year in spite of his mother’s brave defence of the place. In 1648 he was one of the delinquents exempted from pardon in the proposals sent to Charles in the Isle of Wight. His estates had been confiscated, but he was permitted about 1653 to compound for them in the sum of £35,000. In 1652, in consequence of his being second at a duel in which one of the combatants was killed, he was arrested, and tried in 1653; he pleaded his peerage, but the privilege was disallowed as the House of Lords had been abolished. At the Restoration he regained possession of the family estates, and in 1663 was made master of the horse to Henrietta Maria. He was one of the few admitted to the king’s confidence concerning the projects for the restoration of the Roman Catholic religion and the alliance with France. In 1669 he took part in the secret council assembled by Charles II., and in October was sent to France, ostensibly for the funeral of Henrietta Maria, but in reality to negotiate with Louis XIV. the agreement which took shape in 1670 in the treaties of Dover (see [Charles II].). In 1676 he was privy to James’s negotiations with Rome through Coleman. He was accused in 1678 by Titus Oates of participation in the popish plot, and was one of the five Roman Catholic peers arrested and imprisoned in the Tower in October, found guilty by the Middlesex grand jury of high treason, and impeached subsequently by the parliament. Lord Stafford was found guilty and executed in December 1680, but after the perpetration of this injustice the proceedings were interrupted, and the three surviving peers were released on bail on the 12th of February 1684. On the 22nd of May 1685, after James II.’s accession, the charge was annulled, and on the 1st of June 1685 they obtained their full liberty. In February 1686, with other Roman Catholics, Arundell urged upon the king the removal of his mistress, Lady Dorchester, on account of her strong Protestantism. In spite of his religion he was made a privy councillor in August 1686, and keeper of the privy seal in 1687, being excused from taking the oaths by the king’s dispensation. He presented the thanks of the Roman Catholics to James in June 1687 for the declaration of indulgence. His public career ended with the abdication of the king, and he retired to Breamore, the family residence since the destruction of Wardour Castle. He died on the 28th of December 1694. He was the author of five religious poems said to be composed during his confinement in the Tower in 1679, published the same year and reprinted in A Collection of Eighty-six Loyal Poems in 1685. His piety and benevolence to his unfortunate co-religionists were conspicuous. Evelyn calls him “very good company” and he was a noted sportsman, the Quorn pack being descended from his pack of hounds at Breamore. He married Cecily, daughter of Sir Henry Compton, by whom besides other children he had Thomas, who succeeded him as 4th baron.
The barony is still held in the Arundell family, which has never ceased to be Roman Catholic. The 14th baron (b. 1859) was a direct descendent of the 6th.
ARUSIANUS MESSIUS, or Messus, Latin grammarian, flourished in the 4th century A.D. He was the author of a small extant work Exempla Elocutionum, dedicated to Olybrius and Probinus, consuls for the year 395. It contains an alphabetical list, chiefly of verbs admitting more than one construction, with examples from each of the four writers, Virgil, Sallust, Terence and Cicero. Cassiodorus, the only writer who mentions Arusianus, refers to it by the term Quadriga.
See Keil, Grammatici Latini, vii.; Suringar, Historia Critica Scholiastarum Latinorum (1834-1835); Van der Hoeven, Specimen Literarium (1845).
ARVAL BROTHERS (Fratres Arvales), in Roman antiquities, a college or priesthood, consisting of twelve members, elected for life from the highest ranks in Rome, and always apparently, during the empire, including the emperor. Their chief duty was to offer annually public sacrifice for the fertility of the fields (Varro, L. L. v. 85). It is generally held that the college was founded by Romulus (see [Acca Larentia]). This legend probably arose from the connexion of Acca Larentia, as mater Larum, with the Lares who had a part in the religious ceremonies of the Arvales. But apart from this, there is proof of the high antiquity of the college, which was said to have been older than Rome itself, in the verbal forms of the song with which, down to late times, a part of the ceremonies was accompanied, and which is still preserved. It is clear also that, while the members were themselves always persons of distinction, the duties of their office were held in high respect. And yet it is singular that no mention of them occurs in Cicero or Livy, and that altogether literary allusions to them are very scarce. On the other hand, we possess a long series of the acta or minutes of their proceedings, drawn up by themselves, and inscribed on stone. Excavations, commenced in the 16th century and continued to the 19th, in the grove of the Dea Dia about 5 m. from Rome, have yielded 96 of these records from A.D. 14 to 241. The brotherhood appears to have languished in obscurity during the republic, and to have been revived by Augustus. In his time the college consisted of a master (magister), a vice-master (promagister), a flamen, and a praetor, with eight ordinary members, attended by various servants, and in particular by four chorus boys, sons of senators, having both parents alive. Each wore a wreath of corn, a white fillet and the praetexta. The election of members was by co-optation on the motion of the president, who, with a flamen, was himself elected for one year. The great annual festival which they had to conduct was held in honour of the anonymous Dea Dia, who was probably identical with Ceres. It occupied three days in May. The ceremony of the first day took place in Rome itself, in the house of the magister or his deputy, or on the Palatine in the temple of the emperors, where at sunrise fruits and incense were offered to the goddess. A sumptuous banquet took place, followed by a distribution of doles and garlands. On the second and principal day of the festival the ceremonies were conducted in the grove of the Dea Dia. They included a dance in the temple of the goddess, at which the song of the brotherhood was sung, in language so antiquated that it was hardly intelligible (see the text and translation in Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, bk. i. ch. xv.) even to Romans of the time of Augustus, who regarded it as the oldest existing document in their mother-tongue. Especial mention should be made of the ceremony of purifying the grove, which was held to be defiled by the felling of trees, the breaking of a bough or the presence of any iron tools, such as those used by the lapidary who engraved the records of the proceedings on stone. The song and dance were followed by the election of officers for the next year, a banquet and races. On the third day the sacrifice took place in Rome, and was of the same nature as that offered on the first day. The Arvales also offered sacrifice and solemn vows on behalf of the imperial family on the 3rd of January and on other extraordinary occasions. The brotherhood is said to have lasted till the time of Theodosius. The British Museum contains a bust of Marcus Aurelius in the dress of a Frater Arvalis.
Marini, Atti e Monumenti de’ Fratri Arvali (1795); Hoffmann, Die A. (1858): Oldenberg, De Sacris Fratrum A. (1875); Bergk, Das Lied der Arvalbrüder (1856); Bréal, “Le Chant des Arvals” in Mém. de la Soc. de Linguistique (1881); Edon, Nouvelle Étude sur le Chant Lémural (1884); Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vi. 2023-2119; Henzen, Acta Fratrum Arvalium (1874).
ARVALS, Arvels or Arthels (O. Norse Arfr, inheritance, and öl, A.S. Ale, a banquet), primarily the funeral dinner, and later, especially in the north of England, a thin, light, sweet cake, spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, served to the poor at such feasts. The funeral meal was called the Arvel-dinner. The custom seems to have been to hold on such occasions an informal inquest, when the corpse was publicly exposed, to exculpate the heir and those entitled to the property of the dead from all accusations of foul play.