But to return to Arundell of Tisbury—yet we must still digress for a time—and to this chancel, where, beginning three centuries ago, and descending from him of whom we propose to have something to say, lie the ashes of the ancestors of the green branch of this antient stock located not far off, still nobly upholding its olden name and fame, although in its earlier days it had to struggle fiercely through some of the direst vicissitudes that environ human life, to perpetuate its existence.
To translate our thoughts, once more, for a short time to Cornwall, and recall the then representative of the Lanherne descent, Sir John Arundell, knt., a man great at the Courts of king Henry VII. and his bluff son Henry VIII. From both those monarchs he received distinguished marks of favour, being successively nominated a Knight of the Bath, a Knight of the Garter, and also for his valour at Térouenne and Tournay at the celebrated "battle of the Spurs" created a Knight-Banneret.
He was well descended. On his father's side of the family escutcheon, among other venerable Cornish bearings, was displayed the blue field and golden bend of the antient Carminow,—insignia for dignity rivalling the blazon of the distinguished Scrope,—and quartered also with it, there appeared, in happy alliance with the swallows of Arundell, the garland of kindred martlets that fringe the shield of the olden race of Chidiock in Dorset. His well-born mother was a daughter of Sir John Dinham of Hartland, a noble Devonian name of that era, her brother, to whom she was coheir, being John, Lord Dinham, so created by king Edward IV., 28 February, 1466, also like her husband included within the circle of the Garter, and holding high office under Henry VII.; she could also claim the blood of illustrious Courtenays among her ancestors.
Sir John Arundell by marriage allied himself with families of great influence, his first wife being the Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Grey, Lord Marquis of Dorset, step-son to Edward IV., and half-brother to the Queen of Henry VII.,—her mother being the last descendant and sole heiress to a great but unfortunate Devonshire name, Cicely Bonville. Secondly, he wedded Katharine, daughter of Sir Thomas Grenville, a knightly and warlike race of the first renown in north Cornwall, and sister of Jane, who was married to his kinsman the other Sir John Arundell of Trerice. His aunt, his father's sister Elizabeth, was married to Sir Giles, who was afterward created Lord Daubeney, and K.G.,—a man like himself of high rank at the Court of Henry VII.
In 1506 he was appointed Receiver of the Duchy of Cornwall, a position of great honour and influence in his native county, and in 1509 the office was confirmed to him for life.
Thus by birth, alliance, honours, appointments, and possessions, he seems to have been amply qualified to sustain the appellation bestowed on his ancestor, that of being designated the Great Arundell of the West.
He died in 1544-5, and a superb brass exhibiting the effigies of himself and two wives, his children, and elaborate armorial insignia, still exists in the church of St. Columb Major, in Cornwall, but whether he was buried there, or in St. Mary Woolnoth in London, there is some doubt,—but the balance of testimony inclines toward St. Columb.[38]
Take breath, friend of mine, after the shadow of this great and much honoured Tudor magnate has passed across the screen of the past, dimly lit by the illumination of your thoughts,—for a broad and striking glimpse follows in his wake, of what we are sometimes apt to term the "good old times" opens upon us, as we rapidly picture the chief events that characterized the days of Thomas Arundell his second son, and the first of Wardour, and glance at his companions at the Courts of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., together with those of his immediate descendants in the succeeding reigns of the two last Tudor sovereigns.
If those eventful times were not "good" in the large acceptance of the term, there was a large infusion of stern unflinching reality within them. The influence of strong mental power meets us everywhere, men aspired to be men,—sons of Anak in their resolutions,—and the views they took and combated for, were to them no myths,—nor did the almost absolute certainty of the fate of the martyr's stake, the headsman's block, or the confiscator's hand, if the enterprise should fail, deter or daunt an inflexible and often relentless purpose, dictated perhaps by the call of religious sentiment, or animated by the promptings of high personal ambition alone, or cast it may be, in the mould of real or imaginary patriotic duty.
Contrasted with such, our puny doings of the present offer suggestive difference to the life-poised movements carried out by the deep-souled resolves that sustained the doings of the men, who passed through the grim ordeal of the blood-gripped days of Wolsey and Somerset,—some episodes of which, occurring during the reign of Henry VIII. and his son the boy-king, we propose lightly to glance at,—when the 'shapings' of the history of our native land lay in rather grander purpose than the now-a-day trivialities and companionship ravings of our modern political 'stump.'