The Strife of the Roses and Days of the Tudors in the West

by W. H. Hamilton Rogers

Wardour Castle and its olden inhabiters have a special interest interwoven in our little narratives, three or four of the subjects of them, having successively, either occupied or possessed it.

About the year 1495 the Earl of Ormond granted a lease of it to the giant Sir John, afterward Lord Cheney, K.G.,—the "unhorsed at Bosworth,"—and it is not at all improbable that he may have died there, as he was buried at the not very far-distant cathedral of Salisbury.

Then on the 4 July, 14 Henry VII., 1499, three years after Lord Cheney's death, Thomas, Earl of Ormond, sold the Castle of Wardour to Robert, the first Lord Willoughby de Broke, "our Steward of Household," and according to one account, he is said to have died there, although his monument is found and he is probably buried at Callington, in far-distant Cornwall.

Lord Willoughby de Broke and his descendants appear to have retained possession of it until 1547, when his ultimate heiress Lady Elizabeth Greville and her husband Sir Fulke disposed of it to Sir Thomas Arundell.

Thus much, as a short notice of the principal landed possessions acquired by Sir Thomas Arundell. Some by gift of his father, others by arrangement with his uncle Lord Bridgwater, or by purchase from different possessors, and a further large portion partly by purchase,—if it may be so-called,—and partly probably by free grant from the King, Henry VIII., the whole of which in the aggregate would constitute Sir Thomas a wealthy man, and a west-country magnate of leading position.

A curious circumstance becomes noticeable here. The sale and grants of property acquired under Henry VIII. were the despoiled possessions of the Church, the property of the suppressed and dismantled Abbey of Shaftesbury, and dissolved Priory or College of Slapton. Yet the Arundells (as also the Howards to whom they were so nearly allied) were at the time, and still continue to be, specially distinguished by their fealty to the Roman communion, the antient faith of their fathers. This fact, however, does not seem to have hindered his acceptance of what at the time, by common consent had been "set aside for the Lord." To which it may be answered, if he had not acquired it, many others were doubtless eagerly waiting for the chance; and it was never likely to return to fulfil the original purpose of the donors.

Notwithstanding the dangers that surrounded the Court of Henry VIII., and the perilous proximity of relationship in which, by marriage, he stood toward that monarch, specially amid the complications that arose during the impeachments, trials, and sad deaths of the two Queens, his wife's relatives; yet neither Sir Thomas, nor Lady Arundell, seems to have been involved or suspected in any way, indeed, to the contrary, as he appears subsequently to have experienced Henry's favour, it being three years after Queen Katharine Howard's death, when he received the grant of the Priory of Slapton from that king.

All this points to his being a prudent man, keeping aloof from the dangerous intrigues continually arising, and he has been described as a wise administrator. He was grandson of Cicely Bonville, the great west-country heiress, and his mother Elizabeth names him as one of the executors to her will, and therein describes him as "her trusty and well-beloved son."

Before the reign of Henry VIII. closed, its last victim was led to the scaffold, the accomplished Earl of Surrey, and nephew of Sir Thomas. The Duke of Norfolk, his father, with cruel obduracy had presided over the trial of his niece the unfortunate Queen Anne Boleyn, and now the same fate had overtaken his son. The executioner was waiting for himself also, but the unexpected death of Henry occurred just in time to save him. The "Fair Geraldine" of the poet Earl was a cousin of Sir Thomas on his mother's side, being the daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, who married the Lady Eleanor, probably a younger sister of the Lady Elizabeth Grey, mother of Sir Thomas.

With the conclusion of the reign of Henry VIII., the larger and presumably, on the whole, happier portion of the life of Sir Thomas Arundell may be said to have ended. The child-king, Edward VI., in January, 1547, commenced his reign, and four short years only were destined to pass before Sir Thomas was laid in a traitor's grave.