"All these took it upon their last charge, that they never offended against the King, nor against any of his Council. God knows whether obstinately secret or innocent, and in the opinion of all men Somerset was much cleared by the death of those who were executed to make him appear faulty."
But their deaths were not destined to go long unavenged. He who had poured the "leperous distilment" into the young king's ear, that sent Sir Thomas to his doom, and others, in company with his rival Somerset, lame-footed vengeance was on the trail of his unscrupulous, ambitious footsteps, it speedily overtook him, and the next headless body that was brought to find unconscious entrance to the Tower Chapel was that of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.
As the grave closes over the unfortunate Sir Thomas Arundell our thoughts next follow to those he left behind him. The usual fate was awarded his possessions as a traitor, he was attainted, and they were confiscated to the Crown; but King Edward, two years after his death, restored to his widow, the Lady Elizabeth Arundell, her full dower out of her deceased husband's property.
Of course there is no direct memorial existent to Sir Thomas Arundell, but it is singular, that in the fine brass to the memory of his father, mother, and his father's second wife in St. Columb church, Cornwall, one of their children, a little headless armoured figure still remains, and beside it is Sir Thomas' escutcheon,—Arundell with six quarterings, impaling Howard with four. The diminutive effigy is undoubtedly designed to represent Sir Thomas,—the label over his head that contained his name is gone. The corresponding indents of figure, shield, and label, were originally filled with a representation of his brother Sir John, his name and arms.
Sir Thomas Arundell, by his wife Elizabeth Howard, left two children, Sir Matthew, who succeeded him, and Margaret, married to Sir Henry Weston.
Sir Matthew married Margaret, daughter of Henry Willoughby[46] of Wollaton, Notts, by his wife Anne, third daughter of Thomas Grey, second Marquis of Dorset, and sister to Henry, afterward Duke of Suffolk. They were second cousins, both being the grandchildren of Cicely Bonville.
With the accession of Queen Mary, matters wore a very different aspect toward the Arundells. Doubtless the Queen fully recognized and esteemed their allegiance to the antient faith, which she held in common with them, and so we find in the first year of her reign, she restored by patent to Sir Matthew, all his deceased father's lands. This does not seem to have included Wardour Castle, which appears to have been granted by lease or otherwise to the Earl of Pembroke, who greatly embellished it, but Sir Matthew subsequently, by purchase, acquired its possession from that family; it was not, however, free of the claims of the Crown as will be seen. He probably resided before this at Shaftesbury, in the house he had built out of the ruins of the Abbey.
Sir Matthew was knighted, with twenty-two other west-country gentlemen, who "were dubbed in the progress to Bristowe, anno d'ni, 1574," by Queen Elizabeth.
Once more we find ourselves in Tisbury church, and in this chancel, where the succeeding generations of the Arundells of Wardour, after the vicissitudes of this life,—and in their earlier days they had their ample share of them,—were over,—and one after another were here gathered together in the fold of death.
Sir Matthew was buried 24 Dec., 1598. This inscription commemorates him,—