[pt. v. no. 120]; to Henry Wedehoke, the office of yeoman of the Tower, for his services to Richard, duke of York, and Edward IV., in Ireland, April 7, 1484 [pt. ii. no. 162]; to David Keting, on the same day, a manor in Ireland for like services [no. 163]; to Thomas Alleyn, for services to the king's father, One of the auditorships of the duchy of Cornwall, Aug. 20, 1484 [2 Rich. III. pt. i. no. 53]; to Nicholas Harpisfield, "for services to Richard, late duke of York, Edward IV. and Richard III., in prosperity and adversity, in England, Ireland, Holland, and other places," £10 a-year, Feb. 12, 1485 [pt. iii. no. 23], and to Robert Radclyff, "in consideration of the dangers, hardships, and imprisonments he has undergone in the king's service," £60 a-year, April 15, 1485 [pt. ii. no. 53].

12 £20 a-year was granted to Anne de Caux, nurse to Edward IV., Jan. 2, 1484 [1 Rich. III. pt. iii. no. 92]; and 20 marks to Isabella Burgh and her husband Henry), nurse of the king's son, now deceased, June 28, 1484 [2 Rich. III. pt. ii. no. 150].

13 Beverley, Cambridge, Dublin, Gloucester, Huntingdon, Newcastle, Northampton, Oxford, Shrewsbury, and York, had their fee-farm rents reduced or abolished; and the mayor of York was appointed chief serjeant-at-arms to the king, Feb. 19, 1484 [1 Rich. III. pt. iii. no. 69].

14 Winchester was relieved of £20 out of its feefarm rent of 100 marks, in consequence of its decay from the plague, Mar. 3, 1484 [1 Rich. III. pt. ii. no. 48]; the crown moiety of the manor of Brentmarsh, Somersetshire, was granted to the parson of the parish, (Thomas Baret,) to repair the sea walls, which had been broken down, Feb. 24, 1485 [2 Rich. III. pt. ii. no. 133]. There are also several grants to individuals, on account of their "great poverty.

"

15 John Taillour, the king's almoner, had a grant of the goods of suicides, and all deodands, in augmentation of the royal alms, Dec. 4, 1483 [1 Rich. III. pt. ii. no. 24]. Walter Felde, his successor, had a similar grant, May 27, 1484. Of the lands forfeited by rebels, some were applied to pious

The lordship and manor came to him in right of his wife, and he devoted 200 marks yearly for the support of the establishment; he also procured for it exemption from the jurisdiction of the ordinary. The Rev. Mr. Atthill, a canon of the church, has published the various charters, as a vindication of Richard's memory, (Camden Society, No. 38.)

uses, as lands of Sir George Browne, in the Isle of Thanet, and at River, to the Maison Dieu, at Dover, Mar. 10, 1484 [1 Rich. III. pt. iii. no. 44]. 16 A charter of manumission was granted, Feb. 19, 1485, to Alexander Lang, and eighteen other bondmen of the king's manor of Framlingham, Devon [2 Rich. III. pt. iii. no. 155].

17 The collegiate church of Middleham, Yorkshire, was founded by Richard, while he was yet a subject (Feb. 21, 1477,) as was also a chantry in the church of Allhallows Barking, London. After his accession, a chantry at Wem, Shropshire, had a grant of eight marks annually out of the fee-farm rent of Shrewsbury, Sept. 7, 1484 [2 Rich. III. pt. i. no. 141]; on others, founded by private individuals, at York, Dec. 4, 1483 [1 Rich. III. pt. v. no. 10], Old Sleaford, March 3, 1484 [pt. ii. no. 116], and elsewhere, he bestowed mortmain licences, and other privileges.

15 He either made, or confirmed, or added to, grants to the prior and canons of Carlisle; the Carthusians of Mountgrace: the Minorites of Cambridge, Gloucester, Oxford, and Worcester; the white nuns of Worcester; the nuns of Wilberfoss, Yorkshire; St. George's Chapel, Windsor, Dec. 15, 1483 [1 Rich. III. pt. iv. no. 116]; and St. George's chapel in the Tower, at Southampton. He also reincorporated the guild of Holy Cross at Abingdon, with extended powers, for keeping the roads and bridges of the neighbourhood in repair, Feb. 20, 1484 [p. ii. no. 129.]

19 Richard Mayew, the president, and the scholars of Magdalen College, Oxford, had a grant of "a three-yard land," in Westcote, Warwickshire, forfeited by Henry, duke of Buckingham, Feb. 21, 1484 [1 Rich. III. pt. ii. no. 56]. Andrew Doket, president, and the fellows of Queens' College, Cambridge, had a grant of an annuity of 110, and lands and manors in the counties of Berks, Bucks, Lincoln, Northampton, and Suffolk, July 5, 1484 [2 Rich. III. pt. i. no. 105].

[Summarized from the Ninth Report of the
Deputy Keeper of the Public Records.]

The guild "gave him their aid and assisted his host in his wars against Henry, earl of Richmond. In which battle King Richard was slain, many of his side lost their lives, and this fraternity their lands and liberties," but they eventually received a pardon from the victor. (Monument of Christian Munificence.)

WHEN Henry of Richmond had succeeded in possessing himself of the English crown, he found no difficulty in procuring from Wales a duly authenticated pedigree, in which his descent from Caractacus and consequent right to the British sceptre was clearly shewn. English writers, however, are content to discover the first noted person of his family in a Welsh squire, named Owen Tudor (Tedder, or Theodore), whose handsome person procured him the alliance of Katherine of France, the relict of Henry V.; he lost his life in the Lancastrian cause, but his grandson became a king.

The Tudors ruled for nearly one hundred and twenty years (A.D. 1485 -1603); during which, changes of the most important nature were effected, and mainly by the sovereigns themselves. Henry VII. gave its deathblow to the decaying feudal system, and began to rear something like our present state of society in its stead; the iron hand of Henry VIII. broke up monastic establishments, and by destroying the dependence of the Church of England on that of Rome, gave opportunity for the purification

The pedigree will be found in extenso in Powell's "History of Wales."

The nobility had been greatly reduced in number by the civil war, and most of those who survived were in a state of poverty. Henry VII., professedly to relieve them, allowed them to dispose of their lands, free from the burdens of feudalism; much of the soil of the country thus came into the possession of merchants and traders, and a middle class sprang up, into whose hands the real power of the State has been gradually drawn; a change the import

of the former from stains contracted by its long connexion with a Church "which hath erred, not only in living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith." These reformatory measures were carried on by the advisers of his son; and, though somewhat retarded by his daughter Mary, received their completion in the reign of the last of the Tudors, Elizabeth; but not without giving rise to an opposition that, when the sceptre had passed into feebler hands, for a time destroyed both Church and State.

Though fierce political and religious dissensions disturbed the Tudor era, the nation made great advances in commerce and navigation; voyages to India were undertaken, and vigorous efforts were made to share the riches of the New World. The mode of government, however, if less openly tyrannical, was more systematically oppressive than heretofore; but the patronage shewn, especially under Elizabeth, to literature, has enriched the period with names that can never die.

Like the House of York, the Tudors

ance of which it is impossible to over-estimate.

The Tudors were such absolute rulers, and their parliaments and their judges so subservient, that new laws were made and old ones interpreted without regard to anything except meeting the wishes of the sovereign. Hence the forms of law were strictly observed in innumerable cases where every principle of justice was disregarded, and the constitution which had been gradually built up from the time of the Great Charter was temporarily subverted.

changed only the supporters of the royal arms, substituting a red dragon for one of the lions, as a token of their alleged descent from Cadwalader. The badges of the House consist of the red and the white rose united in various ways; the portcullis, the badge of the Beauforts; and the fleur-de-lis, for their nominal realm of France. Beside these, a variety of badges were used

by individual rulers: as, the crowned hawthorn bush by Henry VII.; the white greyhound by him and by Henry VIII.; the old Yorkist badge of the sun in splendour by Edward VI.; the Tudor rose impaled with a sheaf of arrows by Mary; and the thornless rose by Elizabeth. The badges of the queens of Henry VIII. will be found under his reign.

MARGARET, daughter of John Beaufort, duke of Somerset, was born in the year 1441, and on the death of her father in 1443 she became the ward of William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, who endeavoured to unite her to his son John, (afterwards the husband of Elizabeth of York, sister of Edward IV.); but in 1455 she married Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond, (son of Owen Tudor and Katherine of France,) who died in the following year, leaving her and her infant (perhaps unborn) son Henry to the care of his brother Jasper, earl

of Pembroke.

This, her only child, was born in the year 1456, probably in the castle

The death of the father and the birth of the child were certainly very near each other, but authorities are at variance as to which occurred first. The countess in 1459 married Sir Henry Stafford, a younger son of the duke of Buckingham, who died in 1481. In 1482 she married her third husband, Thomas, Lord Stanley, and survived until June 29, 1509. Though naturally an object of suspicion to the Yorkist princes, on account of her son,

of Pembroke, and as early as his fifth year he experienced the calamities of the time, being attainted by the first parliament of Edward IV., apparently in revenge for the active part which his uncle Jasper had taken on the Lancastrian side. Jasper was a fugitive, and his castle and earldom were granted to William Herbert, who coming to take possession found there Margaret and her son; though in effect their keeper, he treated them with kindness, and provided for the education of the child. Jasper made some unsuccessful attempts to recover his stronghold, and Herbert was captured and executed by insurgents; but it was not until 1470, upon the tem

she was leniently treated, her estates forfeited according to law by her correspondence with him being granted to her husband by Richard III. Her wealth was great, and she has left in each University numerous evidences of her pious charity.

His will, an extract from which is given at p. 251, affords a favourable impression of his character.