CHAPTER IV. FRANCIS, SECOND EARL OF HUNTINGDON, ELDEST SON OF GEORGE, FRANCIS, second Earl of Huntingdon, who succeeded George, the first Earl, had summons to attend the parliament held in London the 3d of November, 1529, as a Baron of the realm, by the title of Lord Hastings, his father having been just then created Earl of Huntingdon. On the 3d of October, 1530, being then styled son and heirgeneral of George Earl of Huntingdon, he obtained the office of Steward to the monastery of Laund, and at the same time, the Stewardship of the Abbey of St. Mary's at Coventry, as also, jointly with Sir Richard Sacheverell, that of the Collegiate Church of St. Mary's, at Leicester. In 1538, he presented King Henry the Eighth, as a new year's gift, a glass of curious workmanship, with a cover garnished with gold, and his wife, on the same occasion, gave his Majesty two fine shirts of cambrick, both receiving appropriate gilt cups in return. Two days previous to the coronation of Queen Anne Bullen, in 1548, he was made Knight of the Bath; and on the 20th of February, 1546, at the coronation of Edward the Sixth, carried St. Edward's staff. At the feast, which was held in Westminster Hall on this latter occasion, his Lordship, together with the Earl of Oxford, had the honour of holding water to the King, having previously tasted it. In 1548, about four years after the death of his father, he passed, in quality of administrator, his accompt for that period, the form and items of which are curious. In a letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury, dated Ashby, September 12, 1549, the Earl of Huntingdon excuses himself from going to his Lordship "to kill a stag or two," in consequence of a rebellion in the counties of Leicester and Rutland, for which several had suffered death, and others were to be tried at Leicester before the Earl himself, and his Majesty's Judge of Assize. He desires, in another letter, that certain persons, imprisoned in York Castle, should be liberated and taken into the army. His Lordship was, about this time, elected to the dignity of Knight of the Garter;* and, in 1550, he had licence to retain one hundred servants, gentlemen and yeomen, over and above the ordinary establishment of his family and dependants. The same year he commanded an expedition sent to France for the purpose of dislodging the French from their position between Calais and Boulogne, which service he performed with skill and success. In 1551, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire and Rutland; and, in consideration of his merit and great services, obtained a grant in fee-farm of the capital mansion of the manor-house of Gracedieu, in the county of Leicester, and also Myrrell Grange; the Rectory and Church of Belton, and advowson of the Vicarage; the Rectory and Church of Castle Donnington, and advowson of the Vicarage; Gracedieu, Myrrell, Charnwood, Belton, Osgathorpe, Thringeston, Castle Donnington Spittle, Castle Donnington, Long Whalton, Discworth, Swannington, Overton, Sawsye, Loughborough, Hathern, Knight Thorpe, and Shepshede, in the county of Leicester, all which were then lately part of the possessions of John Beaumont, Master of the Rolls. In 1552, he sat as one of the Peers on the trial of the Duke of Somerset, and was of the Privy Council to King Edward the Sixth, as appears by certain letters from the Lords to Queen Mary. On the * In the eleventh stall of St. George's Chapel, (being the fifth on the Sovereign's side,) on a brass plate of arms is inscribed-" Du tres noble et puissant Signeur Francois Conte de Huntingdon, Seigneur Hastyngs du Hungerford, Butroys, et de Molines, Chevalier du tres noble Ordre de la Jaretiere, et first enstalle le 3 an du regne du nostre Souverain Edward le VI." insurrection of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, the following year, he raised forces against him, and brought him prisoner to the Tower of London. Concerning this subject, the Earl of Arundell, in a letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury, written about the end of January, 1553, says, "The Duke of Suffolk is on Friday also stolen from his house at Shene, and roone away with his two brethren into Leicestershire, for he was mett at Stony Strattford. My Lord of Huntingdon is goon into those parts after him, wt. . . . . . ageynst him. The Duke is proclaymed trayer." Another letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury from Robert Swifte, dated April 12, 1554, adds, "The Erll of Huntingdon, furnished with eleven horsemen, with staves and bowes, brought thowrow London upon Saterdaye at afternoon, the Dewke of Suffolke, and the Lord Thomas his brother, and so conducted them to the Towre. The Lord Thomas was taken goynge towards Walles, and is cuming up, and notwithstanding that the said Dewke and Wyott, withe the moste parte of his captaynes, remaynes as yet in the Towre, yet ther is nyghtlye wache in the cowrte, on hernes, and day and night in London. This day my Ladye Jane was behedede in the Towre, and the Lord Gylforde, her husband, on the Towre-hill.* * The conduct of this ill-fated Lady, and her husband, in their last moments, is thus related by our earlier historians. "The twelfe of Februarie, being Mondaie, about ten of the clocke, there went out of the Tower to the scaffold on the Tower-hill, the Lord Gilford Dudleie, sonne to the Duke of Northumberland, husband to the Ladie Jane Greie, daughter to the Duke of Suffolk; and without the bulwarke-gate, maister Thomas Offere, one of the Shiriffes of London received him, and brought him to the scaffold, where, after a small declaration, he kneeled downe and said his praiers. Then holding up his eies and hands to heaven with teares, at the last he desired the people to praie for him, and after he was beheaded, his bodie being laid in a cart and his head in a cloth, was brought into the Chappell within the Tower, where the Ladie Jane, whose lodging was in the maister Partridge's house, did see his dead carcasse taken out of the cart, as well as she did see him before alive going to his death; a sight, as might be supposed, to her worse than death. By this time there Н |