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a very early age; for when but sixteen he was made a knight of the bath, and at twenty, as we have already seen, he married lady Eleanor Brandon, the king's niece, a marriage which, I have now to add, was graced by Henry himself in person.

There is much reason to suspect, however, that in a domestic point of view, this high-born connexion was not altogether suited to the ideas and inclinations of the earl, though in the very flush and prime of youth. We know, at least, that it involved him so deeply in the dissipation and expenses of a court life, that he was compelled to alienate one of the oldest of his family estates; and that when in his thirty-first year he was deprived of lady Eleanor by death, even then, in the vigour of his days, he withdrew to a life of almost unbroken retirement and study, and one too in which, pursuing a system of laudable economy, he retrieved not only what he had previously squandered, but added much to the landed property of the family, purchasing of the Greshams, about the commenccment of the reign of Elizabeth, the large estates of Fountain's Abbey in Litton and Longstrothdale, by which, in addition to the superiorities and forest rights he already held in the district, he became

possessed, with the exception of a few trifling freeholds, of the whole of the extensive parish of Armcliffe in Craven, a tract of not less than fifty square miles in extent *.

Yet prudential as were the latter habits of this second earl, and secluded as to the world of gaiety and fashion, he was, nevertheless, singularly hospitable, charitable, and kind in his own immediate neighbourhood, and consequently highly valued by, and endeared to, his dependants and friends; of which a most striking instance occurred during the period which elapsed between the death of his first wife and his marriage with a second, an interval of about five years.

He had been long suffering from a disease which, without materially injuring the structure of any vital organ, had yet reduced him to such an extreme degree of weakness, that, whilst lying in a state of more than usually protracted syncope, his physicians had pronounced him dead. He was accordingly stripped and laid out, and was about to be covered with a herse-cloth of black velvet, when

* Vide Hist. of Craven, p. 505.

fortunately his attendants, who had loved him whilst living and now deeply lamented his supposed death, thought they perceived in him some faint symptoms of returning animation. He was instantly carried back to his bed, and by the assiduous application of warm cloths externally, and a cautious administration of cordials, he gradually recovered. was still necessary, however, to pay him the utmost attention, and for more than a month he was supported by milk sucked from a woman's breasts, and by which alone he was restored to perfect health and strength.

It

"To compare great things with small," observes Dr. Whittaker in a note," there is something in this scene which reminds me of the apparent death and sudden revival of Tiberius, as related by Tacitus, xvii. cal. Apr. interclusâ animá creditus est mortalitatem explevisse. Et multo gratantum concursu ad capienda imperii primordia C. Cæsar egrediebatur: cum repentead fertur redire Tiberio vocem ac visus, vocarique qui recreandæ defectioni cibum adferrent.-Anal. vi. sub fin.' But there was a striking difference between the situation of a virtuous and beloved nobleman in the arms of faith

ful attendants, and a detested tyrant, surrounded by assassins. Accordingly the one was restored and the other suffocated *."

In his second matrimonial connexion, which took place in 1552, this nobleman was peculiarly fortunate, having in the person of Anne, daughter of William Lord Dacre, fixed upon a lady whose retired and domestic habits were perfectly congenial with his own. She had in fact never visited, nor perhaps wished to visit, London in her life, nor was her lord, during the eighteen years they lived together, himself more than thrice at court; twice on the accession of the queens, Mary and Elizabeth, and once on the marriage of his daughter by his first wife to the earl of Derby.

It appears, indeed, from the representation of the countess of Pembroke, that he was, like his grandfather, especially during the latter part of his life, deeply absorbed in the study and practice of chemistry, and that he was fond also of applying this knowledge to the extraction and composition of medicines. She adds that " he had an excellent library both of written hand books and printed books, to which he was exceedingly addicted †.”

• Whitaker's Craven, p. 264.

† Censura Literaria, vol. vi. p. 406. from Harl. MSS. 6177.

The earl, however, was destined to witness, in the closing year of his life, the tumults of rebellion, though fortunately but of transient duration; for in the great northern insurrection headed by the potent earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, and which broke out in the 12th year of Elizabeth, 1569, he was called upon to assist lord Scroop in fortifying Carlisle against the insurgents.

It was from his share in this insurrection that Richard Norton, esq. of Rilston in Craven *, a vassal of the lords of Skipton, but who had long set their authority at defiance, suffered, together with his eight sons, the extreme penalty of the law for treason; an event which is thus recorded in an old ballad preserved in Percy's Reliques, and entitled "The Rising in the North."

Thee, Norton, wi' thine eight good sonnes,

They doom'd to dye, alas! for ruth!

Thy reverend lockes thee could not save,

Nor them their faire and blooming youthe.

The Nortons had for more than forty years con

* It appears from the Townley MS. G. 16, that seventyfive ringleaders in this rebellion were indicted, and amongst them six of the Nortons are enumerated-Hist. of Craven, p. 447.

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