Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/756

742 final leave, he begged her prayers to God for him, and took his farewell."

After Sir Thomas was beheaded, she took care for the interment of his body in the chapel of the Tower; and afterwards procured its removal, to be buried at Chelsea, as he in his lifetime had appointed. His head having remained about fourteen days on London Bridge, and being to be cast into the Thames to make room for others, she bought it, lest, as she stoutly affirmed to the council, being afterwards summoned before them for the same matter, it should be food for fishes. She likewise felt the fury of the king's displeasure, on her father's score, being herself committed to prison; but after a short confinement, and after they had in vain endeavoured to terrify her with menaces, she was released, and sent to her husband.

She was, saith Mr. More, most like her father both in favour and wit, and proved indeed a most rare woman for learning, sanctity and secrecy, and therefore her father trusted her with all his secrets. She corrected by her own sagacity, without the help of any manuscript, a controverted place in St. Cyprian, as Pamelian and John Coster testify, instead of nisi vos severitatis, restoring nervos severitatis.

Besides great numbers of Latin epistles, orations, and poems, sent to and dispersed among the learned of her acquaintance, she left written,

An Oration to answer Quintilian, defending that rich man, whom he accuseth for having poisoned a poor man's bees with certain venomous flowers in his garden, with such admirable wisdom, and fine elocution, that it may justly stand in competition with his. She