Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/93

Rh Vol. III. of that entertaining work, we are informed that "Thomas, duke of Norfolk, who probably escaped death by the death of Henry the VIIIth, in his petition to the lords from the Tower of London, requests to have some of the books which are now at Lambeth; for, says he, unless I have books to read, ere I fall asleep, and after I awake again, I cannot sleep, nor have done these dozen years;" farther requesting "that I may hear mass, and be bound upon my life not to speak to him who says mass, which he may do in the other chamber, whilst I remain within. That I may be allowed sheets to lie on; to have licence in the day time to walk in the chamber without, and in the night be locked in, as I am now." And he concludes, "I would gladly have licence to send to London to buy one book of St. Austin de Civitate Dei, and one of Josephus de Antiquitatibus."

Plate III. represents the curious device of the ambitious John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, son of that Edmund Dudley who had been put to death by command of Henry VIII. His son John became, however, an object of that fickle monarch's favour, was created by him lord viscount Lisle, and appointed one of his executors in his last will. Early in the subsequent reign he was created earl of Warwick, and made lord chamberlain. With talents equally adapted for the camp and cabinet, he distinguished himself as lieutenant-general under the duke of Somerset at Musleborough Fight in Scotland in 1547, and afterwards as chief commander against the Norfolk rebels under Kett. He was created, probably on these accounts, duke of Northumberland in 1551. Raised to a height favourable to his ambitious views, he now formed the dangerous design of aggrandizing his own family, by destroying the settlement of the crown made by Henry the VIIIth, whereby the princesses Mary and Elizabeth were to succeed upon a failure of issue in Edward the VIth, in favour of Jane Gray, of the house 6