Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/315

A.D. 1547.] the Earl of Hertford," as he expressed it, 1,000 marks; on the Lords Lisle, St. John, and Russell, £200 a year; to the Lord Wriothesley, £100; and to Sir Thomas Seymour, £300 a year, which Paget said was too little, and reminded the king of Denny; but that the king, saying nothing of Denny, ordered £200 for him (Paget), and £400 for Sir William Herbert, and remembered some others.

Of the persons mentioned for promotion, Paget said, some, on being spoken to, desired to remain in their present estate, the land which the king proposed to give being insufficient for the rank to be attached to them. After many consultations, the king had settled it thus:—"The Earl of Hertford was to be created earl marshal and lord treasurer, to be Duke of Somerset, Exeter, or Hertford, and his son to be Earl of Wiltshire, with £500 a year in lands, and £300 a year out of the next bishop's lands that fell void. The Earl of Essex was to be Marquis of Essex; the Viscount Lisle to be Earl of Coventry; the Lord Wriothesley, Earl of Winchester; Sir Thomas Seymour, a baron and lord admiral; Sir Richard Rich, Sir John St. Leger, Sir William Willoughby, Sir Edward Sheffield, and Sir Christopher Danby, to be barons; with yearly revenues to Anne and several other persons. And having at the suit of Sir Edward North promised to give the Earl of Hertford six of the best prebends that should fall in any cathedral, except deaneries and treasurerships, at his, the duke's suit, he, the king agreed that a deanery and a treasurership should be instead of two of the six prebends."



This extraordinary statement of Paget's was fully confirmed by Denny and Herbert, who said that, on Paget quitting the room, the king related to them what had passed, and made Denny thereupon write it down; and Herbert observing that Paget, the secretary, had remembered every one but himself, the king ordered them to write down £400 a year for him.

Perhaps this is the most barefaced example on record of a set of executors helping themselves out of the estate of the testator, on the mere assertion that he promised them these good things, without a word of such particulars in the will; and it has also been well observed by Burnet and Lingard, that though there was a vague clause in the body of the will, recommending the keeping of the king's promises, yet the will bore date the 30th of December, and these conversations were represented to have taken place on the king's deathbed, Henry dying on the 28th of January, nearly a month after. When it became known abroad, the people said it was enough for them to have drained the dead king of his treasure, but now they were sharing honours amongst themselves which should only have been granted when the new king came of age. The discrepancy betwixt the date of the will and the date of the alleged conversation made the public regard the whole as what, no doubt, it was—a gross and impudent fabrication.