Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/538

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. m. JUNE 10, 19Q&

to do in the way of setting his house in order, for, from the moment of his com- mittal to the Fleet, his servants had caused his wife great trouble, afterwards (in 1582) going so far as to eject her from her house at Sutton ('S.P. Dora. Eliz.,' cxlviii. 39, civ. 59). On his arrival there he found his wife's mother on her death-bed, and on 27 November obtained an extension of leave to the follow- ing 15 January ('P.C.A.,' N.S., xiii. 262). The opportunity for following his religion was too good a one to be lost, and he therefore made " great preparation for the keeping of a solemne and extraordinary Christmas, a thing," as the Lords of the Council thought, " very inconvenient for him." In consequence, steps were taken to have him summoned back to the Fleet by St. Stephen's Day, should it be necessary (ibid., 286-8). Whether it was necessary does not appear. The next we hear of him is that he was again released, this time on his own bond, on 24 February, 1581/2, to watch certain lawsuits respecting his Sussex and Surrey properties, and was ordered to return by 7 April, 1582, which lie did (ibid., 331, 384). Before 24 August, 1582, he had been transferred from the Fleet to the Marshalsea, and Mass was being celebrated in his chambers there ('S.P. Dom. Eliz.,' civ. 27). Nevertheless, he must again have had a temporary release in the autumn of 1583, for on the night of 16 September, 1583, he met Charles Paget in Patching Copse, and plotted with him for an invasion of England, the liberation of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the return of the nation to the Catholic faith (Baga de Secretis, Pouch 47, in ' Fourth Rep. of the Deputy-Keeper Pub. llec.,' App. ii. 274-5 ; cf. also ' S.P. Dom. Add. Eliz.,' xxix. 39). In- quiries being made as to the means whereby Lord Paget and Charles Paget had escaped again beyond the sea, William Shelley's name began to be mentioned ('S.P. Dom. Eliz.,' clxiv. 23, 30). He was therefore arrested on suspicion of treason, and on 18 January, 1583/4, committed to the Tower. On 12 Feb- ruary he was indicted before Sir Christopher Hatton and others at Westminster, and pleaded guilty. It is probable that he also made some confessions on the rack (' S.P. Dom. Eliz.,' clxviii. 14). He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. His attainder was subsequently confirmed by statute 29 Eliz., c. 1, "An Acte for the Confirmacion of the Attainders of Thomas, late Lorde Pagett, and others." But the sen- tence of death was, it seems, remitted.

He was sent back to the Tower, where we find him mentioned as being in 'S.P. Dom. Eliz.,' clxxviii. 11, 74, clxxix. 35, clxxxii. 16,

27. He was still there, apparently, in 1588, when, to his great discredit, he gave evidence against the Earl of Arundel (Strype, 'Ann.,* iii. ii. 79). One result of his attainder was that all his property was forfeited, and this included his estate jure uxoris in the Here- fordshire and Shropshire freeholds (compare 'S.P. Dom. Eliz.,' ccxxxii. 67). However, Mrs. Shelley must have possessed some in- fluence at Court, for on 20 June, 1586, a warrant was issued to the lleceiver-General of Herefordshire and Salop to pay annually to Jane Shelldie, wife of William Shelldie, Esq., late attainted of high treason, the sura of 200/. out of the rents, &c., the said William held in right of his wife, and to assign her one of the houses to inhabit in during pleasure; also to allow the said William such sums as are accustomed to be paid for prisoners in the Tower, and the yearly sum of 50/. for apparel, &c. ('Cal. Cecil MSS.,' iii. 146). This annuity seems to have been paid to Jane Shelley down to her husband's death, though she complains that she sometimes had great difficulty in getting it ('Cal. Cecil MSS./ iv. 433).

It was probably some time after this war- rant that Mrs. Shelley was convicted of har- bouring a priest, and, as Cooke relates ('Herefordshire,' iv. 52), was lodged in the- common gaol of Worcester, from which, it appears, she was liberated at last on paying a fine. Thereupon she went to London, ana probably lodged in Holborn. There she con- sulted a cunning man named Shepton con- cerning certain things she had lost, and an astrologer named John Alfry about the likeli- hood of the execution, natural death, or escape of her husband, to whom she attributed all her troubles, and who at the time was appa*- rently dosing himself to death with too much physic. On three occasions she went to Cam- bridge to consult John Fletcher, Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, on these and similar points ('S.P. Dom. Eliz.,' ccxliv. 42).

This not altogether blameless superstition on the part of Mrs. Shelley was twisted by her enemies into an accusation that she had sought by witchcraft to discover the date of the queen's death. She was accordingly thrown into the Fleet Prison in January,, 1592/3. There she was subjected to extortion on the part of the warden, and to disgraceful treachery on the part of a young man named Benjamin Beard, who (apparently on the pre- text that his mother's brother, Benjamin Tichborne, afterwards first baronet of that name, had married a Shelley of Mapledurham, who was probably a first cousin of William-