Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/522

 546 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. iv. DEC. 30, -ML rate to have been the work of a period to be properly described as "just before" the execution of the sculptor. At the risk of being charged with superfluous repetition of lines well known, but necessary to justify my proposition, I reprint this imperfect bit of doggerel:— You that these beasts* do wel behold and see May deme with ease wherefore here made they be With borders wherin [" there may be found "] t 4 Brothers names who list to serene the ground. So long ago as 18831 incidentally mentioned in your columns (6th S. viii. 450), in discussing some obscure points connected with the Dud- ley brothers, on the authority of Mr. Dick, that the sculpture was the work of John Dudley, titular Earl of Warwick, eldest son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who with his four brothers was confined in the Tower from September, 1553, to October, 1554, and was released only to die at Pens- hurst, Kent, not in the Tower, as Mr. Dick has erroneously concluded, after only a week's release from captivity (see Courthope's ' Historic Peerage,' sub tit. ' Northumberland, Warwick, Dudley'). There is no historic evidence, nor any local tradition extant, that John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, was ever confined in the Beauchamp or any other of the fourteen towers. It was not the custom to immure prisoners of rank in "dungeon cells." The higher-class resident officials made more out of them by entertaining them as "paying guests," enjoying the "liberty of the Tower"; and although the five brothers who were, no doubt, the occupants of the memorial chamber appear by their case to provide an exception to the rule, it is probable that they were so lodged some few months after the execution of their father, when the prison - fortress became overcrowded from the influx of pri- soners captured during and after the sup- pression of the Wyatt rebellion. If this assumption be correct, plenty of time was afforded to John junior to design and exe- cute partially the work of art, although it is probaole that more than a third of the versification he was constrained to leave un- engraved, two lines, perhaps not even com- posed, for which space remains marked out Thus I infer that the work was not commenced until some weeks after the remains of the John Dudley to whom it has been ascribed by Mr. Ainsworth were committed to the t Coniecturally supplied by Mr. W. R. Dick, ' A Short Sketch of the Beaucnamp Tower,' &c. ] should propose "eke there may be found " to pro vide a missing foot. grave beneath the flooring of the " prisoners' church " on the green. There is another melancholy memorial on the wall of this historic chamber, which seems •jo have misled Mr. Dick. The word " IANE " is ascribed by him to the hand of that victim of family ambition, Lady Jane Dudley ; but we know where that unfortunate princess was lodged during the whole of her imprison- ment (see ' Diary of a Resident in the Tower,' Damden Society), and from this it does not appear that she ever occupied this grim apartment. It is more in accordance with probability that her husband Quildford spent his last night in this chamber, and beguiled his melancholy vigil with inscribing — for which purpose a very few hours would suffice —this touching memorial of the dear object of his dying thoughts. In conclusion, the floral ornamentation mentioned by MR. PICKFORD constitutes the essayed rebus. A, acorn.—Initial of Ambrose, who died towards the end of the sixteenth century full of years and honours. E, rose.—Robert, who figures as one of Scott's heroes, the magnificent Earl of Leices- ter of ' Kenilworth," the favourite of the great Elizabeth, and conspicuous ornament of her brilliant Court. G. geranium. — Guildford, who had pro- bably suffered on the adjacent Tower Hill before the first idea of the inscription had been conceived. H, honeysuckle. — Henry, who, after his liberation, was to die valiantly fighting as an English auxiliary in the Spanish service, at the siege of St. Quentin. The artist's initial apparently was not represented, although it has been hazarded as a surmise that a jonquil may be traced in the foliage ; but, as will have been seen, after all the artist only seems to have prescribed to himself the melancholy task of perpetuating the initials of his four brothers, of whom ne knew the fate of one, but could only, while engaged in the work which his liberation, followed oy his shortly ensuing death, precluded him from completing, gloomily apprehend a sad destiny for the other three. GNOMON. Temple. In the 'Acts of the Privy Council,' ed. Dasent, under dates October and November. 1551, will be found interesting details of the examination of various persons arrested for spreading reports that a new coinage waa about to be issued, with the bear and ragged staff stamped on it. The entries are valuaMe as showing popular suspicion of Northumber-
 * The supporters as described by ME. PICKFORD