give fluent and appropriate replies, in Italian, French, and Latin, to three ambassdaors at once. That she was not munificent in her patronage of learning, her parsimonious character, as well as the poverty of Ascham, her tutor, and Spencer, her poet-laureate, seem to render probable; but, that she did patronise it is well known to those acquainted with the literary history of her 'golden days.' She was surrounded by a galaxy not only of literary genius, but of political and military talent; yet she directly exercised a mighty personal influence in the transactions of her reign. Proud and imperious, she seems to have used as a principle which she would not permit her subjects to overlook, the sentiment she enforced on Leicester-"I will have here but one mistress, and no master." Influence seems to have been a leading object of her measures, and power a weapon which she could at once graciously and fearlessly employ. Thus, indeed, it might be possible to explain that union of great and sordid qualities which marks her character. For it is a great moral fact, that she seems to have been passionate, intolerant, vain, and parsimonious, eminent as she was in intellect, literary in taste, condescending in manners, protestant in faith, powerful in rule, and illustrious in fame.

Sir Thomas Chaloner.

BORN A. D. 1515.-DIED A. D. 1565.

ONE of the most distinguished ornaments of the 16th century, was Sir Thomas Chaloner, a gallant soldier, an able statesman, and an accomplished author. He was born in 1515, of a good family in Wales, and was sent to Cambridge at an early age, but soon distinguished himself at college by the elegance of his Latin verses. The friendship of several influential men introduced him to court, and he was almost immediately selected to attend Sir Henry Knevet, the English ambassador, into Germany. At the court of Charles V., young Chaloner was received with extraordinary favour, and became so much attached to the emperor, that he was early persuaded to accompany him in his unfortunate expedition against Algiers. In the great storm which dashed in pieces the emperor's fleet, Chaloner suffered shipwreck; but whilst struggling for his life amid the waves, he fortunately caught hold of a vessel's cable by which he was drawn upon deck with the loss of several of his teeth.

On his return to England he was made clerk of the council, which office he held during the remainder of Henry's reign. Under the protectorate, he attended the English forces into Scotland, and greatly distinguished himself in the battle of Pinkey, in the presence of Somerset, who conferred the honour of knighthood upon him on the field. The fall of his patron put a stop to his political advancement, for such was his high sense of honour that he could not stoop to make court to the man who had raised himself upon the ruins of one to whom he felt himself under many obligations. His loyalty to his prince, however, and the vigilant and careful manner in which he continued to discharge his official duties, preserved him in office, and protected him from any annoyance; while the friendship of such men as Cheke,

Cook, Smith, and Cecil, combined with his own literary tastes and habits, enabled him to fill up his retirement in such a way as left him little to regret in the loss of political honours.

The accession of Mary placed a man of Chaloner's open and uncompromising character in considerable danger; for, while a zealous Protestant, he could not stoop to any of those artifices by which some endeavoured to evade suspicion and retain office; but many of his Catholic friends now remembered with gratitude the services which he had rendered them during the reign of Mary's predecessor, and hastened to return his kindness by extending to him their protection in turn. On the accession of Elizabeth, Sir Thomas appeared at court with his former lustre, and was soon after sent as ambassador to Ferdinand of Germany. He acquitted himself in this important measure entirely to the satisfaction of the queen, who, on his return from Ferdinand's court, immediately despatched him on a like embassy to Spain. At the Spanish court-as he had indeed anticipated—he was very ill received, and he soon after petitioned for his recall; but Elizabeth refused to grant his request, affirming that she had no one else who could supply his place. Philip's ministers tried to bully the English envoy, but Sir Thomas kept up his spirit, and convinced them that neither he nor his royal mistress were to be trifled with. To relieve the ennui of his disagreeable situation at the court of Philip, he amused himself with composing his treatise on the right ordering of the English republic;' but falling into bad health, he was necessitated to petition again for his recall, which he did by addressing his sovereign in an elegy after the manner of Ovid, setting forth his earnest desire to revisit his native country ere the disease which now preyed upon him forced him upon a longer journey. The petition of the poet was granted, and Sir Thomas returned to England with a broken constitution, in the latter end of the year 1564. He died on the 7th of October, next year, and was buried in St Paul's, his friend, Sir William Cecil, officiating as chief mourner.

Sir Thomas was the author of several tracts, besides his work De Republica Anglorum instauranda,' which was published at London, in quarto, in 1579.

Lady Catherine Grey.

DIED A. D. 1567.

AFTER the death of Lady Jane, her sister, Lady Catherine, became the heiress of the house of Suffolk, and, next to the queen of Scots, the first princess of the blood. It will be remembered that this lady had been affianced to Lord Herbert, son of the earl of Pembroke, on the same day that Guildford Dudley received her sister's hand, but had been repudiated by that time-serving nobleman as soon as the fortunes of her family waned before the ascendancy of Mary Tudor. From this time Lady Catherine remained in neglect and obscurity, but was privately married to the earl of Hertford, the son of the protector Somerset, notwithstanding the deadly feud which subsisted between these two families. The consequences of this union became apparent in August,

1560, when Lady Catherine declared herself to be the lawful wife of the earl, and was immediately committed to the Tower. Guildford was in the meantime summoned to appear before certain commissioners with evidence of the alleged marriage; but being at the moment absent in France, he found it impossible to collect his evidence in time, and the commissioners thereupon pronounced the marriage null, and sentenced both parties to be imprisoned during the queen's pleasure. Elizabeth unquestionably had no right to any such exercise of prerogative over Lady Catherine, whose degree of relationship to the queen was not so near as to render her marriage without the royal consent illegal; but the spirit of the times admitted of such violations of the liberty of the subject, and it was Elizabeth's avowed policy, whether sound or not, to keep contending claims to the crown suspended upon herself as long as possible.

In the warrant for her imprisonment addressed to the lieutenant of the Tower, that officer is commanded "to examine the Lady Catherine very sharply, how many hath been privy to the love between her and the earl of Hertford from the beginning, and let her certainly understand that she shall have no manner of favour except she will show the truth, not only what ladies or gentlewomen of the court were thereto privy but also what lords and gentlemen." But Elizabeth's indignation was destined to receive a fresh impulse from the unconquerable attachment of the lovers, who contrived to elude the watchfulness of their gaolers, so that a second pregnancy was soon announced. Warren, the lieutenant of the Tower, was instantly dismissed, and Hertford was fined £15,000 in the star-chamber for the threefold offence of deflowering a female of the blood royal, of repeating that outrage after sentence of nullity, and of breaking prison. But the public voice was unanimously in favour of the hapless pair, and it was loudly asked by what right, or upon what principles of law, human or divine, her majesty presumed to keep asunder those whom God had joined? The breaking out of the plague produced some relaxation of severity to the noble prisoners, and Lady Hertford was allowed to retire from the city to the country-seat of her uncle Lord John Grey. But the queen's resentment still burned against the offenders, and in 1565, both were recommitted to the Tower. Lady Hertford was kept in custody till the day of her death in 1567, and the earl her husband suffered a farther imprisonment of three years. Lady Catherine upon her death-bed evinced much of the calmness and resignation which had characterized the last moments of her unfortunate sister. She besought those who attended her to solicit Elizabeth's protection for her three infant sons; and taking off her wedding-ring desired it to be sent to her husband. She then closed her eyes with her own hands, and breathed out her spirit without a struggle or sigh. Half a century after, the validity of her marriage was pronounced by a jury.

1 Burleigh papers.

Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.

BORN A. D. 1507.—DIED A. D. 1570.

THIS peer was the offspring of an illegitimate son of William Herbert, earl of Pembroke. Coming early to court to push his fortune, he became an esquire of the body to Henry VIII. Like his contemporary, and fellow in good fortune, Paulet, marquis of Winchester, Herbert early in life adopted the prudent maxim, "ortus sum ex salice, non ex quercu,”—a maxim which he never once lost sight of during his long public life, and to which he certainly was indebted for his personal immunity from the effects of those stormy agitations which so often prostrated more unbending spirits around him. By his supple compliance with Henry's whims and pleasures he quickly ingratiated himself with that monarch, who, with his customary profusion towards his favourites, made him several enormous grants of abbey-lands in some of the southern counties. In the year 1544, we find him holding the king's license "to retain thirty persons at his will and pleasure, over and above such persons as attended on him, and to give them his livery, badges, and cognisance." Henry's marriage with Catherine Parr, the sister of Herbert's wife, increased his influence and importance in the

state.

In the beginning of Edward's reign he obtained the appointment of master of the horse in consideration of his eminent services in checking some commotions in Wales and Wiltshire. Soon after, his services against the Cornish rebels procured for him the order of the garter and the presidency of the council for Wales. We next find him commanding part of the forces in Picardy, and governor of Calais, for which he obtained the revival in his own person of the titles of Baron Herbert and earl of Pembroke which had become extinct by the failure of legitimate heirs. The fall of Somerset and rise of Northumberland was of course followed by a suitable change in Pembroke's views and policy. And the new protector deemed his alliance of sufficient consequence to strengthen it by proposing a marriage between Pembroke's son, Lord ' Herbert, and his own daughter Lady Catherine Grey. This connexion, however, neither blinded Pembroke to the true aspect of the times, nor induced him to compromise his own interests for one moment in the brief struggle for royal ascendancy which followed on the proclamation of Lady Jane Grey. For, though he concurred in the first measures of the privy council in behalf of Lady Jane's title, he no sooner perceived the exact position and strength of parties than he reversed his policy, and from a supporter became a fatal opponent of Northumberland's measures. It was at his house that the lords assembled who first adopted the resolution of proclaiming the Lady Mary; and it was Pembroke who seconded Arundel's proposal to that effect in a speech of extreme violence. By this act of subtle policy he at once extricated himself from the difficulties of his former position, and secured the favour of the new queen, whom he farther propitiated by afterwards compelling his son to repudiate Lady Catherine. Mary confided to him the charge of suppressing Wyatt's rebellion, and rewarded his success in

that important trust by appointing him her captain-general beyond the

seas.

The accession of Elizabeth furnished Pembroke with new occasion for the exercise of his accommodating policy, and we find him not only retaining his seat in the privy-council, but honoured with the special favour and confidence of the Protestant queen, being appointed with the marquis of Northampton, the earl of Bedford, and Lord John Grey, the leading men of the Protestant party, to assist at the meetings of divines and men of learning by whom the religious establishment of the country was to be settled. He died in 1570, in the 63d year of his age.

Sir Ralph Sadler.

BORN A. D. 1507.-DIED A. D. 1587.

SIR RALPH SADLER, the son of Henry Sadler, or Sadleyer, a gentleman of small fortune, was born at Hackney in Middlesex, in the year 1507. In early life he obtained a situation in the family of Cromwell, earl of Essex, through whose short-lived influence he was first placed in the way to promotion. Having filled some inferior appointments, he was advanced by Henry VIII. to a seat in the privy-council. He was employed by Henry in the great work of dissolving the religious houses, and, acquitting himself to the satisfaction of his master, was rewarded with his full share of the spoil. But the most important part of his political life was passed in repeated embassies to Scotland, in all of which he displayed much dexterity, and won the fullest confidence of his successive sovereigns. Two large volumes of his letters to the English court, written during these services, have been edited by W. Clifford, and form a valuable contribution to our published state-papers. His first embassy to Scotland was made in 1537, and had for its secret object to strengthen the English interests in the council of regency, which then governed the kingdom. His next mission, undertaken in 1539, was intended to detach King James from the councils of Cardinal Beaton, his chief minister, and to persuade him to follow the example of his uncle, Henry, by introducing the reformed religion into Scotland. The diplomatist was baffled on this occasion; but the death of James, and the accession of his daughter Mary, altered the form of English policy, and Sadler was again despatched to Scotland, in 1543, for the purpose of negotiating a marriage betwixt Prince Edward and the infant princess; but notwithstanding of the zeal and ability which Sadler displayed on this occasion, he completely failed in his object, and was compelled precipitately to withdraw himself from the furious political storm which his intrigues had occasioned. In the war

with Scotland which followed, Sadler, now Sir Ralph, was constituted military treasurer; from the protector, Somerset, he also received a confirmation of all the church-lands which Henry had bestowed on him, with several new grants.

During Mary's reign, Sadler, who was a zealous reformer, prudently withdrew from public life, and remained at home in strictest privacy. But the accession of Elizabeth called him from his retirement; and being again sent into Scotland, he became the principal agent from the