Robertson, Major-General Archibald, of the Bombay Army, at Baker-street, 9th June. Robinson, Nathaniel, Esq. at Littlebury, Ronald, Robert, Esq. at the Elms, Derby, Her religious and political convictions, joined to a sacred veneration for the me. mory of her cherished husband, who died in Bath in 1814 all concurred to induce her to fix her residence in England, where she sought refuge in the year 1795, after having passed a few years in Germany. It was by these considerations that she felt herself called upon to make the sacrifice of family interests (interests, nevertheless, most dear to her), and she never more saw her native land. Roope, Cabel, Esq. late of Oporto, in Wo- Scott, Emma Jane, widow of the late Major Hugh Scott, Deputy Adjutant General of the Madras Army, and eldest daughter of the late Henry Harris, Esq. M.D., member of the Madras Medical Board, at Bayswater, in the 52nd year of her age, 31st May. Selwyn, Albinia Frances, widow of the late Dr. Congreve Selwyn, at Cheltenham, in the 63rd year of her age, 29th May. Sheridan, Charles Kinnaird, Esq. youngest son of the late Thomas Sheridan, Esq. at the English Embassy, Paris, aged 30, 30th May. Slade, Emma, wife of R. G. Slade, Esq. of June. May. Starkey, Thomas, Esq. of Springwood, Huddersfield, 25th May. The Leeds Mercury, of the 29th May, in announcing this melancholy event, thus refers to the great public loss sustained in the death of Mr. Starkey: "It is with feelings of sincere regret that we have this week to announce the death of Thomas Starkey, Esq. one of the West Riding Magistrates, which took place at 3 o'clock on Tuesday afternoon, at his residence at Springwood. Mr. Starkey we believe was at the manufactory at Longroyd Bridge, (Starkey Brothers) on the Tuesday previous. The immediate cause of his death was a virulent attack of typhus fever. A gloom has thus suddenly been cast over the Smith, Frances, widow of the Rev. Henry town as his loss will be heavily felt. He Smith, of Hyde park Place, 11th June. was an active and judicious magistrate, Sommery, Madame la Marquise de, born and bore the character of dispensing Riquet de Caraman-the last of eight justice with impartiality." The deceased brothers and sisters, all of whom had to gentleman, Thomas Starkey of Springbear the storm of the French Revolution, wood, with his two elder brothers, Wilits prisons, exile, wars, and other trials, liam Starkey of Wakefield, and John yet all of whom reached an advanced age Starkey, Esq. of Thornton Lodge, J. P., -departed this life at Bath, in the 78th and his younger brother, Joseph Starkey, year of her age, 22nd May. She was Esq. of Heaton Lodge, near Huddersborn on the 28th of October, 1768; and field, J. P., were the four sons of was married to the late Marquess de the late John Starkey, Esq. of Wheat Sommery in 1786. She was one amongst House, Huddersfield, by Abigail, his the last presentations at Versailles, during wife, daughter of William Dewhirst, the splendour, pomp, and ceremony of Esq. of Warley, co. York, and descended the ancient Court, and attracted the ad- from a branch of the ancient and respectmiration of all by her grace and beauty; able family of Starkies of Huntroyd, co. but these personal advantages added to Lancaster. Mr. Starkey married 5 Oct. others which she possessed, had no power 1830, Charlotte, dau. of William Stanto seduce her heart; misfortune soon ton, Esq. of Throp House, Stroud, and taught her to despise the flattering illu- has left two sons and four daughters. sions of this world, and she gave herself Stephenson, John, Esq. at Newark, Notts, up without reserve to sentiments of piety aged 81, 3rd June. and religion, and to the fulfilment of Stokes, George, Esq. formerly of Colaffections and duties, from which nothing| chester, at Tyndale House, Cheltenham, could withdraw her attention. She be- 31st May. came the mother of fourteen children, of whom only six survive. During the trials of emigration she displayed heroic acts of devotedness, experienced all the severe privations of exile, and bore all with astonishing firmness and submission. Stuart Frances, second daughter of the Stuart, Lady Dudley, second daughter of Titley, Eliza, wife of the Rev. Peter Titley,| at Penloyn, Llanrwst, North Wales, 16th May. Todd, Maria Caroline, wife of Joseph Todd, Esq. of Moulsey Park, Surrey, 14th June. Tulloch, Lieut. Donald, Madras Army, son of Col. Tulloch, C.B., Commissary-General, Madras, at sea, 24th July. Turner, Mary Anne, wife of Edward E Turner, Esq. of Cannock, co. Stafford, 7th June. Watson, Lieut.-Col. Sir Frederick, K.T.S. This gallant officer died on the 21st May, in Portland-place, after a protracted illness, brought on by his services in the Peninsular War. Sir F. Watson was present at most of the battles in the Peninsular, viz.-Busaco, Albuera, Badajos, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Campo Major, Olivenca, Alba de Tormes. Previous to entering the Portuguese service, he was Captain in the First or Royal Dragoons. He was son of the late Lieut.Col. Christopher Watson, formerly of the Third, or King's Own Dragoons, of Westwood House, near Colchester. His remains were interred, at Kensall Green Cemetry. Watts, the Rev. William, A.M. incumbent of Christ Church, St. Giles-in-the-Fields, 11th June. Wells, Angela Helen, youngest child of Nathaniel Wells, Esq. of Piercefield, co. Monmouth, aged 16, 11th June. Welsted, Sophia, widow of the late Charles Welsted, Esq. of Valentines, Essex, 28th May. death of this gentleman, subduing all private and party animosity, has called forth an universal expression of regret. The melancholy event occurred at Hobart Town, on the 3rd February. Sir Eardley, only son of John Wilmot, Esq. of Berkswell Hall, a Master in Chancery, and grandson of Sir John Eardley Wilmot, Knt. a celebrated lawyer, at one time Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, represented a branch of the ancient Derbyshire family of Wilmot, of Chaddesden, and derived, in the female line, from the Eardleys, of Eardley, in Staffordshire. He was born 21st February, 1783, and married twice. By his first wife, Elizabeth Emma, daughter of C. H. Parry, M.D. of Bath, he leaves a large family, of which the eldest son is the present Sir John Eardley Wilmot, Bart. By his second wife, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir Robert Chester, of Bush Hall, Herts, Sir Eardley also had issue. From 1832 to 1843, he sat in Parliament for Warwickshire, but retired in the latter year, on being appointed Governor of Van Diemen's Land. The duties of that office he performed until 1846, when he was superseded by Charles Joseph Latrobe, Esq. Previously to his departure from England, the late Baronet had acted as a Deputy-Lieutenant for Warwickshire, and was for several years the able and respected Chairman of the Quarter Sessions. The recent debate in the House of Commons explains fully the particulars of Sir Eardley Wilmot's recal from his Government. Wilson, John James, Esq. Surgeon, of Doughty-street, 15th June. White, Thomas, Esq. of Mims Hall, South Wortham, Cecil Proctor, Esq. at Madras, Wilmot, Sir John Eardley Eardley, Bart. Yates, Francis, Esq. at 'Allrighton, Salop, of Berkswell Hall, co. Warwick. The aged 81, 26th May. THE PATRICIAN. THE DEATHS OF THE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND. (Continued.) Les hommes apprennent à se modérer en voyant mourir les rois. BOSSUET. COMMON fame has not only done much injustice to the memory of Richard III, but it has thrown a kind of delusive halo around the reputation of his successor, HENRY VII. As a monarch the latter was decidedly the greater tyrant of the two. Shakespeare has made the world believe that Henry was a hero, but in reality this king was a cold, calculating and cruel despot. His avarice knew no bounds; and, to gratify that base passion, he was perpetually oppressing his subjects with illegal taxes, fines, and other arbitrary exactions. So barefaced and brutal was his system of plunder, that his son and successor was, on his accession, obliged to satisfy the clamour of the people by putting to death Empson and Dudley, the agents of his father's extortions. Henry VII's treatment of his relative, the unfortunate Earl of Warwick, whom, after a long and unjustifiable incarceration, he caused to be judicially murdered, equals any charge brought against his predecessor, even if it were proved. To his wife and children, Henry was harsh in the extreme, and seems, in common with most misers, to have lost all domestic feeling, except, indeed, in the advancement of his own fortune and power by procuring great matrimonial alliances for his 'sons and daughters. His anxiety for a connection with the crown of Spain, led to his compelling his two sons in succession to wed Katherine of Arragon, which was the fertile cause of such subsequent misery. The death of Henry VII was characteristic of his life. It occurred just as he was meditating a second marriage. His neglected queen had some time previously died in childbed, and he was hesitating, for a new consort, between the Queen-dowager of Naples, and the Duchess-dowager of Savoy, both ladies of enormous wealth. But the decline of his health put an end to all such thoughts; and he began to cast his eye towards that future existence, which the iniquities and severities of his reign rendered a very dismal prospect to him. To allay the terrors under which he laboured, he endeavoured, by distributing alms, and founding religious houses, to make atonement for his crimes, and to purchase, by the sacrifice of part of his ill-gotten treasures, a reconciliation with his offended Maker. Remorse even seized him, at intervals, for the abuse of his authority by Empson and Dudley; but not sufficient to make him stop the rapacious hand of those oppressors. Sir William VOL. IV. NO. XVI. Н Capel was again fined £2000 under some frivolous pretence, and was committed to the Tower for daring to murmur against the iniquity. Harris, an Alderman of London, was indicted, and died of vexation before his trial came to an issue. Sir Laurence Ailmer, who had been Mayor, and his two sheriffs, were condemned in heavy fines, and sent to prison till they made payment. The King gave countenance to all these oppressions; till death, by its nearer approaches, impressed new terrors upon him; in his final and fearful agony he ordered, by a general clause in his will, that restitution should be made to all those whom he had injured. He died of a consumption, April 22, 1509, at his favourite palace of Richmond, after a reign of twenty-three years and eight months, in the fifty-second year of his age. One reason perhaps for the leniency of posterity with regard to the memory of Henry VII, is that his misdeeds sank into insignificance and oblivion, before the surpassing horrors of the succeeding reign. Yet it has often struck us as singular, that all the English historians,* of whatever creed or party, can look as calmly as they do on the character and conduct of HENRY VIII, a prince whose career presents one of the darkest eras of atrocity in the annals of the world. Vain would it be to seek in the catalogue of Christian monarchs for another monster like this: even among the regal and imperial enormities of Pagan antiquity, his equal can scarcely be found. He had the extreme cruelty of Tiberius, without his political sagacity. He was a domestic murderer like Nero, whom he exceeded in treachery and lust; but he was sane, and the Roman was a lunatic. Herod Agrippa is perhaps Henry's nearest prototype, yet even Herod evinced some feeling for others beyond the satisfaction of his own inordinate selfishness: Henry never did. Herod bitterly mourned Mariamne slain in his wrath. The base Judean did at least admit that he had thrown a pearl away Richer than all his tribe. There is no instance recorded of Henry's showing a moment's grief or regret for the death of wife, relative, friend, or any other human being, however unjustly or cruelly sacrificed. The most extraordinary part of his dark history, is that Christian England, previously so sensitive to crimes even suspected to be committed by its sovereigns, and at all times naturally averse to cruelty, should for thirty-seven years patiently suffer its territory to become the arena of a series of atrocities which would have even made Pagan Rome rise against the miscreant who was the perpetrator of them. Unhappily moreover, we find the name of Henry connected with religion, and it is probably not a little on this account, that history deals so tenderly with his infamy; for Henry, according to the passion of the moment, favoured one or other of the fierce polemical factions that were then distracting Europe, and each in its turn gave out something in his praise. Thus it is curious to observe the Protestant writers speaking of Henry's munificence and sagacity during the ascendency of the monastery-destroying Cromwell; while even Dr. Lingard, the Catholic annalist, says Henry was quite a virtuous person as long as Wolsey was in power. It is an insult to religion to base its sacred cause for an instant, be the sect what it may, upon any thing done by this king, alike the enemy of God and man. But we must now pass over his dreadful life to his no less awful demise. The intelligent Mr. Keightley, a stanch Protestant, is perhaps the only exception. In his History of England, Henry is rightly dealt with. The termination of Henry VIII's existence had much in it, which resembled the deaths of Herod and Tiberius. As with the Jewish and the Roman tyrants, his body had become, from his excesses, one mass of foul disease and putrid corruption, and like Herod, Henry was committing murder as he lay on his death bed. Herod, it is well known, beside having his son executed five days before he expired, ordered that the principal men of the Hebrew nation should be enclosed in the Hippodrome, and that, while he was giving up the ghost, they should be slaughtered, to ensure a general lamentation among his people when he was dead. How nearly similar was the conduct of Henry. Nine days before he breathed his last, he caused the barbarous execution of his relative the gallant, gentle Earl of Surrey, who ranks among the last ornaments of England's chivalry, and the first of her poets. The charge against Surrey was that he had quartered on his shield (as he had a perfect right to do) the arms of Edward the Confessor. On the same accusation, Surrey's father, the Duke of Norfolk, the first man in the realm, was speedily attainted by an obsequious parliament, and the tyrant, while at the verge of his mortal agony, on the morning of his last day, issued orders that the aged Duke should be beheaded. Providence, however, interfered to prevent both the ancient, and the more modern accumulation of atrocity. The prisoners of the Hippodrome, and the inmate of the Tower, were alike rescued by the deaths of their respective oppressors. The actual demise of Henry, occurred thus. The king had lain for some time in mortal sickness, apparently unconscious and regardless of his immediate danger, but for several days all those near him plainly saw his end approaching. He was become so froward and fierce, that no one durst inform him of his condition; and as some persons during this reign had suffered as traitors for foretelling the king's death, every one was afraid, lest in the transports of his fury he might, on this pretence, punish capitally the author of such friendly intelligence. At last Sir Anthony Denny ventured to disclose to him the fatal secret, exhorted him to prepare for the fate which was awaiting him, and advised him to send for Archbishop Cranmer. He heard the announcement unmoved, and said, "let me sleep awhile." On awaking, he dispatched a messenger for Cranmer, but before the prelate arrived he was speechless, though he still seemed to retain his senses. Cranmer implored him to give some sign of his dying in the faith of Christ it is said that he squeezed the Archbishop's hand, but even this is a matter of doubt: he expired just as the exhortation fell from Cranmer's lips. And this was the end of a king, who had indeed never spared man in his anger, nor woman in his lust. He died in the fifty-sixth year of his age and the thirty-eighth of his reign: his life had been to himself one undeviating course of good fortune, which may be accounted for by the fearful consideration that crimes such as his are too heavy to meet with any earthly retribution. By his will, Henry VIII left money for masses to be said for delivering his soul from purgatory. EDWARD VI, whose youth, and whose mental incapacity consequent upon continual sickness can be the only excuses for the executions of his two uncles, and the unjust endeavour to deprive his sisters of the Crown, lived, and died wretchedly. After a complete series of maladies, which ended in consumption, Edward's demise was in this manner. When the settlement, setting the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth aside was made, with so many inauspicious circumstances, Edward visibly declined every day; and small hopes were entertained of his recovery. To make matters worse, his physicians were dismissed by Northumberland's advice, and an order of council; |