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his royal mistress; to whom he was under such great obligations, and whose well known taste for splendour and magnificence he would naturally be anxious to gratify.

Not long after this, however, the carl felt the effects of Elizabeth's displeasure. He had privately married Catherine Grey, sister of the amiable and lamented Lady Jane, who lost her head on the scaffold for. aspiring to the crown. Catherine, being discovered to be pregnant, was committed to the tower. Having confessed her marriage with the earl of Hertford, he was immediately summoned from France, where he was making a tour of amusement. On his arrival, he also was put under confinement. In the tower the lady was delivered of her first son, and af terwards of another; the carl having procured opportunities of visiting her, by bribing the lieutenant of the tower. Notwithstanding his alleging that he was really married to Lady Catherine, the Star

Chamber dealt with him as if he had violated a virgin of the blood royal; sentencing him to a fine of £15,000, and an imprisonment of nine years. His lady was kept in prison till death released her, Jan. 26, 1567. Yet the validity of the marriage was afterwards tried and proved at common law.*

Lord Hertford was afterwards twice married. He died in 1621, and was buried in Salisbury cathedral. His eldest son died before him, leaving a son William; who, on the death of his grandfather, succeeded to his titles and estates.

This nobleman received his education in Magdalen college, Oxford; and he retained through life a love of literature and retirement, which the turbulence of his contemporaries left him too little leisure to indulge. In 1640, Charles I. advanced

* Collins's Peerage, i, 186, 187.-Camden's Annals of Eliz.

+ Collins, i, 187-Camden's Annals of James I.

him to the dignity of Marquis of Hertford, and appointed him governor to the young prince of Wales: an office which he accepted from a sense of duty, and from a sincere regard to what he considered as the public good. In the grand rebellion be faithfully adhered to his royal master; who made him lieutenant general of all his forces in the counties of Wilts, Hants, Dorset, &c. In 1643, he was elected chancellor of the university of Oxford, and in the same year was appointed groom of the stole to the king. Through out the civil wars, he attended King Charles, distinguishing himself on several occasions. His attachment continued to that monarch even in his death; when he obtained a licence from the parliament to bury the king's body.

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During the usurpation, he was dismissed from being chancellor of the univer sity; but was reinstated immediately be fore the restoration.

On the arrival of Charles II. at Dover,
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the marquis of Hertford was among those who met him. The next day the king gave him the garter, at the same time that he gave it to general Monk and the earl of Southampton In 1660 he restored to him the family title of duke of Somerset. In the same year this loyal nobleman died; and was buried at Great Bedwin, in Wiltshire.*

It is somewhat singular, that two different possessors of Netley should have drawn on themselves regal displeasure, on account of matrimonial connections with ladies related to the crown. The lastmentioned nobleman married, for his first wife, the lady Arabella Stuart, a near relation of James I. by the family of Lenox, and descended equally from Henry VII; famous on account of the mysterious conspiracy formed to fix her on the James disapproving of the

throne.+

Collins, i, 188, 189.

Hume, ch. 45,

match, which was concluded without his consent, the marquis was committed to the tower, and the lady was confined to her house at Highgate. Her husband, however, in 1611, found means to escape to Dunkirk; but Arabella, attempting the same, was overtaken, and committed to the tower; affliction, and especially her separation from her husband whom she tenderly loved, turned her brain, and brought her to an early grave, in 1615. As she died within two years of Sir Thomas Overbury, a report was propa. gated, that her death was the effect of poison. This occasioned an examination of the body by several able physicians, who were unanimously of opinion that she died of a chronical distemper.*

After Netley became a dwelling house, it appears that the church, or at least a part of it, still remained set apart for re

Collins.-Wilson's Life and Reign of James I.Granger's Biographical History of England, vol. ii, p.

59.

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