But the much desired pardon was at

after being greatly distressed and harassed are ours; and they stand before us, 'bone in various ways, at last took the matter into of our bone, and flesh of our flesh.' her own hands, and settled it by a private marriage with Suffolk; a step which plunged One touch of nature makes the whole world kin!" them into considerable embarrassment, owing to the difficulty of concealing it from Henry, whose anger was much to be dread-length obtained-bought, we should say, ed. In this dilemma they made a friend of by the sacrifice of the whole of the queen's Wolsey; who, after giving the duke a dower, and some of her French property hearty scolding, and telling him that the beside; and cloth of gold and cloth of king was so incholered,' that he did not frieze,' as the story-books say, lived happily know how to help them, suggests that a ever after. Occasionally, it must be said, large bribe out of the princess's dower somewhat inconvenienced by the heavy might be the most acceptable peace-offer- price at which they purchased their happiWe will venture to engage, it was ing. And the queen, dear, silly woman-ness. kind!' lays all the blame upon herself; as-never regretted! suring her irate brother, that she had put Charles, the emperor-the monk, again it to Suffolk, either to marry her in four saw his betrothed at the court of England, days or lose her for ever. the wife of him for whom she had dared so much. Surely he too had loved her; for amid festivities that celebrated his visit to our shores, we are told that he was too much moved to share in them, but sat, silently and moodily, apart.

grace.

Whereby I know well that I constrained him to break such promises as he made your And now your grace knoweth the both offences of the which I have been the only occasion. I most humbly, and as your most sorrowful sister requiring you to have compassion on us both, and to pardon our of fences, and that it will please your grace to write to me, and to my lord of Suffolk, some

comfortable words."

Bless her innocent heart! But we can scarcely forgive Brandon for following it up in the same style, and, Adam-like, screening himself behind his Eve, when it comes to his turn to make his apologies. And yet his letter to his incensed master affords touching evidence of the sincerity and strength of their attachment. She said that

The system of wardship which existed in the good old times' is well known to have been an oppressive one. But it has generally been considered as one chiefly, if not altogether, confined to the higher classes, the nobility and gentry; so that we were scarcely prepared for such an illustration of it as that which these volumes afford us.

'Pleaseth your good lordship,' says Mrs. Joanna Creke, to Cromwell, to understand bans, that then was in those days, had wrongthat fourscore years past, the abbot of St. Alfully my husband's grandfather to his ward; when he was fourteen years old, the abbot sold him to a fishmonger of London, and he kept

an she went into Eng-him two years.' land she should go into Flanders, to the which she said that she would rather to be She goes on to narrate the subsequent torn to pieces than ever she would come fate of this child, to whom the abbot at there, and with that weeped. I never saw length made sundry gifts, es acknowledg woman so weep and so I granted ment of, and amends for, the injuries he had thereunto, and so she and I was married.' done him. But, unjustly acquired, and We are too much in the habit of regard- harshly exercised as had been the power of ing historical personages as we do figures this guardian, the curious part of it is, that in an historical painting: they seem as ut- his authority seems to have been regarded terly removed beyond the circle of our sym-as heritable, by his successors; for this pathies. But how such life-like scenes and details do away with all this! A chord of our common nature is struck, and we feel that heart sounds in unison with heart. We feel that we are all bound in one com-treats his assistance, or else the abbot that mon bond of humanity with those whose thick, small, dust' has, ere this, half effaced the perishing records of their mortality. Their hopes, their fears, and cares

strange statement is but the preamble to the poor woman's petition that Cromwell would protect her children from a similar fate, with which they were threatened. She en

now is will do my children wrong; for he will not show his records, but doth say he will have my son to his ward, and I am not able to go to the law with him.' So help

had she none, unless my lord privy seal's tion, which she did not long endure alone; interference could avail her. It is some for within a year of James's death, she esimprovement on such a state of things, even poused a Douglas, Earl of Angus; and by to be in the lord chancellor's hands!

Widows were almost as unfortunately circumstanced, as the king would occasionally marry them, according to his pleasure rather than their own. So that we find one noble lady applying, as usual, to Cromwell, for redress in a case of this sort, concerning one who appears to have been sent for the purpose of making himself agreeable to her, and of whom of all creatures alive, she could not find in her heart to make a husband.' Her hope is, that the king will be so much good and gracious lord to give me liberty to marry, if ever it be my chance, such one as I may find in my heart to match me unto.' A wish so moderate, that we trust my Lady Audelay had it gratified.

so doing, raised a storm in the country which was not easily laid, and from which she suffered severely. Many and varied were the difficulties into which it brought her, she had even to contend with actual poverty; and in all her troubles, her appeals for assistance to her brother, and his minister, Wolsey, are incessant. I am at great expenses,' she writes to the former, . . . and my money is near hand wasted; if you send not the sooner other succors of men, or money, I shall be super-expended, which were to my dishonor.' And again, two months after, she puts it more strongly: 'I pray you to send me some money, as you think necessary; for it is not your honor that I or my children should want.' During the commotions to which the quesBut of all the busy lady scribblers of that tion of the regency gave birth-whether she busy-sixteenth century, commend us to or Albany should have it-we find this vigMargaret of Scotland, as the most intermi- orous-minded woman unweariedly at work; nable. From our very heart we pity Harry scheming, plotting, acting, till at length, the Eighth for those everlasting begging touched by her distress, Henry sent for her letters, produced by the unwearied hand, into England, promising to provide for her and inexhaustible brain, and particularly there. By stratagem she got out of Scotempty exchequer, of his royal sister. The land; and after a tedious detention by illstereotyped plague of 'poor relations' seems ness at Harbottle, she set out for London, to have fallen on his head with a vengeance. where she remained some time with her She deluges him with missives; it is a posi- brother. But even here, she was so much tive hailstorm of paper petitions-two, three, pressed by poverty as to have to beg Wolfour, and even five printed pages long, and most of them in her own eminently evil hand.' No wonder that her requests were treated, as she often complains, with so little regard; and that she occasionally got snapped at in reply. But still, despite negligence and rebuffs, she kept on her undaunted course; perpetually backing her demands with intimations of the damaged respectability that would accrue to Henry, were she denied this, that, and the other money or goods, as the case might be. She persecuted him from a pure desire to uphold the family credit! It was well for him that those were not the days of Rowland Hill and pennypostages, else (supposing that possible) she had worried him still more extensively.

sey to borrow money for her of the king, till her own rents, &c., should be paid her, being loth to speak to him about it herself. She remained nearly two years in England, and then, finding things rather quieter at home, returned thither; being met on the borders by an escort of nobles and soldiers, to the number of three thousand. She entered Edinburgh, June, 1517, and seemed satisfied with her reception, except in one particular-that there was an attempt to prevent her having access to her son, the young king, which was a severe trial to her maternal feelings. It has been said that her widowhood was a brief one. But her attachment to Angus, so hastily and imprudently gratified, was not destined to be a lasting one. Jealousy, and dissatisfaction But her position was a distressing one, with his assuming a right to interfere in the and it was rendered worse by her own im- disposal of her revenues, made her as veheprudence and disreputable conduct. Wid- ment against him as she had been for him, owed at an early age, by the death of her and she seems early to have contemplated husband at the disastrous Flodden Field, a divorce, as the best means of getting rid she very soon found herself guardian of the of him and his impositions: while, as usual, infant prince, and regent of his turbulent the want of money, added its irritating inkingdom. An anxious and perilous posi-fluence to her chafed spirit. In one of her

long, worrying letters to her brother, (for | tion. Adroitly taking credit to herself for she had eminently the gift of tediousness in having, out of regard to her brother's pleaher compositions,) she makes heavy complaints of the earl."

Also, please you to wit that I am sore troubled with my Lord of Angus, since my last coming into Scotland, and every day more and more, so that we have not been together this half-year. Please your grace to remember that, at my coming now into Scotland. my Lord Dacres and Master Magnus made a writing betwixt me and my Lord of Angus for the surety of me that he might not have no power to put away nothing' (what a droll conjunction of negatives!) of my conjunct feoffment without my will, which he hath not kept, and the Bishop of Dunkeld .... and others his kinsmen, caused my Lord of Angus to deal right sharply with me, to cause me to break the bond that he made to me, which I would not do . . . with much more evil than I shall cause a servant of mine to show your grace, which is too long to write.'

sure, refused the liberal offers of pecuniary assistance made to her in the name of the King of France, she reminds Surrey (in a letter of seven printed pages!) of the illwill she had brought upon herself from some of the Scottish lords, for this preference of his master's interest. And this I get for the king's grace my brother's sake;' whereon she builds a fresh argument for Henry's assistance.

'Wherefore his grace should help me and defend me, and let them wit that his grace knoweth this, but not by my rehearse! and that he is not contented that such things should be laid to my charge for his sake; and send to me plainly, and ask if they have done thus to me, and that he marvels that I will not adverwill defend me, and that he will not let me be tise his grace of these doings, saying that he wronged; and this being done, it will cause the governor to pass away for fear.'

There is something very droll and girl

should do and say. To a man, it was, no doubt, somewhat provoking to have his patience tried day after day by such diffuse, rambling communications.

She had some mercy it seems. ' And I am so minded that, an I may by law of God, and to my honor, to part with him, for I wit well he loves me not, as he show-ish, in this prompting of what her brother eth to me daily.' She certainly had sufficient ground of complaint, seeing he had taken her house, and withheld her living from her; and we entirely concur in the justice of her remark, that to do that was Angus, meanwhile, had been sent into not the way to gain her good will. She France, to see if banishment would mend reminds Lord Dacres of the empty prom- his manners and morals; both of which, as ises that Henry had made her, and adds the queen deemed, were grievously in fault. pointedly, but it must be deed that will Thence he repaired to. England, and help me.' It was just this deed that she sought, by offers to serve the English infound it so hard to get. And no wonder; terest, to induce Henry to favor his return for with her quarrels, and cares, aud fickle- to his native land. Of this Margaret seems ness, she must have been a troublesome to have been much afraid, from the earnest suppliant to her ' dearest brother the king.' remonstrances against it which she addressWe cannot, of course, trace her through ed to her brother; as usual, enforcing her all her ever-varying circumstances, or even plea by threatening what she would do if it through the turnings and windings of her were not granted. Angus, however, did most diplomatic mind. But when her rep-come, and his wife, whose shameless affecresentations of its being essential to Hen- tions had been gained by another, Henry ry's credit to assist her failed of their effect, it is amusing to notice how her woman's wit supplied her with a more cogent argument. She had two parties to deal with her brother of England, and the Duke of Albany, the head of the French party; and she dexterously played off the one against the other. Well knowing how distasteful it would be to the English government that the French interest should have any ascendency in Scotland, she intimates her decided preference for English help, if it was to be had; but failing this, she should be obliged to throw herself on the adverse fac

Stewart, took measures for procuring a divorce; which she at length obtained, the sentence being pronounced March 11th, 1526. On the 2nd of April, she owned that she had secretly married her favorite

whether before or after her legal separation from the earl does not appear: and in March, 1527, we find this profligate woman (for so must we term her) seeking, in the same way, a release from her third husband! The cool, collected manner in which she deals with the matter is revolting. Again and again does she complain to Henry and the Duke of Norfolk, of the

delay that she experienced in the pronouncing the sentence after it had been obtained; entreating the former to use his influence in procuring that this should be done with misplaced piety assuring him that, with the grace of God,' she should never have such a trouble again! Her last letter to him is dated 12th May, 1541, when death had been busy in the royal house, of Scotland. In the succeeding November, that hand that cannot spare was laid on her also: and were we adherents of that faith which teaches that the departed spirit may be helped by the prayers of the living, over the ashes of this true Tudor should we breathe an especial on whose soul may God have mercy,'

Her numerous and very voluminous letters will not be without value in the illustration of that period of Scottish history to 'which they refer; while her character might well form a study for the historical biographer. The editor informs us that she has assigned to herself this task, and promises us its results, in the form of a memoir of Queen Margaret. We may perhaps venture here to express our expectation of its being well done.

children; and bad taste though it may be, these parts of the work are, we think, far more interesting than those which may claim our regard in the light of historical documents. We must plead guilty to the charge of preferring character and manners to facts. The lady Honor, Viscountess Lisle, a daughter of Sir Thomas Grenville, was twice married: first, to Sir John Basset, of Umberleigh, in Devonshire, who left her with a numerous family of children, including step-daughters; and, secondly, to Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle, son of Edward IV., by whom she acquired another batch of step-children, comprising two families, his own daughters, and Sir John Dudley, his step-son. So that five different families were united in hers. To her husband, Lord Lisle, she seems to have been tenderly attached; and her letters, addressed to him during a brief absence, are charming from their simplicity and sprightliness, and the affection that breathes throughout them; while their style is such, that, a few quaintnesses excepted, they might, with their modernized orthography, pass for the genuine effusions of much later times. She seems to have possessed, in an eminent degree, The reign of Henry VIII. is rich in fe- that fluency and facility of expression in male correspondence. The ladies of that epistolary correspondence which is generalage seemed determined to make the mostly considered so peculiarly a woman's enof their newly-acquired accomplishment; dowment. Nor was she less skilled in more and much expenditure of goose quills and masculine acquirements, if we may judge ink was its consequence. Politics, polem- froin the manner in which she acquitted ics, physic, and cookery-nothing came herself in some intricate business matters amiss to them. It has a strange look to entrusted to her by Lord Lisle. 'The see the name of Thirlby, one well-known heart of her husband doth safely trust in in the ecclesiastical records of Mary's her,' says Solomon, when describing a good reign, in connexion with a receipt for wife; and this test of good wifeship Lady making marmalade. His fair correspond- Lisle may well abide; for such was the ent had, it appears, been favored by him confidence reposed in her by her lord, that with directions for making the desired when, during his lieutenancy of Calais, he sweetmeat; but having forgotten them, she had got into some difficulty, through a begs him to write to her of the thing he thoughtless promise to Cromwell, she was taught her, how many pounds of sugar dispatched into England to remedy the must go to how many pounds of quinces, mischief, as well as to attend to some other barberries, and damascenes, or plums. of his concerns that required both tact and For,' says she, 'I have clean forgotten how patience in their management. Lord Lisle many pounds of the one and of the other. had imprudently engaged to make over to Now the time of quinces is come, I would Cromwell (whether as a bribe or not does fain be doing. Thirlby, we presume, was not appear; most likely it was, for this was eminent in such matters, as she begs him too common a way of doing business with not only to write to her of this, but of any him), a certain estate at Painswick, which thing more that he might be pleased to formed his wife's jointure, and which, after teach her. her death, was to revert to Sir John DudBut the most amiable picture of domes- ley, whose mother had originally possessed tic life in the sixteenth century is afforded it. And on the minister's refusing to reus by the extracts from the correspondence lease him from his engagement, the affair between Lady Lisle, her husband, and step-was put into Lady Lisle's hands, as the

party most interested, to make the best she they looked not for me, so that there was no could of so bad a business. To England provision here ready for me; but while the she went, and her letters, during this ab- supper was in dressing, 1 told to John Nele, sence, are delightful transcripts of her Marks, John Smith, and Lamb, whom I had at supper, merry tales; and then John Nele character, while, at the same time, they promised me to come again in the morning evidence the minute attention which she for a token and letter to your lordship, but, gave to the involved and troublesome ob- contrary to his promise he went his way at jects of her journey. ('Surely,' she says, three of the clock in the morning, giving me I lose no time, but am up every day three no warning thereof, which I assure you have hours before day.') First, there was my should conceive any unkindness or displeasure made me not a little sorry, for that I fear you lord's folly in the matter of Painswick to towards me, thinking me so negligent that I be remedied; secondly, a private and par- would not write to you. The counsel and ticular quarrel of her own with the Earls of company of John Nele did me much ease, and Bridgewater and Hertford, touching certain caused us to come to land much sooner than property of Sir John Basset's, to be adjust- we should have done, but he did me not so ed; thirdly and lastly, my lord wanted an much pleasure that way, but he have done increase of his salary as governor of Calais, beseech your lordship to be good lord to Asheme much more displeasure by this means. I and seems to have thought better of his ton, the gunner, for I assure you he is an honlady's abilities than his own in the seeking est man, and I think he loveth your lordship as of it. In this she failed, and met with well as any man in Calais. Lamb had a rather a rough repulse from the lord privy very evil chance, and ran his ship against the seal, (whose influence was then at its pier; I think John Nele have showed you height,) of whom, in communicating the thereof, but I was out of the ship ere that time. The said Lamb will take no money of disappointment to her spouse, she says'but how he handled me and shook me up taken of me two crowns for himself, which I me for passage, not for the ship; but he have I will not now write, nor it is not to be gave him for the passage. He saith you shall written. Howbeit, he made me plain an- agree with his owner. I gave him the two swer that your annuity should be no more crowns because he had loss by the breaking but £200. I trust the king will be better of his bowsprit and fore part of the ship. lord unto you, or else I should be sorry.' And thus, good sweetheart, I bid you most The affair of Painswick was settled, but heartily farewell; praying to Almighty God not much to her advantage. She had, how-to send me good speed in my suit, that I may ever, the satisfaction of entirely recovering the property of the Bassets, which made some amends for her want of success in the other two affairs.

The terms of affection in which she addresses her lord, are such as evidently come from the heart. There is a piquancy about these antique endearments which is lacking in our more elegant, modern ones, and a warmth and genuineness that at once finds its response. Her first letter, describing the voyage to Dover, is altogether charming.

'MINE OWN SWEET HEART-This shall be to advertise you that I have had a goodly and fair passage, but it was somewhat slow, and long ere I landed; for this night at ten of the

clock I landed. I thank God I was but once sick in all the way, and after that I was merry and well, and should have been much merrier if I had been coming towards you, or if you had been with me.. Your absence, and my departure, maketh heavy, also that I departed at the stair at Calais so hastily, without taking my leave of you accordingly, made me very

sorry.

...

"This letter I began yesternight at suppertime... and because it was in the night late,

have a short end, and return to you shortly again, for I shall think every hour ten till I be with you again.

From Dover the 7th day of November,

'By her that is both your and her own, 'HONOR LISLE. 'I pray you show Mistress Minshaw that William, her son, was not sick in all the way.'

There

We have given this letter almost entire, for in our opinion nothing can be more beautiful. The easy grace of the style, the minute narration of incident, the overflowing love, and its slightly (for it is but slightly) antiquated cast, (bad grammar included,) are perfectly fascinating. is every thing that there ought to be in such a letter; and if, as it is said, a woman must be judged by her letters, very high indeed must be our estimation and admiration of Lady Lisle. There are, we imagine, few of the well-born and well-educated women of this century, who would acquit themselves, as correspondents, better and more agreeably than this fond wife of the sixteenth. But her affection for her husband was then remarkable. We are told that Sir Francis Brian, addressing her lord,