the inquisitors, recanted their errors and took the oath of supremacy. There now remained only ten of the unfortunate Carthusians, and their fate was even more pitiable than that of their deceased brethren. Such was the miserable state to which they were reduced by hunger, filth, and close confinement, that nine of them actually wasted away and died in their miserable cells. The remaining one, the last of the simple-minded and devoted Carthusians, was led forth, a few years later, to the gibbet.

After the dissolution of the monasteries the Charter House was granted by Henry the Eighth, in 1542, for their joint lives, to John Brydges and Thomas Hall, the former Yeoman, and the latter Groom, of the King's nets and tents. Henry subsequently conferred it upon Sir Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor, who sold it, in 1545, to the eminent statesman and lawyer, Sir Edward North, afterwards Lord North, who metamorphosed the old monastery into a magnificent mansion. He subsequently disposed of it to the turbulent and ambitious John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, on whose attainder and execution, in August 1553, it was again conferred on Lord North by the Crown.

In 1565 the Charter House was purchased of Roger the second Lord North, by Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, whose romantic attachment to Mary Queen of Scots led him to the block. It was the favourite resort of this unfortunate nobleman; at one time the scene of his revels; at another, of his desperate intrigues; and, lastly, of

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his imprisonment. The greater part of the edifice was rebuilt by this nobleman as it now stands. the great hall may be still seen his heraldic bearings with the date, 1571, the year previous to his execution; while the pediment of the outer gate in Charter House Square is still supported by two lions with scrolls, his armorial badge. It may be mentioned, that the principal evidence against the ill-fated Duke was the discovery, under the roofing-tiles of the Charter House, of the key to the cypher of his letters. His guilt having been thus substantiated ;-notwithstanding his many virtues, his great popularity, and their long friendship, Queen Elizabeth, either with real or feigned reluctance, signed the warrant for his execution; and, on the 2nd of June 1572, he perished in the prime of life on Tower Hill.

This

The Howards were the kinsfolks of Queen Elizabeth, and consequently she was induced to divide among them the property of the late Duke, which had been forfeited by his attainder; the Charter House falling to the share of his second son, Lord Thomas Howard, afterwards Earl of Suffolk. nobleman was residing here in 1603, when James the First ascended the throne; and as it was the policy of the Scottish monarch to make amends for the want of feeling which he had displayed towards his ill-fated mother in her life time, by heaping favours on those who had suffered in her cause, he selected Lord Thomas Howard to be his host previous to his solemn entry into London, and

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under his roof he passed the four days which preceded that event. Hither he was conducted by a magnificent procession, which met him at Stamford Hill, and here he was splendidly entertained by his obsequious host. Here, too, it was that he shewed his affection for his new subjects by dubbing no fewer than eighty knights; and here, at his departure, he displayed his gratitude to his host by creating him Earl of Suffolk, and appointing him to the high honours of Lord Treasurer of England, Lord Chamberlain of his household, and a Knight of the Garter.

Within a very short time, how many revolutions of fortune had passed over this interesting ground! Scarcely seventy years had elapsed since its walls had been peopled by the ill-fated Carthusians, who had performed here their daily routine of quiet duties, unsuspicious of the mighty revolution which was threatening their Church, and of their own impending fate. Within a few years every trace of them had passed away, as if their Order had never been in existence; their peaceful monastery had been transformed into a princely mansion; silken pages lounged in the cloisters which had witnessed their frightful sufferings; and in the refectory, where they had partaken of their simple repasts, sat the haughty Elizabeth surrounded by all the magnificent paraphernalia of a court. Again a change took place. The old monastery passed from the possession of the courtly lawyer, Lord North, into the hands of the princely Norfolk, and became the

scene of his daring conspiracy and romantic dreams; and, lastly, on its becoming the property of his more cautious and fortunate son, we find another sovereign, the effeminate successor of the lion-hearted Queen, honoured and feasted within its walls. Within a few more years it was destined to undergo another change, and, fortunately, to be converted to a far nobler purpose than being a sanctuary for monks, or a banqueting-house for kings.

With the exception of Guy's Hospital, the foundation and endowment of the Charter House by Sir Thomas Sutton, may be regarded as the most princely charity, for which we are indebted to the munificence of any single individual. The personal history of the founder possesses in itself no slight interest; but, even were it otherwise, the name of so eminent a benefactor to his fellow creatures could not be permitted to be passed over in entire silence. A native of Knaith, in Lincolnshire, he was born in 1531; received his education at Eton and Cambridge, and subsequently entered himself as a student at Lincoln's Inn. In early life he had passed several years travelling in foreign countries, and on his return to England, in 1562, found himself, by the death of his father, in the possession of a considerable property. He now attached himself as one of the retainers of the Duke of Norfolk,-a circumstance to which we may, perhaps, attribute that affection for the Charter House and its localities, which, many years afterwards, induced him to

become its purchaser. The zeal with which he served the Duke of Norfolk induced that nobleman to introduce him to the Earl of Warwick, whose secretary he became, and by whose influence he obtained the appointment of Master-General of the Ordnance in the North. Within a few Within a few years from this period, in consequence of the successful result of several commercial speculations, and more especially by the purchase of the manors of Gateshead and Wickham, near Newcastle, the coal mines of which yielded him immense profits, Sir Richard found himself one of the richest subjects in Europe. Wealth could scarcely have been lavished on a person more deserving of it. To him the scholar never applied for assistance in vain, nor were the poor and needy ever sent empty-handed from his door. Ever on the watch for opportunities of benefiting his fellow-creatures, he was in the habit, in years of scarcity, of filling store-houses with grain, which he afterwards disposed of at low prices to the poor. More than once, while meditating in his garden, he was overheard to use the expression, "Lord, thou has given me a large and liberal estate; give me also a heart to make use thereof." Not only was he constantly besieged with applications for relief from the scholar, the widow, and the orphan; but among his papers, which are still preserved at the Charter House, are numerous petitions for sums of money in the hand-writing of the noblest of the land, as well as piles of bonds which he appears never to have called upon them to cancel. Among