"First I report me to my servants, some of whom are gentlemen, right honest men; to their servants; yea! and let them answer themselves. Did ye not sit always at the upper end of the table? Went we abroad at any time together, but either the one or the other was at my right hand? Came any man to visit me, whom I made not do ye reverence, and visit ye too? Had ye not in the galley the best and most commodious places? Had any man a worse than I? Where ye were charged with a groat, was I not charged with five? Was not I for all this first in the commission? Was not I ambassador resident? A better man than either of ye both, should have gone without that honour that I did you, if he had looked for it. I know no man that did you dishonour, but your unmannerly behaviour, that måde ye a laughing stock to all that came into your company; and me sometimes to sweat for shame to see you; yet let others judge how I hid and covered your faults. But I have not to do to charge you; I will not spend the time about it. "But mark I pray you! I lent not them my horses.' They never desired to go into the town, to walk or stir out of their lodgings, but they had mule, or horse, or both, ready for them, foot cloth, and harnessed with velvet, the best that I had for mule or hackney.— Marry! it was thought indeed among us that Bonner could have been content to have been upon a genet with gilt harness. These men came in post and went again in post. At their parting, my servants had gotten their post horses ready; would they have had without necessity, my horse to have ridden post? I brought them to their horse; would they I should have accompanied them riding in post? Children would not have C played the fool so notably. Was not this a pretty article towards treason to have been alledged against me by Bonner? Some men might think that hereby a man might perceive the malice that hath moved my trouble. But yet it shall be more manifest. "Another occasion there is, that I should say,"They were more meet to be parish priests than ambassadors." By my truth, I never liked them indeed for ambassadors; and no more did the most part of them that saw them, and namely, they that had to do with them. But that I said not, on my faith, to any stranger. But if I said they were meeter to be parish priests, on my faith I never remember it; and it is not like I should say so, for as far as I could see, neither of them both had greatly any fancy to mass; and that ye know were requisite for parish priests; for this, all that were there can report, that not one of them all the while they were there, said mass, or offered to hear mass, though it was but a superstition. I say both Mason and I, because of the name that Englishmen then had to be all Lutherans, were fain to entreat them that we might sometimes shew ourselves in the church together, that men conceived not an ill opinion of us. Let Mason be asked of this. It was not like then that the Bishop of London should sue to have the scripture in English taken out of the church. 66 But because I bound myself to make this malice of my accusers to appear manifest to you, let me come to another part of their accusing, which was, by Bonner's letters to the Earl of Essex, that I lived viciously amongst the Nuns of Barcelona. "To the end ye be fully persuaded and informed of the matter, there be many Nuns in the town, and most of them gentlewomen; and many here and there talk with those ladies, and when they will, go in and sit company together with them, talking in their chambers. Gentlemen of the Emperor's chamber, Earls, Lords, Dukes use the same, and I among them. I used not the pastime in company with ruffians, but with such as these; or with the ambassadors of Ferrara, of Mantua, or of Venice, a man of forty years old, and such vicious company. 66 I pray you now let me turn my tale to Bonner, for this riseth of him; yea! and so I think doth all the rest; for his crafty malice I suppose in my conscience abuseth the other's simpleness. “Come on now my Lord of London, what is my abominable and vicious living? Do ye know it?-or have ye heard it? I grant I do not profess chastity; but yet I use no abomination. If ye know it, tell it here, with whom, and when? If ye heard it, who is your author? Have you seen me have any harlot in my house whilst ye were in my company? Did you ever see woman so much as dine or sup at my table? None, but for your pleasure! The woman that was in the galley; which I assure you may be well seen, for before you came, neither she nor any other came above the mast. But because the gentlemen took pleasure to see you entertain her, therefore they made her dine and sup with you; and they liked well your look, your carving to Madonna, your drinking to her, and your playing under the table. Ask Mason, ask Blage, (Bowes is dead,) ask Wolf that was my Steward; they can tell how the gentlemen marked it, and talked of it. It was play to them; the keeping of your bottles that no man might drink but yourself; and, "That the little fat priest were a jolly morsel for the Signora." This was their talk; it is not my device." It may be remarked here, that my Lord of London is treated with very little ceremony throughout the whole of this speech, and must have made, as he assuredly deserved, a very ridiculous figure. The other priest alluded to was Dr. Haynes, the King's chaplain. After Sir Thomas Wyatt's acquittal, the King, to mark his sense of the injustice done him, conferred upon him several valuable grants of land, and offices of trust. But our Poet sought retirement, and the cultivation of his talents upon the banks of the Medway. Soon after this escape he composed many of his best pieces, and among others, his satires addressed to Poynz and Sir Francis Bryan, and his paraphrase of the seven penetentiary psalms, which was considered by him principally as a religious exercise. At this period of his life, Sir Thomas Wyatt seems to have had the command of a ship of war, as appears from a passage in a Latin poem by Leland the antiquary.* The sea service at this era was not a distinct branch of the military department of the state, and the command of ships was given indiscriminately to any approved leader. The circumstance, however, may be advanced in proof of the versatility of Wyatt's genius. In the autumn of 1542 Sir Thomas Wyatt was sent by order of the King, to meet the Imperial ambassador who had landed at Falmouth, for the purpose of con * Hæc Pinus volucris; nova hæc triremis, ducting him to London. The weather was hot, and Wyatt to shew his zeal in his master's service, rode with too much haste. On his arrival at Sherborne, he was seized with a fever, which in a few days, notwithstanding the care of one of his most intimate friends who resided in the neighbourhood, and who attended him assiduously, terminated his life. He was buried on the 11th of October, in the great church at Sherborne, but no monument has been raised there to his memory. Sir Thomas Wyatt died in the thirty-ninth year of his age. His widow afterwards married Sir Edward Warner. He had issue one Son only, who obtained the honour of knighthood in his father's life-time, and was commonly known by the appellation of Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger. His short and calamitous life forms part of the history of his time. In the general character of Sir Thomas Wyatt, there is much to admire. The Emperor Charles the fifth, a consummate judge, declared him to be the most accomplished gentleman of his time, and a man of the greatest penetration and acuteness in business. His own master, Henry the eighth, also no mean judge of merit, selected him as his favourite companion, delighted in his conversation, and employed his talents. How he was esteemed and mourned by the accomplished Surrey, will be shewn in the progress of this work. He was a Scholar, a Wit, a Poet, an Orator, a Man of the World, a Statesman, a Reformer, a Military and a Naval Commander. That he was attentive, in no common degree, to the retired and domestic duties, his beautiful letters to his son, and the |