besynes wythyn thys partyes. And, my der hert, y now beseche you of pardon of my long and tedyous wrytyng, and pray Almighty God to gyve you as long, good, and prosperous lyfe as evyr had prynce, and as herty blessyngs as y can axe of God.

"At Calais town, thys day of seint Annes, that y dyd bryng ynto thys world my good and gracyous prynce, kynge, and only beloved son; by

"Your humble servant, bede-woman, and modyer, "MARGARET R."

Another letter, of more brevity, was printed by Mr. Baker at the end of bishop Fisher's Sermon.

Her ladyship's "Orders for Precedence," alluded to by lord Orford, in p. 228, seem to be preserved in Harl. MS. 1107; but they are rather sumptuary regulations, and are thus entitled :

"The Ordinance and Reformacion of Apparell for greate Estates, or Princesses, with other Ladyes and Gentlewomen, for the Time of Morneinge; made by the right highe mighty and excellent Princesse Margaret Countesse of Richmont, Da: and sole Heir to the noble Prince John Duke of Somerset, and Mother to the prudent and mighty Prince Kinge Henry the Seventh, in the eight Yeir of his Raigne"."

For the clearer information of such as it might concern, the following notes were added to the several items of female apparel:

"A sloppe is a morninge cassocke for ladyes and gentlewomen, not open before. A surcote is a mourneing garmentmade like loss or straite bodyed gowne, which is worne

Skelton, that "breathless 1hymer," as he was appositely characterized by bishop Hall, wrote a Latin elegy upon the funeral of this illustrious lady, which Ballard has anglicised in his Memoirs. He compares her to Penelope, to Abigail, and to Hester :

En tres jam proceres nobilitate pares.]

under the mantle: the same for a countesse must have a trayne before, an other behinde; for a baronesse noe trayne. The traine before to be narrow, not exceeding the breadth of 8 ynches, and must be trussed up before, under the girdle, or borne upon hir left arme."

NICHOLAS 2,

LORD VAUX,

SEEMS to have been a great ornament to the reign of Henry the seventh, and to the court of Henry the eighth, in its more joyous days, before queens, ministers, peers, and martyrs, embrued so many scaffolds with their blood. William Vaux, his father, had forfeited his fortunes in the cause of Henry the sixth. They were restored to the son with the honour of knighthood, on his fighting stoutly at the battle of Stoke against the earl of Lincoln, on the side of Henry the seventh. In the seventeenth of that reign, at the marriage of prince Arthur, the brave young Vaux appeared in a gown of purple velvet, adorned with pieces of gold so thick and massive, that, exclusive of the silk and furs, it was valued at a thousand pounds: about his neck he wore a collar of SS, weighing eight hundred pounds in nobles. In those days it not

9

[In his quarto edition of this Catalogue, lord Orford remarked, that the judicious editor of the Reliques of Ancient Poetry has, on very good reasons, surmised, that Nicholas, lord Vaux, was not the poet, but his son Thomas. His lordship, however, persisted in retaining this article of Nicholas, though it ought to have been displaced for his successor.]

From a drawing by Virtue in the Pofsefsion of the Hon. Horace Walpole,

Pub May 20 1806 by J.Scott. 442.Strand.