NORBURY MANOR HOUSE AND THE FITZHERBERTS. 249 
certain tenants of the Earl of Shrewsbury who were holding 
Padley, and keeping him out of that which he affected to regard 
as his own. Theruins of Padley and of the chapel attached to 
the manor house still remain ; but it was never tenanted for more 
than a few months after the legal murder of the priests in 1588. 
The property has changed hands with great frequency; and the 
site itself, upon which last century there was both a murder and a 
suicide, is now threatened with destruction by a projected rail- 
way line. A curse seems to cleave to the spot, as though the very 
spirit of Topcliffe impregnated the place. For cringing cant and 
fawning hypocrisy, Topcliffe had few equals ; he claimed to be a 
strong Puritan, and in the midst of his sickening cruelty and 
sensuality, found time to plead in favour of the “silenced 
ministers.” 
We give two letters of Topcliffe’s, written towards the end of 
his life to the Earl of Shrewsbury, which are somewhat favourable 
specimens of his style ; letters that have never before seen the 
light. 
**Rt honorable Earl now your Lordship hath written to me that my longe 
letters have not beene tedyooss to you to reade when I have written to you 
at lengthe comfortable newes of my simplé services doone to your Lordship 
ageynst y' Cuntry Enemyes & how I did encounter those clamourous 
complayntts to o* laite Queen (gone to God) in yo' behalfe, desyringe mee to 
contynewe that kindé of longe wrytinge: Now gyve mee leave (I besitche 
yo’ Lordship) to bee somwhat tedyooss in a cawse that dothe concearne myne 
undoinge, because I did receave no answer from your Lordship of my last lre 
syntte you by Mr. Fenton, one who honourethe you, and seemethe to loove 
mee, for I was then loathe, & still am so, that any person, but a well wisher 
to us boathe should know that yo" Lordship (whome I have honorred halfe a 
houndreade yeares above all men now lyvinge, and under whose forefahers my 
Anncestors have maide proofe of theyre loyall affectyons to their Sovereiagnes, 
& trewe loove to the Earles of Shrewsburye) sholde now go about to offer to 
heave mee (with yo" streinghthe) out of Padley, a delightfull solytary playce in 
whiche I tooke threefoulde the more pleasure for the nighnes of it unto 3 of 
y® cheefe usuall howses, so there I thought that I sholde (in my oulde dayes) 
take comfortte in yot Lo: precence, In any tyme of discomfortte suche as tyme 
dothe Breede, And as I did wryte therein, so now I trust that no practizinge 
Enemye of myne shall intresse yor L. to offer to mee that requytall for my longe 
lovinge you Eather for their reveindges against mee or for their own gaynings ; 
