254 NORBURY MANOR HOUSE AND THE FITZHERBERTS. 
aged 74. For thirty years he had never seen his much loved 
home at Norbury, that he had done so much to beautify. His 
next brother John was supposed to look after the estates, but his 
own imprisonment and constant harassing did not permit him to 
be a very competent overseer, and the perpetual fines made it 
almost impossible to execute even the most necessary repairs. It 
was now that the decay of the fair Hall of Norbury began. John 
Fitzherbert died the year before his brother, and his unnatural 
son Thomas (though Topcliffe tried to get Norbury as well as 
Padley) came to the manor of Norbury in succession to his uncle. 
On the death of Thomas without issue, Norbury passed to his 
brother Anthony. 
The following letter, written by Anthony Fitzherbert when in 
Derby gaol, is not very creditable to the sixteenth lord of Nor- 
bury, for we know that he resumed his Romanism almost imme- 
diately on his release ; but for this he had to pay a longer term of 
‘imprisonment in a London gaol. But we must not judge him too 
harshly, Derby gaol seems to have been enough to unnerve any 
one, and Anthony had seen his father rot away there, but a few 
months before he wrote his letter. This letter, like most of those 
we have quoted, is now for the first time published :— 
“*Right honorable & my verie good Lorde I most humblie beseeche your 
honor to comyserate my poore & distressed estate, remaynyng heere a prysoner 
w'hin the Gaole of Darbye by yo' Lps comittment and direction from the Lls 
of her Mati¢ most honorable previe counselle, And forasmuche as I have been 
examyned before yot Lp of diuvers articles & have answered thereto, so as I 
truste yo honor dooth well pceive me no medler in matters of state, but only 
mysledd in poyntes of Religion, wherein I have been housled upp from my 
infancy (never tasting any other pape) but nowe more & more weighing within 
my self and duely considering yo most honorable admonytions & sage counsayle 
wherewith yo Lp did psuade me, which hath taken deepe roote in me, and 
moved me more than any durance of ymprysonment or terror of Lawe coulde 
ever have doon, So that nowe my good Lord I well percive my owne blyndness 
and acknowledge myself to have too too (sc) longe wandered in the darkesome 
night of ignorance never escryinge any daye light before, Therefore I most 
humble beseech yo Lo (for charities sake) to be a meanes to the most honorable 
LLp of Her Matic previe counsell for my enlardgment, For my truste is their 
honot will be as mercyfull to me as they have been to others in like case as 
