26 Longleat Papers, No. 3. 



After the Duke^s death in 1545, she married Richard Bertie; and 

 being a zealous supporter of the Reformation, was compelled with 

 her husband to make their escape abroad. They suffered great 

 privation, travelling on foot, without food or shelter. This is 

 made the subject of a ballad, printed in Burke's Extinct Peerage 

 (" Duke of Ancaster"). Their storj is also told in Fox's Book 

 of Martyrs, in Collins's Peerage {^' D. of Ancaster"), and in Lady 

 G. Bertie's " Five Generations of a Loyal House." On Elizabeth's 

 succeeding to the throne they returned to England. It does not 

 appear for whom, both in this and the following letters, she was 

 applying so earnestly to Dudley. 



" Nowe me good lord evene for gods sake thenke un my poore cossen / and 

 speke for him to the quens m^ajeste, hows [i.e., whose] most honorable charette I 

 troste wol for God's cawse conseder the poor man and his messerable estayt / I 

 pray you pardon my tho I be so bolde so offen to trohele you mor then any other ; 

 yo^ gentlenes towaa-ds me is the cawse off it / for others have so moche to do 

 that the seme [i.e., they seem] always wyre [weary] ofB me, and truly I do not 

 blame them tho tliey be so, for I am even wyre of me seLff e in thys mater / never 

 the lyes I fend master tresserer vere gentel to my, also howe [i.e., who] hathe 

 promesed me faythefule to do his beste when so ever it shal plese you to cal un 

 him : and for the rest of our godfathers for crestes sake speke to them yo'' selffe 

 and help that my poor cossen war but out of the tower, and he she and I, w' al 

 ther cheledren, shal ferst acording to our dutes pray for the queues mageste / and 

 nyxte for you as our ownle helper under her / helpe, help, helpe, lielpe my good 

 lord that it war don. 



" yo' poor humble suetter 

 Docheted : " March 1556 * " K. Suffoulk" 



K. Suffolk." 



The same to Waltee Deveretjx, First Eaul op Essex,' 



" I have resayved yo'. lo. corteos letter and thankes you for it, but I am sore 

 that you shold so understand off me that I shold seeke any meanes to make you 

 do any theng to offend har highnes no my good lorde I have benne alwayes I 

 troste clear from any suche towche bothe for my nowen doings or procurings off 

 any me fi-ends, and I hope be gods lyve so to coimtenue / for the takeing off the 



• The date is not given in the hody of the letter, but docketed 1556 on the back by some other 

 hand. It appears to be a clerical error for 1565 : because in 1556 Mary was Queen, the Duchess 

 herself in exile, and Dudley by no means possessed of such influence at Court as he had in the 

 following reign. 



* There is no date upon this letter. It is similar to the foregoing one, but it is 

 only by conjecture that it is considered to refer to the same subject. It was 

 found, not among Dudley's papers, but among those relating to the Earls of Essex. 



