Ve ae 
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178 Swindon and its Neighbourhood—No, 2. 
Mary’s household whilst she was only Princess, and when he was 
charged by the Council to take to her their order, forbidding mass 
to be said in her house, he stoutly refused to carry the message, for 
which refusal he was committed to the Tower for three months. 
After Mary came to the throne he was present at the trial of Bishop 
Hooper, who was burned at Gloucester; was made Master of the 
Wards and one of the Queen’s Privy Council. I met with a curious 
letter among Lord Bath’s papers at Longleat, written by a Mr, 
Mozley, a lawyer of the Middle Temple in London, in which he 
says :—“ Master Englefield lyeth at his house at Englefield. He 
continueth in great favor, and is like to increase. I have already 
sent forth his patent for the inheritance of Great Fasterne, and 
well I am at the mill to grind more good grist for him.” Mr. 
Mozley’s mill, however, soon stopped grinding, for Mary dying, 
Queen Elizabeth succeeded, and no more good grist for Master 
Englefield. He made himself obnoxious as a deadly enemy to 
Elizabeth, .and consequently got into great trouble. . “An evil 
custom,” says Strype the historian, “ prevailed in those days, of 
allowing great men to have a number of retainers who were not 
menial servants, but wore a distinctive dress, a hat or badge, and 
attended on special occasions. Those licenses were given to lords 
or gentlemen on purpose for the maintenance of quarrels, and many 
murders were committed by their means, and feuds kept up among 
the nobility and gentry.” Sir Francis Englefield must either have 
been very fond of quarrelling, or have been exposed to some ex- 
traordinary peril, for he had a body-guard of no less than a hundred 
men.! He had done all he possibly could to injure the celebrated 
Roger Ascham, who had been appointed by Bishop Gardiner Latin 
master to Elizabeth when [rincess. In the life of Sir Thomas 
Smith, Secretary of State, Sir Francis Englefield is described as a 
fierce Papist, who had often cried out against Ascham as a heretic 
fit to be rejected and punished, but Gardiner would not hear of 
Ascham’s removal. No wonder, then, that on Elizabeth’s accession 
Englefield fled to Spain. He was recalled, but refused to come. 
His estate at Fasterne was forfeited, but the Queen declined to 
1 Strype’s Memorials, vol. iii., part ii., p. 161. 
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