362 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 106. 



Norfolk, a younger son of King Edward I., and 

 was interred at Arundel. His will, dated at 

 Dover, 3rd September, 1640, was proved in the 

 Prerogative Court of Canterbury, and is printed 

 in the Howard Anecdotes. His marbles, medals, 

 statues, books, and pictures (he is said to have 

 possessed "a larger number of Hans Holbein's 

 works than any other person, and to have been 

 the first nobleman who set a value on them in our 

 nation "), formed at that period, says Sir Charles 

 Young*, one of the finest and most splendid col- 

 lections in England. Many of the articles of 

 virtu and of the books were, during his lifetime, 

 in the possession of Alathea, his Countess (who 

 was third daughter and coheir of Gilbert Talbot, 

 Earl of Shrewsbury), from whom some of them 

 were obtained by his younger son. Sir William 

 Howard, the unfortunate Viscount Stafford (be- 

 headed 1680, on perjured testimony); and a 

 portion of the marble statues and library devolved 

 upon Henry Frederick, his eldest son, who, in his 

 father's lifetime, was summoned to parliament as 

 Lord Mowbray, and succeeded him as Earl of 

 Arundel, and who died in 1652, leaving Thomas, 

 his eldest son, who became Earl of Arundel, 

 Surrey, and Norfolk, and was, at the Restoration 

 in 1660, restored to the dukedom of Norfolk, with 

 limitation to the heirs male of his fiither. Tliis 

 nobleman died unmarried in 1677, and his brother 

 Henry (who had been created Earl of Norwich, 

 and in 1672 Earl Marshal of England, to him and 

 the heirs male of his body, with other limitations 

 in default) thereupon became sixth Duke of 

 Norfolk. By iiim the marbles and library were 

 finally dispersed. 



The Royal Society had held their meetings since 

 the Fire of London at Arundel House; and John 

 Evelyn, Esq., author of the Si/lva, one of the 

 founders of the society, observing in 1667 



" these precious monuments miserably neglected, and 

 scattered up and down about the garden and other 

 parts of Arundel House, and how exceedingly the cor- 

 rosive air of London impaired them," 



induced this nobleman, then Mr. Henry Howard, 

 to bestow on the University of Oxford 

 "his Arundelian marbles, those celebrated and famous 

 inscriptions, Greek and Latins, gathered with so much 

 cost and industrie from Greece, by his illustrious 

 grandfather the niagniticent Earl of Arundel." — Diar^, 

 vol. ii. p. 295. 



In 1676 Mr. Evelyn induced the Duke to grant to 

 the Royal Society the Arundel library, into which 

 many of the MSS. formerly belonging to Lord 

 William Howard (the famous ancestor of the Earl 

 of Carlisle), who died in 1640, had found their 



j I * In his preface to the Catalogue of MSS. given to 

 i I the College of Arms by Henry Duke of Norfolk (not 

 I j published). 



way from Naworth Castle in the lifetime of Thomas, 

 Earl of Arundel. In the same volume of Evelyn's 

 Diary, p. 445., is a minute, under date 29th Au- 

 gust, 1678, from which it appears that he was then 

 called to take charge of the books and MSS., and 

 remove to the then home of the Royal Society in 

 Gresham College, such of them as did not relate 

 to the ofiice of Earl ]\Iarshal and to heraldry, his 

 grace intending to bestow the books relating to 

 those subjects upon the Heralds' College. It is 

 known, however, that many chronicles and his- 

 torical MSS. of great value Ibrmed part of the 

 donation to the College of Arms ; and it would 

 appear from a document in the handwriting of 

 Sir William Dugdale, referred to by Sir Charles 

 Young, that many monastic registers and cartu- 

 laries which were taken to Gresham College, had 

 nevertheless been intended by the Duke for the 

 College over which, as Earl Marshal, he presided. 

 This nobleman died 1684. 



In 1678, according to Mr. Cunningham (who 

 quotes Walpole's Anecdotes, ii. 153.), Arundel 

 House itself was demolished. This w;is done pur- 

 suant to an act of parliament, which had been 

 obtained for the purpose of entailing the estate 

 on heirs male, exempt from being charged with 

 jointures or debts, and empowering the Duke to 

 let a part of the site of the house and gardens to 

 builders, at reserved ground-rents, which were to 

 form a fund for building a mansion for the family 

 on that part of the gardens adjacent to the river. 

 The house was planned by Wren, but the design 

 was laid aside about the year 1690, when Henry, 

 seventh Duke of Norfolk, who was a favourite of 

 William Prince of Orange, obtained an act of 

 parliament empowering him to lease the remainder 

 of the garden-ground for a term of forty-one 

 years, and to appropriate to himself the fund 

 which had accumulated. He accordingly let the 

 ground to Mr. Stone of New Inn, an attorney, and 

 buildings of a very ditlerent character to the pa- 

 latial mansion that had been contemplated, ere 

 long overspread the site of Arundel House. The 

 seventh duke died in 1701. It appears that his 

 friend King William had made him Governor of 

 AVindsor Castle ; but at his death 12,000?. were due 

 to him for arrears of salary, which sum it is said 

 was never paid. 



The museum of objects illustrative of natural 

 history, and great part of the furniture of Arundel 

 House, were removed to Stafford House (sittiated 

 without Buckingham Gate, where Stafford Row 

 was subsequently built), in which house, in the 

 year 1720, the Duchess of Norfjlk, consort of 

 Thomas, eighth Duke, sold an immense quantity 

 of plate, jewels, furniture, pictures, and curiosities. 

 Besides these, however, many iiunily reliques were 

 at that time in the hands of different branches of 

 this noble family, as, for example, the grace-cup of 

 St. Thomas of Canterbury (which had belonged to 



