368 IRtngs of tbe 1buntina*3fielb 



Arthur was a prisoner in the hands of his cruel uncle, 

 what was his idea of perfect bliss ? 



' By my Christendom 

 So I were out of prison and kept sheep, 

 I should be as merry as the day is long.' 



But honest John Spencer, the founder of the Spencer 

 family, was something more than a shepherd, he was a 

 ' breeder of fat beeves and oxen ; ' a prosperous 

 Warwickshire grazier, in fact, with a sound judgment in 

 buying land. He was a worthy citizen, one of those 

 steady, sober men of substance whom the then reigning 

 monarch, Henry the Seventh, the most business-like and 

 thrifty of the Tudors, liked to have about him. Con- 

 sequently John Spencer was knighted, and among his 

 other extensive land-purchases, bought i\lthorp in 

 Northamptonshire, the present lordly seat of the 

 Spencers, which he converted into a huge grazing farm. 

 His great-grandson, the hero of the scene in the 

 House of Lords, was knighted by Elizabeth, and 

 created a Baron by James the First. Camden says : 

 ' He was a worthy encourager of virtue and learn- 

 ing ; ' and that he also possessed the agricultural 

 tastes of his sire and grandsire, I gather from the 

 following passage in Wilson's Life of King James the 

 First. ' Spencer,' he says (' like the old Roman chosen 

 Dictator from his farm), made the country a virtuous 

 court, where his fields and flocks brought him more calm 

 and happy contentment than the various and unstable 

 dispensations of a court can contribute, and, when he 

 was called to the Senate, was more vigilant to keep the 

 people's liberties from being a prey to the encroaching 

 power of monarchy than his harmless and tender lambs 

 from foxes and ravenous creatures.' It would hardly be 



