GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



Cranmer, and Latimer, the saintly Bishop of Worcester ; and there 

 all three were burnt at the stake in 1555. Of him it was said that 

 " he was small in stature, but great in learning and divinity." 



Edmund Grindal was successively Bishop of London, Archbishop 

 of York, and Archbishop of Canterbury. He was a patron of learn- 

 ing, the friend of Burleigh and Bacon, and an ardent admirer of 

 Edmund Spenser, who introduced him into the " Shepherd's 

 Calendar " by the name of " Algrande." He enjoyed many 

 excellent preferments under Edward VI., until the death of that 

 prince and the accession of Mary, compelled him, in common with 

 many other divines, to flee the country. When Elizabeth suc- 

 ceeded her sister, Grindal returned and followed Bonner in the See 

 of London. 



We are now approaching the golden age of gardening, and 

 Grindal appears to have done a good deal to improve the episcopal 

 demesne, for it was just about this time (1559) that the gardens of 

 Fulham House first began to attract attention. But even during 

 the reign of Bonner the Fulham vines had evidently made a certain 

 reputation. We find him writing : 



4 My grapes this year are not yet ripe, but about the ende of 

 next weeke I hope to send some to the Queen's Majestic." 

 Presumably, therefore, Mary was fond of the fruit of the vine. 

 So appears to have been her sister, for Grindal was eleven years 

 at Fulham, during which time he seems to have been in the habit 

 of annually sending grapes to Elizabeth, who, although she with- 

 drew her favour from him after he became Archbishop, had not 

 done so at this time. Faulkner tells us that " the grapes that 

 grew at Fulham were nowadays of such fine value, and a fruit 

 that the Queen stood so well affected to, and so early ripe, that the 

 bishop used every year to send them by one of his servants ; but 

 the report was that at this very time the plague was at his house, 

 and that one nearly died of that distemper there, and three more 

 were sick, by which occasion both the Queen and the Court were 

 in danger, and well it was that no sickness happened them, for if 

 it had, all the blame would have been laid upon the bishop." The 

 bishop, foreseeing this, vindicated himself forthwith in a letter to 

 Secretary Cecil. He explained that " the man's sickness was not 

 of the plague, and he had only been three days ill in the house," 

 but with sickness upon him, he had foolishly gone abroad, had 



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