By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 



35 



After the Protector's death his son, the Earl of Hertford, married 

 for his first wife poor Lady Catharine Grey, sister of Lady Jane 

 Grey. The marriage displeased Queen Elizabeth, who sent them to 

 the Tower, where Lady Catharine very soon died. The Earl then 

 married a widow, Frances Howard, of the Bindon Branch of that 

 old aristocratic family. 



The history of Frances Howard, before the Earl of Hertford met 

 with her, is curious. Notwithstanding her fine pedigree, she had 

 married first a vintner or wine seller's son, one Mr. Prannell. This 

 gentleman had been so awe-struck at marrying so grand a lady, 

 that he actually wrote a letter to Secretary Walsingham, apologising 

 for his own audacity. However this first husband died very early, 

 and left her all his money. She then listened to the addresses of 

 Sir George Rodney, of Somersetshire ; but before anything came of 

 that, she had met with the Earl of Hertford, just a widower, where- 

 upon she left Sir George Rodney out in the cold. Sir George was 

 really in love with her : and not being able to bear up against his 

 disappointment, he went to Ambresbury, where the Earl and Countess 

 of Hertford then lived, stopped at the village inn, wrote to her a 

 paper of verses in his own blood, and then ran himself through with 

 his sword. Ii)9|£^*>0 



During her married life with the Earl of Hertford, Frances 

 Howard used often to indulge in discourse about her own family, 

 and talk in a rather ostentatious way about her two grandfathers, 

 the Duke of Norfolk and the Duke of Buckingham ; how the one 

 had done this and the other that. Sometimes when she was in this 

 humour, the Earl, her husband, would stop her with something of 

 this kind — " Ah, Frances, Frances, but how long is it since thou 

 didst marry the vintner's son ? " The Earl died, leaving her a large 

 jointure of £5,000 a year. She then married again, and, mounting 

 a step higher in the world, became the wife of the Duke of Richmond 

 and Lenox. He also died before her, when she determined to fly at 

 still higher game. King James I. was then a widower, and she 

 gave out in society, in order that it might reach the King's ears, 

 that she had made up her mind never to eat again at the table of a 

 subject. But this bait did not catch the old King, so that she 



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