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Swindon and Us 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. 1 He had done all he possibly could to injure the celebrated 

 Eoger Ascham, who had been appointed by Bishop Gardiner Latin 

 master to Elizabeth when Princess. 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 Strypes Memorials, vol. iii., part ii., p. 161. 



