the celebrated Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, was married to his second wife, Frances, daughter and heir of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, Bart. With this lady, as the great Chancellor himself informs us, he lived "very comfortably in the most uncomfortable times, and very joyfully in those times when matter of joy was administered, for the space of five or six and thirty years."* By this wife Lord Clarendon was the father of Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, who became the mother of Mary and Anne, successively. Queens of England. One would willingly be able to point out the spot in St. Margaret's churchyard where rest the remains of the great and gallant Admiral Blake. The parliament having voted him a public funeral, he was buried with great magnificence in Henry the Seventh's chapel. At the Restoration, however, to the great disgrace of the government, his body was taken up and flung into a pit in St. Margaret's churchyard. At the same time were removed, and thrown into the same hole, the bodies of Oliver Cromwell's mother,―of Thomas May, the translator of Lucan and the historian of the Commonwealth,-and of the celebrated Dr. Dorislaus, assistant to the high court of justice which tried Charles the First. His murdered remains had been brought from the Hague, where he was assassinated by the Royalists, to be honourably interred in Westminster Abbey.† * "Lord Clarendon's Life of Himself," "Biog. Brit." WESTMINSTER. THE SANCTUARY.-PERSONS WHO TOOK REFUGE THERE. THE GATEHOUSE. ITS HISTORY.-TOTHILL STREET.-THE STREETS OF OLD REMARKABLE PERSONS WESTMINSTER.-WESTMINSTER EDUCATED THERE. SCHOOL. THE famous Sanctuary,-a place of refuge for criminals apparently from the time of Edward the Confessor, stood on the ground on which the Westminster Hospital and the Guildhall now stand The church which belonged to it, and which was in the form of a cross and of great antiquity, was pulled down about 1750, to make room for a market which was afterwards held on its site. Dr. Stukely, the antiquary, who remembered its destruction, informs us that its walls were of vast strength and thickness, and that it was not without difficulty that it was demolished.* When Edward the Fourth, in 1470, was compelled to fly the kingdom at the approach of the king-maker, Warwick, with his victorious army, his beautiful Queen, Elizabeth Grey, flew for refuge to the Sanctuary at Westminster, and in its precincts she was delivered of her eldest son, afterwards * "Archæologia." Edward the Fifth, whose subsequent tragical fate in the Tower is so well known. I'll hence forthwith unto the Sanctuary, Thirteen years afterwards, when the designs of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, against the life and authority of his young nephew were but too apparent, the Queen, with her young son, the Duke of York, again flew for refuge to the Sanctuary at Westminster. We all remember the beautiful passage in "Richard the Third," where the brokenhearted Queen bids farewell to the Duchess of York, and hastens with her child to the only asylum which her enemies have left to her. Her eldest-born was already in the hands of the usurper: Ah! me, I see the ruin of my house: The tiger now hath seized the gentle hind; Come, come, my boy, we will to sanctuary. Anxious by all means to get the young Duke of York in his power, and, enraged at his prey slipping through his hands, Richard summoned his council, and unhesitatingly proposed to take the young Prince from the Sanctuary by force. To the council he represented, in his usual plausible and jesuitical manner, the indignity which had been put on the regency by the Queen's ill-grounded apprehensions, and the necessity of the Duke of York walking in procession at the coronation of his brother. He further insisted, that ecclesiastical privileges were originally intended only to give protection to persons persecuted for their crimes or debts, and could therefore in no way apply to one of tender years, who, having committed no offence, had no right to claim security from any sanctuary. There were present at the council-table Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Rotherham, Archbishop of York, who boldly protested against the sacrilege of the measure. The church of Westminster, to which the Sanctuary was attached, said the Archbishops, had been consecrated five hundred years since by St. Peter himself, who descended from heaven in the night, attended by multitudes of angels. No King of England, they added, had ever dared to violate that Sanctuary, and such an attempt would certainly draw down the just vengeance of God upon the whole kingdom. It was at length agreed that the two primates should wait on the Queen in the Sanctuary, and should first of all endeavour to bring the Queen to compliance by persuasion, before any more violent measures were resorted to. The scene between Gloucester's creature, the Duke of Buckingham, and Cardinal Bourchier, is admirably dramatized by Shakspeare: Buck. Lord Cardinal, will your grace If she deny-Lord Hastings go with him, And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce. Buck. You are too senseless-obstinate, my Lord, You break not sanctuary in seizing him. age, To those whose dealings have deserved the place, Oft have I heard of Sanctuary men; But Sanctuary children ne'er till now. Hast. I go, my Lord. There can be little doubt, from their established character for integrity, that when Cardinal Bourchier and the Archbishop of York waited on the unfortunate Queen, in the Sanctuary, they were both fully satisfied of Gloucester's good intentions, and consequently were quite sincere when they used every argument and entreaty to induce her to give up her beloved child. She remained for a long time obstinate, but finding herself unsupported in her opposition, and being assured that force would in all probability be used should she persist in her ob |