ops, and earls. Then came, bearing the gilt basins, Henry
earl of Essex, the last of the ancient name of Bourchier who bore the
title. He was a splendid nobleman, distinguished in the martial games
and gorgeous pageantries which then amused the court: he also boasted of
a royal lineage, being sprung from Thomas of Woodstock, youngest son of
Edward III.; and perhaps he was apprehensive lest this distinction might
hereafter become as fatal to himself as it had lately proved to the
unfortunate duke of Buckingham. But he perished a few years after by a
fall from his horse; and leaving no male issue, the king, to the disgust
of this great family, conferred the title on the low-bred Cromwel, then
his favorite minister.

The salt was borne by Henry marquis of Dorset, the unfortunate father of
lady Jane Grey; who, after receiving the royal pardon for his share in
the criminal plot for setting the crown on the head of his daughter,
again took up arms in the rebellion of Wyat, and was brought to expiate
this treason on the scaffold.

William Courtney marquis of Exeter followed with the taper of virgin
wax; a nobleman who had the misfortune to be very nearly allied to the
English throne; his mother being a daughter of Edward IV. He was at this
time in high favor with the king his cousin, who, after setting aside
his daughter Mary, had even declared him heir-apparent, to the
prejudice of his own sisters: but three years after he fell a victim to
the jealousy of the king, on a charge of corresponding with his
proscribed kinsman cardinal Pole: his honors and estates were forfeited;
and his son, though still a child, was detained in close custody.

The chrism was borne by lady Mary Howard, the beautiful daughter of the
duke of Norfolk; who lived not only to behold, but, by the evidence
which she gave on his trial, to assist in the most unmerited
condemnation of her brother, the gallant and accomplished earl of Surry.
The king, by a trait of royal arrogance, selected this lady, descended
from our Saxon monarchs and allied to all the first nobility, for the
wife of his base-born son created duke of Richmond; but it does not
appear that the spirit of the Howards was high enough in this reign to
feel the insult as it deserved.

The royal infant, wrapped in a mantle of purple velvet, having a long
train furred with ermine, was carried by one of her godmothers, the
dowager-duchess of Norfolk. Anne Boleyn was this lady's
step-grand-daugh