ion to liberty and honors under Mary.

One of the child's train-bearers was the countess of Kent. This was
probably the widow of the second earl of that title and of the name of
Grey: she must therefore have been the daughter of the earl of Pembroke,
a zealous Yorkist who was slain fighting in the cause of Edward IV.
Henry VIII. was doubtless aware that his best hereditary title to the
crown was derived from his mother, and during his reign the Yorkist
families enjoyed at least an equal share of favor with the Lancastrians,
whom his father had almost exclusively countenanced.

Thomas Boleyn earl of Wiltshire, the proud and happy grandfather of the
princely infant, supported the train on one side. It is not true that he
afterwards, in his capacity of a privy councillor, pronounced sentence
of death on his own son and daughter; even Henry was not inhuman enough
to exact this of him; but he lived to witness their cruel and
disgraceful end, and died long before the prosperous days of his
illustrious grandchild.

On the other side the train was borne by Edward Stanley third earl of
Derby. This young nobleman had been a ward of Wolsey, and was carefully
educated by that splendid patron of learning in his house and under his
own eye. He proved himself a faithful and loyal subject to four
successive sovereigns; stood unshaken by the tempests of the most
turbulent times; and died full of days in the possession of great
riches, high hereditary honors, and universal esteem, in 1574.

A splendid canopy was supported over the infant by four lords, three of
them destined to disastrous fates. One was her uncle, the elegant,
accomplished, viscount Rochford, whom the impartial suffrage of
posterity has fully acquitted of the odious crime for which he suffered
by the mandate of a jealous tyrant.

Another was lord Hussey; whom a rash rebellion brought to the scaffold a
few years afterwards. The two others were brothers of that illustrious
family of Howard, which furnished in this age alone more subjects for
tragedy than "Thebes or Pelops' line" of old. Lord William, uncle to
Catherine Howard, was arbitrarily adjudged to perpetual imprisonment and
forfeiture of goods for concealing her misconduct; but Henry was pleased
soon after to remit the sentence: he lived to be eminent in the state
under the title of lord Howard of Effingham, and died peacefully in a
good old age. Lord Thomas suffered by the ambition so frequent in his
house, of