Page:Archaeologia volume 38 part 1.djvu/128

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108 Additions to the Biographies of About Lent in 1552 he was summoned before the Council, being in perpetual contention with the fellows of Eton : but about Michaelmas the duke of Northum- berland and other lords dined with him at Eton college, and acquitted him of all blame, to the reproach and disgrace of his adversaries. This visitation of Eton is noticed by King Edward in his Journal, in the following passage : " Sept. 26. The duke of Northumberland, the marquess of Northampton, the lord chamber- lain, mr. secretary Petre, and mr. secretary Cecill, ended a matter of Eton college between the master and the fellows, and also took order for the amendment of certain superstitious statutes." Smith had in the previous year begun to build a mansion at Ankerwyke, near Eton, on the site of a nunnery dissolved at the Reformation. He mentions in his memoranda that the works of this house were in progress during the years 1551 and 1552, and wore finished in 1553. The death of King Edward in July, 1553, now wrought a change in Sir Thomas Smith's fortunes : and this change was ushered in by the loss of his wife, who died on the 3d of August, the very day on which Queen Mary first entered London. In the following year he resigned the provostship of Eton and the deanery of Carlisle, receiving in lieu from the queen a yearly pension of 100. lie states that this resignation was made quasi sponte,* and it seems not impro- bable that it was done in prospect of another wife, as he would not have been allowed to retain those preferments as a married man. b The process of this second marriage is minutely recorded. It was on the 21st of July, between two and three in the afternoon, that the betrothal took place, and rings were given, with evidence of full consent ; the marriage as solemnized on the 23d of the same month, between nine and ten in the morning. The lady was Philippa, widow of Sir John Hampden, of Thcydon Mount, in Essex, whose death had occurred just seven months before (on the 21st of December, 1553), and daughter of John Wilford, of London, 11 gentleman. " He wrote first s/x>nte, and then added quati above the line. ' The deanery of Carlisle was restored, on the accession of Mary, to Lancelot Salkeld, who had been the first dean of the church, and its former prior before the Reformation. On the accession of Elizabeth it reverted to Sir Thomas Smith, and he retained it until his death in 1577. He was followed in the pre- ferment by two laymen, Sir John Wolley (sometime Latin secretary) and Sir Christopher Perkins ; so that this dignity was secularised during the whole of Elizabeth's reign, and not actually restored to the clergy until late in that of James the First. In the note at p. 44 (Oxford edit. 1820) of the Life of Smith, Strype states that in 1551 Sir Thomas "repaired to his deanery of Carlisle;" but the order of the council there quoted does not support the statement that Smith ever personally visited the church of which he was nominally the dean. c Morant's History of Essex, i. 156. 1 Not " of Lorie, gentleman," as misprinted in Strype's Life (edit 1820), p. 81 note. Smith introduces