Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/137

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Arnold
75
Arnold

contains a bibliographical sketch by Mr. Buxton Forman); and an excellent likeness is engraved as the frontispiece to his ‘Poetical Works,’ 1890 (cf. Harper’s Magazine, May 1888). There is as yet no collective edition of his writings in England, though a uniform edition in ten volumes was issued in America (New York, 1884, &c.); a bibliography was published by Mr. Thomas Burnett Smart in 1892. ‘The Matthew Arnold Birthday Book, arranged by his daughter, Eleanor Arnold,’ with a portrait, was issued in a handsome quarto, 1883.

[Arnold’s correspondence is the only comprehensive authority for his life. Professor Saintsbury’s monograph (1899) is admirable wherever it is not warped by hostility to Arnold’s speculative ideas and some of his literary predilections. References to him in contemporary literature are endless, and he is the subject of innumerable critiques, including essays upon his poetry by Mr. A. C. Benson and the present writer, accompanying editions of his poems, and a remarkable article on the Poems of 1853 by Froude, in the Westminster Review (January 1854). The ethical aspects of Arnold’s teaching are examined in John M. Robertson’s Modern Humanists, 1891; in G. White’s Matthew Arnold and the Spirit of the Age, 1898; and in W. H. Hudson’s Studies in Interpretation, New York, 1896. An interesting sketch of Arnold as a teacher is given in Sir Joshua Fitch’s Thomas and Matthew Arnold in the Great Educators Series, 1897. A few additional letters were printed with Arthur Galton’s Two Essays upon Matthew Arnold, 1897. There is an interesting estimate of Arnold as a thinker in Crozier’s My Inner Life, 1898, pp. 521–9.]

R. G.


ARNOLD, Sir NICHOLAS (1507?–1580), lord justice in Ireland, born about 1507, was the second but eldest surviving son of John Arnold (d. 1545–6) of Churcham, Gloucestershire, and his wife Isabel Hawkins. His father was prothonotary and clerk of the crown in Wales, and in 1541–2 was granted the manors of Highnam and Over, also in Gloucestershire. Nicholas Arnold was one of Henry VIII’s gentlemen pensioners as early as 1526; after 1530 he entered Cromwell’s service, and was by him employed in connection with the dissolution of the monasteries. In December 1538 he was promoted into the king’s service, and a year later he became one of Henry VIII’s new bodyguard. On 10 Jan. 1544–5 he was returned to parliament as one of the knights for Gloucestershire. In the same year he was in command of the garrison at Queenborough, and in July 1546 he was sent to take charge, with a salary of 26s. 8d. a day, of Boulogneberg, a fort above Boulogne, which passed with it into English hands by the peace of that year. Arnold at once reported that the fort was not in a position for defence; but Somerset in 1547 did something to remedy the fault, and when on 1 May 1549, four months before declaring war, the French attacked Boulogneberg, they were completely defeated. Arnold had only four hundred men and the French three thousand; Arnold was wounded, but the French are said to have filled fifteen wagons with their dead (Wriothesley, Chron. ii. 11). A fresh attack was made in August, when Arnold, recognising the hopelessness of a defence, removed all the ordnance and stores into Boulogne, and dismantled the fort. For the remainder of the war and until the cession of Boulogne Arnold acted as one of the council there. He was knighted some time during the reign of Edward VI, and during the latter part of it seems to have travelled in Italy (Cal. State Papers, For. 1547–53, pp. 227, 237, 242). He returned to England in time to sit for Gloucestershire in Edward VI’s last parliament (February–March 1553).

Arnold made no open opposition to Mary’s accession, but he fell under suspicion at the time of Wyatt’s rebellion. On 9 Feb. 1553–4 the sheriff of Gloucestershire reported to the council ‘words spoken by Arnold relative to the coming of the king of Spain,’ and Wyatt compromised him by saying that he was the first to whom William Thomas [q. v.] mentioned his plot to assassinate the queen. On 21 Feb. Arnold was committed to the Fleet, being removed to the Tower three days later. He remained there until 18 Jan. 1554–5, when he was released on sureties for two thousand pounds. On 23 Sept. following he was even elected to parliament for his old constituency, but he still maintained relations with various conspirators against Mary, and in January 1555–6 was implicated in Sir Henry Dudley [q. v. Suppl.] and Uvedale’s plot to drive the Spaniards from England [see Uvedale, Richard]. On 19 April he was again committed to the Tower (Machyn, Diary, p. 104), and his deposition taken on 6 May is still extant (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, p. 82). On 23 Sept. following he was removed to the Fleet, where he was allowed ‘liberty of the house.’ Soon afterwards he was released on condition of not going within ten miles of Gloucestershire, and even this restriction was relaxed on 3 Feb. 1556–7.

After the accession of Elizabeth, Arnold became sheriff of Gloucestershire 1558–9, and in 1562 he was selected to go to Ireland to report on the complaints against Sussex’s administration. Froude describes him as