On the night of the 12th of October there was present at an inn in Lincoln, watching the issue of events, a gentleman of Yorkshire, whose name, a few weeks later, was ringing through every English household in accents of terror or admiration.
Our story must go back to the beginning of the month. The law vacation was drawing to its close, and younger brothers in county families who then, as now, were members of the inns of court, were returning from their holidays to London. The season had been of unusual beauty. The summer had lingered into the autumn, and during the latter half of SeptemberSeptember young Sir Ralph Ellerkar, of Ellerkar Hall in 'Yorkyswold,' had been entertaining a party of friends for cub-hunting. Among his guests were his three cousins, John, Robert, and Christopher Aske. John, the eldest, was the owner of the old family property of Aughton-on-the-Derwent, a quiet unobtrusive gentleman with two sons, students at the Temple: of Robert, till he now emerges into light, we discover only that he was a barrister in good practice at Westminster; and Christopher was the possessor of an estate in Marshland in the West Riding. The Askes were highly connected, being cousins of the Earl of Cumberland,[1] whose eldest son, Lord Clifford, had recently married a daughter of the Duke of Suffolk, and niece of the King.[2]
