FROM COLE 30 JULY 1772 273 remitted in the third tome of Fascic
As I have not Brown's Fasciculus I can't say whether this design took effect. 6 In Strype's Life of Grindal, p. 5,5 it looks as [if] Bishop Ridley,6 the Protestant martyr, had no great opinion in 1550 of the character of William Thomas, whom Father Persons the Jesuit? accuses of a design to kill Queen Mary, but Bishop Bale of Ossory^ says that the reason of his execution was a design upon the life of Bishop Gardi- ner^ (Cent. [16], vol. 2, p. 110). In either case it shows the violence of his principles. Bale's words are these:
Cum in Stephanum Wintoniensem violentas Manus injicere statuisset, supplicio affectus est A. D. 1554.10
If I can be of any further use, please to command me. Last year, about October," I begged the favour of you to give a re lation of mine, Mr Mawdsley, a considerable tradesman in London, leave to see your house at Strawberry Hill. I don't remember you ever gave me any answer to it, through inadvertency, I make no doubt. As his servants keep Sturbridge Fair,12 I shall see him again probably at the end of September, and shall be glad to tell him that he may have that liberty. I take your reprehension very kindly. I am sure I have inclination enough to come to Strawberry Hill, and wish my excuse concerning it may not be too real, and allow me that pleasure, but my sore throats are so sudden, frequent and troublesome, that I can never
4. Cole's interpolation. 9. Stephen Gardiner (i483?-i55^), Bp of 5. John Strype, The History of the Life Winchester. and Acts of . . . Edmund Grindal, 1710. 10. Cole has slightly modernized the The passage to which Cole refers is a quo- spelling. The following addition appears tation from a letter of Bishop Ridley to in his copy: 'We may reasonably conclude Sir John Cheke. he [Thomas] deserved to be hanged, or 6. Nicholas Ridley (i5oo?-55), succes- Bale, of whose fiery spirit he seems to sively Bishop of Rochester and London. partake, would have made some apology 7. Robert Parsons or Persons (1546- for hi___11m.. 1610), Jesuit missionary and controversial- 11. See ante 3 Nov. 1771. ist; author of more than thirty works. 12. The fair began 7 Sept. and con- 8. In his Scriptorum Illustrium Maioris tinued for three weeks (see Bibliotheca Britanniae, 1557-9. In his copy of this let- Topographica Britannica, No. 38- The ter, Cole calls Bale'foul-mouthed Bale, the History and Antiquities of Barnwell Ab- protestant Bishop of Ossory.' bey, and of Sturbridge Fair, 1786, p 80)