period; many of them the near relatives, and too
often for that very reason the inevitable victims, of one of the
greatest and yet, perhaps, the very worst of our kings. For we are in
the country of the Boleyns, of the Guldefords, of the Sydneys, of the
Auchers, of the Colepepers, of the Hales, the Roberts, the Mayneys, the
Harlackendens, the Bakers, and a host of kindred families, whose
memorials fill the churches around us, and whose public and private life
is interwoven with that of the most touching and romantic period of our
national history. I wish that I had but the grouping and colouring skill
of the painter, or the descriptive power of a word-painting historian,
or the fire of a dramatist, that I might bring before your imagination,
as vividly as I could wish, the more illustrious of the members of these
great historic houses; but it would need almost the wand of a magician
to conjure up the many scenes of |
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stirring interest in which they took part, and the
strange vicissitudes which were witnessed in their ever-changing
fortunes.
But there is one family among the number which stands out
from the rest more conspicuously than any other; and whose name gathers
around it some of the noblest memories and most affecting incidents of
the period—that of the Guldefords of Hempsted in
Benenden, and of Halden in Rolvenden; eminent from a much earlier age
than that which witnessed its connection with royalty; illustrious in
the person of the great Duchess of Northumberland, whose maiden name is
read in that of the unfortunate Lord Guldeford Dudley, the husband of
Lady Jane Grey, "who were lovely and pleasant in their lives, while
in their deaths they were not divided."
The little parish of East Guldeford in Sussex, in |