The duke was beheaded by
Elizabeth for intriguing with Mary queen of Scots, and the papers
proving his offence are said to have been found concealed beneath
the roof of the stately mansion he had erected for himself at the
Charter-House.
Before the duke came to grief that most erratic of sovereigns was a
visitor at his house--as indeed where was she not?--coming thence
from Hampton Court in 1568, and remaining a day with him; and when her
successor, James I., came to take up her English sceptre, he, mindful
of what the Howards had suffered for their sympathy with his mother's
cause, came straight thither from Theobalds, his halting-place next to
London, and remained on a visit of four days.
From the duke of Norfolk the Charter-House passed to his eldest son by
his second wife, Lord Thomas Howard, who was created by James I. earl
of Suffolk;[4] and he about 1609 sold it to Mr. Thomas Sutton.
Sutton's career was remarkable. It was said of the late earl of Derby
that even had he been born in a shepherd's cot on Salisbury Plain,
instead of in the purple at Knowsley, he would still have proved
himself a remarkable man. In local phraseology, he was "bound to get
on," and so was Thomas Sutton. The son of a country gentleman at a
place called Knaith in Lincolnshire, he inherited early in life a good
property from his father, and spent some time in traveling abroad.
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