proves to have been connected with Brunston, wrote a letter to Sir Ralph Sadler, in which he directly offered to kill the Cardinal, if Henry would have it done, and would promise to reward him when it was done. Sadler shewed the letter to the Council of the North, who communicated the proposal to the king. The Privy Council replied, that His Majesty desired them to signify that "his Highnes, reputing the fact not mete to be set forward expressely by His Majestie, will not seme to have to do in it, and yet, not mislykyng the offre, thinkyth good that Mr. Sadleyr, to whom that lettre was addressed, should write to th'Erle of the receipt of his lettre conteigning such an offre, which he thinketh not convenient to be communicated to the Kinges Majestie. Mary, to write to hym what he thynketh of the matter, he shall say, that if he wer in th' Erle of Cassilis's place, and wer as able to do His Majestye good service there, as he knowyth hym to be, and thynkyth a right good will on hym to do it, he would surely do what he could for th’execution of it, beleving veryly to do therby not only acceptable service to the Kinges Majestie, but also a speciale benifite to the realme of Scotland, and woold trust veryly the Kinges Majestie woold considre his service in the same; as you doubt not, of his accustomed goodnes to them which serve him, but he woold do the same to hym." (V. 450.) This despatch, it should be known, is signed by Wriothesley, the Chancellor, the Duke of Suffolk, the Bishop of Winchester, and four others of the King's Councillors.

The object of the conspirators was evidently to procure a direct sanction and a promise of a definite reward, but Henry could not be driven into any measure of more open encouragement, and the matter therefore was apparently dropped for that time. In the month of June Sir George Douglas, another of the same clique, proposed the same scheme to a messenger sent by the English cabinet to confer with them upon other subjects (V. 467.); and, in the following month, Brunston again reiterates his offer to Sadler, who replied much in the same way as he had been directed to do to the Earl of Cassilis. (V. 470.) Still the want of a definite promise of reward kept the conspirators back; but the English government, having once taken up the notion, intimated to Lord Hertford that he might suggest it to the deserters from the French troops in the pay of Scotland, as one of those things which if done would ensure their being taken into the English service. (V. 512). In the month of October conferences of a very secret character were held between Sadler and Brunston, and from the tenor of the letters which allude to them there can be little doubt that they related to the contemplated murder, and that Sadler's assurances, whatever they were, were of such a character as to induce the conspirators to execute their scheme on the first opportunity, which occurred, or rather was made, on the 29th May 1546, whilst the excited people were yet mourning over the martyrdom of Wishart. The murderers were the very persons on whose behalf Brunston had made the first proposal. The memory of Henry VIII. stood in no need of this additional stain, but the fact is unquestionable, and much credit is due to Mr. Tytler for the able manner in which he has unravelled the infamous intrigue.

This is, perhaps, the most important novelty to be found in the documents before us; but they are replete with information upon other points, and are a gift to the public of unquestionable value. We trust the series will be completed—but let it be from the State-Paper Office alone.

The instructions referred to are said to be extant amongst the manuscripts of the Duke of Hamilton. Our knowledge of them is derived from Tytler's History of Scotland, V. 473. They are said to bear date" on the 10th April 1543-4," which must be incorrect: that is another circumstance of suspicion; but, on the other hand, there is a recital of them at vol. V. p. 371 of the present work, that goes a great way towards proving them to be genuine.

THE KINGSBOROUGH ELM, ISLE OF SHEPPEY. NO monument of past ages carries with it associations more interesting than one of those ancient trees which occur so frequently in various parts of our island. Many of them, after having witnessed the successive changes of even a thousand years, still contribute their portion of verdure, though perhaps scanty, and exhibit to us a picture of life struggling to the last against the all-consuming hand of time. They possess often an adventitious charm, from the circumstance of their being connected by established customs or popular traditions with the scenes and people which witnessed their childhood and youth.

trees unobserved and unknown to fame may at least rival in age and picturesque beauty the most celebrated of their brethren.

Several works have appeared with the design of illustrating the beauties of British forest trees, but they have most generally been confined to those trees which have attained to a great degree of celebrity, often by mere accident. We think that there remains still a wide field for the artist's pencil in the wilder forests and the less frequented parts of the kingdom, where

To this class belongs the venerable Elm of which a sketch is given in the accompanying wood-cut. It stands in a hedge on the most elevated part of the island of Sheppey, in the manor of Kingsborough and parish of Eastchurch, and its immediate vicinity affords a variety of fine and extensive views, on one side commanding the wide opening of the mouth of the Thames, and on the other reaching far into the mainland of Kent. The manor, as its name might lead us to suppose, formerly belonged to the crown, until it was given by Queen Elizabeth to her kinsman Henry Carey, soon afterwards created Lord Hunsdon; and it may, in Saxon times, have been occupied by a fort of some kind, where the guard might say, in the words of his fellow in the ancient romance of Beowulf

BKY

"Ic bæs ende-sæta

æg-wearde héold,
be on land Dena
láðra nænig

mid scip-herge

sce pan ne meahte."

The neighbourhood now affords sufficient interest to the antiquary, in the old residence called Shoreland House, and in the ancient church of Minster, with its monuments and brasses.

The Elm has once been a noble tree; and it is within the range of possibility to suppose that it may itself have witnessed the age of the Saxons, and that it may have seen the grim Danish sea-king canton his warriors on this little island. Its height is probably not half of that to which it formerly rose, but the branches still spread out to a considerable extent, and are abundantly covered with foliage. The trunk is hollow, and at an elevation of three feet from the ground its circumference, measures seventeen feet seven inches; so that it merits a place among the largest trees of its kind in our isle. The last famous event connected with its history, preserved in the memory of the peasantry, was the visit of four

"I therefore placed at the end of the land,
have kept the ocean-watch,

that on the land of the Danes
no foe

with a naval armament

might commit injury."

aged ladies, who are said to have taken tea together in the inside.

Under this tree is held, on the Monday next after the feast of Pentecost, a court leet, at which are chosen the constable who has jurisdiction over the island, the ferry-warden, &c. and they there arrange the assessing of rates, and other matters chiefly connected with the ferry between the island and the mainland. This circumstance is in itself a proof of the antiquity of the tree; and the custom of holding courts in such situations, not uncommon in England, is no doubt a remnant of the superstitious reverence paid to such trees by our Saxon ancestors. The works of the earlier Christian monks are full of allusions to this all-prevailing superstition, and they often dwell with exultation on the ravages which in their zeal the early missionaries caused to be made amongst the finest ornaments of our primeval forests. W.

HEVER CASTLE, KENT.
(With a Plate.)

THIS structure, which forms the subject of the engraving in the present Magazine, is interesting as exhibiting a fine example of one of those ancient mansions which constitute a link between the castellated and domestic styles of building.

The original castle was in all probability erected by some member of the ancient family of Penchester during the time when the manor formed a part of its large possessions in the county; but as no portion of that structure is to be seen in the existing edifice, it will not be necessary to take up the history at an earlier period than the date of the oldest portion of the architecture of the present mansion.

Sometime in the reign of Edward the Third, the estate became the property of William de Hever, a member of a family which had previously existed at Northfleet, in the same county; who dying without male

issue, the castle and manor devolved on his daughters and co-heiresses, Joane married to Reginald Cobham, of Sterborough in Surrey, and Margaret to Sir Oliver Brocas; from which period the manor was divided into two portions, which became nominal manors under the names of Hever Cobham and Hever Brocas.

In the succeeding century the manor of Hever Cobham was purchased of Sir Thomas Cobham by Sir Geoffrey Bullen, knight, a wealthy merchant of London, who had been Lord Mayor of that city in the thirty-seventh year of the reign of Henry the Sixth; from whom it descended to Sir Thomas Bullen, the father of the ill-fated Anne. The ambition of this man, which led him to sacrifice his daughter to the passion of a brutal tyrant, was the means of transferring Hever Castle to the rapacious Henry. By this monarch it was assigned as a residence to the repudiated Anne of Cleves,