ll
of Alfred the Great. The earldom was given by the Conqueror to Roger of
Montgomery; in addition to the castle and its immediate neighbourhood
it comprised wide and rich possessions in the surrounding country. By
their treason to the Crown the Montgomerys soon forfeited the estates
and the Earldom passed through the hands of Queen Adeliza, and her son
de Albrin, and then to the Fitz-Alans, who held it for over three
hundred years. The daughter of the last Earl married the fourth Duke of
Norfolk and this family have held it ever since. They have made it
their principal home and have built in recent years the magnificent
temple of the older faith which dwarfs and overshadows the parish
church. This itself has felt the might of the great family who, as we
shall presently see, imposed their will on the representatives of the
Establishment.

[Illustration: ARUNDEL CASTLE.]

"What house has been so connected with our political and religious
annals as that of Howard? The premiers in the roll-call of our nobility
have been also among the most persecuted and ill-fated. Not to dwell on
the high-spirited Isabelle, Countess Dowager of Arundel, and widow of
Hugh, last earl of the Albini family, who upbraided Henry III to his
face with 'vexing the church, oppressing the barons, and denying all
his true born subjects their right'; or Richard, Earl of Arundel, who
was executed for conspiring to seize Richard II--we must think with
indignation of the sufferings inflicted by Elizabeth on Philip, Earl of
Arundel, son of the 'great' Duke of Norfolk, beheaded by Elizabeth in
1572 for his dealings with Mary Queen of Scots. In the biography of
Earl Philip, which, with that of Ann Dacres his wife, has been well
edited by the fourteenth Duke, we find that he was caressed by
Elizabeth in early life, and steeped in the pleasures and vices of her
court by her encouragement, to the neglect of his constant young wife,
whose virtues, as soon as they reclaimed him to his duty to her,
rendered him hated and suspected by the Queen, so that she made him the
subject of vindictive and incessant persecution, till death released
him at the age of thirty-eight. To another Howard, Thomas, son of Earl
Philip, the country is indebted for those treasures of the East, the
Arundel marbles."

(_Quarterly Review_: Hare.)

[Illustration: THE KEEP, ARUNDEL.]

The castle, though not that portion at which we have been looking, has
been besieged on three importan