he _Notices of London Libraries_, by John Bagford and
William Oldys, it is stated: 'At Lambeth Palace over the Cloyster is a
well-furnished library. The oldest of the books were Dudley's, Earl of
Leicester.' Not more, however, than nine or ten which belonged to the
Earl are to be found there now. Almost all his books have his well-known
crest, the bear and ragged staff, stamped upon the covers, but a few of
them bear his arms instead.

[Illustration: BOOK-STAMP OF LORD LEICESTER.]

Leicester was suddenly seized with illness on his way to Kenilworth, and
died at his house at Cornbury, in Oxfordshire, on the 4th of September
1588. The suddenness of his death gave rise to a suspicion that it was
caused by poison; and Ben Jonson tells a story that he had given his
wife 'a bottle of liquor which he willed her to use in any faintness,
which she, not knowing it was poison, gave him, and so he died.' He was
buried at Warwick.

JOHN, LORD LUMLEY, 1534?-1609.

John, Lord Lumley, was born in or about the year 1534. He was the only
son of George Lumley of Twing, in the county of Yorkshire, who was
executed in 1537 at Tyburn, for high treason. On the death of his
grandfather, Lord Lumley, in 1544, John succeeded to the family estates,
and in 1547 he was permitted to take the title of Baron Lumley. He
matriculated in May 1549, as a fellow-commoner of Queens' College,
Cambridge, and was also educated in the court of King Edward VI., whose
funeral he attended. On the 29th of September 1553 he was created a
Knight of the Bath, and, two days later, was present, together with his
wife, at the coronation of Queen Mary;[18] Lady Lumley riding in the
third chariot with five other baronesses.

[Illustration: LORD LUMLEY. From the Cheam portrait as engraved for
Sandford.]

On the accession of Queen Elizabeth, he, with other lords, was appointed
to attend her Majesty on her journey from Hatfield to London. In 1559
his father-in-law, the Earl of Arundel, at that time Chancellor of the
University of Cambridge, nominated him High Steward of the University.
Lord Lumley was sent to the Tower in 1569 on suspicion of being
implicated in intrigues to bring about the marriage of his
brother-in-law the Duke of Norfolk with Mary, Queen of Scots, and to
re-establish the Roman Catholic religion. In the next year he was
released, but in October 1571 he was again imprisoned, and he did not
obtain his liberty until April 1573, ten months after t