When Queen Mary was proclaimed after Edward, and there were risings and rumours of risings in support of Queen Jane, Sir Thomas Cawarden had his difficulties. He had been getting his orders from Jane one day and Mary the next, and suddenly there was an end; he was arrested, and all his arms were ordered to be seized. Bletchingley Castle was searched, and was found to contain a good deal more than the armour of a few retainers and the artillery of a deer park. The inventory showed twenty-four demi-lances, eighty-six horsemen's staves, one hundred pikes, one hundred morris-pikes, one hundred bows, two handguns, and other weapons, besides sixteen heavy pieces of cannon--enough to arm a hundred horse and more than three hundred foot. All were seized and taken to the Tower. Sir Thomas complained bitterly. Might not an English gentleman keep armour in his country house if he pleased to do so? Mary could prove nothing against him, and was obliged to let him go. But she thought his weapons best kept in the Tower; and so, despite his protests, did Elizabeth after her. Sir Thomas's petition for their return and for redress is amongst the Loseley manuscripts. Here is part of his statement:-- "That on xxv. Jan. I. Mary he was lawfully possessed at Bletchingley of and in certein horses with furnyture armure artillarie and munitions for the warres and divers other goodes to the value of L2000 and that upon certein mooste untrue surmises brutes and Rumers raised against him was brought into divers and sundry vexations and troubles during which time one Sir Thomas Saunders Knight and William Saunders of Ewell on pretence of comande did take into their heads and possession the said armure and eight of his great horses and did convey the same in 17 great waynes thoroughly loaden and at the same time spent no small quantity of his corne hay and strawe and had only restored 4 loades and of the said 8 great horse oon of the best the iii^rd day after died. And the rest are in so evil plite and lykyng and were never since otherwise liable to serve in the carte to his great hindrance and undoing." When Sir Thomas died, his funeral was prodigious. No expense was spared; the feasting was Gargantuan; the villagers mourned with the best beef and beer. Mr. Granville Leveson-Gower, in the _Surrey Archaeological Collections_, has obtained from the Loseley MS. a full account of the charges, from which I make extracts. It is headed:-- Suche CHARGES as grew the Daye of the OBSEQUIES of Sir THOMAS CAWARDEN, Knight, decessed; viz.--