“In the short reign of Edward, the family was protected and cherished; and the godly Sir Edmund, son and successor to Sir Roger, had the Bible laid open in his hall window, that while his domestics passed on their errands, as he expressed himself,--“he that runs may read.” In that of Mary, they were oppressed, confiscated, and menaced. Two of their servants were burned at Shrewsbury; and it was said that nothing but a large sum, advanced to defray the expences of the entertainments made at Court on the arrival of Philip of Spain, saved the godly Sir Edmund from the same fate. “Sir Edmund, to whatever cause he owed his safety, did not enjoy it long. He had seen his faithful and ancient servants brought to the stake, for the opinions he had taught them,--he had attended them in person to the awful spot, and seen the Bibles he had attempted to place in their hands flung into the flames, as they were kindled round them,--he had turned with tottering steps from the scene, but the crowd, in the triumph of their barbarity, gathered round, and kept him close, so that he not only involuntarily witnessed the whole spectacle, but felt the very heat of the flames that were consuming the bodies of the sufferers. Sir Edmund returned to Mortimer Castle, and died. “His successor, during the reign of Elizabeth, stoutly defended the rights of the Reformers, and sometimes grumbled at those of prerogative. These grumblings were said to have cost him dear--the court of purveyors charged him £.3000, an enormous sum in those days, for an expected visit of the Queen and her court--a visit which was never paid. The money was, however, paid; and it was said that Sir Orlan de Mortimer raised part of the money by disposing of his falcons, the best in England, to the Earl of Leicester, the _then_ favourite of the Queen. At all events, there was a tradition in the family, that when, on his last ride through his territorial demesne, Sir Orlando saw his favourite remaining bird fly from the falconer’s hand, and break her jesses, he exclaimed, “Let her fly; she knows the way to my lord of Leicester’s.” “During the reign of James, the Mortimer family took a more decided part. The influence of the Puritans (whom James hated with a hatred passing that of even a controversialist, and remembered with pardonable filial resentment, as the inveterate enemies of his ill-fated mother) was now increasing every hour. Sir Arthur Mortimer was standing by King James at the first representation of “Bartholomew Fair,” written by Ben Jonson, when the prologue uttered these words(4): “Your Majesty is welcome to a Fair; Such place, such men, such language, and such ware, You must expect--with these the _zealous noise_ Of your land’s faction, scandalized at toys.” (4) Vide Jonson’s play, in which is introduced a Puritan preacher, a _Banbury man_, named Zeal-of-the-land Busy.