For giving the toast of "The people, our Sovereign," at a public dinner he was deprived of his lord-lieutenancy and of his colonelcy of militia. He was remarkable, too, for a dislike of clean linen, which his friends were grieved to see him carry to excess.[A] Three other Howards of the same stock are more honorably distinguished in their country's annals. They are the victor of Flodden and two of his grandsons; the one the Surrey of history and romance, the other, Charles Lord Howard of Effingham, the conqueror of the Spanish Armada. The origin of the family is involved in obscurity, some maintaining that it sprung from the famous Hereward, the Wake, of whose name they affirm Howard to be a corruption; while others assert that the word Howard is neither more nor less than a euphonious form of Hogward, and that the premier duke and hereditary Earl Marshal of England might ultimately trace his descent to a swineherd if he were disposed so to do. The first Howard of whom genealogists can take serious cognizance was a respectable judge of the court of common pleas in the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. (1297-1308). His descendant was ennobled in the reign of Edward IV. [Footnote A: "Did your Grace ever try a clean shirt?" Abernethy is said to have asked the Duke, who had consulted him on some ailment.] Next on the roll of the Lords to the Duke of Norfolk is Edward St. Maur, the Duke of Somerset, an extremely clever man, "with a passion for saying disagreeable things." He recently published a smart attack on the evidences of Christianity, which occasioned not a little difficulty to some worthy editors. They were sincere Christians, but it jarred against their feelings to speak harshly of a duke. The St. Maurs (or Seymours) are of genuine Norman descent, and began to be heard of in the thirteenth century. They apparently remained estimable till the time of Henry VIII., when that uxorious monarch married Jane, the daughter of Sir John Seymour, by whom he became the father of Edward VI. Strangely enough, Jane's brother, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, afterward married Henry's widow, and the knot of family relationships becomes a little complicated in consequence. More inauspicious unions were never contracted. Lord Seymour was executed by order of his brother, the Protector (and first Duke of Somerset), and three years later the Protector's death-warrant was signed by his own nephew. From the close of this short chronicle of blood, the Seymours practically disappear from the pages of English history, though Macaulay has left a graphic picture of that Sir Edward Seymour who was Speaker of the House of Commons under Charles II., and who proudly replied to William III., when asked if he belonged to the Duke of Somerset's family, that "the Duke of Somerset belonged to his family." Francis, fifth duke, was the occasion of a few days' gossip and much scandal. During his travels in Italy he