When Edward VI died, the Marquis, as Keeper of the Jewel House, handed over the Crown Jewels to Lady Jane Grey, and saluted her as Queen. Nine days later, however, he was amongst the Lords who from Barnard’s Castle, which lay on the river-bank close alongside the Tower, proclaimed Queen Mary the rightful sovereign of these realms. Nor did the new Queen resent the late temporary aberration, but took him to her stony heart, and not only confirmed him in all his offices, but added that of Lord Privy Seal. The Marquis was really a wonderful person, for though his next appearance in history is as one of those who conducted the Princess Elizabeth to the dread doom of imprisonment in the Tower, we next discover him, a man well stricken in years, riding through London proclaiming the same princess Queen of England. Nor did Queen Elizabeth at once say, “Off with his head”; on the contrary, she confirmed him in his appointment of Lord Treasurer. Though now upwards of seventy years of age he was made Speaker of the House of Lords, and died in harness in 1572 at the venerable age of eighty-seven. The secret of this long life, apart from physical fitness, was the possession of the gift which perhaps we now call tact. If any proof were needed, it is only necessary to record that a plain squire rose to be a marquis and lived through four reigns during which heads fell as plentifully as apples in an autumn gale, and yet eventually died peacefully in his bed. One of the best known Keepers of the Crown Jewels is Sir Henry Mildmay, who was appointed to the office in April, 1620, by James I, and retained that office not only through the reign of Charles I, but also through the Commonwealth, and was only dispossessed of it by Charles II on his Restoration in 1660. Besides being Keeper, or as he was termed Master and Treasurer of the Jewel House, Sir Henry was a Member of Parliament for Westbury in Wiltshire, and also at another period for Maldon in Essex. He was a _persona grata_ with James I, and also, it would seem, with Charles I during the first fifteen years of his reign. But Sir Henry then forsook his sovereign and became one of the Committee of the Commons. His defection was considered so important that he was, by the Parliamentarians, continued in his office, in so far as concerned the drawing of the salary and emoluments thereof, though the situation was somewhat grotesque since he was of the party which was in open arms against the King, whose Crown Jewels he was supposed to guard.