This was not all the property Sir Thomas appears to have had assigned him at the dissolution of religious houses. In 1547, Henry VIII. granted him the house and site of the Priory (or College) of Slapton in South Devon, "except all the lead upon the said College other than the gutters, and the lead in the windows; except all the bells and ornaments"--the rectory, also that of Loddiswell, and three other manors in Devon, Somerset, and Cornwall. Although his wife's sister Queen Katharine had been executed four years previously, he is described as 'Chancellor' to her. Associated with Sir Thomas Arundell at the Court of Henry VIII., and also in his country possessions in the west, was his relative Henry Daubeney, Earl of Bridgwater, a most unfortunate man. He was the son of Giles, Lord Daubeney, K.G., a trusted servant and soldier to Henry VII.; the old seat and possessions of the family being at South-Petherton, and later at Barrington Court near that town. Lord Daubeney married Elizabeth, sister of Sir Thomas Arundell, K.B., of Lanherne,--the father of Sir John Arundell, who was the father of the Sir Thomas of our narrative,--Henry Daubeney, Earl of Bridgwater, his only son, would therefore be Sir John's cousin. But not only by kinship on his father's side, but also by a similar relationship on his wife's, was the Earl closely connected with Sir Thomas. Lord Bridgwater married secondly, Katharine Howard, daughter of Thomas, second Duke of Norfolk, by his second wife Agnes Tilney. She was therefore aunt to Sir Thomas' wife, being her mother's half-sister. The Countess of Bridgwater was greatly persecuted during the trial of her niece Queen Katharine Howard, and almost every means was resorted to to implicate her with that unfortunate woman. The Earl, her husband, plunged into the vortex of expensive frivolities that surrounded the Court of Henry VIII., and it is related irretrievably crippled, if not finally ruined himself by extravagant display at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He died without issue, in seclusion and comparative penury at the little rural parish of South-Perrott, near Crewkerne, and was there buried 12 April, 1548,--his wife survived him, and was interred in the Norfolk Chantry in Lambeth church, 11 May, 1554.[42] [42] For further account of this Earl, and his father Lord Daubeney, see "_Memorials of the West_," pages 173-220. [Illustration: REGAL HERALDRY, TEMP. HENRY VIII., COWIC, EXETER.] It was this double tie of relationship that doubtless led to the important transactions with regard to the sale or transfer of a large portion of the Earl's landed possessions to Sir Thomas Arundell, when from time to time he had necessity; or it may be by family arrangement to protect himself and wife from forfeiture, in those days of peril and consequent attainder and confiscation.