This is a most extraordinary statute. It commences with calling Lord Lovel, the “late Lord Lovell,” without there appearing to be any certain proof of his death; and it is contradictory of the act attainting the Earl of Lincoln and others (see Appendix No. V.), which alleges, that their forces amounted to 8000 men, and that the battle took place on the 16th of June; whilst in this the insurgent troops are only stated to be 5000, and the 20th of June is mentioned as the day of the battle. It is also scarcely credible, that the attainder of Lord Lovel could have been, as alleged, inadvertently omitted in the former statute; nor is it easy to assign any plausible reason, why an avaricious sovereign like Henry VII. should allow eight years to elapse after the insurrection, without passing this act of attainder, when the unhappy nobleman’s large possessions offered so tempting a bait. Indeed, if Henry’s object, in passing it, were to be enabled legally to seize upon them, such a statute appears unnecessary, because Lord Lovel was attainted by the act of 1st Henry VII., for fighting at Bosworth (see Appendix No. III.); and there is no reason to suppose that this attainder was ever reversed, or that he ever submitted himself to allegiance to Henry. There is a tradition, that Lord Lovel escaped from the field of battle of Stoke, and took refuge in the north of England, and there, like Lord Clifford, lived several years in obscurity, concealed from his enemies; but it does not appear to be authenticated or supported by any historical authority. No. VII. Copy of a Letter given in Banks’s _Dormant and Extinct Baronage_, vol. ii. p. 321, from William Cowper, Esq., Clerk of the Parliament. “_Hertingfordbury Park_, 9_th_ _August_, 1737. “Sir,—I met to’ther day with a memorandum I had made some years ago, perhaps not unworthy your notice. You may remember that Lord Bacon, in his _History of Henry VII._, giving an account of the battle of Stoke, sais of the Lord Lovel, who was among the rebels, that he fled, and swame over the Trent on horseback, but could not recover the further side by reason of the steepenesse of the banke, and so was drowned in the river. But another report leaves him not there, but that he lived long after in a cave or vault. “Apropos to this; on the 6th of May, 1728, the present Duke of Rutland related in my hearing, that about twenty years then before, viz., in 1708, upon occasion of new laying a chimney, at Minster Luvel, there was discovered a large vault or room under ground, in which was the entire skeleton of a man, as having been sitting at a table, which was before him, with a book, paper, pen, &c. &c.; in another part of the room lay a cap, all much mouldered and decayed. Which the family and others judged to be this Lord Luvel, whose exit has hitherto been so uncertain.”