the sovereigne to be kissed, and the next day celebrated Mass for the deceased, Sir J. Andevere and John Wrenne assisting in the reading of the epistle and gospel. The reader of the gospel, after censing the reader of the epistle, reverently tendered the heart of S. George to the sovereigne and knights in order to be kissed.’

The heart of S. George was presented by Sigismund, Emperor of Germany, on his admission to the Order of the Garter.

The spelling of ‘Wrenne’ was a very common form of the family name, and it seems very likely that John Wrenne belonged to this family, who were much connected with S. George’s, Windsor.

William Wren was in Henry VIII.’s time the head of the family; his younger brother Geoffrey, who was a priest, was of Henry VII.’s privy council, and was confessor both to him and to Henry VIII. He held the living of S. Margaret’s, Fish Street, in the City of London, from 1512 till his death.[3] Geoffrey Wren was also a canon of S. George’s at Windsor, where he founded the seventh stall. There he died in 1527, and was buried in the north aisle of the chapel under a brass bearing his effigy in the Garter mantle, with this inscription at his feet:

This tomb and brass have disappeared, as has the ‘South Lodge’ with its window displaying his coat of arms and emblem; the latter, a wren holding a trefoil in its claw, and his motto—‘Turbinibus superest coelo duce praescius.’ Dean Wren explains this emblem as chosen because, ‘the trefoil or clover shrinking before a storm foretold a change of weather,’ and the wren was supposed to have the same prescience. Both motto and emblem were changed by the descendants of the family.

William Wren’s grandson, Francis, was born 1552, two years before the close of Queen Mary’s reign, at Monk’s Kirby in Warwickshire, where the family had property. He was a mercer and citizen of London, and was steward to Mary Queen of Scots during her captivity in England. He married Susan, daughter of William Wiffinson; they lived in the parish of S. Peter’s Cheap, and had three children: a daughter Anna, and two sons; Matthew, born 1585, and Christopher, born 1589. Both were educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School, and there Matthew especially attracted the notice of Lancelot Andrewes, then Dean of Westminster, who frequently came to the school where he had been bred, and examined the boys in various subjects, particularly in the Hebrew Psalter. He was struck by the proficiency of the eldest of the Wrens, and obtained for the boy a scholarship at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, of which he was himself master. From that time Dr. Andrewes appears never to have lost sight of Wren, but to have guided his studies and fostered ‘the most passionate affection for the ministry of the Church’ which the young man showed. Nor was Wren’s university life undistinguished, for he became Greek scholar of his college, and when King James visited Cambridge, Matthew Wren, then in priest’s orders, ‘kept the Philosophy Act’ before him with great applause. The subject given was, ‘Whether dogs were capable of syllogisms.’ Old Fuller says of this extraordinary ‘Act,’ ‘he kept it with no less praise to himself than pleasure to the king; where if men should forget even dogs should remember his seasonable distinction what the king’s hounds could perform above others by virtue of their prerogative.’[5] Probably this speech and its ready wit remained on the mind of the King, who dearly loved a compliment to the royal prerogative, and determined him to favour Matthew Wren.

Lancelot Andrewes, who had been Bishop of Chichester, was in 1609 translated to Ely, and so enabled to watch over the University and ‘to search out,’ as he entreated his friends to do also, ‘hopeful and towardly young wits,’ and train them up for Holy Orders.[6] He made Matthew Wren his chaplain, gave him the living of Feversham in Cambridgeshire, and some years later made him a canon of Winchester. But very different duties from the ordinary ones of a parish priest devolved upon Wren. King James planned for the Prince of Wales the famous ‘Spanish match,’ and gave a most reluctant consent to the Duke of Buckingham’s scheme, that the Prince should himself go to Spain to fetch home his bride. Two of his chaplains were to attend the Prince, and by the advice of Bishop Andrewes and of Laud, then Bishop of S. David’s, Dr. Leonard Maw, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, and Dr. Matthew Wren were chosen. The Prince and Buckingham departed hastily, leaving the chaplains and suite to follow as they could. King James had no sooner allowed the expedition than he repented of it, and being unable to recall his permission, was tormented by a thousand fears for the Prince’s safety. The nation was in a state of ferment, persuaded that the Prince’s faith would be tampered with as well as his person endangered. Thus the two chaplains had by no means an enviable post. They went down to Newmarket, took their leave of the King and received his last instructions:—

A full list followed of vestments for the clergy, ornaments and hangings for the altar, and altar lights, Latin service books, directions for a room to be adorned chapel-wise, and for frequent services, all to be read in Latin so that the Spaniards might comprehend them. All this careful provision seems to have been defeated by the fact of the Prince and his suite being lodged in the palace at Madrid, so that there was no public service, only bed-chamber prayers. Contemporary letters show that the chaplains’ position was not an easy one, though the Prince remained steadfast, and in the congenial atmosphere of the dignified Spanish court became every day more gracious. ‘Dr. Wren forbears,’ says one of these letters, ‘to write any particulars, but intimates all is not as it should be.’ It was no doubt a