A PRETTY TOWER TRADITION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2993, 28 January 1881, Page 4

A PRETTY TOWER TRADITION.

(Cassell's " Old and New London.") Sir Henry Wyatt, of Allington Castle, in Kent, father of the poet, and grandfather of the unfortunate rebel, was imprisoned in the Tower for being a resolute Lancastrian. He was thrown into a cold and narrow tower, where he had neither bed to lie on, sufficient clothes to warm him, nor enough food to eat. One day a cat came into bis dungeon, and he laid her on his bosom to warm him, " and by making much of her won her love." After this the cat would come several times a day, and sometimes brings him a pigeon. The gaoler dressed these pigeons, without inquiring where they came from, Sir Henry Wyatt after this retained an affection for cats, and was always painted with one by his side. One day when Wyatt was being tortured with tho barnacles, Richard the 111, who was present exclaimed with regret, " Wyatt, why art thou such a fool ? Thou servest for moonshiue in water. Thy master," meaning Henry of Richmond, "is a beggarly fugitive: forsake him and become mine. Cannot I reward thee?" To which Wyatt replied, "If I had first chosen you for my master, thus faithful would I have been to you if you should have needed it. But the earl, poor and unhappy though he be, is my master ; and no discouragement, no allurement, shall ever drive me from him, by God's grace."