WINGFIELD CHURCH AND CASTLE. THE Castle of Wingfield-or Wyngefield—and the church of the ancient college situate in the village of that name, distant 7 miles from Eye, is worthy the attention of the antiquary as the residence and burial place of several members of the once celebrated family of De la Pole, progressively Earls, Marquesses, and Dukes of Suffolk. Within the church lies William De la Pole, who, concerned in the murder of the good Duke Humphrey during the reign of Henry VI, was afterwards, upon his banishment into France, taken near Dover, and his head struck off upon the gunnel of a boat on the 2nd of May, 1450. The monument to this baron who met the untimely fate we have noticed, lies on the right side of the chancel looking from the altar. It bears an effigy of the knight clothed in the armour of the period in which he lived, the hands clasped over his heart, and the feet resting against a lion. The belt of the figure has in former times bore much ornament, and the holes where pieces of glass, or enamel, were introduced in imitation of jewels, are yet to be observed. Under his head lies a tilting helmet. The whole tomb is recessed into the wall and a crocketed arch rises above. There is an air of great antiquity about this monument, and the colouring which formerly rendered the figure a semblance of the living man, has long since been worn away in large patches, leaving the figure more like the harlequin of a modern pantomine, than a stalwart warrior of early English times. There is also another monument to a De la Pole, and his wife, lying on the same side of the chancel and nearer the communion table. Not being so ancient, the figures on this tomb-male and female-are in a more perfect state of preservation being almost without mutilation. The figure of an angel however originally standing between the heads of the effigies has been broken away, and nothing left but the hands and the feet. Beneath the head of the male figure lies a representation of his tilting helmet. Over the tomb is the original casque, displaying the head of a grim looking Saracen as the crest. The building in which these memorials repose, is wide, airy and light, standing upon an acclivity, commanding a fine view of English homesteads, and a portion of the gateway of the castle. It is built in the gothic style, and fitted up with pews of an ancient character, among which are two of capacious size, appropriated to the uses of the residents at the castle and the college formerly existing in the village. The arches of the nave are ornamented with armorial emblems, relating to the dead who repose beneath, and the windows studded with painted glass, display the same subjects. A portion of the roof is unceiled, and gives harbour to a multitude of bats, which do much harm to the structure. William De la Pole, to whom the church of Wingfield, may be said to owe its interest, is well-known to all readers of English history. By virtue of his talents and ambition, he soon raised himself to be the chief director of the affairs of the nation, as well as master of the mind and person of king Henry VI. He governed all. It was Suffolk, who on the desire of Henry, contracted a marriage between him and Margaret of Anjou, the daughter of the titular monarch of Sicily and Jerusalem, and cousin of the French queen. This transaction raised the popular cry against Suffolk, as instead of demanding a dowry from the parent of ture. the princess, he gave up the provinces, Maine and Anjou, to her family, the hereditary possessions of Margaret's father it is true, but at the same time, part of the conquests of the English in France, costing the nation much blood and treasure in capThe people accused Suffolk of bribery in the transaction --but Henry, pleased with the new toy procured for him, advanced the Earl to the rank of Marquis. Some historians relate, that there existed between Margaret and Suffolk, an early attachment of a delicate nature, which would if true, at least account for some of the events that followed. No sooner were the espousals of Henry with the princess concluded, than a close communication was observed between the queen, and Suffolk. It is said they were constantly together, and that he looked more like her husband and king of England, than the unfortunate Henry. She began to govern, and Suffolk assisted her by all means at his disposal-so that in the course of a short space, the weak monarch held no power over his kingdom but in name, and was even content to guide the vessel of the state by the commands and inducements of the queen's party, with Suffolk and Cardinal Beaufort at its head. Amid the turmoil of faction now driving the people to the verge of hatred and despair, Humphrey Duke of Gloster-surnamed the "good," stood up for the supremacy of the king, and the common good of the nation. He however was soon made to feel the withering effects of that tyranny which aimed at the absorption of all power into itself. At an earlier period of his life, Gloster had taken one Alice Cobham, for his mistress a woman of surpassing beauty and high endowments. He afterwards married her. When she became his dutchess, considering that her husband, being the king's uncle, stood next to the crown, she became ambitious, and being desirous of knowing by means of divination when the king would die, she consulted the astrologers of the time, and among other "cunning persons" a woman named Margaret de Jourdain the witch of Eye. This circumstance becoming known immediately after a quarrel between her husband and the Beaufort party, the dutchess, was accused of sorcery, enchantment, and with conspiring to |