The Story Of Arden Of Faversham.

THE STORY OF ARDEN OF FAVERSHAM .

BY THOMAS B . TKOWSDALE , Author of " Glimpses of Olden Kent , " " Lore of the Months , " Sfc . ABOUT the middle of the sixteenth century a terrible tragedy in private life was enacted at the quiet old town of Faversham , in Kentthe

, memory of which is preserved by a popular play grounded upon the event . In the year 1539 , "bluff King Hal , " having ordered the principal part of the monastic buildings at Faversham to be razed to the ground , granted the site of the Abbey , with some adjoining lands , to Sir Thomas Cheyney , who alienated them five years afterwards to Mr . Thomas Arden , or Ardern , a gentleman of Faversham . It was this Arden whose atrocious murder in the

year 1550 has become lastingly impressed upon the history of the town . Holinshed , in his " Chronicle , " furnishes particulars of the tragic event , ancl we cannot do better than follow the old chronicler ' s account . Arden ' s wife , " Mistress Alice , young , tall , and well favoured of shape and countenance , " formed an improper connection with one Mosbye , a "black , swart man . " Mosbye had been servant to Sir Edward North , Alice ' s father-in-law ,

and subsequently settled as a tailor in London . The infatuated wife , lost to all sense of honour and duty , conspired with her paramour to put an end to her husband ' s existence in order that she might marry the profligate " black , swart man . " They employed , as their confederates , one John Green , a Faversham tailor ; George Bradshaw , a goldsmith of the same town ; ancl one " Black Will , of Calyce [ Calais ] , a murderer , which murderer w as privily sent for from Calyce by the earnest suite , appoyntment ancl confederacye of Alice Arden ancl Thomas Mosbye . " The conspirators watched Master Arden

" walking in Poule ' s ' ( St . Paul s Cathedral , the nave of which was a public promenade in those clays ) , but could not find an opportunit y to murder him . They then lay in wait for him on Rainham Down , ancl a second time in Broomy Close ( both in the vicinity of Faversham ) ; but on all these occasions were frustrated by accidental circumstances from accomplishing their purpose . The wicked wife then laid a plot for murdering her husband in his own house . She procured the services of Mosbye ' s sisterCicelPounderand of two of

, y , Arden ' s domestic servants , Michael Sanderson and Elizabeth Stafford . On a particular day , according to a preconcerted plan , Black Will secreted himself in a closet at the end of Arden ' s parlour . After supper Arden sat clown to play some kind of game with Mosbye , which it had been arranged the latter should invite him to engage in . Green stood at Arden ' s back , holding a candle in his hand "to shaddowe Black Will when he should come out" and

, the other conspirators had their cue . At a given signal in the game " Black Will came with a napkyn in his hand , and sodenlye came behind Arden ' s back , threw the said napkyn over his hedd and face and strangled him ; and forthwith Mosbye stept to him and strake him with a taylor ' s great pressingiron upon the skull to the braine , ancl immediately drew out his dagger , which was great and broadand therewith cut the said Arden ' s throat . " It is added

, , that " Mistress Arden herself , with a knife , gave him seven or ei ght pricks into the breast . " When Black Will had helped to drag the dead bod y into the closet he went to Cicely Pounder ' s house , received ei ght pounds for his nefarious services , ancl left Faversham . Cicel y then proceeded to Arden ' s habitation and assisted in bearing the corpse out into a meadow called the