Winthrop, in Notes and Queries, 27 Aug. 1853). Nor does it appear from his diaries and note-books, published in Lord Clermont's ‘History,’ that he ever resided in any of the houses, or took any active part in the business of the order. In February 1539 Fortescue was arrested and sent to the Tower (Calendars, Henry VIII, viii. 91). In May of the same year he was included in the act of attainder which condemned the Marchioness of Exeter, the Countess of Salisbury, Cardinal Pole, Sir Thomas Pole, Sir Thomas Dingley, and others. The story of this memorable act of attainder remains to a great extent a mystery. No historian has been able to explain its apparent want of motive, or the hurried manner in which it was pressed through both houses. The clause of the act relating to Fortescue states that he had ‘not onelie most trayterouslie refused his duety of allegiance which he ought to beare unto your highnesse, but also hathe comytted diverse and sundrie detestable and abhomynable treasons, and to put sedition in your realme’ (Roll of Parl. Henry VIII, 147, m. 15). It is difficult to conjecture what were the ‘sundry treasons.’ His crime may have consisted of his near relationship to Queen Anne Boleyn; or he may have been on too intimate terms with the Countess of Salisbury, whose granddaughter his son Sir Anthony [q. v.] married eighteen years later; and his connection with the Poles may have led to his inclusion in an act aimed to a great extent against that family; or his execution may have been due to the marriage of his daughter Frances to the tenth Earl of Kildare, beheaded for high treason in February 1537. This is, however, the less likely to have been the case, since Lady Kildare had returned to her father's roof before her husband broke into open rebellion (Marquess of Kildare, Earls of Kildare, i. 170).
The exact date of Fortescue's execution is uncertain. The ‘English Martyrology’ gives it as 8 July 1539; Dodd (Church History, p. 200), Stow (Chronicle, ed. 1615, p. 576), and a manuscript list of persons executed in the reign of Henry VIII (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 27402, fol. 47), concur in naming 10 July, while the ‘Chronicle of the Grey Friars’ (p. 43) reads: ‘The ninth day of July was be-heddyd at Toure-Hyll Master Foskeu and Master Dyngle, knyghttes.’ His fellow-sufferer was Sir Thomas Dingley, knight of St. John, who was condemned by the same act of attainder, on the more definite charge of travelling to foreign courts in the interests of the king's enemies.
Fortescue has long been regarded by the order to which he belonged as a martyr, and according to Mr. Winthrop (Notes and Queries, viii. 191) his death was commemorated on 8 July. The first step towards his canonisation has been recently taken by his inclusion in the list of 261 persons executed during the reigns of Henry VIII, Elizabeth, and James I, on whom the title of venerable has been bestowed by the pope. He was twice married: first to Anne, daughter of Sir William Stonor, who died in 1518; and secondly to Anne, daughter of Sir William Rede, who survived her husband, and afterwards married Sir Thomas Parry, comptroller of Queen Elizabeth's household. By his first wife Fortescue had two daughters, Margaret, married to Thomas, first lord Wentworth, and Frances, married to Thomas, tenth earl of Kildare; by his second wife he had three sons, Sir John, chancellor of the exchequer [q. v.], Thomas, and Sir Anthony [q. v.], and two daughters, Elizabeth, married to Sir Thomas Bromley [q. v.], lord chancellor of England, and Mary. There are three known pictures of Fortescue—two in the church of St. John at Valetta, and a third, which is probably a portrait, in the Collegio di San Paolo at Rabato, Malta. There is an engraving of the last of these in Lord Clermont's ‘History.’
[Lord Clermont's History of the Family of Fortescue, 1880; two articles by the Rev. J. Morris in the Month, June and July 1887.]
FORTESCUE, Sir ANTHONY (b. 1535?), conspirator, third and youngest son of Sir Adrian Fortescue [q. v.], was educated at Winchester. Unlike his elder brother Sir John, chancellor of the exchequer [q. v.], Sir Anthony adhered to the Roman catholic church. During the reign of Queen Mary he married Katharine Pole, granddaughter of Margaret, countess of Salisbury, and received the appointment of comptroller of the household of his wife's uncle, Cardinal Pole. After the accession of Elizabeth, Sir Anthony and his brothers-in-law Arthur and Edward Pole plotted against the new sovereign.
In November 1558 Fortescue was taken into custody along with several persons whom he was accused of causing to cast the horoscope of Elizabeth and to calculate the length of her life and the chances of the duration of her government; he was, however, released on bail on 25 Nov., and no further action seems to have been taken in the matter (Strype, Annals, ed. 1825, vol. i. pt. i. pp. 9–10). Three years later, in October 1561, Arthur and Edward Pole and Fortescue were arrested as they were on the point of sailing to Flanders; they were kept in prison until February of the next year, when they were tried upon a charge of high treason at Westminster Hall.
