prior of St. Martin's in the following October Vaux gives a graphic account of his soft bed, tidy room, excellent fare, and goodly company, adding, ‘So I remain in prison, but well content with my state.’ In another letter, addressed three years later to an old friend and former fellow of Manchester, then confined in Chester Castle, Vaux still writes cheerfully. He was paying indeed 16l. a year for his room, but says, ‘As yet I have found no lack; my friends here be many and of much worship, especially since my catechism [i.e. the third edition] came forth in print.’ It was selling well, and three hundred copies were distributed in the north.
But in 1584 Vaux was transferred to the Clink in Southwark. The irritation against catholics at this time found vent in the banishment of some seventy priests and increased rigour against others. Vaux, obnoxious on account of his catechism, was once more examined by the bishop of London and the commissioners, and was, according to Strype, put ‘in danger of death.’ Burghley interceded for the old man, and probably saved him from the gallows. He died in the course of 1585. ‘Obiit in vinculis martyr,’ writes Bridgewater in 1588; and the rumour reached Louvain that his death was caused by starvation or the hardships of his prison, but of this there is not sufficient evidence.
Vaux's only publication was ‘A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, necessary for Children and Ignorant People,’ Louvain, 1567; Antwerp, 1574. Two editions appeared during the author's imprisonment in 1583, one at Liège, and the other perhaps from some secret press in England. A reprint, edited by the present writer, was issued by the Chetham Society in 1885.
[Introduction to the reprint of the catechism for the Chetham Society, 1885; early notices in Pits, Dodd, Challoner, and Wood are scanty and inaccurate. See also Paquot's Hist. Littéraire des Pays-Bas, 1770; Gibson's Lydiate Hall, pp. 183 seq.; Raines's Lives of the Wardens and Bailey's Church Goods (Chetham Soc.). The testamentary and other documents of Vaux formerly at Louvain, now in the Chetham Library, Manchester, were first printed by Mr. R. Simpson in the Rambler, December 1857.]
VAUX, Sir NICHOLAS, first Lord Vaux of Harrowden (d. 1523), courtier and soldier, was of the family of Vaus or Vaux, settled at Harrowden in Northamptonshire since the time of Henry IV. Vaux's mother is stated in a manuscript at the college of arms to have been ‘Katherina filia Georgii Peniston de Courtowsell Pedemontani’ (Vincent MS. 20). In Bridges's ‘History of Northamptonshire’ this is given as ‘Gregory Peniston of Courtesells in Piedmont.’ The lady's father was doubtless an English political refugee. Vaux's father, Sir William Vaux, was a zealous Lancastrian. He was attainted by Edward IV's first parliament in 1461 and his estates confiscated. It is not improbable that he then fled the country, and his eldest son, Nicholas, may have been the offspring of an Italian alliance, though Anthony Wood says that he was born in Northamptonshire. He probably returned to England at Easter 1471, accompanying Margaret of Anjou from Normandy. He was slain in the disastrous defeat of Tewkesbury on 4 May of that year (Paston Letters; Warkworth, Chron. p. 18; cf. Rot. Parl. vi. 304; Campbell, Materials, &c., ii. 325). One of the ladies taken prisoners in Queen Margaret's company was his wife, ‘Dame Kateryne Vaus’ (Warkworth, Chron. p. 19). Sir William Vaux's manor of Harrowden was, upon his attainder in 1461 (Rot. Parl. v. 516), given to Ralph Hastynges.
Wood states that Nicholas Vaux ‘in his juvenile years was sent to Oxford.’ But of this there is no evidence (Boase, Regist. Univ. Oxon.) A manuscript pedigree in the college of arms says of him, ‘floruit summa gratia apud Margaretam comitissam Richmundiæ,’ and she, it is known, retained Maurice Westbury, an Oxford man, for the instruction at her residence of ‘certayn yonge gentilmen at her findyng’ (Reg. Oxon. F. Ep. p. 458; Wood, Annals, i. 655; Churton, Life of Bishop Smyth, p. 13). This would account for the favour he evidently enjoyed with Henry VII, for within three months of the victory of Bosworth he obtained from the king a grant for life of the offices of steward of the towns of Olney and Newport Pagnell, dated 2 Nov. 1485 (Campbell, Materials, i. 168). Henry VII's first parliament met on 7 Nov. 1485, and a petition was immediately presented by Nicholas Vaux setting forth the attainder and forfeitures of his father, and praying the repeal of the act of 1461 and his restoration to his father's lands (Rot. Parl. vi. 304 b). The royal assent was at once given (ib.; cf. Campbell, Materials, ii. 325).
In 1487 Vaux was presumably resident upon his restored estates in Northamptonshire. He was mentioned by Polydore Vergil (ed. 1649, p. 728) among the notables who brought their followers to the support of Henry VII against Lambert Simnel in June 1487. After the king's victory on 16 June at Stoke, near Newark, Vaux received knighthood (Coll. Arms Vincent MS.
