songe; and after to ys plasse to dener; and ther was ij goodly whyt branches, and mony prestes and clarkes syngying.”  Stow adds that the dead alderman’s widow, Barbara, caused to be set up in St. Dunstan’s to his memory—­and also to that of her second husband, Sir Richard Champion, and prospectively to her own—­a monument in keeping with their worldly condition and with the somewhat mixed facts of their triangular case.  This was a “very faire Alabaster Tombe, richly and curiously gilded, and two ancient figures of Aldermen in scarlet kneeling, the one at the one end of the tombe in a goodly arch, the other at the other end in like manner, and a comely figure of a lady between them, who was wife to them both.”

The names have been preserved in legal records of three of the sons—­Thomas, John and Edward—­of this eminent Londoner:  who flourished so greatly in life; who was given so handsome a send-off into eternity; and who, presumably, retains in that final state an undivided one-half interest in the lady whose comely figure was sculptured upon his tomb.  General Read found record of a Henry Hudson, mentioned by Stow as a citizen of London in the year 1558, who may also have been a son of the alderman; of a Captain Thomas Hudson, of Limehouse, who had a leading part in an expedition set forth “into the parts of Persia and Media” by the Muscovy Company in the years 1577-81; of a Thomas Hudson, of Mortlake, who was a friend of Dr. John Dee, and to whom references frequently are made in the famous “Diary” such as the following:  “March 6 [1583].  I, and Mr. Adrian Gilbert and John Davis did mete with Mr. Alderman Barnes, Mr. Townson, and Mr. Young, and Mr. Hudson abowt the N.W. voyage.”  Concerning a Christopher Hudson—­who was in the service of the Muscovy Company as its agent and factor at Moscow from about the year 1553 until about the year 1576—­the only certainty is that he was not a son of the Alderman.  There is a record of the year 1560 that “Christopher Hudson hath written to come home ... considering the death of his father and mother”; and, as the Alderman died in the year 1555, and as his remarried widow was alive in the year 1560, this is conclusive.  Being come back to England, this Christopher rose to be a person of importance in the Company; as appears from the fact that he was one of a committee (circa 1583) appointed to confer with “Captain Chris. Carlile ... upon his intended discoveries and attempt into the hithermost parts of America.”

[Illustration:  Apparatus for correcting errors of the compass.  From “CERTAINE errors in navigation.”  London, 1610]