Many other letters among this collection give evidence of the kindness and pity bestowed by the Lieutenant on the prisoners in the Tower, and the consideration with which their friends were treated, these being admitted to see them whenever it was practicable.  His relations with nearly all the members of the Privy Council were intimate and cordial, but perhaps his closest friend was Sir Henry Jerningham, who was not only a colleague, but the chosen companion of the rare occasions that were devoted to recreation and pleasure.  Their two families had always been on terms of affectionate intimacy, although it was not until two generations later that they became allied by marriage, when Thomas Bedingfeld of Oxburgh, Sir Henry’s grandson, married Frances, daughter and co-heir of John Jerningham of Somerleyton.

On the 16th February 1557, Sir Henry Jerningham, having occasion to write to the Lieutenant of the Tower on business, ended his letter thus: 

“I do and will labour all that I can to have your company into Norfolk this Lent, to course the hare and hawk the heron.  And thus I commit you to God, praying Him to send us our prosperity.  Your assured friend, Henry Jerningham.”

During the years 1553, 1554, and 1557, Sir Henry Bedingfeld sat in Parliament as one of the knights of the shire for Norfolk.  In 1557 he succeeded Sir Henry Jerningham as Captain of the Yeoman of the Guard, at which time he was also made vice Chamberlain.  But Mary’s death in 1558 closed his public career, and he retired to Oxburgh, which, hemmed in on the south side by miles of fen country, was in those days for all practical purposes entirely cut off from the world.  It was probably during a temporary absence, and when he was purposing to entertain guests in his beautiful Norfolk home, that the following letter was written to him presumably by his steward:—­

To the right worshipful and my especial good friend Sir Henry Bedingfeld, Knight, be this delivered.

“Pleaseth it your Mastership that according to your Mastership’s commandment, I did write to Mr. R and he was not at home.  I shall go to him again, and you shall know by the next messenger; you shall understand what plate and bedding may be had at his hand.  What number of capons and hens your Mastership would have me to provide I would desire to know by the next messenger.  I doubt fat capons are hard to be gotten in these parts, therefore if you had any that were ready fed, or could get any that were fed in Suffolk they might be stayed till the time you should require them, and have them killed, and carried dead, and have again instead of them fine lean capons.  Lean capons are at 8d. the piece, and 9d. and 10d. and 12d.  Geese are at 6d. and 7d. a piece.  Lean hens 4d. and 5d.  Wild fowl was never so hard to be gotten.  There is little taken; the fowlers do say the cause is the weather is so rainy, and there is as much wait laid for the getting of it as ever there was for my Lady’s Grace and for divers others.  I have done as much as I could to have gotten some for your Mastership, and for my masters your sons, and could get but six teals.  Since Christmas there is sent you of your own hawk’s killing, eleven teals, two mallards, and eleven bitterns.  And I humbly take my leave of your Mastership.  From Oxburgh, 20 of December 1563, by your poor servant,