Note 34 — The Mirror for Magistrates.

Thomas Blenerhasset was probably a descendant from the ancient family of that name which flourished in Norfolk temp. Hen. 8. of whom Jane B. is named by Skelton in the Crown of Laurel as one of the bevy of beauties attendant upon the noble Countess of Surrey; and John B. married the daughter of Sir John Cornwallis, knt. the steward of the household to Prince Edward. Our author was educated at Cambridge, and having adopted a military life, was in 1577 stationed in the Island of Guernsey, and there composed his portion of the present work. As the printer, in the following year, tells us the author was “beyond the seas,” it is probable he had then accompanied his regiment to Ireland, where he went as a captain, settled and “purchased an estate. He died about the beginning of the reign of King Charles I. and was the author of Directions for the Plantation in Ulster, London, 1610.” History and Antiquities of Ireland, by Walter Harris, 1764, vol. ii. p. 333.