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PORTRAITS

ILLUSTRIOUS PERSONAGES.

W A LT EK,

FIRST LOUD ASTO3ST.
OB; 1639.

PORTRAITS

ILLUSTRIOUS PERSONAGES

WITH

BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL MEMOIRS OF THEIR
LIVES AND ACTIONS.

EDMUND LODGE, ESQ., F.S.A.

CABINET EDITION.

IN EIGHT VOLUMES.-VOL. IV.

LONDON :
WILLIAM SMITH, 113, FLEET STREET.

JUN 7

CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV.

1. WALTER, FIRST LORD ASTON 1639

From the Collection of Thomas Blount, Esq. at Bella-
mour.

2. FRANCES HOWARD, DUCHESS OF RICHMOND Vandyke 1639

From the Collection of the Most Noble the Marquis of
Bath, at Longleat.

3. SIR HENRY WOTTON Jansen. 1639

From the Bodleian Gallery, Oxford.

4. THOMAS, LORD KEEPER COVENTRY . . . Jansen. 1640

From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl
of Clarendon, at the Grove. .

5. FRANCIS RUSSELL, EARL OF BEDFORD . Vandyke 1641

From the Collection of his Grace the Duke of Bedford,
at Woburn Abbey.

6. THOMAS WENTWORTH, EARL OF STRAFFORD Vandyke 1641

From the Collection of the Eight Honourable the Earl
of Egremont, at Petworth.

7. ROBERT BERTIE, EARL OF LINDSEY . Vandyke. 1642

From the Collection of the Right Honourable Baroness
Willoughby of Eresby, at Grimsthorpe Castle.

CONTENTS.

8. ROBERT GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE .... 1643

From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl
of Warwick, at Warwick Castle.

9. SPENCER COMPTON, EARL OF NORTHAMPTON . . . 1643

From the Original) in the Collection of the Most Noble
the Marquis of Northampton, at Castle Ashby.

10. ROBERT DORMER, EARL OF CAERNARVON . Vandyke 1643

From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl
of Pembroke, at Wilton.

11. WILLIAM VILLIERS, VISCOUNT GRANDISON Vandyke 1643

From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl
of Clarendon, at the drove.

12. WILLIAM FIELDING, EARL OF DENBIGH . Vandyke 1643

From the Collection of his Grace the Duke of Hamilton,
at Hamilton Palace.

13. HENRY SPENCER, EARL OF SUNDERLAND . Walker 1643

From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl
Spencer, at Althorp.

14. Lucius CAREY, VISCOUNT FALKLAND . Vandyke 1643

From the Collection of the Right Honourable Lord
Arundell, at War dour Castle.

15. HENRY DANVERS, EARL OF DANBY . . . . 1643

From the Collection of his Grace, the Duke of Bedford,
at Woburn Abbey.

16. WILLIAM LAUD, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

Vandyke 1645

From the Collection of his Grace the Archbishop of
Canterbury, at Lambetfi Palace.

CONTENTS.

17. LIONEL CRANFIELD, EARL OF MIDDLESEX . Mytens 1645
From the Collection of Ms Grace the Duke of Dorset, at

Knowle.

18. HENRY SOMERSET, FIRST MARQUIS OP WORCESTER

Ja/nsen 1646

From the Collection of his Grace the Duke of Beaufort,
at Badminton.

19. THOMAS HOWARD, EARL OF ARUNDEL AND SURREY,

Rubens 1646

Prom the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl
of Warwick, at Warwick Castle.

20. ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX . . Walker 1646

From the Collection of the Most Noble the Marquis of
Stafford, at Trenfham.

21. ARTHUR, LORD CAPEL . . . . . Jansen 1648
From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl

of Essex, at Cashiobury.

22. KING CHARLES THE FIRST . . . Vandyke 1648
From the Colkction of the Right Honourable the Earl

of Pembroke, at Wilton.

23. EDWARD, LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY . . . 1648
From the Collection of the Right Honourable Viscount

Clive, at Powis Castle.

24. JAMES, FIRST DUKE OF HAMILTON . . Vandyke 1649
From the Collection of his Grace the DuTce of Hamilton,

at Hamilton Palace.

25. BLANCH SOMERSET, BARONESS ARUNDELL OF WAR-

DOUR 1649

From the Collection of the Right Honourable Lord
Arundell,at Wardour Castle.

CONTENTS.

26. HENRY RICH, EARL OF HOLLAND . . Vandyke 1649

From the Collection of his Grace the Dukeof Bucdeuch,
at Montagu House.

27. GEORGE GORDON, MARQUIS OF HUNTLY . Vandyke 1649

From, the Collection of her Grace the Dowager Duchess
of Bucdeuch, at Montagu House.

28. GEORGE LORD GORING . . . Vandyke, circa 1650

From the Collection of the Right Honourabk the Earl
of Egremont, at Petworth.

29. JAMES GRAHAM, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE . Vandyke 1650

From the Collection of his Grace the Duke of Montrose,
at Buchanan House.

30. PHILIP HERBERT, EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONT-

GOMERY Vandyke 1650

From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl
of Pembroke, at Wilton.

WALTER, FIRST LORD ASTON.

THE history of an ambassador, especially of one distin-
guished by his fidelity, presents a theme peculiarly unpro-
pitious to the biographer. Removed to a foreign land ;
withdrawn, in a great measure, there from the common habits
and accidents of society, and moving ever in an assumed
form ; we lose sight even of the private character of the man,
while we seek in vain through public functions, which are
frequently scarcely visible, for motives which are always
shrouded in impenetrable secrecy. After-ages are, it is true,
sometimes gratified by the development of such arcana, but
of the ministry of this nobleman we have at present within
our reach only a few scattered remains. A great treasure
however of his diplomatic papers has lately been discovered
in his family mansion, and a zealous and accomplished de-
scendant from him has promised to open it to public view.

Walter Aston, the heir male of a most ancient Stafford-
shire house of which Fuller, in his Worthies, singularly
says, " I have not met with a more noble family, measuring
on the level of flat and unadvantaged antiquity " was the
eldest son of Sir Edward Aston, of Tixall, in that county,
by Anne, only daughter of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote,
in Warwickshire. He was born on the ninth of July, 1584,
at Charlecote, and baptised there. Of the place and method
of his education we are uninformed, but he has left abundant
proofs that it was of the most perfect of that class usually
termed polite. The completion of it he probably owed to
the care of the celebrated lawyer, Sir Edward Coke, to whom,

2 WALTER, FIRST LORD ASTON.

on his father's death, in 1597, he was given by Elizabeth in
wardship, and by whom there can be little doubt that he was
first brought to London, and to the Court, He was appointed
one of the Knights of the Bath at the coronation of James,
and was created a Baronet in 1611, among the first on whom
that title was conferred.

The families of Aston and Villiers were neighbours, in the
country, and it is by no means unlikely that his intimacy
with Buckingham, who appeared at Court soon after him,
might have arisen originally from that circumstance. Cer-
tain, however, it is that he was distinguished by that pro-
digious favourite immediately on his sudden accession to
power, and an attachment was formed between them which
lasted uninterruptedly, and indeed gradually increased, till
the Duke's death ; for Buckingham, to a warmth of heart
which frequently led him to favour for a time unworthy
objects, joined that just decision of judgment, as w r ell as of
affection, w T hich can alone form the basis of solid friendship ;
and Aston, at once affectionate and candid, polite and firm,
wise and modest, presented to him a character of all others
formed to gain his fullest regard. At Buckingham's instance
he was sent, in 1619, to manage the treaty, so distinguished
in our history, for the marriage of Charles with the Infanta
of Spain, and remained there for several years. Of circum-
stances relating personally to himself during that tedious
embassy, nothng has been hitherto known but that he wasted
on it a very considerable part of his great estate ; and of his
public conduct in it little more has transpired. From a few
letters however in the Cabala, and from some others in the
Harleian collection, 1 have been able to collect several valu-
able notices of each, the most material of which I shall give
here in their original form. They furnish, too, some curious
hints of the imbecility and vacillation of James, and his
counsels. It appears from the first letter which occurs,
written a few weeks after his arrival at Madrid, that he had
been suffered to set out on his expedition at his own sole

WALTER, FIRST LORD ASTON.

expense, and that no specific provision had been made for his
reimbursement. It is addressed, as indeed are all the rest
to the Duke, then Marquis, of Buckingham.

" MY MOST HONNORD LORD,

" I have sent unto M r . Sec rie the bills of my journey
into Spayne, according to the ordinary cours, to have them
allowed by the principall Sec rie , and I know they will pass
much the sooner thorrow his hands if your Lo p will pleass
to express unto him the least of yo r care of me. I press not
this w th intention presently to clammor for the monney, but
to keepe the pace of presidents of the same kinde ; and
though I receive nothing as yett, I shalbe yet glad to have it
become a debt unto me as soon as others. My preparations
before I sate out on my journey, my provisions, and charge
here, will rais my first yeer's expences to above 7 thowsand
pownde, w ch beeinge too great for me, w th out some helpe, to
beare, I do humbly desire to know, by a favourable adver-
tisement from yo r Lo p , when I may beginn to call for part of
such sommes as will become dew unto me ; for I shall rather
ruin my owne fortune then doe anythinge heare too meane
for that honnowre his Ma tie hath conferd upon me, and theare
cowld nothinge fall more heavy upon me then to be forst to
make a sute of burden to his M tie . I shall humbly therfore
desire to understand fully yo r I/ 8 pleasure concerninge my
present request, for I desire nothinge but what may be
w th his Ma tie ' s content, and by y r Lo ps direction.

I have found that the testimonies of his Ma''"' 8 good opinion
of me, w th yo r perticuler respect and favowre, w ch they have
taken notice of heare, hath layde me a good fondation, and
made me acceptable at first ; and the continewance of his
Ma tie ' 9 goodness, w th yo r Lo p ' s care of me, will dayly give in-
crease to my powre and creditt, both with this Kinge and his
ministers : I doe therfore most humbly intreat yo r Lo p to
preserve unto me still the same respect and countenance,
and! dowte not but that his Ma tie will find that I shall imploy

B2

4 WALTER, FIRST LORD ASTON.

usefully the strength he hath given me to the advancement
of his service. Whatsoever I have thowte worthy advertis-
ment I have writt to my Lo. Digbie. I will therfore forbeare
pressinge further upon yo r Lo p ' 8 patience, and rest

Y r I/ 8 most bound servant,

Madrid, WA. ASTON.

the 7 of May, 1620, stil Aug."

About this period Sir John Digby, lately created a Baron,
and soon after Earl of Bristol, was sent to join Aston at
Madrid. The business of the treaty was intrusted in com-
mon to their wisdom, and the management of correspondence
with James and his ministers committed separately to Aston.
They were both earnest friends to the match, and for the
first two years of their embassy received the highest appro-
bation and praise from the King, the Prince, and the fa-
vourite ; when, on Charles's wild expedition to the court of
Spain, and Buckingham's quarrel with Olivares, and conse-
quent resolution to revenge himself by preventing the pro-
jected marriage, they found all their measures suddenly
broken by a new scheme of policy, if it deserved that name,
at home, the reasons for which were studiously concealed
from them. In this dilemma, Aston, on the first of November,
1623, addressed to the Duke a long letter, doubtless one of
many to the same effect, which concludes with these honest,
friendly, and spirited, remonstrances.

" I have hytherto understood y* his Ma tie and his

Highnes have really affected this match, and have labowred
faythefully to second ther desyres w th my uttermost inde-
vours. Ther is none, I am sure, a better wittness then my-
self of the affection w ch yo r Grace hath born unto itt, w"* I
have seen remayne constant through many trialls ; and there-
fore, untill I understand y e contrary from y' self, I must
beleeve y' yo r desyres are the same w ch I have seene them.
I must ever speak my hart freely unto yo r Grace; and I
confess y 1 upon y 6 letter w ch I receaved from his Highnes, and

WALTER, FIRST LORD ASTON. 5

upon y e sight of his Ma*"' 8 unto my Lo. of Bristol, I have
been jealous that his Ma tie ' 8 hart, and his Highnes', are not
that to y e match w ch they have beene : but these are but dys-
trusts of my owne, and not foundation sufficient to slaken or
coole those diligences w ch I dayly performe, in conformitie to
his Ma tie ' 8 and his Highnes' comands, and to what remayns
aparant of ther desires. I shall therfore humbly desire yo 1
Lo p to open my eys, and if I am out of the way to sett me
straight, for I have noe affection of my owne but what agrees
w th my master's, and will ever submitt w" 1 all humillitie
myself and my judgement unto his Ma tie ' 8 wisdome, and fayth-
fully labowr to serve him, according to what I shall under
stand to be his will and pleasure ; but untill I know, by yo r
Grace's favor, by what compas to guide my cource, I can only
followe his Ma tle ' 8 revealed will ; and will once take the bold-
nes to represent unto yo r Grace, in discharge of part of what
I owe you, these consederations w ch my desyre to serve you
forceth from me.

I do looke upon yo' Grace as a person infinitely provoked
to be an enymy to this match, and I beleeve y' you have had
represented unto you many reasons, shewing how much itt con-
cerns you to seeke to breake itt w th all the force you have ;
but I can neyther beleeve y' y e errowre of one man can make
you an enimy to that w 011 brings along w th itt so much hapines
and content unto his Ma"" and his Highnes, nor y* yo r Grace's
jugem' can be ledd by thos arguments y* under y* couler of
safety would bring you into a dangerous laberinth. Yo r
Grace hath given a noble testimonye how little you have
valewed yo r owne safety in respect of his Ma tie>s service, and
therefore I assure myself you would conteme all consedera-
tions concerning yourself y* might hinder yo r advancement of
his Ma tie ' a ends. In the proceeding to this match ther is the same
conveniencys to his Ma Ue y* ever hath beene ; ther is y e same
Lady ; y e same portion ; y 6 same frendship desired ; they
professing here an exact complying w th what is capitulated,
and a resolution to give his Ma* 6 satisfaction in whatsoever is

6 WALTER, FIRST LORD ASTON.

in their powre. From your Grace none can take away y"
honor of having beene y e principall meanes by w 6 " 1 this great
busines hath been brought to a conclusion ; and, whatsoever
others maye suggest against yo r Grace, y e Infanta, trewly
informed, cannot but understand you y e person to whom she
owes most in this busines. Yo r Grace and y e Conde of
Olivares have falne upon diferent wayes, that w ch concerns
y e honor of y e King o r master being diferent to that w ch he
understood concerned most his master. Yo r ends were both
one for y e efecting of y e match, and w th y" conclusion of itt he
cannot but better understand you. Would yo r grace would
conTitt itt to my charg to inform y e Infanta what you have
merited, and to acomodate all other mistakes here concern-
ing yo r proceeding. If yo r Grace could reconcyle yo r hart,
I would not dowte but w th y e conclusion of y e match to
compose all things to yo r good satisfaction, and bring them
to a trewer understanding of you, and of ther obliga-
tions unto you. Into what a sea of confutions the breaking
of this alliance would ingage Ma tie I will leave to yo r Grace's
wisdome to consider of, it being too large a discource for a
letter.

Considering myself, yo 1 Grace knowes my wants, and I
dowt not that yo r care is what I could wish. I should be
glad, when you have done w* Peter Wych, to see him dys-
pached away w^ some supplies to me, w ch I shalbe in ex-
treame want of by Christmass ; my debtes, beside, in Eng-
land being clamorous upon me for some satisfaction. I leave
all to y r Grace's care and favor, ever resting

Y r Grace's humblest and most bounden servant,

WA. ASTON.

Post Scripta. The Condessa of Olivares bids me tell yow
that she kisses yo r Grace's hands, and doth every day recom-
mend yow perticularly by name in her prayers to God."

It will be recollected that some writers have ascribed
Buckingham's quarrel with Olivares to the detection of an

WALTER, FIRST LORD ASTON. 7

intrigue with that minister's lady ; and that others, par-
ticularly Lord Clarendon, have treated the report with
contempt. The postscript to this letter may furnish matter
of speculation to those who love to analyse such nice
points of historical disquisition. But, to return to our
subject : on the twenty-third of the same month Aston
again pressed the Duke, by a letter in which we find the
following passage :

" Itt hath beene here of late spread abroad y* yo r Grace
hath doun many ill offices against y e proceeding to y e match,
but I have cried itt as much downe as I could, assuring these
ministers y* itt is a malitious report, and have desired them
to be confident y l yo r Grace, who hath so often made pro-
fessions to y e Princess, assuring her y* yow will ever be, as
yow have been, a faythefull servant unto y e busines of y"
match, and will constantlye labowre to remove whatsoever
dyfficulties may opose themselves, though others may suggest
unto her Highnes y 9 contrary, and y* hath made so large pro-
fessions as yow did unto y" King here at yo r parting, will
never doe any thing so contrary to y e King o* master's service,
and yo r owne honor, as to seeke to breake y" amitie betwixt
thes Crownes : and have therefore, intreated them not to give
credit to rumors y* ar raised rather out of malice then upon
any just ground."

Buckingham became at length angry, rather perhaps at the
justness than at the freedom of these repeated observations,
but his friendship for Aston remained entire. At the same
time, the King too, and the Prince, in that anxiety to break
off the match with which they had been inspired by Buck-
ingham, intimated to Sir Walter their displeasure at his
having concurred with Bristol in fixing a day for the espou-
sals, without previously binding the King of Spain to the
restitution of the Palatinate, to which they well knew that
Prince would never consent. On the fifth of December he
wrote to the Duke to intercede for him, and on the same day
addressed to the King the following letter, the confused style

8 WALTER, FIRST LOUD ASTON.

of which, so different from his usual method of expression,
clearly indicates the perturbation of his mind at the moment.

" May itt please yo r Ma tie ,

Upon y e understanding from my Lo. Duke of Buck-
ingham of yo 1 Ma tie>8 displeasure towards me, (w** is y e greatest
affliction y* ever I receaved) for having conformed myself to
the opinion of my Lo. of Bristol touching y e Disposorios,
\v* all humilitie acknowleging my error ; and then not pre-
suming to wright unto yo r Ma tie myselfe, I humbly intreated
his Highnes and my Lo. Duke to become sutors unto yo r
Ma 1 " for yo r pardon, w ch I doe y e better hope I have obtained,
not dowting but they have beene pleased to have been my
mediators unto yo r Ma tie . And this being the first repre-
hension y* ever I receaved, I doe alsoe not dowbt but it will
extenuate my faulte when yo r Ma tie shall please to consider
y' what I then did was grounded upon y e conceiving y* by
y 1 meanes yo r Ma Ue should have had yo r desyres, both in
y e match, and in y e busines of y e Palatinate, howsoever in
that tyme not precisely agreeing w th yo r Ma" 6 ' 5 directions ; and
y' by oposing my self unto y e way w ch his Lo p intended to
hold, I showld so much have distracted yo r Ma tie ' 8 affaires by
a single action of my owne, w** I understood not how I could
justifie, having receaved no warrant for itt. And I presume
itt is yo' Ma tie ' 8 pleasure that I should be ever tender to doe
anything y* might give distasts in businesses of soe great im-
portance, without a cleare and perfect direction. I will not
trouble yo* Ma tie further, but, with my dayly prayers for
yo' Ma* 6 '' long life, health, and hapie raigne, doe rest,

" Yo e Ma tie ' 8 most humble subject and servant

W. ASTON."

Buckingham answered him by a letter in which haugh-
tiness and anger are so amiably chastened by kindness, that
it is matter of regret that its length should exceed the limits
of this publication. " In your letter of the fifth of Decem-

WALTER, FIRST LORD ASTON. 9

her," begins the Duke, " you desire me to give you my
opinion. My ancient acquaintance, long custom of loving
you, with constancy of friendship, invites me to do you this
office of good- will, and to serve you according to your request."
He proceeds to remind Aston that the Prince, when at
Madrid, had distinctly apprised him that the restitution of
the Palatinate must be a condition for the match ; had since
written to him to the same effect ; and was therefore astonished
to find that he had consented to fix a day for the espousals
without previous security for the performance ; (all which,
by the way, is contrary to the usual report of history) ; that
it had been therefore in contemplation to recall both Bristol
and himself; "but," says the Duke, "I have with much
difficulty prevented this ; so that it will be now in your
power, by your carriage, to come off without reproof." He
concludes " If you think, at first sight, I press a little hard
upon this point, you may be pleased to interpret it to be a
faithful way of satisfying your request, and an expression of
my affection to have you do all things suitable to your wis-
dom, virtue, and honour, and according to the wishes of your's,

G. BUCKINGHAM."

Aston, in his answer to this letter, on the twenty-second
of the same month, says, " I have in all things with so much
affection desired to serve yo r Grace every way to yo r satis-
faction, that it hath infinitely afflicted me that I should have
done anything whereby I might lessen yo r favourable opinion
towards me, but I hope hope yo r Grace hath by this time set
me straight both w th his Ma tie and his Highnes, and restored
me to the place in yo r affection which I formerly had." And
this indeed the Duke had fully accomplished; but these
rebukes left a deep impression on Sir Walter's mind, for, in
the last letter which I find from him, dated exactly one
month after the preceding, are these melancholy expressions :
" I am now here in a dangerous time, in the greatest busi-
nesses that have byn treated of many years, and the bitterest

]0 WALTER, FIRST LORD ASTON.

stormes threatning betwyxt these crownes that have byn
these many ages. I have therefore no hope to save myself,
without I be guided by his Highnes' and yo r Grace's trusts
and care of me." He remained, however, with the highest
credit, at Madrid, the sole minister (for his colleague had
quitted his station in disgust, amidst the differences which
have just now been related), till 1625, when he returned on
the accession of Charles the First, by whom, on the twenty-
eighth of November, 1627, he was created Baron Aston, of
Forfar, in Scotland. In 1635 he was again sent ambassador
to the court of Spain, where he continued in that character
till 1638 : of this last mission, which indeed involved only
ordinary matters between the two kingdoms, no particulars
have occurred to me. Perhaps no man ever served his
country with more fidelity to his King, or equal disadvantage
to himself. " He was seised," says a memorandum pre-
served in the family, in the handwriting of his grandson,
Walter, third Lord Aston, " at the time of his going into
Spaine, of divers manors and lordships, lying in the counties
of Stafford, Warwick, Derby, and Leicestre, to the no lesse
value than of 10,0001. p r . an., the greatest part of which he
lost and dispended in that service."

The gratitude of Drayton's muse has consecrated the me-
mory of Lord Aston as a lover and encourager of English
poesy, and as a most beneficent friend. He had scarcely
overstepped childhood when he became a patron, for, in
1598, the poet dedicates to him one of the " Heroical Epis-
tles." In the preface to the Polyolbion, 1612, we find this
passage " Whatever is herein that tastes of a free spirit, I
thankfully confess it to proceed from the continual bounty of
my truly noble friend, Sir Walter Aston ; which hath given
me the best of those hours whose leisure hath effected this
which I now publish." Drayton's works indeed abound
with testimonies of esteem and affection for him, far too
numerous to be here inserted; but I cannot suppress one
sonnet, full of manliness of sentiment, and elegance of ex-

WALTER, FIRST LORD ASTON. 11

pression, addressed " to the worthy, and his most honoured
friend, Ma. Walter Aston."

" I will not strive m'invention to inforce
With needless words, your eyes to entertaine ;
T observe the formall ordinary course
That every one so vulgarly doth faine :
Our interchanged and deliberate choice
Is with more firme and true election sorted
Than stands in censure of the common voyce,
That with light humour fondly is transported.
Nor take I patterne of another's praise,
But what my pen can constantly avowe ;
Nor walk more publique, nor obscurer, waies
Than virtue bids, and judgement will allowe.
So shall my love and best endeavours serve you,
And still shall studie still so to deserve you."

Lord Aston married Gertrude, only daughter and sole heir
of Sir Thomas Sadleir, of Standon, in Herts, and grand-
daughter of that eminent statesman, Sir Ralph Sadleir, and
had by her five sons, and as many daughters. Of these
Walter, Thomas, and John, the first, fourth, and fifth sons,
died in infancy ; another Walter, second son, but at length
heir, succeeded to the title and estates ; and Herbert, the
third, was seated at Colton, in Staffordshire. The daugh-
ters were Frances, married to Sir William Persall, of Canwell,
near Lichfield; Gertrude, to Henry Thimelby, of Irnham,
in Lincolnshire ; Constantia, to Walter Fowler, of St. Thomas'
Priory, near Stafford ; Honora, and another, who died infants.
Lord Aston departed in the latter end of July, or the begin-
ning of August, 1639, for he was buried on the thirteenth of
the last-named month, in St. Mary's church, in the town of
Stafford.

Vandyke^..

F-RANCIES TOWARD,

DUCHESS OF BICHMCOSTO.
OB; 1639,

,:

FRANCES HOWARD,

DUCHESS OF RICHMOND,

WAS the only child of Thomas, Viscount Bindon (second
of the sons who attained to manhood, of Thomas, third
Duke of Norfolk, and brother to the celebrated Henry, Earl
of Surrey), by his third wife, Mabel, daughter of Nicholas
Burton, of Carshalton, in Surrey. The beauty of this lady
has been highly celebrated, and her vanities and eccentricities
abundantly censured. She was born about the year 1578,
and became at an early age, under the influence of one of
those extravagant predilections so frequent in youth, the wife
of a person certainly of unsuitable rank. In this marriage
originated much of the ridicule which has been levelled at
her character, and, as ridicule always deals in exaggeration,
the condition of her first husband has been sunk by wilful
misrepresentation to utter baseness. Whenever her name
is mentioned, his is sure to be coupled with it, and the de-
scription usually bestowed on him is " one Prannel, a vint-
ner's son," and some have gone further, and asserted that
his father was a mere alehouse-keeper : but the truth is that
his father, Henry Prannell, was an alderman of London, and
in a time too when none but the most respectable of the
commercial order were elected to that degree. He had pro-
bably obtained his freedom of the city in the Vintners' com-
pany, and hence this silly slander. Henry, his only son,
who had the honour of gaining the hand of this high-born
damsel, inherited from him, in 1594, the manors of Berewyk,
and Rokey, otherwise Walter Andrews, with other consid^

14 FRANCES HOWARD,

able estates in the northern part of Hertfordshire, and these
he settled on himself and his wife, and their issue, by a deed
of the fourteenth of May, 1597, which fixes with tolerable
precision the date of their marriage. Prannell, however,
survived little more than two years, and left her childless.
He was buried at Barkway, in Herts, on the twelfth of
December, 1599.

Such a widow was unlikely to remain long without suitors.
She was addressed by many, but her most ardent admirer
was Sir George Rodney, a Somersetshire gentleman, possessed
of considerable estates, in the prime of life, and highly
accomplished. It is but common justice to her memory to
say, that he seems from the beginning to have cherished a
hopeless flame, since, in a correspondence of a most singular
nature, which will presently appear, no hint of reproach is
uttered on his part, or of apology on hers ; yet it has been
said that she at first encouraged him. Howsoever this might
have been, certain it is that she disappointed his views by
becoming the wife of Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford,
who was at this time more than sixty years of age, and had
been already twice married. Rodney, in the wild extrava-
gance of an ungovernable passion, had the temerity to per-
severe in his suit, and was repulsed with firmness, tempered
by a gentleness of manner, vainly contrived, as it should
seem, to calm the fury of his temper, and perhaps to conceal
his guilty imprudence from all but the Countess and himself.
It had no other effect than to raise the tumult of his mind
to madness. " Having drunk in too much affection," (to use
the words of Arthur Wilson, in his Reign of James the First),
" and not being able with his reason to digest it, he sum-
moned up his spirits to a most desperate attempt, and coming
to Amesbury, where the Earl and Countess were then resi-
dent, to act it, he retired to an inn in the town, shut himself
up in a chamber, arid wrote a large paper of well-composed
verses to the Countess, in his own blood (strange kind of
composedness), wherein he bewails and laments his own un-

DUCHESS OF RICHMOND. 15

happiness ; and when he had sent them to her, as a sad
catastrophe to all his miseries, he ran himself upon his sword,
and so ended that life which he thought death to enjoy,
leaving the Countess to a strict remembrance of her incon-
stancy, and himself a desperate and sad spectacle of frailty."
Contemporary transcripts of the verses referred to by Wilson,
and of an answer from the Countess, remain in the treasures
of the British Museum, unless we ought to doubt their
authenticity, for which I can see no sufficient reason ; but
this must ever remain matter of opinion. If they are genu-
ine, it is needless to say that they demand insertion here :
if otherwise, their intrinsic merit might plead some apology
for this publication of them.

SIR GEORGE RODNEY TO THE COUNTESSE OF
HERTFORD.

From one that languisheth in discontent,

Dear Faire, receive this greeting to thee sent ;

And still as oft as it is read by thee,

Then with some deep sad sigh remember mee ;

When bee thou sure this order I will keepe,

My harte shall bleed as fast as thine shall weepe :

So if in sheddinge tears thou dost not faine,

With drops of blood I '11 pay thee tears againe ;

To make oure sorrowes somewhat like abound,

That as thy eies so may my hart be drown'd,

In which greife shall bee full, sighes shall be plentie,

And for one sighe of thine, I 'le give thee twentie ;

And to the audit of thy strange content

Pay interest for the thoughts which thou hast lent ;

For too too well my fortunes make me knowe

My hapless Love must worke my overthrowe,

Wherein not death itself can come with paine,

Were not my death made woeful by disdaine ; ,

By which the times may say, by what is donne,

My father had one lost degenerate sonne,

16 FRANCES HOWARD,

And I shall to the stocke from whence I came,

Behold a hlott hoth to my bloud and name,

Soe much to yield, where in disgrace I prove,

To femall softness, and unfruitfull love.

Confess I doe shame is my hest desert,

Plantinge affection on a harren hart.

'Twas nature's sinne thus to commix a mynd

With heautie died in graine so much unkinde

No 'twas my fortune's error to vow duty

To one that hears defiance in her heautie.

Sweete poyson ; precious wooe ; infectious Jewell :

Such is a ladie that is faire and cruell.

Howe well could I with ayre, camelion like,

Live happie, and still gazeing on thy cheeke,

In which, forsaken man ! mee thinke I see

How goodlie love dolh threaten cares to mee.

Why dost thou frowne thus on a kneelinge soule,

Whose faultes in love thou may'st as well controule,

In love hut oh ! that word, I feare

Is hatefull still hoth to thy hart and eare.

Am I too meane in ranck ? I knowe I am,

Nor can I raise the stocke from whence I came.

I am no Barren's sonne, nor horn so high :

Would I were lower, soe I were not I :

As lowe as envy's wishes could impart,

Soe I could sett my sighes heneath my hart.

Ladie, in hreefe, my fates does so intend,

The period of my daies drawes to an end :

The thread of my mortalitie is spunue,

Cancell'd my life, my thread of frailtie runne.

Death stands hefore my eies, and says my doome

By destinie to die was not yet come ;

Tells me I might have liv'd, and tells me truth,

I am not sick yett in my strength of youth ;

But says in such a lamentahle case

I must not live to overlive disgrace ;

And yields strong reasons, for, says death most cleaiiie,

Such is her pleasure whom thou lov'st most dearlie.

DUCHESS OF RICHMOND. 17

Oh be that wish accomplished, to showe
How it shall bee ; but hope alas is vayne
When all my hope is clouded with disdain.
Nor, ladie, dare I blame you, since your choice,
With whome in honour you doe now rejoice,
Is worthie in himself, or indeed rather
In being sonne to such a worthie father,
Of whom amidst my griefes I have confest
He was of Seymors both the great'st and best.
Oh may his sonne be like him in his life :
Heer's then a husband fitt for such a wife.
Yett, had my father answered his degree,
I might have bin as worthie full as hee ;
For I had then bin captive to love's might,
More guided by my hart than by my sight.
Neglect of errour and the hand of heaven
Are meerlie strangers, yett it might have given
Well parted grace to frame a perfect creature,
A constant judgment to a constant feature ;
For youth had then been match 1 d, a goodlie thinge,
Not to the sapless autumne, but the springe.
But O ! the time is past, and all too late :
I may lament, but not recall my fate.
Stricte stands the censure which report displays,
That takes from mee the honor of my daies.
Revive my hopes I cannot sincke in fame,
My reputation lost, disgrac't my name.
In virtue I am wounded, and can have
No glory nowe but in the conqueringe grave.
Sad memory to come this doome may give,
And say hee died that had no hart to live :
Herein my greifes and I shall well agree :
I 'le bury them, as they have buried mee :
Thus to thy angry beauty, pretious deare,
A sacrifice of pittie will I reare ;
A sacrifice of peace to end all strife ;
As true a hart as ever harboured life.
I may doe't, but my frailetie may forslow't,
And, indeed, 'tis not fitt that you should kuow't.
IV. C

FRANCES HOWARD,

No, ladie, no ; although I cannot wynne

Your love for suite, to die for love is sinne.

Yet give me leave to singe my former songe :

I am too deeplie wounded to live longe,

Though not to die in hast ; but I protest,

If death could make you thinke I lov'd you best,

Would I were dead, that you alone might knowe

How much to you I did both vowe and owe.

I strive in vaine : my miseries are such

That all I doe or write is all too much.

My wish I have, if I be understood,

Willing to seale my meaning with my blood.

Faire, doe notfrett, nor yett at all be mov'd,

That I have thus unfortunatelie loved ;

Nor thinke herein report disgracefull for thee ;

Heaven knowes I ever thought myselfe unworthie.

Yett if you have a thought to cast away,

Cast it on mee, and soe you may repay

My service with some ease, and I in mynde

Commend that pittie I could never tinde.

Thus ever bee, as you are, ever faire :

Rest you in much content ; I in despaire.

THE COUNTESSE'S ANSWERE.

Divided in your sorrowes, I have strove

To pittie that attemp I must not love

For which your health you sent me (sith in vaine,

Because I could not keepe) returnes againe.

Soe nowe the case betweene us twoe thus stands,

My present state, and your mishappe, commands :

Wherein what should I say but what I see ?

Impute the faultes to destinee, not mee.

Poore is the part of beautie I enjoy,

If where it winnes one, it must one destroy.

Small cause have I, the owner, to rejoyce,

That cannot take free passage in my choyce ;

But, for the fruitless paintinge of my cheekes,

Must still become a slave to him that seekes,

DUCHESS OF RICHMOND. 19

Or be term'd cruell, or, which is farre worse,
Of death or bloudshedd undergoe the curse :
Soe if one desperate in madnesse do it,
Not yieldinge, I am accessarie to it.
Is bondage then the happinesse attends
On those \vhome evene one for faire commends ?
Then surelie better much it is to bee,
Rather than faire, in thraldome borne and free :
But this I neede not pleade, since beautie's mirror
Occasions not your suite, but your own error ;
And some such men there are, in whome opinion
Of what doth seeme, not is, hath most dominion :
Those onlie that for excellent doe seeme
What is not soe, indeed, but in esteeme,
Which, though I will not tax for lust in any,
Yett very lust, no doubt, it is in many ;
For uncompounded love, pure and refin'd,
Is a moste-neate perfection of the mynde,
And, being suche, must evermore effect
Thinges like itself in qualitie elect ;
Which, granted, love in these should seeke for grace
Which faire are in condition not in face.
So love a virtue is. How many then
True lovers should bee found amongst you men ?
Such as preferr, by reason's temperate fire,
Lawfull dessert before unjust desire ;
Such as with goodness, in itself pure frarn'd,
Are mildlie hot, not franticklie inflam'd ;
Such as with goodness doe affection measure,
Grounded on cause of motion, not of pleasure.
Hee's not fitt choice that passionatelie hovers ;
Lovers are men, but most men are not lovers ;
And this should make us froward in deniall,
Since still wee knowe our miseries by triall.
Successe and custom, to weake women foes,
Have made men wanton in our overthrowes.
What is't in their attempts men have not vaunted,
Because the worser of our sex have graunted ?
c2

20 FRANCES HOWARD,

To weepe, to threaten, flatter, lie, protest,

Are but in earnest lust, and love in jest.

Myself have heard it now and then avow'd

By some whome use in follie hath made prowd,

That if by oathes one may his purpose winne,

Noe perjury in such a case is sinne :

And can wee then bee blamed if, being harm'd

By sadd experience, we bee stronglie arm'd

With resolution to defend our wrongs

Against the perjur'd falsehood of men's tongues ?

But whither range I in this vaine dispute.
Since what you seeke for is a wicked suite,
In telling you are captive to love's mighte,
More guided by your hart than by your sight ?
I can but answer to the love you ow'd,
The love that should have thank'd you is bestow'd :
Soe I must die in debt ; my hart is gonne ;
You are not hee, and I must have but one.
To him I have engag'd my blushless truth :
Love is not wise in age ; most rash in youth ;
And I applaud my fortune, which have mett
That fate which grave discretion doth begett.
Terme age the autumne ; 'tis a better play
To singe in winter, than to weepe in May.
Somethinge I know ; content is match'd with yeares,
When to wedd younge is as to marry teares.
And whoe can choose but faithfullie affect
That wisedome that knowes wiselie to direct ?
When youth with youth their race together runne,
Both ignorant to guide, are both undone,
And therefore doe not you my choyce molest ;
My match must please you, for it likes mee best :
Nor do you take the course to purchase love
From one by striveinge howe you may remove
My love from him whose no we I am, for hee
That is no friend to him is none to mee.
Thus fair to satisfie the feeleinge paine
Which in your letter seemes soe to complaine,

DUCHESS OF RICHMOND. 21

And speaks for you with pittie more than witte,

Have I an answere made, though farr unfitte ;

Unfitt, consideringe whoe, and whose, I am ;

Unfitt hoth for your comfort and my name.

Be not deceiv'd, nor take your hope hy this,

For, doing soe, in truth you doe amisse.

If fate had mark'd mee your's, full well you knowe

Your earnest suite had wonne mee long agoe :

But 'twas not so ordain'd ; then 'twere uneven

To strive against the ordinance of heaven.

'Twas not the fortune of your lowe descent

Your happe in haveing mee did not prevent :

Full well I knowe report in no wise can

Deny your father's sonne a gentleman.

Both hee and you have well deserv'd the same

By ancient titles, and hy worthie fame,

And such you are, but what is that to mee

To withstande destinie, or fate's decree ?

The many honnours donne unto our House

Make me not proude, nor heing a new spouse

To my new Lorde : 'tis not an auncient seate

Of glorie, but of vertue makes us greate.

Then herein, to add greatness to your blood,

Conquer desire ; be greate in beinge goode ;

And you shall herein much more honor finde,

Makeinge your passions subjecte to your mynd,

Than if thou were term'd noble, which lov'd stile

Is, without vertue's dresse, accompted vile.
In breefe, whereas you write the fatall strife,

'Twixt love and my disdaine have doom'd your life ;

Herein my minde is, I would have you know it,

Poorlie meethinke you strive to play the poet ;

And poets, I have heard, in such a case,

Hold flattery and lieinge the best grace ;

For they are men forsooth have wordes to pierce

And wound a stoney heart with softning verse.

They can worke wonders, and to tricke will move

A marble hart : they teach the art of love :

22 FRANCES HOWARD,

They can write sonnetts, and with warbling rymes

Make woemen as lighte as are the times ;

And, if I bee not then deceived much,

Your last lines intimate you to bee such :

If you bee such, then I beleeve with ease

That you canne die for love, if that you please.

Then dye as poets doe, in sighes, (false fee

To corrupt truth) in sonnetting aye mee ;

With such like pretie deathes, whose trimme disguise

May barter yeilding hartes, and blind soft eies.

No, no, I never yett could heare or prove

That there was ever any died for love ;

Nor would I have you be the man begine

The earnest daunce for such a sportive sinne :

For what would prove a laughter for an age ;

Stuffe for a play ; fitt matter for a stage.

But, that I may not spend my time in words,

Thus much my leisure and my witte affordes,

To make you thinke the paines you did employ

Were not all spent on one both nice and coy.

In honourable meaninge nowe it restes

That you for worth's sake graunt mee two requests :

First, to desist your suit, and give less scope

To the licentious aptness of your hope ;

Next, that you dare not to attempt the passage

Of more replies, by letters, or by message.

The first suite I'll entreate it at your hand,

And for the latter of them, lie commaunde.

In doeing which you give me cause to say

That some thoughts on you are not cast away :

Else, all my love is firmlie plac'd, therefore

Hope for no favour I will love no more.

SIR GEORGE RODNEY, BEFORE HEE KILLED HIMSELFE.

What shall I doe that am undone ?
Where shall I flie, myselfe to shunne ?
Ah mee ! myselfe, myselfe must kill,
And yett I die against my will.

DUCHESS OF RICHMOND. 23

In starry letters I behold
My death in the heavens enroll' d :
There find I, wrytt in skies above,
That I, poore I must die for love.
'Twas not my love deserved to die ;

no, it was unworthie I.

1 for her love should not have dy'de,
But that I had no worth beside.

Ah mee ! that love such woes procures,
For without her no love endures.
I for her verlues her doe serve,
Does such a love a death deserve 1

The Countess is said to have accepted a succeeding lover
of a milder cast, with less coyness, yet with unstained
honour. Lodowick Stuart, then Earl, and afterwards Duke
of Richmond and Lenox, paid his addresses to her in the
chaste and mysterious spirit of ancient romance, and they
were favourably received.

"In the Earl, her husband's time," says Wilson, " she
was often courted by the Duke, who presented many a fair
offering to her, as an humble suppliant ; sometimes in a blue
coat, with a basket-hilt sword ; making his addresses in such
odd disguises." He waited long and patiently for her hand,
the Earl of Hertford surviving till 1621. She was now per-
haps the richest dowager in England, possessing, in addition
to considerable property derived from her first husband, a
jointure of five thousand pounds a year settled on her by her
aged Lord, and, presently after his death, bestowed her
abated beauty, and increased wealth, on the Duke of Rich-
mond. She became once more a widow, for the Duke was
found dead in his bed on the twelfth of February, 1623-4 ;
and now, again says Wilson, " after his decease, Lennox and
Richmond, with the great title of Duchess, gave period to
her honour, which could not arrive at her mind, she having
the most glorious and transcendent heights in speculation,
for, finding the King a widower, she vowed, after so great a

24 FRANCES HOWARD,

Prince as Richmond, never to be blown with the kisses, nor
eat at the table of a subject ; and this vow must be spread
abroad, that the King may take notice of the bravery of her
spirit. But this bait would not catch the old King, so that
she missed her aim ; and, to make good her resolution, she
speciously observed her rule to the last."

The same author informs us that " when she was Countess
of Hertford, and found admirers about her, she would often
discourse of her two grandfathers, the Dukes of Norfolk and
Buckingham, recounting the time since one of her grand-
fathers did this ; the other did that. But if the Earl, her
husband, came in presence, she would presently desist ; for
when he found her in those exaltations, to take her down, he
would say, { Frank, Frank, how long is it since thou wert
married to Prannel ? ' which would damp the wings of her
spirit, and make her look after her feet, as well as gaudy
plumes. One little vanity," adds Wilson, " of this great
Duchess may yet crowd in this story She was a woman
greedy of fame, and loved to keep great state with little cost ;
for, being much visited by all the great ones, she had her
formality of officers and gentlemen that gave attendance, and
this advantage, that none ever eat with her ; yet all the
tables in the hall were spread, as if there had been meat,
and men to furnish them ; but before eating time, the house
being voided, the linen returned into their folds again, and
all her people grazed on some few dishes. Yet, where her
actions came into fame's fingering, her gifts were suitable to
the greatness of her mind ; for the Queen of Bohemia, to the
christening of whose child she was a witness, had some taste
of them ; and, being blown up by admiration for this bounty,
either by her own design to magnify her merit, or by others,
in mockery, to magnify her vanity, huge inventories of massy
plate went up and down from hand to hand, that she had
given that Queen, and most believed it, yet they were but
paper presents : those inventories had a non est inventus at
the Hague : they saw the shell, the inventory, but never

DUCHESS OF RICHMOND. 25

found the kernel, the plate. Such difference there is between
solid worth, and airy paper-greatness." Wilson, whose
anecdotes do not always deserve implicit faith, is probably
correct in the view which he has given of this singular lady's
character. It involved the strangest contrarieties. We
learn from a letter in the Strafford papers, that even in her
dying moments she insisted on the observance of all the
stately ceremonies to which she had accustomed herself, and
was actually surrounded by the officers of her household,
bearing white wands, and other ensigns of their respective
stations ; while a public record informs us that she conde-
scended to accept from James, in partnership with another
person, an exclusive patent for coining farthings.

The Duchess of Richmond had no children by either of
her husbands. She died on the eighth of October, 1639, and
was buried, with the Duke, under a most magnificent monu-
ment, erected by herself, in Henry the Seventh's chapel, in
Westminster Abbey.

IH1E1MEY

OB. 1639

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

SIR HENRY WOTTON had the happiness to possess one of
those rare characters in which it is difficult to say whether
the useful or the agreeable was most to be observed. He
was equally remarkable for a keen and sober sagacity, a bril-
liant wit, and a lively and jocose humour. He was not only
a profound scholar, but well skilled also in all those elegant
and delicate arts a just judgment in which has acquired
since his time the appellation of taste. The severity of his
studies, and the abstract forms of an academical life, had not
prevented him from being one of the best bred men in Eng-
land. Indeed true politeness is a creature of nature and not
of education ; the issue of good sense, joined to a cheerful
heart, and a mild and kind temper, all of which he possessed
in an eminent degree. In courts, in councils, in society, and
in seclusion, his conduct was alike distinguished by a grace-
ful singularity which all wondered at, and scarcely any
understood. It was the result of that just estimation of
men and things which in fact constitutes true philosophy.
He lived beloved, respected, and admired ; and descended
into the grave with a character wholly unimpeached, and
without leaving a single enemy.

His ancestors, and indeed the most of his family, had held
considerable employments under the Crown, with the highest
reputation, from the reign of Henry the Sixth, till his father,
who had been repeatedly urged to engage in public service,
resolved to sit down in hospitable privacy on his ancient
inheritance. That gentleman, Thomas Wotton, of Boughton

28 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

Malherbe, in Kent, was twice married, and Henry, the sub-
ject of this memoir, his fourth, but only son by his second
wife, Eleanor, daughter of Sir William Finch, of Eastwell,
in that county, was born at Boughton, on the thirtieth of
March, 1568. His education, in consequence probably of an
early promise of extraordinary genius, was of an higher order
than it has been usual in any time to allot to such a younger
son. He was removed from the care of a domestic tutor to
Winchester school, and from thence at the age of sixteen to
Oxford, where he was admitted of New College, but
resided, according to the frequent usage of that time, in Hart
Hall, in the rank of a gentleman commoner. He afterwards
studied at Queen's College, with the most rapid success,
relieving however the labour of his severer occupations in
more lively exercises of his genius, particularly in the com-
position of a tragedy, to which he gave the title of Tancredo.
It is a sufficient proof of the estimation in which he was
held in his college that the provost, at a period when dra-
matic composition was esteemed even disgraceful, should not
only have encouraged him to write that play, but should
have even permitted the representation of it, as it should
seem, by the students ; for Isaac Walton, in his short sketch
of Wotton's Life, tells us that " he was by the chief of that
college persuasively enjoined to write it for their private
use." Walton adds that it was, " for the method, and exact
personating those humours, passions, and dispositions, which
he proposed to represent, so performed, that the gravest of
that society declared he had in a slight employment given an
early and a solid testimony of future abilities." The play,
however, was never printed, and is probably wholly lost.

We have a remarkable proof of the variety of his genius in
his success in the three customary lectures read by him on
his taking the degree of Master of Arts, the subject of which
was the human eye. He treated it at once with such depth
of physical knowledge and moral feeling, and with so much
poetical and rhetorical elegancy, that the celebrated Italian,

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 29

Alberico Gentili, then Professor of Civil Law, and under
whom he studied in that faculty, gave him the familiar appel-
lation of " Henrico mi Ocelli," and he was better known,
during the remainder of his residence in the University, by
that name than by his own. He continued there for two
years after his father's death, which happened in 1589, and
then set out to make the tour of Europe, with an annual
income of one hundred marks derived from that event. He
visited France, Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries,
travelling under feigned names, which he frequently changed,
and passing always as a Roman Catholic ; his immediate
view general improvement, and his final object the qualifica-
tions for a statesman. It seems probable indeed, from some
passages of uncertain import in a few of his letters written
during that tour to his friend Lord Zouch, that he was even
then in some sort of political correspondence with Elizabeth's
ministers, which may account for the air of mystery which
he assumed. He remained abroad for several years, and
soon after his return, apparently in 1596, the favourite
Robert, Earl of Essex, appointed him one of his two secre-
taries, in which capacity he attended that nobleman in his
expeditions against the Spaniards, as well as in his journey
to Ireland in 1599. Essex, upon his return from thence,
was charged with high treason, and Wotton, who perhaps
had good ground to forebode the catastrophe which ensued,
fled into France, and from thence went again to Italy, and
fixed his residence at Florence. Here he wrote his " State
of Christendom, or a most exact and curious discovery of
many secret passages and hidden mysteries of the times.' 1
It has been thought, and reasonably enough, that he com-
posed that piece in the hope of removing some ill opinions
conceived of him by Elizabeth, for it contains in fact a
defence of almost every measure of her reign, mixed with the
highest eulogies on her wisdom and goodness.

In his former visit to Italy he had become intimately
acquainted with a gentleman of the name of Vietta. whom

.30 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

he now found at Florence, in the office of secretary to the
Grand Duke. That Prince, not long after Wotton's arrival,
had discovered from some intercepted letters a design
to poison the King of Scotland, and was anxious to put
James on his guard against the assassins. Vietta recom-
mended Wotton to convey the intelligence ; and introduced
him to the Duke, from whom he received his instructions,
together with such Italian antidotes against poison as had
been till then unknown to the Scots. This expedition, which
was secretly pregnant with the chief future events of his
life, was marked by circumstances of romantic singularity.
He assumed an Italian name, and, to avoid observation, par-
ticularly by any of his own country, travelled post into
Norway, and there embarked for Scotland, where he found
the King at Stirling. There is a sort of interest in Walton's
relation of his introduction to James which any alteration
would weaken. " He used means," says Walton, " by
Bernard Lindsey, one of the King's bedchamber, to procure
him a speedy and private conference with his Majesty,
assuring him that the business which he was to negociate was
of such consequence as had caused the Great Duke of Tus-
cany to enjoin him suddenly to leave his native country of
Italy, to impart it to his Majesty. This being by Bernard
Lindsey made known to the King, he, after a little wonder,
mixed with jealousy, to hear of an Italian ambassador, or
messenger, required his name, which was said to be Octavio
Baldi, and appointed him to be heard privately at a fixed
hour that evening. When Octavio Baldi came to the pre-
sence chamber door, he was requested to lay aside his long
rapier, which, Italian like, he then wore ; and, being en-
tered the chamber, he found there with the King three or
four Scotch Lords, standing distant in several corners of the
chamber, at the sight of whom he made a stand, which the
King observing, bade him be bold, and deliver his message,
for he would undertake for the secrecy of all that were
present. Then did Octavio Baldi deliver his letters, and his

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 31

message to the King in Italian, which when the King had
graciously received, after a little pause, Octavio Baldi steps
to the table, and whispers to the King in his own language
that he was an Englishman, beseeching him for a more private
conference with his Majesty, and that he might be con-
cealed during his stay in that nation, which was promised
and performed by the King, during his abode there, which
was three months."

Wotton returned to Florence with James's acknowledg-
ments, and Elizabeth dying within a few months, that Prince
mounted the throne of England. Soon after his arrival in
London, having found among the late Queen's servants a
Lord Wotton (for she had bestowed a barony on the elder
brother of Henry) in the office of Comptroller of the House-
hold, and being struck by the name, he demanded of that
nobleman, to use again the words of Walton, "if he knew one
Henry Wotton, who had spent much time in foreign travel.
The other replied that he knew him well, and that he was
his brother. Then the King asking where he then was, was
answered at Venice or Florence ; but that by late letters
from thence he understood that he would suddenly be at
Paris. { Send for him then, 5 said the King, 'and when he shall
come into England, bid him repair to me.' The Lord Wotton,
after a little wonder, asked the King if he knew him, to
which the King answered, ' You must rest unsatisfied of that
till you bring the gentleman to me. 3 Not many months
after this discourse, the Lord Wotton brought his brother to
attend the King, who took him in his arms, and bade him
welcome by the name of Octavio Baldi, saying he was the
most honest, and therefore the best dissembler that ever
he met with ; and said, ' seeing I know you neither want
learning, travel, nor experience, and that I have had so real a
testimony of your faithfulness and abilities to manage an
embassage, I have sent for you to declare my purpose, which
is to make use of you in that kind hereafter ; and indeed the
King did so most of the two and twenty years of his reign :

32 SIR HENRY WOTTOX.

but before he dismissed Octavio Baldi from his present
attendance on him, he restored to him his old name of Henry
Wotton, by which he then knighted him."

James indeed amply proved the sincerity with which he
had spoken of Wotton's abilities, by giving him the choice of
those three missions which were at that precise period the
most important to Paris, Madrid, or Venice. He had
formed strict friendships with the most eminent men in
Italy, and his disposition, as well as his purse, was ill suited
to the habits of luxurious and splendid courts : he made his
election therefore for the Venetian embassy, and left England
in the spring of 1604. Venice was at that time in a state of
violent contention with the See of Rome, and James enter-
tained hopes, by fomenting the division, of detaching it
wholly from that Church. The celebrated Paul Sarpi, in
every way formidable, and not least for being an ecclesiastic,
was the chief director at that time of the Venetian counsels ;
Wotton formed a close intimacy with him ; and flattered him
by transmitting to James the sheets of his famous history
of the Council of Trent as they fell from his pen. In the
mean time Paul the Fourth, who had succeeded to the papal
throne amidst the heat of the feud, issued his sentence of
excommunication against the whole Venetian state : and its
final separation, which Wotton had earnestly endeavoured to
effect, seemed to be at hand, when the pope suddenly gave
way, and the dispute, which had subsisted for some years,
was accommodated. Burnet, in his life of Bishop Bedel,
who was chaplain to this embassy, ascribes, with the care-
lessness or the malevolence which equally distinguished him,
the failure of James's design to Wotton's negligence or
treachery, and has been unwarily followed by Welwood ;
but the aspersion has been wholly wiped away by Dr.
Hickes, in a statement of positive facts, too large to be
admitted in this place.

Wotton returned from Venice with undiminished favour,
in 1610, when a singular circumstance cast a cloud over his

$IR HENRY WOTTON. 33

prospects. On his journey thither, passing some days at
Augsburgh, he had been persuaded, in an hour of cheerful
relaxation, to write a few words in one of those common
depositories of German wit to which they give the name of
Alba. The sentence which he chose, certainly unworthy of
him, was " Legatus est vir bonus, peregre missus ad men-
tiendum reipublicae causa," which required an English trans-
lation to give it even the merit of a pun, the utmost to
which it could be entitled. More than six years had now
passed, when Gasper Scioppius, a busy Romanist pamphleteer,
happening to see this Album, published the ridiculous con-
ceit in two several invectives against James, as a specimen of
the religion and good faith practised by that Prince and his
ambassador. James was highly offended, and Sir Henry
found it necessary to apologise, which he did with great
ingenuity, in a letter to the King, and another to Volser, one
of the chief municipal officers of Augsburgh, both of which
he printed, and dispersed over Germany ; but this trifle
is said to have sunk deeply into the mind of James, and
certain it is that Wotton remained unemployed, though not
wholly unconsulted, for more than four succeeding years.
At length in 1615 he was appointed ambassador to the
United Provinces, from whence, after a few months' resi-
dence, he was recalled, and again dispatched to Venice. He
returned in 1617, to solicit fruitlessly for the office of Secre-
tary of State, vacant by the death of Sir Ralph Winwood,
and was soon after sent Ambassador extraordinary to the
Duke of Savoy, and subsequently employed in several mis-
sions into Germany, on the unfortunate affairs of the King of
Bohemia. The termination of these last labours was marked
by a noble instance of his high spirit and disinterestedness.
Frederic's hopes having been finally crushed by the issue of
the battle of Prague, Wotton was preparing to quit Vienna,
when the Emperor, at his audience of leave, gave him a
jewel worth more than a thousand pounds, a sum to him,
who was always necessitous, of very high importance. He

IV. D

34 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

presented it immediately after to an Italian Countess, at
whose house he had been by the Imperial order lodged.
Before his departure, the Emperor was informed of this
remarkable fact, and expressed his displeasure by an official
message, to which Wotton answered that " though he had
received it from his Majesty with thankfulness, yet he found
in himself an indisposition to be the better for any gift that
came from an enemy to his royal Mistress, the Queen of
Bohemia."

He was now once more appointed Ambassador to Venice,
where he remained till the death of King James, when he
was, to his great grief, superseded, and returned to sue for
some permanent appointment the income from which might
enable him to pass his declining years in tranquillity. From
the hour in which he entered the public service he had been
continually vexed by domestic necessities. Several thousand
pounds were due to him for his expenses in his repeated
embassies, and he had long solicited in vain, even for the
smallest remittances. His annuity of one hundred marks,
his sole patrimony, he had been obliged to sell early in his
public life. The reversions of the place of one of the Six
Clerks in Chancery, and of the Mastership of the Rolls, had
been long promised to him, but the only vacancy which had
occurred in the former office had been filled without any
regard to his claim, and Sir Julius Caesar was still Master of
the Rolls. The following letter from Wotton to the Duke of
Buckingham at that period will best show the painful circum-
stances under which he suffered, as well as the ready wit
which even so unpropitious a subject could not banish from
his pen.

" May it please your Grace,

Having some days by sickness been deprived of the
comfort of your sight, who did me so much honour at my
last access, I am bold to make these poor lines happier than
myself, and withal to represent unto your Grace, whose noble

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 35

patronage is ray refuge when I find any occasion to bewail
mine unhappy fortune, a thing which seemed strange to me.
I am told, I know not how truly, that his Majesty hath
already disposed of the Venetian ambassage to Sir Isaac
Wake, from whose sufficiency if I should detract it would be
but an argument of my own weakness. But that which
herein doth touch me (I am loth to say in my reputation)
surely much in my livelyhood, as lawyers speak, is that
thereby, after seventeen years of foreign and continual employ-
ment, either ordinary or extraordinary, I am left utterly
destitute of all possibility to subsist at home ; much like
those seal fishes which sometimes, as they say, oversleeping
themselves in an ebbing water, feel nothing about them but
a dry shore when they awake : which comparison I am fain
to seek among those creatures, not knowing among men that
have so long served so gracious a master any one to whom I
may resemble my unfortunate business. Good my Lord, as
your Grace hath vouchsafed me some part of your love, so
make me worthy in this of some part of your compassion.
So I heartily rest,

" Your Grace's, &c.

" HENRY WOTTON."

At length, on the twenty-sixth of July, 1625, he was
appointed Provost of Eton College : a strange provision for a
retired statesman, and yet the great Bacon, who was his
cousin and friend, had been now his competitor for it. His
extreme indigence prevented him for some time from settling
himself even in this humble retreat, for his personal liberty
was threatened by his creditors. He procured at last, through
the means of a man who had been a servant to his brother,
the Lord Wotton, and had obtained from that nobleman the
office of a clerk of the King's kitchen, five hundred pounds
of his arrears from the Crown. A letter from him to his
humble benefactor, praying his assistance, is extant. " My
face," says he, " for the want of this money, is wrinkled with

D2

36 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

care : procure it for me, and you shall the next day find me
in my college with Invidise Remedium writ over my study
door." He could not spare from that sum even sufficient to
put the necessary moveables into his apartments, and they
were furnished by a contribution among the fellows of the
college. Soon after he entered on his office he was ordained
a deacon.

To enumerate the particulars of the discipline of a school
would be idle, but Sir Henry Wotton's conduct in his new
station must not be passed over wholly unnoticed. He seems
to have been the first reformer of that illiberal technicality
which till his time prevailed in education ; in other words,
the first who discovered that justice and beneficence were
at least as necessary as vigilance and severity ; and that it
was possible, in the prosecution of youthful study, to mingle
delight with labour. From his first entrance on his unaccus-
tomed and humiliating charge he performed the functions
which it required with as much ardour and zeal, and with as
scrupulous a circumspection, as if it had been the first object
of his ambition, and the constant employment of his life.
His hours of leisure were passed in refined conversation,
which no man better understood, or more entirely loved ; and
in literary composition, in all parts of which he excelled.
He had projected, and indeed commenced, some extensive
works, but left them unfinished. Of those omissions none
perhaps ought to be so much regretted as a Life of Luther,
intended to include the history of the reformation in Ger-
many, which he was prevailed on to lay aside by Charles the
First, who persuaded him to undertake a history of England,
by a promise of five hundred pounds a year while he should
be engaged in it. Little however appears to have been written,
and probably less was paid ; but we have enough from his pen
to authorize us to rank him with the first writers of his age, in
a small volume of his pieces in prose and verse, collected and
published after his death, by his great admirer, and brother
angler, the excellent Isaac Walton. The most perfect, in all

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

37

respects, of these, is his treatise on architecture, as unalterably
valuable for the soundness of its principles, as delightful for
the lively familiarity of its style. The rest are " A View of
the Life and Death of George, Duke of Buckingham ; " a
Parallel between the characters of that nobleman and Robert,
Earl of Essex ; and an Essay on the " Difference and Dis-
parity " of their " Estates and Conditions," which last how-
ever has been said, I know not on what authority, to have been
written by the Lord Chancellor Clarendon : " A Panegyrick
on King Charles the first, presented to that Prince on his return
from Scotland in 1633 :" " Moral Architecture, or a philo-
sophical survey of Education :" together with " Aphorisms
of Education ; " both which were framed for an intended
large work on that arduous subject : " The Election of the
New Duke of Venice, in 1618 ;" with some small devotional
tracts ; several letters ; and a very few short poetical pieces.
Mortifying indeed is it that they should be so few, for the
fame and value of gems of this nature are not enhanced by
their rarity, and many even among polite readers have scarcely
heard of Sir Henry Wotton as a poet ; yet who ever read his
verses without regretting that his life had not been wholly
dedicated to the muse ? No apology then can be necessary
for ornamenting this memoir with two brief specimens. The
first addressed " to his mistress, the Queen of Bohemia," is
perhaps unequalled for elegance and simplicity by any com-
position extant of the same order.

You, meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes

More by your number than your light,
You common people of the skies,
What are you when the sun shall rise ?

You, curious chanters of the wood,
That warble forth dame Nature's lays,

Thinking your voices understood

By your weak accents, what 's your praise
When Philomel her voice shall raise ?

38 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

You violets, that first appear,

By your pure purple mantles known,

Like the proud virgins of the year,
As if the spring were all your own,
What are you when the rose is blown ?

So, when my mistress shall be seen,

In form, and beauty of her mind,
By virtue first, then choice, a Queen,

Tell me if she were not designed

Th' eclipse and glory of her kind.

And how full of truth, and boldness, and beauty, is this
living picture : the very carelessness with which it is drawn
increases its value. He has inscribed it " A Description of
Spring ; on a Bank, as I sate a fishing."

And now all nature seemed in love ;
The lusty sap began to move ;
New juice did stir th' embracing vines ;
And birds had drawn their Valentines.
The jealous trout that low did lie,
Rose at a well dissembled fly.

There stood my friend, with patient skill
Attending of his trembling quill.
Already were the eaves possest
With the swift pilgrim's daubed nest.
The groves already did rejoice
In Philomel's triumphing voice.

The showers were short ; the weather mild ;
The morning fresh ; the evening smil'd.
Joan takes her neat rubb'd pail, and now
She trips to milk the sand-red cow;
Where, for some sturdy foot-ball swain,
Joan strokes a syllabub or twain.

The fields and gardens were beset
With tulip, crocus, violet :

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 39

And now, though late, the modest rose
Did more than half a blush disclose.
Thus all look'd gay ; all full of cheer,
To welcome the new-liveried year.

Sir Henry Wotton held his office of Provost for fourteen
years. Towards the close of his life he besought the King
to grant him the reversion of the Mastership of the Savoy,
but his death, or perhaps the exertion of some more powerful
interest than he could employ, prevented his succeeding to
that benefice. His health began to decline in the autumn of
1637, and on the first of October in that year he executed his
last will, some legacies in which deserve to be particularly
remembered. He bequeathed to the King his pictures of the
four Dukes of Venice in whose time he was Ambassador to
that State, painted by Edoardo Fialetto, together with a
portrait of the Duke Leonardo Donate, and a picture of " the
Venetian College, where Ambassadors had their audience ; "
and also his collection of the papers of the eminent statesman
Sir Nicholas Throgmorton : to the Queen, " Dioscorides, with
the plants naturally coloured, and the text translated by
Matthiolus, in the best language of Tuscany : " to the Prince
of Wales, the portrait of his Aunt, the Queen of Bohemia :
to Archbishop Laud, a picture of divine Love : to Bishop
Juxon, a picture of Heraclitus and Democritus : to Sir
Francis Windebank, "the four seasons of old Bassano, to
hang near the eye in his parlour ; " to Dr. Bargrave, Dean
of Canterbury, all his Italian books, and his viol de gamba :
to Mr. Nicholas Pey, his " chest, or cabinet of instruments
and engines of all kind of uses ; in the lower box whereof
are some fit to be bequeathed to none but so entire an honest
man as he is : " to the library at Eton, all his manuscripts
not before bequeathed. He desired to be buried in the
chapel of the College, and that a plain marble stone should
be placed over his remains, with the following inscription, a
final proof at once of his wisdom and his wit

40 SIR HENRY WOTTON.

Hie jacet hujus sententiae primus Author,

Disputandi Pruritus Ecclesiarum Scabies.

Nomen alias quaere.

He survived however for two years, till at length, worn
out by repeated attacks of fever and asthma, he departed on
or about the fifth of December, 1639. Sir Henry Wotton
was never married.

IT y m A s ,

'FIRST LORD COVENTRY.
OB; 1640.

THOMAS, FIRST LORD COVENTRY,

LORD KEEPER.

FEW persons of extraordinary and highly deserved eminence
have been less spoken of in history than this nobleman ; but
it is not difficult to discover the reasons. He possessed a
sound judgment, and honest heart, and an equable temper ;
a manly, but well-governed pride, which equally disdained
the servilities of faction and favouritism ; and an innate
modesty, which kept jealousy and envy always at a distance.
A pure conscience had dictated to him that the life of a judge
should be almost wholly confined to his court and his closet,
and he withheld himself therefore as much as possible from
any concern in the affairs of the state. Public men of his
character receive the reward of their merits in the praise of
their grateful contemporaries, and may be said, to use a
familiar phrase, to have but a life interest in their fame.
His memory, however, has been celebrated by Lord Claren-
don, in no common strain of eulogy ; and I find in the
Sloane Collection, in the British Museum, a small, anony-
mous, and I believe hitherto unpublished and unquoted
manuscript, intitled, " Of Thomas Lord Coventrie, late Lord
Keeper of the Create Seale of England, some notable obser-
vations in the course of his life, and ultimum vale to the
world." But for those two sources of intelligence, he would
have been nearly unknown to us.

His family derived its surname from the town of Coventry,
and its fortune was made by John Coventry, who was born
there, became a mercer in London, and served the office of

42 LORD KEEPER COVENTRY.

Lord Mayor in 1425. Thomas, a junior descendant from
that John, was a lawyer of eminence, and rose to the degree
of a Judge of the Common Pleas. He married Margaret
daughter and heir to a gentleman of the name of Jefferies, of
Croome d'Abitot, in the county of Worcester, still the chief
seat of the Earls of Coventry, and to them the subject of
this memoir was eldest son and heir. He was educated
under the eye of his father till the age of fourteen, when he
became, in Michaelmas term, 1592, a gentleman commoner
of Baliol College, where he remained for three years, and
then came to London to study and practise the law, and pre-
sently gained the highest reputation in that faculty. " He
was of the Inner House of Court," (the Inner Temple,) says
the Sloane MS. " and no sooner, by an indefatigable diligence
in study, attained the barr, but he appeared in the lustre of
his profession, above the common expectation of men of that
forme, which he made good in the manifestac~n of his ex-
quisite abilities." It was several years, however, before any
mark of public favour was bestowed on him, and it is very
probable that the profits of his extensive practice had
induced him to decline many ; at length, on the seventeenth
of November, 1616, he was elected Recorder of London ;
on the fourteenth of March, in the following year, was
appointed Solicitor General ; and on the sixteenth received
the honour of Knighthood at Theobalds. In 1620 he was
promoted to the place of Attorney-general, and, soon after
the accession of Charles the First, Buckingham, having
prevailed on the King to dismiss his old enemy, Bishop
Williams, recommended Coventry to succeed to the station,
which had been so long held by that prelate, of Lord Keeper,
to which he was appointed on the first of November, 1625.
His letter to the Duke, signifying his acceptance of that
high office, cannot but be esteemed, in every point of con-
sideration, a singular curiosity. The original remains in the
Harleian collection.

LORD KEEPER COVENTRY. 43

" May it please yo" Grace,

" I have, according to that liberty and favour w ch yow
were pleased to vouchsafe me, seriously thought of that
greate and weighty business w ch you propounded att South-
ampton concerning myself, and do now returne to yo r Grace
that humble and dutifull answere w eh in this space my care-
full thoughts have ministred ; wherein I must beginn w* a
syncere and harty acknowledgement of that abondant goodnes
of his Ma tie that hath bene pleased to cast his eye upon so
meane a servant, and so highly to accept those poore ser-
vices w ch , w th a faythefull hart, but a weake hand, I have
desyred to perform to his Ma tie , and his blessed father, as to
think of so emmenent an advancement for me, his unworthy
minister. And I do likewise acknowledg to yo r Grace all
the duty and thnakes that can take hold of a faythefull and
true hart, that both in this, and in all other occasions that
have concerned me, have, out of yo r owne noblenes, inter-
ceded for me to his Ma tie and his royall father. And, how-
soever the greatnes and weight of that place, beyond mine
ability, have putt me into some perplexity of thoughts, yet,
from yo r first moc~on, I did, and ev r shall, blesse and mag-
nifie God, that hath moved the hart of his Ma tie and yo r Grace
to be so gracious and indulgente towards me.

" Now, concerning the matter itself, I did at Southampton
syncerely propound to yo r Grace those reasons, proceeding
from myne owne weaknes w ch might move me to declyne it,
and might move his Ma tie to think of a more able and com-
plete man to undergoe so weighty a service : and, having
synce that tyme thought thereof again and again, I fynd
nothing to abate in me the sense of myne owne infirmities, or
to deliv r me from my feares, but his Ma tie ' 8 thryce greate grace
and goodnes, and the assurance I have of yo r most noble and
constant favour. But these, together w th that dutyfull
obediens w ch I owe to all his Ma tie ' 8 com~andements, bredd a
great conflict in myself against those disabilityes whereof I
am most conscious to myself, and have produced in me this

44 LORD KEEPER COVENTRY.

resolucion ; to lay myself in all humility and submission at
the feet of my Soveraigne, to dispose of me as shall seeme
best to his owne princely wisdome and goodness ; w h if it
be that way as yo r Grace told me his Highnes did inclyne, I
shall dutifully obey, and faythefully undergoe it ; my hope
being that God, and the King's Ma lie , will beare w 01 my in-
firmities, and accept my true hart, and willing endevour :
and, if his Ma tie shall determyne otherwise, as it may be
much better for his servyce and the publique, so it wilbe
more agreable to my course of lief and disposic~on, and to
that more private way w ch my thoughts have bene addicted
to ; and, w ch way ever it fall, I wilbe, as I am most bounden,

" Yo r Grace's most humble and faythefull servant,
" Kingsbury, " THOMAS COVENTRYE.

13 Septe~b~r, 1625."

Some fugitive political pieces of his time, or shortly after,
Jiave placed him among the creatures of Buckingham, but the
imputation is wholly unsupported by any respectable
historical evidence. In the letter before us, written on an
occasion so likely to produce, and perhaps almost to justify,
the hyperbolical flattery which was so much the fashion
of that day, we find only the manly expressions of a genuine
gratitude, and a respectful courtesy. But we can have no
better proof of the untruth of the charge than from an
anecdote in the pamphlet of Sir Anthony Weldon, who never
failed to vilify, and sometimes very falsely, those whom the
Duke peculiarly favoured, or by whom he was notoriously
courted. Buckingham, according to that writer, had endea*
voured to persuade the King to grant to him the dormant
appointment of Lord High Constable, an office of such exor-
bitant power that royalty itself had been known to tremble at
it. The Lord Keeper had honestly advised the King to
refuse ; " but Buckingham's ambition," continues Weldon,
" would not be so bounded ; for, upon the opposing it by
Coventry, he peremptorily thus accosted him, saying ' Who

LORD KEEPER COVENTRY. 45

made you, Coventry, Lord Keeper ? ' He replied, c The
King.' Buckingham sur-replied, 'It's false, 'twas I did
make you ; and you shall know that I, who made you, can,
and will, unmake you.' Coventry thus answered him, 'Did
I conceive I held my place by your favour, I would pre-
sently unmake myself, by rendering the seal to his Majesty.'
Then Buckingham in a scorn and fury flung from him,
saying, ( You shall not keep it long ; ' and surely, had not
Felton prevented him, he had made good his word." The
few enemies, indeed, that he had were made so by his
independence and his sincerity. The Marquis of Hamilton,
tl whose interest in the King's affections," to use the words
of Lord Clarendon, " was at least equal, and thought to be
superior, to any man's ; and who had more out-faced the
law in bold projects, and pressures on the people, than any
other man durst have presumed to do ; " never forgave his
obstinate refusal to affix the great seal to an illegal patent
for an impost invented by the Marquis ; and he was Hated
by the Earl of Manchester, who had been bred a lawyer, and
who, according to the same noble writer, "was unhappily
too much used as a check upon the Lord Keeper," when he
perplexed the counsels and designs of the King's misadvisers
by inconvenient objections in law.

But the character given of him by Lord Clarendon, in
his glorious review of the court and ministers of Charles,
however long, and already many times reprinted, must be
repeated here, without diminution.

" He was a man of wonderful gravity and wisdom, and
understood not only the whole science and mystery of the
law, at least equally with any man who had ever sate in
that place, but had a clear conception of the whole policy
of the government both of church and state, which, by the
unskilfulness of some well meaning men, justled each the
other too much. He knew the temper, disposition, and
genius of the kingdom most exactly ; saw their spirits grow
every day more sturdy, inquisitive, and impatient; and

40 LORD KEEPER COVENTRY.

therefore naturally abhorred all innovations which he fore-
saw would produce ruinous effects. Yet many who stood at
a distance thought he was not active and stout enough in
opposing these innovations ; for, though by his place he
presided in all publick counsels, and was most sharp-sighted
in the consequence of things, yet he was seldom known to
speak in matters of state, which he well knew were for the
most part concluded before they were brought to that public
agitation ; never in foreign affairs, which the vigour of his
judgement could well have comprehended ; nor indeed
freely in any thing but what immediately and plainly con-
cern'd the justice of the kingdom ; and in that, as much as
he could, he procur'd references to the judges. Though in
his nature he had not only a firm gravity but a severity, and
even some morosity, yet it was so happily temper'd, and his
courtesy and affability towards all men so transcendent, and
so much without affectation, that it marvellously recom-
mended him to all men of all degrees ; and he was looked
upon as an excellent courtier, without receding from the
native simplicity of his own mariners."

" He had in the plain way of Speaking and delivery,
without much ornament of elocution, a strange power of
making himself believ'd, the only justifiable design of
eloquence ; so that though he used very frankly to deny,
and would never suffer any man to depart from him with an
opinion that he was inclin'd to gratify when in truth he was
not, holding that dissimulation to be the worst of lying, yet
the manner of it was so gentle and obliging, and his con-
descension such, to inform the persons whom he could not
satisfy, that few departed from him with ill will and ill
wishes. But then this happy temper, and these good
faculties, rather preserved him from having many enemies,
and supplied him with some well-wishers, than furnish'd
him with any fast and unshaken friends, who are always
procured in courts by more ardour, and more vehement
professions and applications, than he would suffer himself

LORD KEEPER COVENTRY. 47

to be entangled with : so that he was a man rather exceed-
ingly liked than passionately loved ; insomuch that it never
appeared that he had any one friend in court of quality
enough to prevent or divert any disadvantage he might be
exposed to ; and therefore it is no wonder, nor to be imputed
to him, that he retired within himself as much as he could,
and stood upon his defence, without making desperate sallies
against growing mischiefs which he knew well he had no
power to hinder, and which might probably begin in his own
ruin. To conclude, his security consisted very much in his
having but little credit with the king ; and he died in a
season most opportune, in which a wise man would have
prayed to have finished his course, and which in truth
crowned his other signal prosperity in the world."

To remove from this character any possible suspicion which
might arise of prejudices derived from private friendship,
political agreement, or professional intimacy, let us hear the
censures of the Sloane MS., written, as we shall see, by one
who conceived himself to have received a cruel injury from
the object of his praise. It discloses too, and with a pen of
no small power, many particulars which Lord Clarendon has
omitted.

" The character of his outward man was this Hee was of
a middle stature ; somewhat broad and roundfaced ; of hayre
black ; and upright in his comportment and gesture ; of com-
plection sanguine, and of a comely aspect and presence. Hee
was of a very fyne and grave elocution, in a kinde of grace-
full lisping ; so that when nature might seeme to cast some-
thing of imperfecc~on on his speech, on due examinac~on,
shee added a grace to the perfecc~on of his delivery ; for his
words rather flowed from him in a kind of native pleasingnes
then by any artificiall helpe or assistance. Hee was of a very
liberall accesse, and to all addresses presented, affable ; and,
as hee was of a very quick apprehenc~on, soe was he of an
exceeding judicious and expeditious dispatch in all affairs,
either of state or of the trybunall ; of hearing patient and

48 LORD KEEPER COVENTRY.

attentive, and, that w ch is not usually incident to p~sons of
dignitie and place, seldom in any distempered mood, or
moc~on of choller ; and it was none of his meanest comen-
dac~ons that he was an helper, or coadjutor, of counsell at
the barr, and understood better what they would have said
in the case than what they sometymes did say for their
clyents ; soe that there appeared in his constituc~on a kind
of naturall and unaffected insinuac~on, to creep into the good
opinion of all men, rather than any affected greatnes to dis-
countenance any, but never rashly to discontent many.
Through the whole course of his life his fortune was so obse-
quious that it seemed she alwayes waited upon him with a
convoy, for in all the stepps of his rise he had ever an even
and smooth passage, without any rubb or mate in the check.
For his erudition, and acquisic~ons of art, though all knew
hee was learned in the sciences, and most profound in his
profession, yet, such was the happines of his constellac~on,
that he rather leaned to his native strength then depended
on any artificiall relyance. Without doubt hee was of a most
solid and im~oveable temper, and voyd of all pride and
ostentation ; neither was he ever in any umbrage or disfavour
with his Prince, an argument both of his wisdome and sin-
ceritie ; neither in any fraction with his equalls worthie of
exception, for that of my Lord of Suffolk's business was an
act of his that told the world in how little esteeme hee held
greatnes that would justle and stand in competition with
justice ; and it is remaining among the best of his memorialls
that hee alwayes stood impregnable, and not to bee ov~come
by might. Amongst all and the many felicities of his life,
that of his short sicknes, and the willing embracement of
death with open armes, were of the most remarkable observ-
ac~on, for it is our finis qui coronat opus, and changes our
mortalitie into that of imortall glorie : for his sicknes was not
contynued with any lingring, or loathsome languishing, nor
soe precipitate as that it bereaved him of the abilitie of dis-
posing of his estate to the contentment of his posteritie, or

LORD KEEPER COVENTRY. 49

hindred the composing of his thoughts to another and better
worlde."

" If in the briefe collection of the state of this noble man's
fortune it may fall into suspic~on that I had some relac~on to
his p~son, or in some one respect or other was obliged to his

, I assume the liberty to tender this testimonie to the

world that I nev r had refference at any tyme to his service,
onely in such addresses as fell unto my lott as a suppliant I
had ever the honour of a free accesse, with libertie to speake
as I could, and as occasion, and the cause required ; but,
that which best may satisfie the suspicions that I have given
myself the least scope of partialitie or flattery, either in
favour or affecc~on, it is that I beleeve noe subject ever
suffred in that degree in losse of estate as I myselfe have
endured, and onely by a rule of his owne, in suspending my
sute in the Starchamber, the cause depending before in
chancery, untill it had there a fynall determynac~on, whereby
I was debarred," &c.

" He enjoyed his place," says Lord Clarendon, " with uni-
versal reputation," (or, rather, to use the words of Lloyd,
who bestows on him a meagre page or two, " his place en-
joyed him") " for nearly sixteen yeais, and sure justice was
never better administered." Of all public men, in all times,
he seems to have left the most unblemished reputation. The
Sloane MS. mentions two grounds of aspersion against him,
and two only, and defends him against each ; the one, an
imputation of his conduct towards some individual suitor,
which has been long since forgotten, and of which no hint is
anywhere else to be met with ; the other a mere rumour,
founded on envious and uncharitable inference. " He had a
noble fame," says the MS., " not that he passed unaccused,
for envy is a constant follower and persecutor of all great-
nes, and detracc~on an utter enemy of desert. The cheif
charge against him was that of Bonham Norton, wherein the
best and most impartiall judgements consent that his accuser
and clyent was much to blame in the error of his accompt

IV. E

60 LORD KEEPER COVENTRY,

between a judge of equity e and a quondam advocate, and in:
a case where the accuser had before received ample satis^
facc~on by the advantage and rigor of the law." And, in
reply to those who had whispered that so great a fortune as
his could scarcely have been honestly acquired, we find this
passage" Howsoever, thus much I say : that, could he have
been lymmed to the lyfe, and I believe it, wee should not
find in him much of blemish ; and that the mayne objection,
vulgarly inferred on the amassinge of his wealth could not
well be done in justice, might be answered to the full in this
that, his patrimonie considered, it was the gainefullness of
the places he past through, together with the great fortunes
of his own, and his sonne's, intermarriages, all concurring,
and falling into a frugall family, might soon wipe away all
imputac~ons of the most malignant, and perswade even de-,
tracc~on itself to suffer him to rest in peace, and, as we may
charitably beleeve, in glory, and his posteritie surviving re-,
maines in his honor and fortunes." Wood quotes a single
line against him from an infamous libel published during the
usurpation. , y/

The Lord Keeper Coventry sat for between two and. three
years in his high office before he was advanced to the peerage,
but on the tenth of April, 1628, the dignity of a Baron was
conferred on him, by the title of Lord Coventry, of Ayles-
borough, in the county of Worcester. He died, at Durham
House, in the Strand, on the fourteenth of January, 1639-40,
and was buried at Croome d'Abitot, having been twice mar-
ried ; first, to Sarah, daughter to Edward Sebright, of Bes-
ford, in that county, and sister to Sir Edward Sebright, Bart.,
by whom he had issue a daughter, Elizabeth, who became the
wife of Sir John Hare, of Stow Bardolph, in Norfolk, and an
only son, Thomas, his successor, of whom his mother died in
childbirth. t( He marryed and interred his first love," says
the Sloane MS., " in the fruyt of his primogenitus, now sur-,
viving, a Baron and Peere of the realme." He remarried
to Elizabeth, daughter to John Aldersey, of Spurstow, in

LORD KEEPER COVENTRY. 51

Cheshire, and widow of William Pitchford, a citizen, and, as the
same MS. informs us, " lovely, young, rich, and of good fame."
She brought him four sons, John, Francis, Henry, and Wil-
liam, of whom the first, third, and fourth, became men of
high distinction in the state ; and as many daughters, all
highly celebrated for their talents and their virtues, parti-
cularly the youngest, Dorothy, who, among several eminent
persons, seems to stand the first candidate for the pious
honour of having written " The Whole Duty of Man," to-
gether with the several other valuable treatises acknow-
ledged by the anonymous author of that inestimable work.
Those ladies were Anne, married to Sir William Savile, of
Thornhill, in Yorkshire, Bart., father, by her, to George,
Marquis of Halifax ; Mary, to Henry Thynne, of Longleat, in
Wiltshire, from which match the Marquisses of Bath are
descended ; Margaret, to Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury ; and
Dorothy, to Sir John Pakington, of Westwood, in the county
of Worcester, Bart.

Lord Coventry published two or three small pieces which
are scarcely worth naming "An Answer to the Petition
against Recusants" " Perfect and exact Directions to all
those that desire to know the true and just Fees of all the
Offices belonging to the Court of Common Pleas, Chancery,"
&c. Many of his speeches in Parliament are also to be met
with in print ; and a MS. remains among the Sloane papers,
written by him, conjointly with Sir Julius Caesar, intituled,
'< Ordinances for the redress of sundry errors, defaults, and
abuses, in the High Court of Chancery."

E2

KOSSELL.

EARL OF BEBFORD.
OB { I64L.

FRANCIS RUSSELL,

FOURTH EARL OF BEDFORD.

FRANCIS, second Earl of Bedford, the brightest ornament of
his eminent family, had four sons, of whom the two elder,
Edward and John, left no male issue : the third, Francis,
had an only son, Edward, the successor to his grandfather's
honours and estates, who died also childless. William, the
fourth son, who highly distinguished himself in the office of
Lord Deputy in Ireland, and was created by King James
the First, Baron Russell of Thornhaugh, married Elizabeth,
daughter and heir x>f Henry Long, of Shengay Hall, in the
county of Cambridge,- and had by her an only son, Francis,
who, on the third of May, 1627, succeeded his first cousin,
Earl Edward, and is the subject of this memoir.

Of the date of this nobleman's birth, the form of his educa-
tion, and the conduct of his private life, we have no intelli-
gence. He had arrived at a mature age when he inherited
the dignities and vast possessions of his ancestors, and the
first step which he made in the sight of his country displayed
a character equally sagacious, enterprising, active, and reso-
lute. It was in the project for draining those fens called the
Great Level, and afterwards, in honour of him, the Bedford
Level, which extend into the counties of Northampton, Cam-
bridge, Huntingdon, Norfolk, and Lincoln. Of that stupen-
dous work he was the principal undertaker, and on the first of
September, 1630, articles were signed for the performance of
it, and ninety-five thousand acres of the inundated land were
allotted to him, and to the few whom his example had

54 FRANCIS RUSSELL,

encouraged to take inferior shares in the enterprise, as the
uncertain reward for their labours. In the autumn of 1637
the Earl had expended on it the immense sum of one hundred
'thousand pounds ; and on the twelfth of October, in that year,
it was adjudged at a session of -sewers, held at Peterborough,
that the work was defective, and the grant of land was
reduced to forty thousand acres. He persisted, however, with
unabated spirit till the horrors which disfigured the latter
years of Charles's reign had put to flight the arts of peace ;
but the undertaking was resumed in 1649, by his son and
successor, to whom, and those concerned with him, the ninety-
five thousand acres were regranted in 1653, and on the second
of March it was decreed at another session, held at Ely, that
it had been at length completely accomplished. All the
circumstances of this great enterprise, so important in the
history of agriculture and mechanics in England, as well as
to the fortunes of this family, may be found in Sir William
Dugdale's " History of embanking and draining."

In the great contest between the King and the Parliament,
such a man as the Earl of Bedford could not have remained
an inactive spectator. His interests, as well as his honour,
seemed to require that he should take an active part in it, and
his capacious and fervid mind, suddenly detached from the
contemplation of a mighty object in private ceconomy, pined
for employment. He engaged with warmth, not to say vio-
lence, with the popular party, and presently became the
leader of it in the House of Peers. " He was there," says
the Earl of Clarendon, "the great contriver and principal
agent of those who were for asserting the liberty of the sub-
ject; but a wise man, and of too great and plentiful a fortune
to wish a subversion of the government ; and it quickly ap-
peared that he only intended to make himself and his friends
great at court, not at all to lessen the court itself." In the
furtherance of this view, he carried himself towards the King
with the most profound respect, and with all professions of
loyalty and zeal for his service ; and contrived to live in a

FOURTfi EARL OP BEDFORD. 55

decent and grave familiarity with the ministers, while in
Parliament he decried their measures and their motives with
the utmost eagerness. So too, with regard to ecclesiastical
matters, while he openly espoused the puritan faction, the
great leader of which, Pym, was his most intimate and confi-
dential associate, as well in private as public life, he was a
friend, or at least not an enemy, to the legal establishment.
" The Earl of Bedford," says Lord Clarendon in another
place, " had no desire that there should be any alteration in
the government of the church, and had always lived toward
my Lord of Canterbury himself with all respect and reverence,
and frequently visited and dined with him ; subscribed liber-
ally to the repair of St. Paul's church, and seconded all pious
undertakings ; though, it is true, he did not discountenance
notoriously those of the clergy who were unconformable."
This nobleman, in fine, who had the fortune to live in an age
when patriotism was less frequently professed than practised,
may perhaps be properly esteemed the main inventor of a
method of opposition too familiar to us of later days, but
which then charmed some by its novelty, and others by its
apparent impartiality, while it gained some credit with all
parties, because there had not yet been time to detect its
selfishness and insincerity.

Charles, who possessed more penetration than any of his
ministers, for Strafford had been lately dragged from his
councils, easily discerned the Earl's motives, and endeavoured
to profit by them. He secretly determined to form a new
administration, composed chiefly of the most important men
in the discontented party, and to place the Earl of Bedford at
their head. In the meantime the Earl conducted with the
most active assiduity the affairs of his faction, in which he
possessed more authority, and was trusted with more confi-
dence, than any other of its leaders. He had the chief
management of the treaty with the Scottish Commissioners at
Ripon, in 1640, on which the Parliament had built so much,
and which in fact produced such important results ; and, on

56 FRANCIS RUSSELL,

his return to London, was the foremost both in public and
private, in the prosecution of the Earl of Stratford. Arch-
bishop Laud, in his " History of his own Troubles and Trial,"
says, " This Lord was one of the main plotters of Stratford's
death ; and I know where he, with other Lords, before the
Parliament sat down, determined to have his blood." This
passage has been charged with ignorance, or wilful misrepre-
sentation, because it has been since discovered that the Earl
of Bedford had about that time found occasion, as will be
presently seen, to engage for Stratford's security ; but of this
Laud, who when he made the statement, was a close prisoner,
was probably wholly unconscious ; or if, indeed, he had been
informed of it, there was nothing in his knowledge of that fact
to affect the correctness or veracity of his report of the Earl
of Bedford's former disposition. The motives which induced
the Earl to alter that disposition, and to reconcile himself to
the royal interest, are, with an admirable clearness and con-
ciseness, thus explained by Lord Clarendon ; and the detail
furnishes matter of high curiosity for the history of a mode of
party intrigue which was then in its infancy.

" The Earl of Bedford secretly undertook to his Majesty
that the Earl of Stratford's life should be preserved, and to
procure his revenue to be settled as amply as any of his pro-
genitors, the which he intended so really that, to my know-
ledge, he had it in design to endeavour to obtain an act for
the setting up the excise in England, as the only means to
advance the King's profit. This Lord was the greatest person
of interest in all the popular party, being of the best estate
and best understanding of the whole number, and therefore
most likely to govern the rest. He was, besides, of great
civility, and much more good nature than any of the other.
And therefore the King, resolving to do his business with that
party by him, resolved to make him Lord High Treasurer of
England in the place of the Bishop of London, who was as
willing to lay down the office as anybody was to take it up ;
and to gratify him the more, at his desire, intended to make

FOURTH EARL OF BEDFORD. 57

Mr. Pym Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he had done Mr.
St. John his Solicitor General, all which hath been touched
before ; as also Mr. Hollis was to be Secretary of State ; the
Lord Say Master of the Wards ; and the Lord Kimbolton to
be Lord Privy Seal, after the death of his father, who then
held that place. Others were to be placed about the Prince,
and to have offices when they fell.

This design, from the fruition of which at that particular
point of time the happiest effects might have been expected,
was suddenly frustrated by the Earl's death. In the midst
of his negotiations with Charles, he was attacked, on the
first or second of May, 1641, by a virulent small-pox, which
terminated his life on the ninth of that month, the very day
on which the King, by commission, passed the bill of attainder
against Strafford. " God," says Laud, with his usual vehe-
mence, " would not let him live to take joy therein, but cut
him off in the morning, whereas the bill for the Earl of
Stratford's death was not signed till night." Lord Clarendon,
with becoming coolness and impartiality, tells us that " he fell
sick within a week after the bill of attainder was sent up
to the Lords' house, and died shortly after, much afflicted
with the passion and fury which he perceived his party
inclined to, insomuch as he declared to some of near trust
to him, that he feared the rage and madness of this Parlia-
ment would bring more prejudice and mischief to the king-
dom than it had ever sustained by the long intermission of
Parliaments. He was a wise man, and would have proposed
and advised moderate courses ; but was not incapable, for
want of resolution, of being carried into violent ones if his
advice were not submitted to ; and therefore many, who
knew him well, thought his death not unseasonable, as
well to his fame as his fortune, and that it rescued him as
well from some possible guilt as from some visible misfor-
tunes, which men of all conditions have since undergone."

This nobleman married Catherine, daughter and co-heir of
Giles Brydges, third Lord Chandos, and by her, who survived

58 FRANCIS RUSSELL, FOURTH EARL OF BEDFORD.

him till the twenty-ninth of January, 1653-4, had issue four
sons and four daughters. William, his eldest son and suc-
cessor, was, in his old age, in 1694, advanced to the Duke-
dom, and from him the present Duke is lineally descended :
Francis, the second, married, but died childless in his father's
lifetime : John, the third son, who was bred to military
service, died unmarried in. 1681 : and Edward, the youngest,
left five sons, of whom the second, Edward, was, for his
distinguished naval services, created Earl of Orford, &c.
in 1697. The daughters of Earl Francis were Catherine,
married to Robert Greville, Lord Brooke : Anne, to George
Digby, Earl of Bristol : Margaret, first, to James Hay, Earl
of Carlisle ; secondly, to Edward Montague, Earl of Man-
chester, and, thirdly, to Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick
and Holland. Diana, the youngest daughter, became wife
to Francis, Lord Newport, ancestor to the extinct Earls of
Bradford,

Vandyke -yx..

WENTWO5*TH :

EARL OF STEAFPOKD.
OB; 1641'

THOMAS WENTWORTH,

FIBST EARL OF STRAFFORD.

I KING Charles the First, in his celebrated apology (for
doubtless it was the offspring of his heart and pen) published
under the title of Eikon Basilike, says of this nobleman,
" I looked upon my Lord of Strafford as a gentleman whose
great abilities might make a Prince rather afraid than
ashamed to employ him in the greatest affairs of state ; for
those were prone to create in him great confidence of under-
takings, and this was like enough to betray him to great
errors." The just censure conveyed by these words is ex-
pressed with a kind and noble delicacy. Strafford possessed
deep wisdom, and the highest honour; but the one was
clouded by choler, and the other by a vindictive spirit. In
the absence of those unhappy weaknesses, he had an exact
sense of pure and genuine dignity. It was a principle which
infused itself into all he thought, or said, or did; which
attended him in courts, in councils, and in private society ;
increased at once the elegance of his sentiments, and the
grandeur and justness of his conceptions ; shed an equal
grace on his eloquence and demeanour in the Senate, and
on his domestic conversation and economy ; added weight to
his advice, and vigour to his action. This, in milder times,
would have been in such a man a virtue ; but when a mutual
interchange of condescension was necessary between King
and people ; when parties were to be reconciled, and con-
fidence restored ; and the changing events and humours of
each day required a pliancy of manners, as well as temper,

60 THOMAS WENTWORTH,

to meet their various irregularities : its effects were highly
pernicious. No public minister ever sought the welfare of
the State with more constant sincerity, or with less regard to
his own private interests, and few have been so ill requited :
for he, as well as his royal master, perished in the defence
of the political establishment, or, to use a term of modern
invention, of the constitution, of that day, and posterity
has not yet fully rendered justice either to his conduct or his
motives.

He descended from the senior line of one of the most
ancient and powerful families of the order of English gentry ;
was the eldest son of Sir William Wentworth, of Wentworth
Woodhouse, in Yorkshire, by Anne, daughter of Robert
Atkinson, of Stowell, in Gloucestershire, an eminent Bar-
rister, and a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn ; and was born in that
gentleman's house, in Chancery Lane, on the thirteenth of
April, 1593. His education, the early part of which he
seems to have received at home, was completed at St. John's
College, in Cambridge, on leaving which he passed nearly
two years in France, not extending his travels beyond that
country, and returned in the spring of 1613. His father
died towards the conclusion of the following year, when he
inherited, together with the title of Baronet, an estate to the
full annual amount of six thousand pounds, largely charged
however with portions for younger children. A man of
such property, possessed too of splendid talents, was not
likely to remain long undistinguished, at least by provincial
honours. In 1615, Sir John, afterwards Lord, Savile, who
had misconducted himself in his post of Custos Rotulorum
for Yorkshire, was obliged to relinquish that office, to which
Sir Thomas Wentworth was immediately appointed. Savile
ascribed his disgrace to his successor, and, by some channel
of interest now forgotten, prevailed on the Duke of Bucking-
ham to move the King to reinstate him, and the favourite
wrote to Wentworth soliciting him for that purpose to
resign, He replied by a long and spirited statement, and

FIRST EARL OF STRAFFORD. 61

Buckingham conceded for the time, but the affair produced a
mortal enmity between them, which subsisted till the Duke's
death, and perhaps contributed not a little to form the line
of political conduct first adopted by Wentworth. In 1621
he was chosen to represent the county of York, and again in
1625, in the first Parliament of Charles the First. He reso-
lutely opposed in the House of Commons all those measures
of the Court the doubtful legality of which was now dis-
cussed in that assembly with a boldness and freedom hitherto
unknown, and was already considered as a chief leader,
which indeed was everywhere his natural station, of the
party which he had espoused, when that Parliament was
dissolved. He was disqualified from sitting in the next by
the appointment of High Sheriff, which was forced on him
purposely to that effect ; and had no sooner entered on the
duties of his unwelcome office than a writ was put into his
hands, even while he was presiding on the bench in a County
Court, to remove him from his place of Gustos Rotulorum.
The speech by which in the instant he disclosed this insult
to the Magistrates and others then assembled is published in
the " Strafford Papers," and furnishes an admirable specimen
of the greatness of mind, ready wit, and powerful expression,
which always distinguished him.

These injuries, which had been inflicted at the suggestion
of Buckingham, excited Wentworth's resentment to the
utmost, and naturally sharpened his opposition to those
public measures in the direction of which his enemy was
known to have so large a share. In the close of the suc-
ceeding year, on his stedfast refusal to pay the sum charged
on him by a loan levied without the authority of Parliament,
he was imprisoned in the Marshalsea, and afterwards re-
stricted for several months to a space not exceeding two
miles round the town of Dartford, in Kent. Soon after his
release, however, he was a third time elected by the county
of York, to serve in the Parliament which met in the spring
of 1628, and renewed his efforts for the popular cause in the

62 THOMAS WENTWORTH,

House of Commons with much apparent zeal, particularly in
forwarding, by the utmost exertions of argument and elo-
quence, the memorable Petition of Right, which it is well
known was granted by Charles in its fullest extent. He
now declared his opinion that the country ought to be satis-
fied with the concessions that it had obtained from the
Crown ; suddenly abandoned a party the violence of which
he too well knew, to expect that it should yield to his sug-
gestions ; and offered his services to the King, who, pressed
on all sides by difficulties, received him with open arms ;
forms of reconciliation passed between him and Buckingham,
over whom the assassin's dagger then hung; and, on the
twenty-second of July, 1628, he was raised to the peerage by
the title of Baron, and on the tenth of the following December
promoted to that of Viscount Wentworth. Within very few
weeks after those dignities had been conferred on him, he
was appointed Lord President of the North, Lieutenant of
the County of York, and a Privy Counsellor.

These extraordinary circumstances excited, as might be
expected, in the two great opposing parties, censures which
agreed in nothing but the vehemence with which they were
uttered. Wentworth was branded by the popular faction
with the odium of a traitor and an apostate, while the roy-
alists held, or affected to hold him as a politician wholly
guided by wisdom and virtue, and doubtless, as is usual in
such cases, he was misrepresented by each. He had in fact
been always earnestly attached to monarchy. The splen-
dour that surrounds a throne ; the air of generosity which
gilds the manners of a court ; the dignified submission of
counsellors who own put a single superior ; and the bower
necessarily annexed to the station of such ministers ; were all
well suited to the loftiness of his ardent mind. On the
other hand, the part which he had hitherto taken in the
House of Commons was as consistent with the strictest
loyalty as it was with true patriotism and with common
sense, nor had parliament yet been disgraced by the practice

FIRST EARL OF STRAFFORD. 03

of bartering opposition for favour and employment. It is an
historical fact that he quitted the popular party at the precise
moment when the power of the Crown had been reduced to a
wholesome standard, and all the just claims of the people
satisfied. There was a remarkable agreement between the
most important features of the King's character, and his own;
and it was always allowed, even by Charles's most implaca-
ble enemies, that he was a Prince in whose service there was
no danger of derogation from honour. Rushworth, a writer
not to be suspected of partiality to Wentworth, speaking of
his accession to the royal cause, says " His arguments for
the rights of the subject were mixed with so dutiful an
appearance of the highest concern and honour both for his
King and country as made him generally esteemed, and
begot him an interest in his sovereign ; whereupon Sir Richard
Weston, about that time made Lord Treauurer, with much
application sought his acquaintance and friendship. After
their first interview they engaged in a near familiarity ; and
soon after it happened that in some conferences touching the
popular humour then appearing in the House of Commons,
and the measures they were on tending to no good, Sir
Thomas Wentworth proposed such candid and rational mea-
sures to be followed in that exigence of affairs as ever after
caused his judgment on all occasions to be much valued, and
his advice pursued." Lord Clarendon, however, with that,
candour which, amidst so many perfections, is the chief
ornament of his noble history, thus admits that the change
in his political conduct was not wholly uninfluenced by
private motives. " His first inclinations and addresses to
the Court were only to establish his greatness in the country,
where he apprehended some acts of power from the Lord
Savile, who had been his rival a, ways .there, and of late had
strengthened himself by being made a Privy Counsellor, and
officer at Court; but his first attempts were so prosperous
that he contented not himself with being secure from this
Lord's power in the country, but rested not till he had

64 THOMAS WE NT WORTH,

bereaved his adversary of all power and place in Court, and
so sent him down, a most abject disconsolate old man, to his
country, where he was to have the superintendency over him
too, by getting himself at that time made Lord President of
the North." To quit the subject of Wentworth's political
change, I will observe that the strongest presumption of its
sincerity may be fairly founded on the strict uniformity of
his subsequent public conduct.

The King, now deprived of Buckingham, received Lord
Wentworth into the most unlimited confidence. On the
tenth of April, 1632, he was appointed Lord Deputy of
Ireland, Lord Falkland having been removed from that office
to make way for him, as was soon after Lord Wilmot from
the station of General-in-chief, which was also conferred on
him. He was invested with powers never before granted to
any governor of that country, the exercise of which was left
almost wholly to his discretion. Before his departure, he
drew in his closet that system by which he proposed to
govern a distracted and discontented country. It was full of
wisdom and boldness, and received the King's implicit
approbation. He prevailed on Charles to permit him to call
a Parliament ; and the Irish, who had not for many years
been flattered by that sign of freedom, hailed him as the
restorer of their independence, and granted supplies with an
alacrity equal to the reluctance which then impeded all
financial measures at home. All parties have agreed that
Ireland had never before been so wisely or so beneificently
governed, and the Deputy himself, with an honest pride,
boasted of the success of his unremitting endeavours : " Very
confident I am," says he, in a letter to the Lord Danby,
" that his Majesty hath now made himself more absolute
master of this kingdom by his wisdom than any of his pro-
genitors were ever able to do by their swords."

Amidst the general conciliation, however, inspired by the
mildness and prudence of his administration, instances of
severity occurred which have left a stain on his memory.

FIRST EARL OF STRAFFORD. 65

Patient amidst the difficulties and solicitudes of the govern-
ment of a State, Wentworth lost his magnanimity on occasions
of personal offence, and even made his state authority an in-
strument of private vengeance. One of his gentlemen ushers,
and an officer in his own regiment of horse, a Mr. Annesley,
related to the Lord Mountnorris, having accidentally hurt
him in removing a stool on which he had rested his foot, in
the ceremony of meeting the Parliament, Lord Mountnorris,
a few days after, said at the Lord Chancellor's table, alluding
to some reprehension which his kinsman had previously
received from Wentworth on a matter of military discipline,
u perhaps it was done in revenge of that public affront which
the Lord Deputy had done him formerly; but he has a
brother who would not take such a revenge." These words
were interpreted as conveying a threat against the Deputy's
life. A formal accusation to that effect was submitted to a
council of war, Lord Mountnorris happening to have the
command of a regiment. He was convicted, on an over-
strained application of some articles of a military code lately
instituted ; stripped of his military rank and offices ; and
condemned to be shot or beheaded, at the pleasure of the
Lord Deputy. The Viscount Loftus, Chancellor of Ireland,
having, in a moment of irritation, charged him at the Council
Board with some partial interference in a suit concerning the
Chancellor's family then pending before that body, and, on
the Deputy's denial, having rejoined " I wish to God I had
not found it so," was subjected to a tedious imprisonment ;
endeavoured in vain to obtain his release by the most humi-
liating apology perhaps ever penned by a great public officer ;
and fell, in the end, into utter disgrace. On these misap-
plications of authority Lord Clarendon remarks that Went-
worth "had been compelled, upon reasons of state, to
exercise many acts of power, and had indulged some to his
own appetite and passion, as in the cases of the Lord Chan-
cellor, and the Lord Mountnorris ; the first of which was
satis pro imperio, but the latter, if it had not concerned a

66 THOMAS WENTWORTH,

person notoriously unbeloved, and so the more unpitied,
would have been thought the most extravagant piece of
sovereignty that in a time of peace had been ever executed
by any subject."

In June, 1636, he returned for a time to England ; and
rendered to the King, in Council, an exact statement of all
the matters of his government, together with his further
designs for the benefit of Ireland, and for the advancement
of the royal interests there, all which was received with
expressions of the highest approbation and gratitude. He
took this opportunity to renew to the King his suit for an
Earldom, for he had asked fruitlessly for that dignity two
years before, and now prefaced his request by observing that
such a mark of his master's favour would silence his enemies,
and be an apology for those acts of violence which have been
just now spoken of, and some others with which he had been
charged ; but he was again refused. Charles's answers to his
applications have been preserved, and are pieces of consider-
able interest : the first, for the firmness with which that
accomplished and unfortunate Prince asserts his resolution to
be the sole dispenser of his own favours ; the second, for
sound sense and argument : and both, for elegant conciseness
of expression.

" Now I will begin," says Charles, in concluding a

letter of business from Hampton Court, of the twenty-third
of October, 1634, " concerning your suit, though last come to
my hands. And, first, for the form ; that is to say, in
coming to me not only primarily but solely, without so much
as acquainting anybody with it, the bearer being as ignorant
as any. This I do not only commend, but recommend to
you to follow always hereafter, at least in what concerns
your own particular ; for to servants of your quality, and
some degrees under too, I allow of no mediators, though
friends are commendable, for the dependence must come
merely from me and to me. And as for the matter, I desire
you not to think that I am displeased with the asking,

FIRST EARL OF STRAFFORD. 67

though for the present I grant it not ; for I acknowledge
that noble minds are always accompanied with lawful ambi-
tions ; and be confident that your services have moved me
more than it is possible for any eloquence or importunity to
do ; so that your letter was not the first proposer of putting
marks of favour on you ; and I am certain that you will
willingly stay my time, now you know my mind so freely,
that I may do all things ' a mi modo ;' and so I rest your
assured friend,

" CHARLES R."

The second denial, dated from Lyndhurst, the third of
September 1636, is as follows :

" Wentworth,

Certainly I should be much to blame not to
admit so good a servant as you are to speak with me, since I
deny it to none that there is not a just exception against ;
yet I must freely tell you that the cause of this desire of
yours, if it be known, will rather hearten than discourage
your enemies ; for if they can once find that you apprehend
the dark settling of a storm when I say no, they will make
you leave to care for anything in a short while but for your
fears ; and, believe it, the marks of my favour that stop
malicious tongues are neither places nor titles, but the little
welcome I give to accusers, and the willing ear I give to my
servants. This is not to disparage those favours, for envy
flies most at the fairest mark, but to shew their use ; to wit,
not to quell envy, but to reward service, it being truly so
when the master without the servant's importunity doth it ;
otherwise men judge it more to proceed from the servant's
wit than the master's favour. I will end with a rule that
may serve for a statesman, courtier, or a lover Never make
a defence or apology before you be accused ; and so I rest
your assured friend,

" CHARLES R."

68 THOMAS WENTWORTH, .

There is somewhat of sharpness in these letters that might
seem inconsistent with the affectionate friendship which the
King certainly entertained for Wentworth, but Charles's
personal attachments were coloured by the seriousness of his
nature, and regulated by a discerning judgment. He saw
the errors of Wentworth's character, and endeavoured to
correct them by the wholesome chastisement of parental
authority. Wentworth returned in the succeeding Novem-
ber, mortified, but with unshaken fidelity, to Ireland, where
the altered complexion of affairs called him to the perform-
ance of duties which had not hitherto been necessary. The
infection of the Scottish rebellion had been communicated
to that island, especially in the province of Ulster, the inha-
bitants of which were mostly of Scottish descent, and pro-
fessed the persuasion of the Kirk. By equal exertions of
prudence and firmness he averted the danger. He obliged
all the Scots resident in Ireland to take an oath of allegiance,
by which they also abjured "all covenants, oaths, or bonds
of mutual defence and assistance against any persons what-
soever by force, without his Majesty's sovereign and regal
authority ;" entered into a direct correspondence with the
great leaders of the discontented in Scotland, and consider-
ably damped their designs on the Irish by his persuasions or
menaces ; took the most vigorous measures for equipping an
army ; and totally frustrated for the time the hopes of the
rebellious party. These arduous occupations consumed
nearly three years, and in the month of September 1639, he
passed over, by the King's private command, to England.
He now obtained that rank in the Peerage which he had so
long and earnestly desired : on the twelfth of the following
January he was created Earl of Strafford, to which title was
added that of Baron of Raby, and his office of Deputy of
Ireland was at the same time dignified by the more lofty
style of Lord Lieutenant.

Charles's affairs were at that precise epoch in a state of
the most critical urgency, and his servants weak, timid, or

FIRST EARL OF STRAFFORD. #9

Disaffected. Among them Laud alone possessed at once
talents, boldness, honesty, and loyalty ; but his breeding had
been that of a churchman, his political views were narrow,
and his temper, as well as his habits, inclined him to intoler-
ance. Between him and Strafford the closest friendship had
long subsisted, and the King, hoping that the enlarged mind of
the one might correct the occasional errors of the other, now
determined to make them the joint depositories of his entire
confidence, and Strafford the main adviser of his government.
The Earl was accordingly received into the Cabinet, and
became in the instant the ostensible chief minister. He
proposed an immediate war with the Scottish rebels ; that
Parliaments might be summoned without delay both in
England and Ireland ; and that, as the supplies expected to
be granted would be long in levying, a sum should be raised
by voluntary contribution among the nobility, and especially
the King's immediate servants, to furnish the means for the
war, and other pressing exigencies of the State. All was
implicitly agreed to, and Strafford, after having subscribed
twenty thousand pounds, departed once more for Ireland,
and arrived in Dublin on the eighteenth of March 1640,
where he immediately met the Parliament, which cheerfully
gave him four subsidies. He appointed a Council of War
for that country, and gave orders for the raising eight thou-
sand foot, and five hundred cavalry, to be sent into Scotland,
together with two thousand foot and five hundred horse, of
the standing army of Ireland, the whole to serve under his
command. He arranged these great affairs in the space of
one fortnight, and quitting that country, never to return to
it, embarked, in very bad health, on the third of April, and
reached London, in a litter, about the middle of that month.
He found the English Parliament which had been called
by his advice, then sitting, and a powerful opposition in the
House of Commons to Charles's requisition of supplies. His
illness had scarcely permitted him to communicate with the
King on the posture of affairs, when his Majesty, prompted

70 THOMAS WENT WORTH,

by the misrepresentations of Herbert, his Solicitor General,
but, more especially of Sir Henry Vane, then one of his
Secretaries of State, and without taking the advice of any
others, suddenly dissolved the Parliament. It was be-
lieved by many, perhaps extravagantly, that Vane had been
prompted to counsel this measure by his implacable hatred
to the Earl of Strafford. Jealousies and disgusts had long
subsisted between them, and his enmity to that nobleman
had been sealed by Stratford's imprudent, and possibly per-
verse acceptance of the Barony of Raby, to which Vane, from
some circumstances of his descent, thought he rather ought
to have been preferred. Be this as it might, the dissolution
of that Parliament was a severe blow to Strafford. The
share he was known to have had in procuring it had added
popularity to his power. Even the republican Whitelock
confesses in his " Memorials " that " the Earl of Strafford,
for preventing the growth of the present evils, highly ap-
proved and magnified the King's resolution of taking the
advice of his Parliament of England, and had the honour of
the people's good opinion for it." But the chief misfortune
was, that it distracted and disconcerted in great measure the
comprehensive and well digested plan which he had laid for
the restoration of order and tranquillity, under a royal govern-
ment.

The disappointment, together with the malice of the
popular party, which could never for a moment forget the
discredit, as well as the loss, that they had suffered by his
secession, perhaps induced him now to accept a military
command. It had in the preceding year become indispens-
ably necessary to send troops against the Scots, who were
preparing with much activity to invade the northern coun-
ties. That expedition had been shamefully mismanaged,
and was concluded by a disgraceful treaty, which could
scarcely be considered more than a suspension of hostilities.
The King, who was already at York, determined at length
to lead in person his army against them, and Strafford was

FIR$T EARL OF STRAFFORD. 71

appointed Lieutenant General, under the Earl of Northum-
berland, who was named to the chief command, but was pre-
vented by a sudden and dangerous illness from assuming it.
Stratford therefore entered on it, still retaining the commis-
sion of Lieutenant. Lord Clarendon informs us that " he
was scarce recovered from a great sickness, yet was willing
to undertake the charge, out of pure indignation to see how
few men were forward to serve the King with that vigour of
mind they ought to do ; but knowing well the malicious
designs which were contrived against himself, he would
rather serve as Lieutenant General under the Earl of North-
umberland than that he should resign his commission ; and
so, with and under that qualification, he made all possible
haste towards the north, before he had strength enough for
the journey." On his arrival in Northumberland he met the
army shamefully flying, even without resistance, before the
Scots, who had possessed themselves of Newcastle ; and now,
again says Lord Clarendon, " those who by this time no
doubt were retained for that purpose, took that opportunity
to incense the army against him, and so far prevailed in it
that in a short time it was more inflamed against him than
against the enemy ; and was willing to have their want of
courage imputed to excess of conscience ; and that their being
not satisfied in the grounds of the quarrel was the only cause
that they fought no better. In this indisposition in all parts,
the Earl found it necessary, to retire with the army to the
skirts of Yorkshire, and himself to York, whither the King
was come, leaving Northumberland and the Bishopric of
of Durham to be possessed by the victors.'* Charles, how-
ever, boldly testified his approbation of Stratford's endea-
vours in this service by immediately conferring on him the
Order of the Garter, into which he was elected at York, on
the twelfth of September 1640.

It was nojj&.itat^he King took the unusual step of swai'
moning i^SwcCwSSS^>f all the Peers, to meet him at York,
and tom|einto theSfiSjpsi deration ^ s stetej and that of the

N LIBRARY

72 THOMAS WENTWORTH,

country. In that assembly, as well as by his private advice
to the King, Strafford earnestly recommended the calling
another Parliament, which it was at length agreed should
meet on the third of November. It was determined also to
propose a treaty to the Scots, and that it should be held at
York, but they declined it, alleging that they doubted the
safety of their Commissioners in a city where Strafford, who
had proclaimed them traitors in Ireland, kept his head-
quarters. This declaration was esteemed to be, and indeed
it was so intended, a public denunciation of vengeance
against him by that people : it was agreed to hold the treaty
at Ripon, from whence, unhappily for Strafford, and indeed
for the country, it was soon after adjourned to London. The
meeting of the Parliament, for ever miserably distinguished
in English history by the title of the Long Parliament,
approached, and it became a question in the Cabinet whether
Strafford should attend it, or remain with the army. White-
lock, the fairest of the rebel writers, gives a more full
account of the decision of that question than is to be found
elsewhere, and there seems to be no reason to doubt its
fidelity. "The time of the meeting of the Parliament,"
says Whitelock, " drawing near, it was considered at York
whether the Earl of Strafford should repair to the House, or,
continue in the North with the army. The King was
earnest for his going up to the Parliament, as one of whose
services he should have great occasion, and placed such con-
fidence in his faithfulness and abilities. The Earl humbly
desired his Majesty to excuse his going to the Parliament,
alleging that he should not be able to do his Majesty any
service there, but should rather be a means to hinder his
affairs, in regard he foresaw that the great envy and ill will
of the Parliament, and of the Scots, would be bent against
him, whereas if he kept out of sight he would not be so
much in their mind as he should be by shewing himself
in Parliament ; and, if they should fall upon him, he being
at a distance, whatsoever they should conclude against him,

FIRST EARL OF STRAFFORD. 73

he might the better avoid, and retire from any danger,
having the liberty of being out of their hands, and to go over
to Ireland, or to some other place where he might be most
serviceable to his Majesty ; but if he should put himself into
their power by coming up to the Parliament, it was evident
that the House of Commons, and the Scots, with all their
party, especially being provoked by his coming among them,
would presently fall upon him, and prosecute his destruction.
The King, notwithstanding these reasons, continued very
earnest for Stafford's coming up to the Parliament, for
which he laid his commands upon him, and told him that,
as he was King of England, he was able to secure him from
any danger, and that the Parliament should not touch one
hair of his head. The Earl thanked his Majesty, but replied,
that if there should fall out a difference between his Majesty
and his Parliament concerning him it would be a great dis^
turbance to his Majesty's affairs, and he had rather suffer
himself than that the King's affairs should in any measure
suffer by reason of his particular. The King remained
unalterable in his resolution concerning Stafford's coming
up to the Parliament, saying that he would want his advice in
the great transactions which were like to be in this Parlia-
ment, and, in obedience to his commands, the Earl came up
to London."

History cannot furnish another instance of so many adverse
circumstances concurring to effect the ruin of one man, as
those which in that hour surrounded Strafford. Pursued by
the bitter hatred of the whole nation of Scotland, whose
rebellion his vigilance would have thwarted, and his bravery
chastised ; of the Irish nobility, whose power he had curbed,
to serve the interests of the community ; and, most of all, of
the party at home which he had justly abandoned : misre-
presented to the people of England, who had been industriously
taught to consider him as the author of their imaginary afflic-
tions ; disliked by the Queen, whose influence he had always
wisely opposed ; and scarcely considered by his ministerial

74 THOMAS WENTWORTH,

colleagues, whose envy and jealousy of his favour, since that
favour was now become a source of danger, had subsided into
indifference. But the grandeur of Stafford's spirit, as well
as the fervour of his loyalty, was unalterable. A few early
days of the Parliament having been necessarily occupied by
the usual forms which attend the first meeting of those assem-
blies, on the eleventh of November, Mr. Pym, in a long and
studied speech, enumerated the grievances of the nation, and
concluded by ascribing them chiefly to the counsels of Straf-
ford. Other leaders of the party followed, and, as had been
preconcerted, each poured forth against him the particular
invective which he was thought best qualified to maintain.
Scarcely a breath of opposition was heard, except in a few
words from the virtuous Lord Falkland ; and it was tumul-
tuously determined that the Earl should be impeached of high
treason ; and Mr. Pym was ordered to state the resolution of
the Commons to the Upper House, and to require that he
might be placed in custody. Strafford had come down to
meet the attack, and had scarcely seated himself among the
Peers when his accusers entered, and preferred the impeach-
ment, generally. The Earl was ordered to withdraw, and,
having with difficulty obtained leave to utter a few words,
rather in defence of the privileges of the Peerage than of
himself, was committed to the Usher of the Black Rod, and,
shortly after, to the Tower. '

The consequent proceedings against this great man are per-
haps better known than any other important feature of English
history. The virulent spirit of persecution and injustice by
which they were conducted, and the dignified humility, and
noble firmness, with which they were endured, produced so
many touching circumstances which have found their way
through the heart to the memory of the reader, that it would
be impertinent to go into any lengthened detail of them.
Among them, the horrible feeling of revenge which dictated
the impeachment ; the treachery and perjury of the testimony
of Sir Henry Vane, who disclosed some words of obscure and

FIRST EARL OP STRAFFORD. 75

uncertain import uttered by the Earl at the Council Board,
and invented others; the infernal deceit of the Lord Say,
who put the King on a measure to save Strafford's life which
he knew would inevitably produce his destruction ; the
shameful artifices practised to intimidate the Crown and the
Peers ; and the total absence of sufficient evidence to warrant
his conviction of high treason, or indeed of any other import-
ant public offence ; stand prominently forward. Yet more
interesting and affecting were the entire friendship and the
helpless anxiety of Charles, and the unbounded magnanimity
and patience of the devoted victim : the King's promise that
his life should be safe, and the Earl's exquisite letter, by
which he released his Majesty of that promise, and besought
him to sign the bill for his attainder; the wisdom and
eloquence of his defence ; the piety and philosophy of his
preparation for death ; and the unexampled heroism of his
departure. He was beheaded on Tower Hill on the twelfth
of May, 1641.

Strafford's mind and heart, as will ever be those of truly
great men, abounded in simplicity : it is therefore that we
find so little disagreement in the reports of those who have
undertaken to portray them. His friends have not endea-
voured to conceal his faults, nor have his enemies ventured
to deny his excellencies ; but a candid character insists
always on a candid story, and he was perhaps the only emi-
nent statesman whom party spirit has not dared widely to
misrepresent, as well in private as public capacities. " Thus
fell," says Whitelock, "this noble Earl, who, for natural
parts and abilities, and for improvement of knowledge by
experience in the greatest affairs ; for wisdom, faithfulness,
and gallantry of mind ; hath left few behind him who may
be ranked equal with him." "And thus," more largely
writes Lord Clarendon, " fell the greatest subject in power,
and little inferior to any in fortune, that was at that time in
any o.f the three kingdoms ; who could well remember the
time when he led those people who then pursued him to his

76 THOMAS WENTiVORTH,

grave. He was a man of great parts, and extraordinary
endowments of nature, not unadorned with some addition of
art and learning, though that again was more improved and
illustrated by the other, for he had a readiness of conception
and sharpness of expression, which made his learning thought
more than in truth it was. He was, no doubt, of great
observation, and a piercing judgment, both in things and
persons ; but his too good skill in persons made him judge
the worse of things, for it was his misfortune to be in a time
wherein very few wise men were equally employed with him,
and scarce any but the Lord Coventry, whose trust was more
confined, whose abilities were equal to his ; so that, upon
the matter, he relied wholly upon himself, and, discerning
many defects in most men, he too much neglected what they
said or did. Of all his passions his pride was most predomi-
nant ; which a moderate exercise of ill fortune might have
corrected and reformed, and which was by the hand of heaven
strangely punished by bringing his destruction upon him by
two things that he most despised, the people and Sir Henry
Vane. In a word, the epitaph which Plutarch records that
Sylla wrote for himself may not unfitly be applied to him,
* that no man did ever exceed him, either in doing good to his
friends, or in doing mischief to his enemies,' for his acts of
both kinds were most notorious."

But Sir George Radclyffe, his kinsman, and most intimate
friend and constant companion, brings us home to him in his
closet and at his table, disclosing, in a curious piece which
may be found in the appendix to the Strafford Papers, together
with many remarks on his public conduct, the most minute
circumstances of his private character and domestic life. I
will add a few extracts from that large and irregular mass,
and have done. Radclyffe tells us that " he loved justice for
justice itself, taking great delight to free a poor man from a
powerful oppressor, or to punish bold wickedness, whereof
there are sundry instances to be given, both at York and in
Ireland, which lost him some men's good will, which he

FIRST EARL OF STRAFFORD. 7F

thought better to be lost than kept upon those terms : " " he
bore a particular personal affection for the King, and was
always a lover of monarchy, although some that observed him
in former parliaments thought not so ; it is true"," adds Sir
George, "he was a subject, and sensible enough of the
people's liberties ; and he always thought they were best
preserved when they went hand in hand, and maintained one
another. He always disliked the abuse of royal authority to
the oppression of subjects for private ends and interests ; yet,
it being most difficult and hard to keep the interests of the
King and people from incroaching one upon another, the
longer he lived his experience taught him that it was far safer
the King should increase in power than that the people
should gain advantages on the King : that may turn to the
prejudice of some particular sufferers, this draws with it the
ruin of the whole. He was naturally exceeding choleric, an
infirmity with which he had great wrestlings : he had sundry
friends that often admonished him of it, and he had the great
prudence to take in good part their admonitions : nay, I can
say that I, one of his most intimate friends, never gained
more upon his trust and affection than by this freedom with
him in telling him of his weaknesses. But amongst all his
qualities none was more eminent than his friendship, wherein
he did study, and delighted to excel. He never had anything
in his possession or power which he thought too dear for his
friends. He was never weary to take pains for them, or to
employ the utmost of his abilities in their service. No fear,
trouble, or expense, deterred him from speaking or doing
anything which their occasions required." In the duties and
affections of husband and father, his conduct was not to be
excelled.

The Earl of Strafford was thrice married : first to Margaret
Clifford, daughter of Francis, Earl of Cumberland, who died
childless ; secondly to Arabella, daughter of John Holies,
Earl of Clare, by whom he had one son, William, his sue-

78 THOMAS WENTWORTH, FIRST EARL OF STRAFFORD.

cessor, and two daughters, Anne, wife of Edward Watson,
Lord Rockingham, and Arabella, married to Justin Macarty,
son to Donogh, Earl of Clancarty, in Ireland. His third wife
was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Godfrey Rhodes, by whom he
had many children, all of whom died very young, except one
daughter Margaret, who survived him.

Vandyke px.

EAK

OB; 1642,

ROBERT BERTIE,

FIRST EARL OP LINDSEY.

THIS heroic nobleman was the eldest of the five sons of a
father not less heroic, Peregrine Bertie, who inherited the
Barony of Willoughby of Eresby, from his mother, Catherine,
fourth wife to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the remark-
able circumstances of whose flight from the vengeance of
Queen Mary, with her second husband, Richard Bertie, and
of their subsequent exile, have justly formed a favourite
subject for the modern writers of memoirs of that time.
His mother was Mary, daughter of John Vere, sixteenth
Earl of Oxford.

He was born in London on the sixteenth of December,
1582, and received his Christian name from eminent spon-
sors, Elizabeth's then present and future favourites, Robert
Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and Robert Devereux, Earl of
Essex, together with the Queen herself as godmother. His
education is said to have been conducted with uncommon
care, first, under the ablest tutors, in his father's house, after-
wards for a short time in the University of Cambridge, and
then in foreign travel for the space of four years, but with
little resemblance to the fashion of such tours in later days,
and in a mode probably not altogether consonant to the
wishes of his parents ; for he had early given way to a fond-
ness for military affairs till it assumed the form of a passion,
and he seems to have lost no opportunity during his absence
of observing the practice of war in all its branches. Thus
he was at least a witness to all that passed in Essex's expe-

80 ROBERT BERTIE,

dition to Cadiz, and, if we may believe Lloyd, who in his
" Memoirs of Sufferers in the Grand Rebellion " gives some
confused particulars of him, an actor also. " His great spirit,"
says Lloyd, " was so impatient of delay, that, when it was
voted that they should set upon the town and ships, he and
the Earl of Essex threw up their caps, and were so forward
that he was knighted in the market-place, where he said ' an
old woman with a stone knocked down the Esquire, and the
General commanded him to rise a knight.' " His name how-
ever does not appear in the list given by Camden of those on
whom that distinction was conferred during the expedition,
and indeed how much of the foregoing idle tale may be
correct is uncertain.

From Cadiz he went, doubtless accompanying his gallant
kinsman Sir Francis Vere, whom he had found at that place,
and who just at that time left it for his command in the Low
Countries. There Bertie was present in most of the actions
which almost daily occurred, as he afterwards was in the
sanguinary battle of Nieuport, where he was thrice unhorsed,
and in which it was remarkable that of fifteen hundred
English who fought there under the command of the Veres,
not one escaped without a wound. In the winter of 1597
he visited at Paris Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury, the English
ambassador at that Court, from whence, on his way homewards,
he gratified himself by halting for a while before Amiens,
then closely besieged. He soon however became weary of
inactivity, and embarked with the romantic Earl of Cumber-
land on one of his expeditions to the Spanish West Indies,
from whence returning, he soon after accompanied Lord
Zouche in his embassy to Moscow, and, having seen as much
of Russia as was practicable, made the tour of Denmark and
Sweden, and had scarcely arrived at home when he set out
on a visit to the Earl of Essex in Ireland. The death of his
father had now invested him with the Peerage, and the pos-
session of great estates ; but still restless and inquisitive, he
sailed early in the spring of 1602 with Monson and Levison

FIRST EARL OF LINDSEY. 81

on a predatory cruise, against the Spaniards, and was present
at their capture on the coast of Portugal of a galleon said to
contain the value of a million of ducats.

He condescended at length to a voyage of general science
and elegant enquiry, and presently after the accession of
James, went for some months to Italy, after which he made
one of the Earl of Nottingham's noble party in his splendid
embassy to Madrid, and on his return from thence, once more
indulged his favourite inclination by a short stay in the camp
before Ostend, the remarkable siege of which was then at its
height. He now settled finally in England. The death of
his mother, which occurred about this period, produced con-
siderations which diverted his active mind to more tem-
perate, as well as more important objects. He was advised
that he had become entitled in her right to the Earldom of
Oxford, and several Baronies, as well as to the ancient here-
ditary place of Lord Great Chamberlain of England, all
which had been for ages held by the House of Vere, and the
necessarily tedious discussion of these claims terminated in
the denial of the dignities, and the confirmation to him of the
office. He had also lately married a lady whom he entirely
loved. The honest contemplation of the dignity of his own
station, of his extensive possessions, and of the untried
charms of domestic life, had opened views entirely new to
him ; and now, had it not been for the dismal occurrences
in his own country, which in the end called for the best
fruits of his former military experience, he would have
descended to the grave, probably after a very long life remark-
able only for unsullied honour, and uninterrupted felicity.
But other distinctions awaited him, and they must too soon
be mentioned.

He now retired to a country life, in which he mostly
passed the remainder of this reign, with a high fame for all
the qualities which are thought most to adorn a great man
in that situation ; but on the accession of Charles the First ;
by whom he had always been much esteemed, he a.gain came

IV. G

82 EGBERT BERTIE,

to the Court, and not many months after, on the twenty-
second of November, 1626, was advanced to the title of Earl
of Lindsey. In 1630 he was elected a Knight of the Garter ;
in 1636 was appointed Lord High Admiral of England ; and,
on the rising of the Scots in 1639, Governor of Berwick,
Charles however designed him for a higher service when the
awful occasion should occur which now began to seem inevit-
able, and for which himself, and his son Montagu Lord
Willoughby, the chief circumstances of whose excellent life
will also be found in this work, had been for several months
engaged in preparing their tenants and dependants. When
at length no alternative was left to the King but war, he
nominated the Earl of Lindsey General in chief of his forces,
and in that character he attended his Majesty when he
planted his standard at Nottingham on the 25th of August,
1642.

Few days even had passed when, according to the frequent
ill fortune of armies, a cause of discord arose between the
first and second in command. Charles had appointed his
nephew, Prince Rupert, General of the Horse, and at his
earnest importunity, had allowed to be inserted in his com-
mission, which was not delivered to him till after the setting
up of the standard, a clause exempting him from receiving
any orders but from the King himself. This imprudent step
took in fact the Horse out of the hands of the General, who
became overwhelmed with chagrin, and was prevented only
by the ardour of his loyalty from resigning his charge in the
moment that he made the discovery. But this was not all.
It presently appeared that Rupert had made himself the
King's chief counsellor for the conduct of the war, and that
Charles, from affection, or better opinion, or submission to
the Prince's rough and dogmatical manner, most frequently
preferred his advice to the General's. Lindsey, as the main
army of the rebels was in the neighbourhood, and it had
been determined to engage it without delay, stifled for the
present his resentment. The battle of Edgehill, in fact the

FIRST EARL OF LINDSEY. 83

first action of the war, speedily followed, and afforded an
ample example of the mischief to be expected from the error
of making Prince Rupert independent of the General, for by
leading off his Horse at his own discretion, in an imprudent
pursuit early in the day, he left to the King, who in the
beginning of the engagement had a fair prospect of a decided
victory, the poor satisfaction of a drawn battle. At this
point of time, the reserve of the rebel Horse, suddenly dis-
covering the absence of those of the King, made a furious
charge on the centre of the royal infantry, in which the Earl
of Lindsey, bravely fighting with the rest, received a fatal
pistol-shot in the thigh. The enemy instantly surrounded
him, and the Lord Willoughby, who happened to be close to
him when he fell, cut his way through them in a desperate
hope of rescuing his father, and fell also into their hands.
I will give the conclusion of this piteous tale in the words of
Lord Clarendon, who has mingled with it some particulars of
Lindsey's character.

" The Earl of Lindsey was a man of very noble extraction,
and inherited a great fortune from his ancestors, which,
though he did not manage with so great care as if he desired
much to improve, yet he left it in a very fair condition to his
family, which more intended the increase of it. He was a
man of great honour, and spent his youth and vigour of his
age in military actions and commands abroad ; and albeit he
indulged to himself great liberties of life, yet he still pre-
served a very good reputation with all men, and a very great
interest in his country, as appeared by the supplies he and
his son brought to the King's army, the several companies of
his own regiment of Foot being commanded by the principal
knights and gentlemen of Lincolnshire, who engaged them-
selves in the service principally out of their personal affection
to him. He was of a very generous nature, and punctual in
what he undertook, and in exacting what was due to him,
which made him bear that restriction so heavily which was put
upon him by the commission granted to Prince Rupert ; and

84 ROBERT BERTIE,

by the King's preferring the Prince's opinion in all matters
relating to the war before his : nor did he conceal his resent-
ment : the day before the battle he said to some friends,
with whom he had used freedom, that he did not look
upon himself as General : and therefore he was resolved,
when the day of battle should come, that he would be in
the head of his regiment as a private colonel, where he
would die."

" He was carried out of the field to the next village, and
if he could then have procured surgeons, it was thought his
wound would not have proved mortal : and as soon as the
other army was composed by the coming on of the night, the
Earl of Essex about midnight sent Sir William Balfour, and
some other officers, to see him, and to offer him all offices,
and meant himself to have visited him. They found him
upon a little straw, in a poor house, where they had laid him
in his blood, which had run from him in great abundance, no
surgeon having been yet with him ; only he had great viva-
city in his looks, and told them he was sorry to see so many
gentlemen, some whereof were his old friends, engaged in so
foul a rebellion ; and principally directed his discourse to
Sir William Balfour, whom he put in mind of the great
obligations he had to the King ; how much his Majesty had
disobliged the whole English nation by putting him into the
command of the Tower ; and that it was the most odious ingra-
titude to him to make him that return. He wished them to tell
my Lord Essex that he ought to cast himself at the King's
feet to beg his pardon, which if he did not speedily do his
memory would be odious to the whole nation ; and continued
this kind of discourse with so much vehemence that the
officers by degrees withdrew themselves, and prevented the
visit the Earl of Essex intended him, who only sent the best
surgeons to him, but in the very opening of his wounds he
died before the morning, only upon the loss of blood. He
had very many friends, and very few enemies, and died
generally lamented."

FIRST EARL OF LINDSEY. 85

The Earl of Lindsey married Elizabeth, sole issue by the
first marriage, of Edward, first Lord Montagu of Boughton,
and had by her nine sons ; Montagu, his successor ; Sir Roger,
a Knight of the Bath ; Robert, who died in infancy ; Pere-
grine ; Francis, who fell in the field in Ireland ; Robert ;
Henry, also killed in battle ; Vere ; and Edward : and four
daughters ; Catherine, wife of Sir William Paston, of Oxnead,
in Norfolk, Bar*. ; Elizabeth, married to Sir Miles Stapleton,
of Carlton, in Yorkshire ; Anne, who died a spinster ; and
Sophia, wife, first of John Hewit, D.D. who was beheaded
during Cromwell's usurpation ; and, secondly, of Sir Abraham
Shipman.

GKEVflLLE

LORD BROOKE.
OB: 1643,

ROBERT GREVILLE,

SECOND LORD BROOKE.

SIR Fulke Greville, whose portrait may be found in this
work, together with some account of his life, having been
created a Baron when he was at an advanced age, and unmar-
ried, the honour was limited by his patent, in default of
heirs male of his own body, to his kinsman, Robert Greville,
of whom I am now to speak, and who was the only son of
Fulke Greville, of Thorpe Latimer, in Lincolnshire, first
cousin to Sir Fulke, by Mary, daughter of Christopher Cop-
ley, of Sprotburgh, in the county of York. His noble pre-
decessor, however, many years before he obtained, or perhaps
even expected, the dignity of Peerage, had considered this
Robert as his adopted son, and prepared him from the age of
four years, by a suitable breeding, to fill worthily that rank
in society in which he could not but be placed by the inheri-
tance of a great estate. His education therefore, as a gentle-
man as well as a scholar, was conducted with the nicest care,
in Sir Fulke's house, and afterwards in the University of
Cambridge, which he left to travel on the continent ; and,
returning in 1627, was immediately after elected to serve for
the borough of Warwick in the Parliament which was called
and dissolved early in that year. In the autumn of the fol-
lowing, when he had barely passed the age of twenty-one,
he succeeded to the Barony on the sudden and lamentable
death of the first Lord, and was shortly after married to the
Lady Catherine Russell, eldest daughter of Francis, fourth
Earl of Bedford.

88 ROBERT GREVILLE,

It has been said that his mind became strongly tainted by
puritan, and consequently republican, principles during his
stay abroad ; but it is little likely that his kind and careful
kinsman, who was himself a pattern of politeness as well as
of loyalty, should have sent him to finish his education
among the Calvinists of Germany or Switzerland. It is far
more probable, as has been also asserted, that the first bias
was given to his political prejudices by his father-in-law who,
partly from natural restlessness, and more from ambition,
stood foremost among those who opposed the government of
Charles the First in the hope of being appointed to direct his
measures. Brooke, however, in whom a hot and energetic
temper seems to have been joined to an upright heart, ran
far beyond the intention of his teachers, who it may be
reasonably supposed had forborn to entrust their real views
to his youth and inexperience. He became a sincere repub-
lican, and his hatred of the Hierarchy even exceeded his enmity
to the Throne. Few among the disaffected were of that cha-
racter, and they therefore held the more firmly together.
He attached himself peculiarly to the Viscount Say, a veteran
of that small party, less pure and more malignant than him-
self ; and, the prospect of rebellion at home being then un-
certain, or at all events distant, they determined to fly
together to some land of promise, where Kings and Courts
should be unknown, and systems of government more at the
mercy of speculators. They purchased therefore, from
Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, an extensive tract of land in
New England, which had been granted to him by the Crown,
and in 1635 dispatched thither an agent, of the name of Fen-
wick, with powers and instructions to found a settlement,
which succeeded so well that a town was presently built,
and called, after their joint names, Saybrooke.

Before, however, it was ready for their reception the fer-
ment of parties had arisen to such a height as to give them a
fair hope of sufficient employment in their own country.
They delayed their voyage from time to time, as the storm

SECOND LORD BROOKE. 89

gradually gathered, and at length finally determined to aban-
don their project on the breaking out of the Scottish rebellion.
On that unhappy occasion it is well known that Charles
resolved to lead his army in person to the borders ; to sum-
mon his nobility to meet him on his way, at York, on an
appointed day ; and then to require them, as well as those
of Scotland who were about the Court, to sign a short decla-
ration of their loyalty and obedience, and of their abhorrence
of the proceedings in that country. " Amongst the English
nobility," says Lord Clarendon, "the Lord Say, and the
Lord Brooke, two popular men, and most undevoted to the
Church, and in truth to the whole government, positively
refused, in the King's own presence, to make any such pro-
testation. They said if the King suspected their loyalty he
might proceed against them as he thought fit, but that it was
against the law to impose any oaths or protestations upon
them which were not enjoined by the law; and in that
respect, that they might not betray the common liberty, they
would not submit to it. This administered matter of new
dispute in a very unseasonable time ; and, though there did
not then appear more of the same mind, and they two were
committed, at least restrained of their liberty, yet this dis-
covered too much of the humour and spirit of the Court in
their daily discourses upon that subject ; so that the King
thought it best to dismiss those two Lords, and require them
to return to their houses."

The determined spirit, and the rigid candour, evinced by
this refusal, highly recommended Lord Brooke to a party
which just at that time stood particularly in need of bold
men, with unsuspected motives. He was courted accord-
ingly by the disaifected with unremitting assiduity, and most
willingly undertook to become their leader in the House of
Lords, for they placed, according to Lord Clarendon, the
most entire confidence in him. In the mean time the King
endeavoured to persuade him by several civil offices that his
late conduct at York had not been interpreted in his dis-

90 ROBERT GREVILLE,

favour ; summoned him again to the great council of Peers
which was held in that City in September, 1640 ; and ap-
pointed him one of the Commissioners for the treaty which
was soon after held at Ripon with the Scots. His acceptance
of that trust, if he meant to exercise it, seems to have been
the only circumstance of his life which tended to cast a doubt
on his sincerity, for it afforded no alternative to him but to
betray the King, or his own party ; and if he engaged actively
in the negotiations, a fact not ascertained by history, he
certainly adopted the former course. Upon the removal of
the treaty to London, on the meeting of the Long Parliament,
he returned to distinguish himself in that assembly by the
most bitter virulence against Laud and Stratford, and the
most earnest endeavours to crush the whole fabric of Church
and State ; and when the King was at length driven to the
fatal necessity of taking up arms, appeared among the first to
oppose the royal cause in the field, with the utmost fury of
mis-directed zeal and activity.

Warwickshire, and its vicinity, in which he possessed that
sort of influence which then necessarily attended the pos-
session of large estates, was the scene of his military opera-
tions. In the summer of 1642 he received a commission
from the Parliament to array the militia of that county, and
of Staffordshire, and having put his fine castle into as good
a state of defence as the means of the country could allow,
repaired to London for a further supply of military stores,
with which he had proceeded as far on his return as Edgehill,
when he was met by the Earl of Northampton, who forced
him to retreat to Banbury, where he was compelled by the
vigilance of that nobleman to abandon his cannon, which the
Earl immediately employed to besiege Warwick Castle.
Brooke, however, presently procured a reinforcement, and,
having gained the advantage in a hot skirmish, raised the
siege, which had been with difficulty sustained for the space
of a fortnight. He remained there till the autumn, when
the Earl of Essex, with the main body of the rebel army,

SECOND LORD BROOKE. 91

arrived in the town, on their way to attack the royalists,
commanded by the King in person, whom they expected to
find at Worcester. Brooke joined them, and they marched
into that county, where they learned that the royal army had
filed off by Shrewsbury to the borders of Oxford and War-
wickshire, and he was detached therefore again to Warwick,
with directions to meet Essex, with supplies of arms and
ammunition . He dispatched them accordingly, and, following
the next morning, arrived at the moment when the fortune of
the day had suddenly turned in favour of the rebels in the
battle of Edgehill, where his own regiment had eminently
distinguished itself. Essex, and his principal officers, retired
with Brooke after the action to Warwick Castle, for a short
repose ; and thither were conducted also the principal royalist
prisoners, together with their gallant and lamented general,
the Earl of Lindsey, who died of -his wounds within the
walls, but before he could be conveyed to an apartment.

On the seventh of January, 1643, he was appointed by the
Parliament, General of the rebel forces in a large tract of
country, described in his commission " the associated counties
of Warwick and Stafford, and the parts adjacent." War-
wickshire being already in a manner devoted to him, what
small opposition remained there was presently subdued, and
he marched, with twelve hundred men, against Lichfield,
which was held by a very slender force, under the command
of Lord Chesterfield. Of the events which occurred in
that enterprise I will give Lord Clarendon's account in his
own words ; not only because it supplies some hints of Lord
Brooke's character, of which little .has been communicated
elsewhere, but for the sake of shewing how far the noble
historian was justly liable to the censure of superstition
which has been so largely cast on him by an admired author
of his own rank, not long since deceased, for merely men-
tioning in that passage some idle prejudices which a singular
coincidence of circumstances had excited in the minds of
others.

92 ROBERT GREVILLE,

"Some gentlemen of that county," says Lord Clarendon,
"rather well affected than experienced, before they were
well enough provided to go through their work, seized on the
Close in Lichfield for the King ; a place naturally strong, and
defended with a moat, and a very high and thick wall, which
in the infancy of the war was thought a good fortification.
To suppress this growing force, within the limits of his asso-
ciation, the Lord Brooke advanced, with a formed body of
horse, foot, and cannon, part drawn from the Earl of Essex's
army, and the rest out of the garrisons of Coventry and War-
wick, and, without any resistance, entered the city of Lich-
field, which, being unfortified, was open to all comers. He
was so far from apprehending any danger from the besieged
that himself lodged in a house within musquet shot of the
Close, where, the very day he meant to assault it, sitting in
his chamber, and the window open, he was from the wall of
the Close by a common soldier shot with a musquet in the
eye, of which he instantly died, without speaking a word.
There were many discourses and observations upon his death,
that it should be upon St. Chad's day, (being the second day
of March) by whose name, he being a Bishop shortly after
the planting of Christianity in this island, that church had
been anciently called : and it, was reported that in his
prayer that very morning, for he used to pray publicly,
though his chaplain were in the presence, he wished that if
the cause he were in were not right and just, he might be
presently cut off. They who were acquainted with him
believed him to be well natured, and just; and rather
seduced, and corrupted in his understanding, than perverse
and malicious. Whether his passions or conscience swayed
him, he was undoubtedly one of those who could have been
with most difficulty reconciled to the government of Church
or State ; and therefore his death was looked upon as no
ill omen to peace, and was exceedingly lamented by his
party, which had scarce a more absolute confidence in any
man than in him."

SECOND LORD BROOKE. 03

Milton, iii addressing himself to the Parliament for " the
liberty of unlicensed printing," bestows the following eulo-
gium on the memory of this nobleman, whose practice ap-
pears to have differed so lamentably from his professions.
" I shall only repeat what I have learned from . one of your
honourable members, who, had he not sacrificed his life and
fortune to the Church and Commonwealth, we had not now
missed and bewailed a worthy and undoubted patron of this
argument. Ye knew him I am sure ; yet I, for honour's
sake, and may it be eternal to him, shall name him the
Lord Brooke. He, writing of Episcopacy, and, by the way,
treating of sects and schisms, left you his vote, or rather,
now, the last words of his dying c*harge, which I know will
ever be of dear and honoured regard with you ; so full of
meekness, and breathing charity, that, next to the last testa-
ment of Him who bequeathed love and peace to his disciples,
I cannot call to mind where I have met with words more
mild and peaceful. He there exhorts us to bear with patience
and humility those, however they may be miscalled, who
desire to live purely in such use of God's ordinances as the
best guidance of their conscience gives them ; and to tolerate
them, though in some disconformity to ourselves. The book
itself will tell us more at large, being published to the world,
and dedicated to the Parliament, by him who, both for his
life and for his death, deserves that what advice he left
should not lie by without perusal."

The book alluded to by Milton was " a Discourse, opening
the Nature of that Episcopacy which is exercised in England ;
wherein, with all humility, are represented some considera-
tions tending to the much desired peace, and long expected
reformation, of this our Mother Church ; dedicated to the
most noble Lords, with the Honourable Knights, Citizens,
and Burgesses, assembled in Parliament." This treatise,
which was published in 1641, was not the only fruit of Lord
Brooke's pen. He printed in the same year a metaphysical
work, which proves that he could think with precision, and

94.

ROBERT GREVILLE, SECOND LORD BROOKE.

argue with force, intituled " The Nature of Truth : its Union
and Unity with the Soul, which is one in its Essence
Faculties Acts one with Truth." Four of his speeches
also remain in print : two, " spoken in the Guildhall, Lon-
don, concerning his Majesty's refusal of a treaty of peace ; "
1642" An Answer to the Speech of Philip Earl of Pem-
broke, concerning accommodation, in the House of Lords,
Dec. 19, 1642 " and his " Speech at the Election of his
Captains and Commanders at Warwick Castle," 1643.

I have already spoken of Lord Brooke's marriage. He
had five sons, of whom the third and fourth, Edward and
Algernon, died young, and unmarried. Francis, and Robert,
the first and second, successively held the dignity, and died
without male issue : and it descended at length to Fulke,
the fifth son, a posthumous child, ancestor to the present
Earl Brooke, and Earl of Warwick, on whose grandfather,
Francis, Eighth Lord Brooke, those higher dignities were
conferred by George the Third.

SPENCER COWIPTON 1

EARi OF NORTHAMPTON.
OB; I643,

SPENCER COMPTON,

SECOND EARL OF NORTHAMPTON.

OF his family, was the only son of William, second Lord
Compton, who was created Earl of Northampton in 1618, by
Elizabeth, the daughter and wealthy heir of Sir John Spencer,
a merchant, and alderman of London, and was bora at his
father's seat of Compton Vinyates, in the county of Warwick,
some time in the month of May, 1601.

Little is known of his early life, but that it was passed
without reproach amidst the luxury and gaiety of courts. His
education, or rather that part of it which he received in his
own country, was completed in the University of Cambridge,
Lloyd, in his Memoirs of the Loyal Sufferers, tells us, with
an almost unintelligible extravagance, that " his parts were so
great, and his appetite to knowledge so large, that it was
as much as four several tutors, at home, at Cambridge and in
France, and Italy, each taking his respective hour for the art
and science he professed, could do to keep pace with his
great proficiency." Certain it is, however, that he was a
most highly accomplished gentleman, and so peculiarly dis-
tinguished for his extensive knowledge, to which probably
Lloyd meant particularly to allude, of almost all the languages
of Europe, that in his youth his services were generally used
in the reception and audiences of foreign ambassadors. The
natural claims to royal notice which he derived from his
rank, and from the constant fidelity of his family, had been
perhaps somewhat forwarded by the marriage of his uncle
Sir Thomas Compton, to the mother of the Duke of Bucking-

96 SPENCER COMPTON,

ham, by whom he seems to have been brought when very
young to the Court, for he was chosen one of the Knights of
the Bath at the creation of Charles, Prince of Wales, in 1616,
and we find him in the small party selected by the favourite
to attend that prince on his romantic journey to Madrid,
where he was employed to deliver the rich presents made by
his royal master to the Spanish ministers and courtiers. He
was at that time Master of the Robes in the household of
Charles, who, after his accession to the Throne, continued
him in that honourable but insignificant office, which seems
to have been bestowed on the one hand, and accepted on the
other, merely because its duties afforded frequent oppor-
tunities of familiar intercourse between two persons who had
now conceived for each other an entire friendship ; and this
is the more probable because he never condescended to hold
any other.

Thus he passed many years in an honourable and dignified
leisure, between the Court, where he enjoyed the unbought
favour of his Sovereign, and the country, where again, says
Lloyd, " he led and commanded, by the untainted reputation
of his name, the moderation and sobriety of his principles,
the exemplary regularity of his person and family, the justice
and generosity of his dealing with his neighbours and de-
pendants, the hospitality and alms of his house, and the
sweetnesss of his spirit."

Such was the felicity, and such the merits, which were
doomed to fall a sacrifice to party rage and popular infatua-
tion ; and such the gentle habits and manners of one in
whose heart lay reserved for trying occasions the patience
and perseverance of a stoic, joined to a lion's courage. From
the very dawn of the civil commotions, Lord Northampton
supported the royal cause with the most active and unvarying
zeal. He attended the King in 1639, with a great train of
his dependants, against the Scottish rebels, and in the
following year uniformly voted (for he was no speaker) in
the House of Lords against all the violent measures which

SECOND EARL OF NORTHAMPTON. 97

were almost daily proposed. In 1642 he was in the great
council of the Peers at York, and encouraged to the utmost of
his power the declarations which they there published, in
assertion of their own loyalty, of the justice of the King's
motives, and of their earnest inclination to compose all
differences fairly and legally. At length, the temper of the
Parliament leaving no room to doubt of the final result, he
hastened to his own country, and proceeded, with the cool-
ness and promptitude of an experienced commander, to levy
and arm those who were within the sphere of his influence ;
and, having established an association of the principal gentry
of the counties of Northampton, Stafford, and Warwick, and
concerted with them a judicious scheme for the distribution
of a line of garrisons, he joined Charles, immediately before
the royal standard was raised at Nottingham on the twenty-
fifth of August in that year, with two thousand of the most
choice troops which appeared on that awful occasion.

In the mean time the Parliament, alarmed at his activity,
as well as at his power, on the thirtieth of May addressed to
him a letter of mixed persuasion and menace, to which
on the eighth of June he despatched a reply so scornful that
the Commons immediately proceeded to impeach him of
high crimes and misdemeanours, but, as their rage cooled,
determined to prosecute that measure no further. The Earl
now marched with the King towards the centre of the island,
and, having fought bravely at the battle of Edgehill, and re-
duced presently after the Castle of Banbury, by the aid of
the cannon which he had taken on his way from the Lord
Brooke, assumed the command there, and made that town his
head quarters. From thence he annoyed the outposts of the
main body of the rebel army, under the command of the Earl
of Essex, by continued excursions, and is said to have been
victorious in twelve several well-fought skirmishes during
that nobleman's stay at Warwick and Northampton. He
followed up these successes by raising the siege of Stafford,
which had been for some time closely invested by a body of

IV. H

98 SPENCER COMPTON,

the rebel troops, under the command of Sir John Gell, a
country gentleman of that neighbourhood, who having been
compelled to retreat, with considerable loss, returned soon
after, strongly reinforced, and posted himself in view of the
town, with a presumption, too well founded, that he should
tempt the gallant Earl to an attack.

On Sunday, the nineteenth of March, 1643, N. S., North-
ampton marched out of Stafford, and found his opponents
on a small plain called Hopton Heath, about two miles from
the town. It was not till then that he discovered their great
Superiority ; but the number of his horse fell little short of
those of the enemy, and he looked at his brave mounted
yeomanry with a confident anticipation of victory. In two
furious charges he totally cleared the field of their cavalry,
with the loss to the rebels of between four and five hundred
in killed, wounded, and prisoners ; eight pieces of cannon ;
and nearly all their ammunition ; but after the second charge,
in urging the pursuit through the main body of their foot,
the Earl's horse was killed under him, and, in the confused
ardour of the chase, he was left suddenly in the power of the
enemy. Of the short interval which consummated and.closed
his services, we have no account but from them into whose
hands he had so unhappily fallen. Their report may surely
be trusted, and it is sufficiently glorious to his memory. As
soon as he had risen on his feet he killed with his own hand
a colonel of infantry, who was advancing to seize him. A
moment after, his helmet was beaten off by the butt end
of a musket, and his features were recognised. He was told
that his life should be spared ; but he answered that " he
scorned to take quarter from such base rogues and rebels as
they were." He was immediately assailed on all sides, and,
having received in the same instant a deep wound in his
face, and another from a halbert on the back of his head, fell
lifeless. Gell, and his second in command, Sir William
Brereton, in the vulgar savageness of their triumph, refused
to give up the corpse to his son, or even to permit him to

SECOND EARL OF NORTHAMPTON. 99

send his chirurgeon to embalm it, and they carried it with
them to Derby, and buried it in Allhallows' Church, in
that town.

Lord Clarendon thus concludes his narration of the events
of the dear-bought success of that day. " They, who had all
the ensigns of victory but their General, thought themselves
undone ; whilst the other side, who had escaped in the night,
and made a hard shift to carry oif his dead body with them,
hardly believed they were losers. The truth is, a greater
victory had been an unequal recompense for such a loss. The
Earl of Northampton was a person of great courage, honour,
and fidelity, and not well known till his evening : having, in
the ease, and plenty, and luxury, of that too happy time
indulged to himself with that licence which was then thought
necessary to great fortunes ; but from the beginning of these
distractions, as if he had been awakened out of a lethargy,
he never proceeded with a lukewarm temper. Before the
standard was set up, he appeared in Warwickshire against
the Lord Brooke ; and, as much upon his own reputation as
the justice of the cause, which was not so well then under-
stood, discountenanced, and drove him out of that county.
Afterwards he took the ordnance from Banbury Castle, and
brought them to the King. As soon as an army was to be
raised, he levied, with the first, upon his own charge, a
troop of horse, and a regiment of foot ; and (not like some
other men, who warily distributed their family to both sides ;
one son to serve the King, whilst his father, or another son,
engaged as far for the Parliament) entirely dedicated all his
children to the quarrel ; having four sons officers under him,
whereof three charged that day in the field : and, from the
time he submitted himself to the profession of a soldier, no
man more punctual upon command, no ^man more diligent
and vigilant in duty. All distresses he bore like a common
man, and all wants and hardnesses as if he had never known
plenty or ease ; most prodigal of his person to danger,
and would often say that if he outlived these wars he

H2

100

SPENCER COMPTON.

was certain never to have so noble a death ; so that it
was not to be wondered if, upon such a stroke, the body that
felt it thought it had lost more than a limb."

This truly heroic nobleman married Mary, daughter of Sir
Francis Beaumont, of the family of Beaumont, of Cole-Orton,
in the county of Leicester, and brother to the Countess
of Buckingham, who, as has been before observed, took to
her second husband the Earl's uncle, Sir Thomas Compton.
They left six sons, all uncommonly and equally blessed
with every virtue that could adorn private life, or add to the
dignity of high birth, and all distinguished by considerable
portions of historical fame. The eldest, Sir James, ancestor
of the present Earl and Marquis of Northampton, and his
four next brothers, Charles, William, Spencer, and Francis,
knights, shone repeatedly in the field with as much lustre as
their father, and better fortune; and most of them were
afterwards deeply engaged, and trusted, in matters of state,
and contributed largely by their talents and their firmness to
the restoration of royalty. Henry, the youngest son, died
Bishop of London, leaving an exalted character, both as a
prelate and a man. The Earl had also two daughters ;
Anne, married to Sir Hugh Cholmondeley, of Whitby, in the
county of York ; and Penelope, to Sir John Nicholas,
Knight of the Bath, one of the Principal Secretaries of State
to the Kings Charles the First and Second.

Vandyke pjc.

O) O n M R

EAEJ, OF

OB: H

ROBERT DORMER,

FIRST EARL OP CAERNARVON.

THIS nobleman, of whose character and story we know but
enough to excite our regret that more has not been trans-
mitted to us, and whose few faults seem to have been recol-
lected merely because they served as foils to his virtues, was
the eldest of the three sons of William Dormer, by Alice,
daughter of Sir Richard Molyneux, of Sefton, in Lancashire,
Baronet. Sir Robert Dormer, father of that William, and
descended of a family of respectable antiquity in the county
of Buckingham, had been knighted by Elizabeth, and was
created a Baronet by James, on the tenth of June, 1615, and
on the thirtieth of the same month was raised to the Peerage,
by the title of Lord Dormer of Wenge, in that county.
William, who was his heir-apparent, died some little time
before him, and so the subject of this memoir succeeded in
his youth to that Barony on the death of his grandfather in
1616. On the second of August, 1629, he was advanced by
Charles the First to the dignities of Viscount Ascot, and
Earl of Caernarvon.

It may be presumed that he had his education finally in
the University of Oxford, since Wood, who designates him
" Mercurio magnus sed Marti major," informs us that he took
there the degree of Doctor of the civil law on the first of
November, 1642. He had then not long returned from
foreign travel, which, as we shall see presently, his curiosity
had extended beyond the continent of Europe. It has been
said that he brought home with him to a country, then of

102

ROBERT DORMER,

morals and manners comparatively pure, some disposition to
excesses in our time almost invariably to be expected in the
conduct of young men of his rank, and of great possessions ;
but David Lloyd, the biographer, on whose authority this
report seems wholly to rest, particularizes no charge except
of an inclination to gaming, and adds that he " hated drunken-
ness perfectly." It is said too that he was attached to field
sports, even to extravagance, and that King James therefore
placed him in the office of chief Avenor to the Crown, which
was settled on him and his heirs by letters patent, and was
the only civil appointment ever held by him.

Thus passed the earlier years of his life, and we hear
nothing further of him till the contest between Charles the
First and his Parliament assumed a truly formidable aspect.
It seems to have been on the question of Stafford's impeach-
ment that he first manifested without hesitation the party
in public affairs which he proposed to espouse by using his
utmost endeavours to save that great person. When the
Buckinghamshire men were soon after incited to insurrection
by Hampden and others, and in January, 1642, came to
London, to the amount of many thousands, to present
seditious petitions to the King and the two Houses of Parlia-
ment, he hurried into that county, where his great estates
chiefly lay, to attempt to restore order, and to concert with
the most eminent loyalists there the means of raising and
arming forces, and of making other preparations for the
approaching crisis. These duties performed, he attended
Charles to York, with the great body of Peers who were
still faithful to him, where he signed with them the famous
declaration of the fifteenth of June following, and, after the
King set up his standard at Nottingham, joined him, with a
body of two thousand men, levied and equipped at his own
charge. As soon as the rebellion had assumed a regular form,
the Parliament, in its instructions to its General, the Earl of
Essex, did him the honour to except him by name, with a
few other great persons, from pardon.

FIRST EARL OF CAERNARVON. 103

There were few actions of importance within the short
period to which Providence confined his service in which he
was not engaged with a zeal and activity that rendered him
the darling of the army. His very errors added to his fame ;
as in the battle of Edgehill, where he commanded a strong
squadron under Prince Rupert, and, in too eager a pursuit
of a body of the rebel horse, left his infantry exposed to peril
from which they were with difficulty rescued. He marched
from thence into the west, where he joined the army under
the command of the Marquis of Hertford, in which he was
appointed General of the Horse, and, having gained signal
credit in the battle of Stratton, proceeded to Wells, near a
village in the vicinity of which city, called Chewton, says
Lord Clarendon, " the Earl of Caernarvon, who always
charged home, with an incomparable gallantry charged the
enemy, and pressed them so hard, that he routed the whole
body of their Horse, and followed the execution of them
above two miles." Here again his ardour outstript his pru-
dence, for he had unawares followed the chase into the
enemy's quarters, and found himself suddenly faced by a
very superior body of Sir William Waller's dragoons, and
was in his turn obliged to retreat in some confusion. Fortu-
nately Prince Maurice, who, with his regiment, served in the
same army, was near enough to receive speedily news of the
Earl's danger, and, coming just in time to his assistance,
made a vigorous charge on the pursuers, a part of whom,
that were unemployed, wheeled about and attacked his rear.
The Prince, wounded and unhorsed, was now in great dan-
ger, when Caernarvon, who had been thus enabled to rally
his men, returned to the charge, rescued him, and joining
Maurice's troops, again attacked the rebels, and drove them
before him, in utter disorder, till night closed the pursuit.

These errors of unripe experience and superabundant
Courage were amply atoned for in the battle of Roundway
Down, which speedily followed, and in which, having arrived
almost alone and by chance, he served as a volunteer in Sir

104 ROBERT DORMER,

John Byron's regiment, the command of which was however
left to his charge. Here, by a judicious, though somewhat
novel, arrangement of his force, joined to a consummate
gallantry, he had a conspicuous share in gaining the very
important victory which ensued, after which he was de-
spatched with his horse towards Dorchester, a town notori-
ously disaffected, and fortified by the rebels. Such however
was the fame of his prowess, added to the panic infused into
the garrison by a Mr. Strode, a man of considerable estate in
the neighbourhood, and equally cowardly and disloyal, who in
a late visit to it had extravagantly magnified the exploits of
the royal army, that it surrendered at discretion, without
receiving a shot. Weymouth and Portland followed the
example, and the whole of that country would have been
reduced to obedience, had not Prince Maurice, who now
arrived with the infantry, loitered for some days about Dor-
chester and Weymouth, instead of joining the Earl in pur-
suing the great advantages which he had already gained.
"Here," again says Lord Clarendon, "the soldiers, taking
advantage of the famous malignity of those places, used
great licence ; neither was there care taken to observe those
articles which the Earl of Caernarvon, who was full of
honour and justice upon all contracts, took so ill that he
quitted the command he had with those forces, and returned
to the King before Gloucester." Unhappy return ! He had
scarcely arrived there when Charles was compelled by the
dexterity of Essex to raise the siege of that town, and
marched with his whole army towards London. The battle
of Newbury, in which fell so many noble props to Charles's
cause, and ornaments to his Court, immediately followed.
There, on the twentieth of September, 1643, the gallant Earl,
after he had charged and routed a body of the rebel Horse,
Essex's life-guard, coming carelessly back, near some of the
scattered troopers, one of them, who knew his person, ran
through him the body with a sword, and within an hour he
expired.

FIRST EARL OF CAERNARVON. 105

It is said that, in the short interval in which after receiving
his wound he had the power to speak, he inquired eagerly
whether the King was in safety ; and that a nobleman, his
friend, who was attending on him, inquired whether he could
convey any final request from him to his Majesty ; to which
he answered, " I will not die with a suit in my mouth to
any King save to the King of Heaven." We are told too
that, being solicited by his most unworthy father-in-law to
abandon the royal cause, he only replied sternly, " Leave me
to my honour and to my allegiance." Such reports derive
additional credit from the tribute to his memory which Lord
Clarendon has left to us.

" He was a person," says the noble historian, " with whose
great parts and virtue the world was not enough acquainted.
Before the war, though his education was adorned by travel,
and an exact observation of the manners of more nations
than our common travellers use to visit (for he had, after the
view of Spain, France, and most parts of Italy, spent some
time in Turkey, and those eastern countries), he seemed to
be wholly delighted with those looser exercises of pleasure,
hunting, hawking, and the like, in which the nobility of that
time too much delighted to excel. After the troubles began,
having the command of the first or second regiment of Horse
that was raised for the King's service, he wholly gave him-
self up to the office and duty of a soldier ; no man more
diligently obeying, or more dexterously commanding ; for he
was not only of a very keen courage in exposing his person,
but an excellent discerner and pursuer of advantage upon his
enemy. He had a mind and understanding very present in
the article of danger, which is a rare benefit in that profession.
Those infirmities, and that licence, which he had formerly
indulged to himself, he put off with severity when others
thought them excusable under the notion of a soldier. He
was a great lover of justice, and practised it then most
deliberately when he had a power to do wrong ; and so strict
in the observation of his word and promise as a commander,

106 EGBERT DORMER, FIRST EARL OF CAERNARVON.

that he could not be persuaded to stay in the West when he
found it not in his power to perform the agreement which he
had made with Dorchester and Weymouth. If he had lived,
he would have proved a great ornament to that profession,
and an excellent soldier ; and by his death the King found a
sensible weakness in his army."

This nobleman married Anne Sophia, eldest daughter of
Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, by whom
he left an only child, Charles, his successor, who dying with-
out male issue, the Earldom became extinct, and the Barony
devolved on a distant kinsman, in whose posterity it remains.

raBa.yk.ja:.

WOLLDARB VD1ULD

VIS C OTJN T GRA-TSTDI S ON .
OB. 1643,

WILLIAM VILLIERS,

VISCOUNT GRANDISON.

SIR GEORGE VILLIERS, of Brokesby in Leicestershire, of
whose second marriage was born the great Duke of Bucking-
ham, had issue by his first wife, Audrey, daughter of
William Saunders of Harrington, in the county of North-
ampton, two sons, of whom the second was Sir Edward
Villiers, a man not more distinguished by his eminent public
actions in Ireland than by an admirable private character.
This gentleman married Barbara, eldest daughter of Sir
John St. John, of Lediard Tregoze, in Wilts ; and, among
the multiplicity of dignities showered on the family of the
favourite, either immediately or in reversion, that of Viscount
Grandison, in that kingdom, was given, soon after their
nuptials, to Sir Oliver St. John, the celebrated Lord Deputy
of Ireland, to whom the bride was niece and heir, with
remainder to the issue of their marriage, of which William,
the subject of this memoir, was the eldest son.

He was born in 1613 ; succeeded to the title on the death
of his great-uncle, in 1630; and, soon after he came of age,
took his seat in the House of Peers, with equal inclination
and capacity to fill a conspicuous part in the conduct of
public affairs. Having seen somewhat of a military life in
the wars of the Netherlands, he intended to have passed his
days chiefly in Ireland, where his father had justly gained a
mighty popularity, and to have sat down, calmly though
not inactively, in the enjoyment of those affections of which
the inheritance had been in a manner bequeathed to him ;

108 WILLIAM VILLIERS,

but the time was fast approaching which unhappily demanded
other duties of the vigour of youth. Lord Grandison, full of
martial spirit, and of gratitude for the prodigious favours
which his family owed to Charles, was among the first who
rushed forward in that Prince's cause, even in the dawn of
the rebellion. He fixed his three brothers, the youngest of
whom had scarcely passed childhood, in the military service?
and himself commanded a regiment in the army raised in
1640 against the Scots, at the head of which he signalised
himself with the greatest gallantry on many occasions. In
the following year he passed into Ireland, and served in the
county of Armagh, at the head of a body of horse, which
having been surprised, and almost destroyed, by the Irish,
.on their first rising, he returned to the King, who had now
set up his standard, and was immediately appointed to
command a regiment of cavalry, under the eye of his
Majesty, who was then present with the army. Here too,
and indeed always, he was not less ill-fated than brave.
" This success," says Lord Clarendon (having spoken of the
surrender of Marlborough to the Royalists in December,
1642), " was a little shadowed by the unfortunate loss of a
very good regiment of horse within a very few days after ;
for the Lord Grandison, by the miscarriage of orders, was
exposed at too great a distance from the army with his single
regiment of horse consisting of three hundred, and a regiment
of two hundred dragoons, to the unequal encounter of a
party of the enemy of five thousand horse and dragoons ;
and so was himself, after a retreat made to Winchester, there
taken, with all his party, which was the first loss of that
kind the King sustained ; but without the smallest fault
of the commander ; and the misfortune was much lessened,
by his making an escape himself, with two or three of his
principal officers, who were very welcome to Oxford."

The recovery of his liberty was marked by some peculiar
circumstances which history has omitted to record; for
Lloyd, in his memoirs of those who suffered in the grand

VISCOUNT GRANDISOJf. 109

rebellion, tells us that " Lord Grandison's escape from Win-
chester was admirably contrived, not only for his safety, but
the converting of many to his Majesty's side, and sowing of
dissension among the enemies." Other events too of his life
are almost buried in oblivion. We discover from some
strangely obscure passages in the same book, and I meet with
it in no other, that after his mischance at Winchester, Lord
Grandison marched northward, with a force of horse, and
raised the siege of Newark ; and then, to use the words
of Lloyd, " brought, in his dextrous way of marching horse,
several supplies, through the thickest of his enemies, to
Oxford, where his counsels and advice were as pertinent as
his actions were noble."

His gallant career was too soon terminated. He com-
manded, according to Lord Clarendon, the infantry, with the
title of Colonel-General, in the army with which Prince
Rupert, in July, 1643, besieged Bristol ; but Lloyd, still our
only authority for particulars, and still in the same strain of
imperfect communication, tells us that " he had laid a design,
prevented by a ridiculous mistake, to entrap Fiennes" (the
Governor) " with his gallant brigade of horse, that never
charged till they touched the enemies' horses' head." How
far these two accounts may be reconcileable, it is needless
here to inquire ; thus much however is certain : that on the
twenty-fifth of that month, the day before the dearly bought
capitulation of the town (for he was one of many heroes
who fell there), in leading on his men with the most deter-
mined bravery, after having had two horses killed under him
and four wounded, he was disabled by a musket-shot, and
carried to Oxford, where he languished for some weeks, and
expired.

The noble historian, however superficially he may have de-
tailed the particulars of Lord Grandison's services, has thus
immortalised the memory of that excellent person by one of
those exquisite portraits which were, and ever will be,
peculiar to his pen : " He was a young man of so virtuous a

110 WILLIAM VILLIERS,

habit of mind that no temptation or provocation could
corrupt him : so great a lover of justice and integrity, that
no example, necessity, or even the barbarity of this war,
could make him swerve from the most precise rules of it :
and of that rare piety and devotion, that the court or camp
could not shew a more faultless person, or to whose example
young men might more reasonably conform themselves. His
personal valour, and courage of all kinds (for he had some-
times indulged so much to the corrupt opinion of honour as
to venture himself in duels), was very eminent, insomuch as
he was accused of being too prodigal of his person. His
affection, zeal, and obedience to the King was such as became
a branch of that family ; and he was wont to say that if he
had not understanding enough to know the uprightness of the
cause, nor loyalty to inform him of the duty of a subject, yet
the very obligations of gratitude to the King, on the behalf
of his house, were such, as that his life was but a due sacri-
fice ; and, therefore, he no sooner saw the war unavoidable,
than he engaged all his brethren as well as himself in the
service, and there were then three more of them in command
in the army, where he was so unfortunately cut off." When
the King was informed of his death, he exclaimed that " he
had lost an honest-resolved man;" and added, with that
quaintness which was then frequently used, even in the most
serious speeches, that "Lord Grandison was as free from
spleen as if he had always lived by the medicinal waters of
St. Vincent's rock, where he received his fatal wound."

He married Mary, third daughter of Paul, Viscount
Bayning ; who, after his death became the wife, first of his
cousin Charles Villiers, second and last Earl of Anglesey of
his name ; and, secondly, of Arthur Gorges. By her he had
one daughter, his sole heir, Barbara, who was married to
Roger Palmer, Earl of Castlemain in Ireland, and who,
through a connection with that Prince to which in those
days little discredit attached, was created, by Charles the
Second, Duchess of Cleveland. A splendid monument was

TISCOUNT GRANDISON. Ill

erected by that lady over the remains of her father, who was
buried in the Cathedral of Christ Church in Oxford, with the
following inscription :

"H.S.I. Gulielmus Villiers, Vice-Comes Grandison de
Limerico, martis et gratiarum eertamen; qui oris venus-
tissimi decus factis pulcherrimis magis honestavit. Post res
maximas, in Belgio, Hibernia, demum Anglia, gestas, cum a
partibus Regis adversus rebelles in obsessam Bristoliam
legiones duceret, primas admotis scalis vallum superavit,
ducisque non uno nomine functus officio, militis ita seu
virtutem, seu pudorem accendit ut propugnaculis potiretur,
glande interim femur trajectus, cupressum lauro intexuit ;
receptse urbis grande nimis pretium Oxoniam delatus obiit,
sub finem mensis Aug. Ann. MDCXLIII. setatis suse XXX.
M. H. optimo parenti Barbara, Clevelandise Ducissa, pietatis
ergo P."

The ingenious and worthy editor of the republication of
Lord Orford's Royal and Noble Authors has included this
nobleman in his large and valuable additions to that work ;
ascribing to him a translation from the Greek, with the
following title " Saint Chrysostome his Paraenesis, or Ad-
monition, wherein he recalls Theodorus the fallen : or gene-
rally, an exhortation for desperate sinners ; translated by the
Lord Viscount Grandison, prisoner in the Tower." Mr-
Parke supposes that after his mishap at Winchester he was
committed to the Tower, and that his escape (the term used
by Lord Clarendon) was from thence, and not from his
military captors. This, as will appear in the foregoing state-
ment, is expressly contradicted by Lloyd ; but the employ-
ment of the three years which comprised William. Lord
Grandison's public life, described in the present little sketch,
seems to have left no room even for a very short confine-
ment ; which, had it happened to such a man, could indeed
scarcely have passed wholly unnoticed in history. His next
brother, John, who succeeded to him in the title, and lived
long after 1654, the year in which the translation was pub-

112

WILLIAM VILLIERS, VISCOUNT GEANDISON.

lished, and of whom we know only that he was actively
engaged against the rebels, might very likely therefore have
been so imprisoned after the ruin of the King's cause ; as
were probably many others of no other eminence than for
their rank in society, of whose confinement we have no his-
torical notice ; and he, most probably, was the translator of
the work in question.

W DILL QAM FOELOQ
oi" r::

WILLIAM FIELDING,

FIRST EARL OF DENBIGH.

THE subject of this memoir was more distinguished by his
death than by his life ; more by his domestic virtues than his
public character. He was the heir male of a private family,
the main importance of which seems to have been founded
on its station in the first class of English gentiy ; on exten-
sive territorial possessions ; and on an alleged descent from
the ancient Counts of Hapsburg, whose House has given so
many Sovereigns to Europe. An alliance with the family of
one whom the unreasonable favour of two Monarchs, and the
excess of his own ambition, afterwards rendered for a time
the most powerful subject in England, drew this gentleman
from his respectable retirement, and placed him in employ-
ments which he executed at least with perfect fidelity,
and in the possession of dignities which at least he never
disgraced.

He was the eldest of the three sons of Basil Fielding, of
Newnham Paddox in the county of Warwick, by Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir Walter Aston, of Tixall, in Staffordshire,
and married, at an early age, Mary, daughter, by a second
marriage, of Sir George Villieis, of Brokesby, in Leicester-
shire, a neighbouring country gentleman, the prospects and
expectations of whose family were then not more extensive
than those of his own. George, however, the fourth of her
five brothers, at that time a child, was destined to an almost
unparalleled splendour of exaltation. He became, several
years after, the mighty Duke of Buckingham, and nearly

114 WILLIAM FIELDING,

the sole dispenser of royal favours, which, with the most
prodigal hand, he lavished on all his kindred and alliances.
His brother-in-law, Fielding, of whom we know nothing pre-
viously to that period, but that he had been knighted at
Belvoir Castle by James, when that Prince was on his way
from Scotland to mount the English throne, and soon after
appointed Custos Rotulorum of Warwickshire, was, on the
thirteenth of December, 1620, created Viscount Fielding of
Newnham Paddox ; in the following year appointed Master
of the Great Wardrobe ; and on the fourteenth of September,
1622, was advanced to the Earldom of Denbigh. His Patent
for that dignity records a curious proof of Buckingham's
overweening haughtiness ; for his marriage with the favourite's
sister is specifically assigned as one of the reasons for con-
ferring it on him, and indeed the others are little more than
customary matters of form. The terms in question are
" Ob generis claritatem, et nuptias admodum honorandas,
sed prsecipue ob eximiam virtutem, et erga nos et coronam
nostram fidem."

He was admitted into the very small party which attended
Prince Charles on his sudden and secret journey into Spain
in 1623, and was soon after his return invested with a con-
siderable naval command by Buckingham, who, among his
splendid appointments, held that of High Admiral of Eng-
land. On this part of Denbigh's story little satisfactory
information is to be obtained, and it may be clearly inferred
that his services were at the best unimportant. Dugdale, in
his History of Warwickshire, simply informs us that "he
was Admiral at sea in several expeditions ; " and White-
locke, in his " Memorials " for the year 1626, has this curious
passage " about this time the Earl of Denbigh had one
hundred sail of ships under his command in our seas ; but
his Excellency, having no command to fight, suffered divers
English vessels to be taken away by our enemies in his view,
without rescue by their countrymen : " and again, under the
year 1628, " the fleet under command of the Earl of Denbigh

FIRST EARL OF DENBIGH. 116

sailed to Rochelle, and, finding there some French ships,
would not assault them, though fewer and weaker than them-
selves by many degrees ; but, after shewing themselves only,
they returned and left Rochelle unrelieved. The Council
here being informed thereof, and some parliament men, let-
ters were sent from the Council to the Duke, to order the
Earl of Denbigh to go again and to relieve Rochelle."

Bishop Kennet, in his invaluable " Complete History of
England," goes more largely into the particulars of this latter
expedition. He tells us that " a fleet of about fifty ships
was early fitted out under the command of the Earl of
Denbigh, who, for want of mariners, or for the service of a
descent, took in two thousand two hundred able land-men, and
setting sail from Plymouth on the seventeenth of April, came
to anchor in the road of Rochelle on the first of May. He found
twenty sail of the King of France's ships riding before the
harbour, and, being much superior in numbers and strength,
he sent advice into the town that he would sink the French
ships as soon as the wind came west, and made a higher
flood. About the eighth of May the wind and tide served
accordingly, and the Rochellers expected and solicited for
that season of deliverance : but the Earl, without attempting
the opportunity, weighed anchor and sailed away, suffering
four of the French ships to pursue, as it were, the English
Fleet, that arrived at Plymouth on the twenty-sixth of May.
This other inglorious expedition was a greater discourage-
ment to the poor Rochellers, and increased the fears and
jealousies of a popish interest at home. Many concluded the
whole design was but a feint, and meant rather by the Court
party to reduce Rochelle than relieve it. Some clamoured
against the Earl of Denbigh, and said nothing better could
be expected from his conduct who was brother-in-law to the
Duke of Buckingham. Others charged it as a plot in one
Clark a Bedchamber man, who had been a chief commissioner
in both the expeditions, and, being a reputed Papist, was
supposed to be employed for an instrument of miscarriage.
i 2

116 WILLIAM FIELDING,

One Le Brun, a Frenchman, captain in the English Fleet,
gave a deposition before the Mayor of Plymouth, on the six-
teenth of May, which argued treachery, or apparent cowar-
dice, in the management of this late expedition. This
account was certified by the Mayor of Plymouth to the Bur-
gesses of that town in parliament, by whom it was communi-
cated to the Council Table, from whence a letter was directed
to the Duke of Buckingham, as Lord High Admiral, dated
the thirteenth of May, 1628, to signify his Majesty's pleasure
that the Earl of Denbigh should return back to relieve the
town of Rochelle with the fleet under his charge, with
other ships, prepared at Portsmouth and Plymouth. But,
for all this order in Council, no such return was made, nor
any inquiry into the obstruction of it."

This narrative affords an ample illustration of the short
passage quoted from Whitelocke, and recites, candidly
enough, the main facts of these ill-conceived and worse-
performed enterprises. Buckingham, who had forced his
master into a war with France that he might gratify his
vanity by assuming the conduct of it, found himself wholly
unequal to the task ; and Denbigh, the creature of his power
and of his kindness, was no further blameable than in re-
taining a station which bound him to the execution of the
wild and capricious orders of his patron. The murther of
Buckingham, within few weeks after, when he was preparing
to retrieve his reputation by commanding in person a new
expedition to Rochelle, probably saved the favourite from
impeachment ; but the subsequent forbearance, at such an
over-heated period, from inquiry into the conduct of Denbigh,
leaves no doubt of the public opinion of his innocence.

He was indeed allowed to exercise his command in a third
attempt, two months after the death of the Duke. Pere
Daniel, in his Journal Historique de Louis XIII., under the
date of the thirtieth of September, 1628, says " Une troisieme
flotte d'Angleterre, commandee par le Generale Dambi, paroit
a la vfie de la Rochelle." Denbigh, left now to use his own dis-

FIRST EARL OF DENBIGH. 117

cretion, seems to have made some spirited, though fruitless
efforts ; for the same author adds that the third and fourth
of October were passed, to use his own words, in " Tenta-
tives inutiles des Anglois pour forcer la Digue qui fermoit le
port de la Rochelle." That town finally surrendered to
Louis on the thirtieth of the latter month ; and Daniel closes
his notes relative to this last unlucky attempt by informing
us that, on the tenth of November, " la flotte d'Angleterre est
battue, et fort maltraitte par la tempete en retournant."
That Denbigh, however, had incurred considerable unpopu-
larity may be reasonably inferred from his being soon after
sent into an honourable exile, under the character of Ambas-
sador to the Sophi ; a fact which we learn from the inscrip-
tion on a very rare engraving of him by Voerst, which states
also that he was at the Court of that monarch in 1631. This
circumstance of his life sufficiently explains the remarkable
accompaniments to the portrait prefixed to this very imperfect
memoir. Those who show to strangers the fine collection in
which the original remains, account for the singularities in
question by asserting, with the usual simplicity and perse-
verance of such exhibiters, that he was Governor of Jamaica,
but, unfortunately for the tradition, that island was not pos-
sessed by the English till several years after his death.

In the treasure which has been amassed and preserved of
the correspondence of eminent Englishmen, I find only a
single letter of this Nobleman ; an undated original, addressed
to the Duke of Buckingham, and of some curiosity, inasmuch
as it discloses an historical fact hitherto wholly unnoticed
That Ley, Earl of Marlborough, and Lord Treasurer, who is
commonly said to have been removed from that office for
being too scrupulous as to the means of advancing the King's
revenue, had, on the other hand, become an object of parlia-
mentary jealousy, probably on a score directly contrary. It
is clear, from an examination of dates, that the Earl of Marl-
borough was the " Treasurer " alluded to, and that the letter
was written previously to July, 1628, for on the fifteenth of

118 WILLIAM FIELDING,

that month he was dismissed, and on the twenty-third of the
next Buckingham was assassinated. The letter is in the Har
leian Collection

MyLo.

" This morning the Treasurer ca~e o the House,
and, after wee had satt some halfe an hower, my Lo. of Essex
moved that, whereas there was a greate Lorde that had spoken
some speeches which concerned the honour of both Houses,
which was that there was a conspiracy and a combination
against him ; he thought it fitting that it should bee cleared,
and their names knowne, to the which purpose many more
rose and spoke : but the Treasurer desired a longer time, by
reason that he had not all his witnesses ready, and in his
speech said these wordes, as neare as I can remember e I
am as honest a man, and as faithfull to the King and king-
dom as any subject the King hath. I desier but justice in
both Houses, and I defie the worlde, for I will prove myself
as honest, and an honester, man as those that sett the busi-
ness on foote ; those that plotted it ; or those that counte-
nanced it.' This he hath spoken, and much more, which my
memory will not eive me leave to relate.

Ever your's,

WILL. DENBIGH.

The Earl seems to have retired into privacy soon after his
return from Persia, and remained unemployed till the com-
mencement of the rebellion, when he placed himself, to use
the words of Lord Clarendon, " as a volunteer in the King's
guard of Horse." In the spring of 1643 Prince Rupert, their
commander, marched from the banks of the Severn, where he
had been for several weeks quartered, towards the northern
coast, to meet the Queen, who had lately landed there from
Holland, and on his way, seized the virulently disaffected
town of Birmingham. There, says Clarendon, "in the
entrance of the town and in the too eager pursuit of that

FIRST EARL OF DENBIGH. 119

loose troop of Horse that was in it, the Earl of Denbigh,
who from the beginning of the war, with unwearied pains,
and exact submission to discipline and order, had been a
volunteer in Prince Rupert's troop, and been engaged with
singular courage in all his enterprises of danger, was unfortun-
ately wounded with many hurts on the head and body, with
swords and poll-axes, of which within two or three days he
died." The day of his death was the third of April, 1643,
and his remains were interred at Monk's Kirby, in Lei-
cester.

This nobleman's consort, of whom Sir Henry Wotton, in
his sketch of the life of her brother, the Duke of Buckingham,
says that " she was a very accomplished lady, adorned with
every virtue ornamental to her sex," has already been men-
tioned. Their issue was Basil, second Earl of Denbigh, a
man of considerable talents, whom some perverseness of
character or of circumstances had induced to an obstinate
adherence to the rebel cause, and more than once to face his
father in the field ; George, who was created Earl of Des-
mond, &c. in Ireland, and whose eldest son, William, suc-
ceeded to the titles of his uncle, Basil, and was ancestor
to the present Earl of Denbigh; and Philip, who died in 1627,
without issue. They had also four daughters ; Mary, married
to James, first Duke of Hamilton ; Anne, to Baptist Noel,
eldest son and successor to Edward, first Viscount Campden ;
Elizabeth, wife of Lewis Boyle, Viscount Kynelmeaky, in
Ireland, second son of Richard, first Earl of Cork, and created
by Charles the Second, in 1660, Countess of Guildford for
her life ; and Henrietta Maria, who died in childhood.

"YTalker px .

OF STTNDERUUm
OB. 1643,

HENRY SPENCER,

FIRST EARL OF SUNDERLAND.

THIS admirable young man, perhaps the brightest orna-
ment to the pedigree of the noble persons who are lineally
descended from him, was the first-born son of William,
second Lord Spencer, of Wormleighton, by Penelope, eldest
daughter of Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and
was born at Althorpe, in Northamptonshire, and baptized
there on the twenty-third of November 1620. His early
studies were conducted under the eye of his father, and his
education was completed at Magdalen College, in Oxford,
where he became a student before the age of sixteen, for we
find that on the thirty-first of August, 1636, during a royal
visit to that university, he was admitted, on the King's
nomination, to the degree of Master of Arts. A singular
writer who lived in his time tells us that " he had a tutor,
crooked with age, who straitened the manners of his youth,
arming him against those customs that are not knocked, but
screwed into the soul ; inuring him to good discourse and
company ; habituating him to temperance and good order
whence he had the advantage of others, not only in health,
but in time and business ; and diverting him with safe,
cheap, but manly and generous recreations ; the result of
which education was a knowing and a staid nature, that made
him a lamb when pleased, a lion when angry." But the truth
is that his whole nature was excellent ; and that it is difficult
to say which deserved most to be admired, the exactness of
his own moral conduct, or his charitable judgment of that of

122 HENRY SPENCER,

others ; the sobriety or the acuteness of his understanding ;
his bravery or his gentleness ; the simplicity of his heart, or
the refinement of his manners.

His father died in 1636, leaving him an immense estate,
and placing him under the guardianship of his uncle, Thomas,
Earl of Southampton, a nobleman of equal worth and wisdom.
Three years after, on the twentieth of July, 1639, he was
married at Penshurst, in Kent, the seat of her father, to Lady
Dorothy Sidney, the Saccharissa of Waller, and daughter of
Robert, Earl of Leicester, the charms of whose person and
character are elsewhere celebrated in this work. The Earl,
her father, was then ambassador to the Court of France, and
the young couple, almost immediately after their nuptials,
joined him at Paris, and remained there till October, 1641,
when his mission ended, and the family returned to England^
and Lord Spencer, within a few days after, took his seat in
the House of Peers. His eminent and indeed universal merit
was presently discovered, and the two great parties are said
to have contended with earnestness for the support of a youth
who had scarcely passed the age of twenty-one. He espoused
at first the popular side, in which his conduct was equally
distinguished by prudence, moderation, and candour. The
Parliament, which was then beginning to assume the execu-
tive power, endeavoured to bind him effectually to the rebel
cause by nominating him to the office of Lord Lieutenant of
his native county, which he accepted, evidently with the hope
of fortifying that medium between the King and the Parlia-
ment in which many virtuous men then placed themselves, as
at a point from which they might at favourable opportunities
propose terms of reconciliation suited to the honest interests
of both. The vanity, however, of these excellent views pre-
sently became too evident, and he was among the first to
express to the Peers his honest abhorrence of their alternate
excesses and submissions. Lloyd, in his Memoirs of the
Loyalists, has preserved some slight fragments of his speeches.
He advised those who complained that the King had with-

FIRST EARL OF SUNDERLAND. 123

drawn himself " to lure him home by their loving behaviour,
and not to do as those troublesome women who, by their
hideous outcries, drive their wandering husbands further off."
He told them that he " pitied not them that bemoaned his
Majesty's distance ; and, whereas, they expected to be com-
mended for their patience under so great a punishment, he
condemned them for deserving it ; often urging that of Seneca,
Epist. 80, "Nihil Rex male parentibus, majus minari potest,
quam ut abeat de regno." At length, according to Lloyd, he
took leave for ever of the Parliament with a solemn admoni-
tion, concluding with these expressions : " We had been
satisfied long ere this, if we did not ask things that deny
themselves ; and if some men had not shuffled demands into
our propositions on purpose that we may have no satis-
faction."

He now followed the King to York, with his gallant kins-
man, and, as it unhappily proved, fellow martyr, Spencer
Compton, Earl of Northampton, whom he had persuaded to
accompany him, and was one of that superb band which
assembled to support the royal standard, when it was set up
at Nottingham, on the twenty-second of August, 1642. He
found the King's service already distracted by private inte-
rests and selfish pretensions, and his piercing judgment formed
an unfavourable apprehension of the issue of the great contest.
In one of the very few of his letters which have fortunately
been preserved in Collins's collection, written to his lady, from
Shrewsbury, on the twenty-first of the following September,
he glances at the posture of the King's affairs at that moment
with a warmth and freedom of mind and expression truly re-
markable. Such a letter, from such a man, is worth volumes
of cold historical compilation on the circumstances of a par-
ticular epoch. It was mostly written in cipher, and some few
names have been unluckily suffered to remain unexplained.

" MY DEAREST HART,

" The King's condition is much improved of late.
His force increaseth daily, which increaseth the insolencie of
the papists. How much I am unsatisfied with the proceed-

124 HENRY SPENCER,

ings here I have at large expressed in several letters ; neither
is there wanting daylie handsome occasion to retire, were it
not for gaining honor : for, let occasion be never so handsome,
unless a man resolve to fight on the Parlement side, which,
for my part, I had rather be hanged, it will be said a man is
afraid to fight. If there could be an expedient found to salve
the punctilio of honour, I would not continue here an hower.
The discontent that I, and many other honest men, receive
dayly, is beyond expression. People are much devided. The
King is of late much averse to peace, by the persuasions of 202
and 211. It is likewise conceived that the King has taken a
resolution not to do any thing in that way before the Queen
comes ; for people advising the King to agree with the Par-
liament was the occasion of the Queen's return. Till that
tyme no advice will be received. Nevertheless the honest
men will take all occasions to procure an accommodation,
which the King when he sent the late messages did hartily
desier, and would still make offers, but for 202, and 211, and
the expectation of the Queen, and fear of the papists, who
threaten people of 342. I fear the papists' threats have a
much greater influence on the King than upon 343. What
the King's intentions are to those that I converse with are
altogether unknown. Some say he will hasard a battell very
quicklie : others say he thinks of wintering ; which, as it is
suspected, so, if it were generally beleeved, I, and many
others, would make no scruple to retier ; for I think it is far
from gallant, either to starve with the King, or to do worse,
as to avoid fighting. It is said the King goes on Fryday
towards Chester, for a day or two, leaving his forces here,
which are six thousand foot, fifteen hundred dragoons, and
above two thousand horse. There are four thousand foot
more raised, they saie : two thousand by my Lord Strange .
one thousand by Sir Thomas Salisburie ; and twelve hundred
by Sir Edward Stradling ; all which will be here within a
few days. This is a lightninge before death.

" I am your's,

SPENCER."

FIRST EARL OF SUNDERLAND. 125

The little that we have of the story of his short life, is
mostly to be found in those letters, which have been already,
but very incorrectly, printed : and I regret that the scope of
this work prevents me from inserting the whole of them in
their original state. In one from Birmingham, of the four-
teenth of the next month, he again deprecates the endeavours
of the Roman Catholics to prevent any accommodation with
the Parliament ; expresses his determination, should a treaty
be offered by that assembly, to give it his strenuous support ;
and tells his lady that he had lately above an hour's discourse
with the King on that subject. A few days after, he marched
with Charles into Northamptonshire, and, on the twenty-
third, when the King's guards, in the battle of Edgehill,
besought his Majesty to permit them to quit his person, and
to charge in front of the army, threw himself into that gal-
lant body, and was particularly distinguished in the memo-
rable overthrow which they that day gave to the rebel horse.
He returned with the King to Oxford, and, on the eighth of
June, 1643, was advanced to the dignity of Earl of Sunder-
land. He was at that time assisting Prince Rupert in the
reduction of Bristol, which he left in the beginning of August,
to join the King before Gloucester, on the siege of which city
the King had suddenly and unexpectedly determined. Writ-
ing to Lady Sunderland, on the ninth of that month, he ex-
presses himself unfavourably of that resolution. " The King's
going to Gloucester," says he, " is, in the opinion of most,
very unadvised : the Queene unsatisfyed with it : so is all
the people of quality." But I cannot forego the satisfaction
of giving entire a letter, which he wrote to the Countess from
thence not many days after, and another, which closed their
correspondence for ever : both exquisitely illustrative of the
character, of his talents, his affections, his accomplishments,
and his temper.

" MY DEAREST HART,

" Just as I was going out of the trenches on Wednesday

126 HENRY SPENCER,

I received your letter of the 20th of this instant, which gave
me so much satisfaction that it put all the inconveniences of
this siege out of my thoughts. At that instant, if I had fol-
lowed my own inclinations, I had returned, an answer to
your's, writing to you, and hearing from you, being the most
pleasant entertainment I am capable of receiving in any
place, but especially here, where, but when I am in the
trenches (which place is seldom without my company) I am
more solitarie than ever I was in my life ; this countrie
being very full of private cottages, in one of which I am
quartered, where my Lord Falkland did me the honour to
sup. Mr. Chilling worth is here with me, at Sir Nicholas
Selwin's, who has been this week at Oxford. Our little
engineer (Chillingworth) comes not hither so much out of
kindness to me as for his own conveniency, my quarters
being three or four miles nearer the leaguer than my Lord
Devonshire's, with whom he staid till he was commanded to
make ready his engines with all possible speed. It is not to
be imagined with what diligence and satisfaction (I mean
to himself) he executes his command: for my part, I
think it not unwisely done of him to change his profession ;
and I think you would have been of my mind, if you had
heard him dispute last night with my Lord Falkland in
favour of Socinianism : wherein he was by his Lordship so
often confounded, that really it appears he has much more
reason for his engines than for his opinions. I put of my
writing till last night, out of hopes that somewhat here would
have happened worthie of your knowledge, and you see
what good companie made me defer it last night, at which
time I was newly come from our leaguer, whither I thought
to have gone this morning, but I have got such a kinde of
small boile, in such a place that I cannot ride without pain,
so I cannot with modesty make a more particular description.
I find that we had only an alarum, which they gave to hinder
our working, not daring to sally any more, being so well
beaten the last time. Our gallery will be finished within

FIRST EARL OF SUNDERLAND. 127

this day or two, and then we shall soon dispatch our mine,
and them with it. Many of the soldiers are confident that we
shall have the towne within this four days, which I extremely
long for ; not that I am weary of this siege, for really,
though we suffer many inconveniences, yet I am not ill
pleased with this variety, so directly opposite as the being in
the trenches, with so much good company, together with the
noise and tintamarre of guns and drums, with the horrid
spectacles and hideous cries of dead and hurt men, is to the
solitariness of my quarter, together with all the markes of
peace, which often brings into my thoughts, notwithstanding
your mother's opinion of me, how infinitely more happy I
should esteem myself quietly to enjoy your company at
Althorp than to be troubled with the noises and engaged in
the factions of the Court, which I shall ever endeavour to
avoid." (Here follow many undeciphered lines) " When we
were at Bristol Sir William was there, but I heare he is now
gone to Hereford, for which I envie him, and all others that
can go to their owne houses ; but I hope ere long you will
let me have your companie and Popet's, the thought of which
is to me most pleasant, and passionately desired by your's,

SUNDERLAND.
" Aug. 25th, before Gloucester"

In the first week of September, Charles abandoned the
siege of Gloucester, and passed over the Severn towards
Bristol. Lord Sunderland, whose military service was dis-
tinguished by two peculiar resolutions ; the one, always to
be present when the King commanded in person ; the other,
never to accept a commission ; attended his royal master
thither, and, after a visit of a few days to Oxford, again
joined the army, when it was on the point of engaging the
rebels in the first battle of Newbury. Immediately before
he left Oxford, he wrote thus to his lady.

" MY DEAREST HART,

" Since I wrote to you last from Sulbey we had some
hope of fighting with my Lord of Essex's army, having cer-

128 HENRY SPENCER,

tain intelligence of his being in a field convenient enough,
called Ripple Field, towards which we advanced with all
possible speed ; upon which he retired with his army to
Tewxbury, where, by the advantage of the bridge, he was
able to make good his quarter, with five hundred men against
twenty thousand ; so that, though we were so near as to have
been with him in two hours, his quarter being so strong, it
was resolved on Thursday, as he would not fight with us,
we should endeavour to force him to it by cutting off his
provisions, for which purpose the best way was for the bodie
of our army to go back to Evesholme, and for our horse to
distress him. Upon which I, and others, resolved to come
for a few days to Oxford, where we arrived late on Thursday
night, there being no probability of fighting very suddenlie.
As soon as I came, I went to your father's, where I found
Alibone, with whose face I was better pleased then with any
of the ladyes' here. This expression is so much a bolder
thing then charging Lord Essex that, should this letter mis-
carry, and come to the knowledge of our dames, I should,
by having my eies scracht out, be cleared from coming away
from the army from feare, where if I had stayed it's odds if
I had lost more then one. Last night very good news came
to the Court, that we yesterday morning fell upon a horse
quarter of the enemie's and cut off a regement ; and my Lord
of Newcastell hath, killed and taken prisoners two whole
regements of horse and foot, that issued out of Hull, which
place he hath hopes to take. By the same messenger, last
night, the King sent the Queene word he would come hether
upon Monday or Tewsday ; upon one of which daies, if he
alters his resolucions, I shall not fail to return to the army.
I am afraid our setting down before Gloucester has hindered
us from making an end of the war this yere, which nothing
could keep us from doing if we had a moneth's more time
which we lost there, for we never were in a more prosperous
condition ; and yet the divisions do not at all deminishe,
epeciallie between 142 and 143, by whiche we receve pre-
judice. I never sawe the King use anie bodie with more

FIRST EARL OF SUNDERLAND. 129

neglect than the Earl of Holland ; and we sale he is not
used much better by the Queene. Mrs. Jermin met my Lord
Jermin, who, notwithstandinge, your intelligens, is but a
Baron, with whom I came to Woodstocke, who told me she
would write to you, which I hope she hath don ; for since I
came here I have seen no creature but your father, and my
unkell ; so that I arn altogether ignorant of the intreigues of
this place. Before I go hence I shall have a letter for you.
I take the best care I can about my oeconomicall affaires. I
am afraid I shall not be abell to get you a better house, every
bodie thinking me mad for speaking about it. Pray bless
Popet for me, and tell her I would have writt to her, but
that, upon mature deliberac~on, I found it uncivil to return
an answer to a lady in another character then her owne,
which I am not yet learned enough to do. I cannot, by
walkinge about my chambre, call anythinge more to mynde to
sett downe here ; and really I have made you no small com-
plement in writinge thus muche, for I have so great a colde
that 1 do nothinge but sneeze, and my eies do nothinge but
water, all the while I am in the posture of holdinge downe
my head. I beseche you present his servis to my ladie who
is most passionatelie and perfectlie your's,

SUNDERLAND."
" Oxford, Sept. 16, 1643."

They never met again. The battle was fought on the
twentieth, the fourth day after the date of this letter. The
King's Horse, in which Sunderland served, " charged," says
Lord Clarendon, " with a kind of contempt of the enemy, and
with wonderful boldness, upon all grounds of inequality ; and
were so far too hard for the troops of the other side, that they
routed them in most places : " and here, adds the noble
author, fell " the Earl of Sunderland, a Lord of great fortune ;
tender years, being not above three-and-twenty years of age ;
and an early judgment; who, having no command in the
army, attended upon the King's person, under the obligation

IV. K

130 HENRY SPENCER, FIRST EARL OF SUNDERLAND.

of honour ; and, putting himself that day in the King's troop
a volunteer, was taken away by a cannon bullet." He lived
for some time after having received the shot. "His holy
thoughts," says Lloyd, " went, as harbingers of his soul, to
heaven, whereof he had a glimpse before he died, through the
chinks of a wounded body." " He was," adds that writer,
"a good patriot upon all other occasions, as one of them
at Westminster observed ; promoting the trade, manufactures,
and privileges of this country ; and now standing by his
Majesty, as he evidently saw him stand for his kingdom ;
saying, by a foresight and prospect that he had of things suit-
able to the eminence of his place, that ( one seven years would
shew that the King was the true Common wealth's- man:' A
true nobleman, that was virtuous because it became him, as
well as because it was enjoined him ; being above all vice, as
well as without it ; looking upon it as his shame and dis-
honour, as well as sin and offence : A good neighbour ; the
country about him, when he had occasion to make use of it,
being his friends that loved him, rather than slaves that feared
him : A discreet landlord, finding ways to improve his land
rather than rack his tenants : A noble housekeeper, to whom
that ingenuity that he was master of himself was welcome in
others : An honest patron, seldom furnishing a churCh with
an incumbent till he had consulted the college he had been
of, and the Bishop he lived under : An exemplary master oi
a family ; observing exactly the excellent rules he so strictly
enjoined ; consecrating his house as a temple, where he ordered
his followers to wrestle with God in prayer, while he wrestled
with the enemy in fight."

The remains of this matchless young nobleman were in-
terred at Brington, in Northamptonshire. He left one son,
Robert, his successor, lineal ancestor to the Dukes of Marlbo-
rough, and Earls Spencer ; and one daughter, Dorothy,
married to Sir George Savile, Baronet, afterwards created
Marquis of Halifax. His Countess, at his untimely death,
was pregnant, and was soon after delivered of a daughter, who
was baptized Penelope, and died an infant.

VISCOITNT "FALKLAJND.
OB, '643,

LUCIUS CAREY.

SECOND VISCOUNT FALKLAND.

LORD CLARENDON has left us two views of the character of
this admirable person. The one, in the memoirs of his own
life, with a graceful carelessness of style suited to the subject,
shews him as a private man, and discovers to us his person,
his temper, his accomplishments, his social habits, and his
domestic affairs. From that source such matter as may wear
the garb of original composition in this memoir will be chiefly
drawn. The other, in the great history of the rebellion,
exhibits him in the state, the senate, and the field, and is well
known to constitute the brightest ornament to English bio-
graphy. Authenticated by the closest intimacy, and the
most unreserved confidence ; glowing with the sacred warmth
of a friendship strictly impartial, because it was founded on
the contemplation of every excellence of heart and mind ;
and poured forth in a stream of beautiful and splendid ex-
pression, it stands alone, an example of positive perfection.
The sanctity of such a monument must not be invaded. The
symmetry of such a model must not be distorted. I shall
prefix to that great masterpiece a short chronological narra-
tive of some common-place facts to which it may be found
occasionally to allude, and of others on which it may be
wholly silent ; but, for itself, not a word shall be suppressed,
nor a word intruded on its text ; nor shall I venture to
disturb even the form of its original arrangement.

Lucius Carey was born about the year 1610, the eldest son
of Henry Carey, of Berkhamsted and Aldenham, in Herts,

132 LUCIUS CAREY,

by Elizabeth, daughter and sole heir of Sir Laurence Tanfield,
Chief Baron of the Exchequer. His father, who in 1620 had
been created Viscount Falkland, in Scotland, was appointed
two years after Lord Deputy of Ireland, and having removed
his family to that country, Lucius commenced his education
in Trinity College, Dublin. On his return he became a
student of St. John's, in Oxford, and is said to have been
remarked there not only for the variety and rapidity of his
acquirements, but for certain lively irregularities of conduct
which afforded little expectation of the seriousness that dis-
tinguished his maturity. On account, as it should seem, of
some such sally he was soon after confined for a time in the
Fleet prison, for a petition is extant from his father to the King,
praying for his release, and it is fcom that document only that
we have any knowledge of his restraint. Whatsoever might
have been the nature of these levities, he discarded them
under circumstances peculiarly tempting to youthful extrava-
gance, for before he had reached the age of twenty-one he
inherited from his maternal grandfather the uncontrouled
possession of a very large fortune, and assumed at that very
period the regularity and moral decorum for which he was
ever after remarkable. It might be convenient to a mere
eulogist to ascribe this sudden turn to rigidly virtuous and
philosophic resolution, but it were more modest to consider it
as the result of one of those rare dispositions which, by the
passive influence of their own native benignity, can extract
good from the conflict of passions and sentiments, and produce
even felicity from contingencies which often involve us in the
wildest ruin. The truth is, that immediately after he became
possessed of his estates, he married a young lady whom he
passionately loved. Her portion was small, and his father
conceived therefore that vehement indignation, which so
frequently disgraces parents on such occasions. Sir Lucius,
for he was then a knight, besought his pardon with the most
sincere humility, and at length laid before him deeds, ready
for execution, by which he proposed to convey to him the

SECOND VISCOUNT FALKLAND. 133

whole of his own property, and begged to be allowed to
subsist on his bounty. Lord Falkland rejected all terms of
reconciliation, and his excellent son passed over into the
Netherlands, with the view of purchasing there some military
command, in which, having failed, he returned, after a year's
absence, and, sitting down tranquilly in his mansion of
Great Tew, in Oxfordshire, devoted himself to universal
study, solacing his hours of leisure in the purest domestic
happiness, and in the society of those who were then esteemed
the chief ornaments of the neighbouring University.

His accession to the title and paternal estate, on the death
of his father in 1633, drew him not from the serenity of his
retirement. At length, in 1639, he accompanied the Earl of
Holland, General of the Horse, in the expedition of that year
against the Scots. The reputation for talents, genius, and
general literature, by which he was then distinguished, may
be well inferred from several addresses made to him on that
occasion, particularly by Waller and Cowley, neither of whom
would have dared to satirize a man of his character by vain
adulation and false praise. Cowley's poem commences with
these lines

" Great is thy charge, North. Be wise and just :
England commits her Falkland to thy trust.
Return him safe : learning would rather chuse
Her Bodley or her Vatican to lose.
All things that are hut writ or printed there
In his unbounded breast engraven are.
There all the sciences together meet,
And every art does all her kindred greet."

And in Waller's we find these passages

" Brave Holland leads, and with him Falkland goes.
Who hears this told, and does not straight suppose
"We send the Graces and the Muses forth,
To civilize and to instruct the North ? "

And afterwards

134 LUCIUS CAREY,

" Ah, noble friend, with what impatience all
That know thy worth, and know how prodigal
Of thy great soul thou art, longing to twist
Bays with that ivy which so early kist
Thy youthful temples ; with what horror we
Think on the blind events of war, and thee,
To fate exposing that all knowing breast
Among the throng as cheaply as the rest."

He represented the borough of Newport, in the Isle of
Wight, in the two Parliaments which met in the year 1640,
and the disgust which he conceived at the unhappy dissolu-
tion of the first added perhaps somewhat of passion to the
sound and honest judgment which led him for a time to
espouse the popular party in the second : the motives how-
ever which influenced his adoption and rejection of that
party, and indeed the whole of his political conduct, will he
presently fully stated in the words of the great historian. In
the spring of 1642 he was prevailed on to accept a seat in the
Privy Council, and the office of a Secretary of State, in which
the King, though he felt to the utmost the wisdom and fidelity
of his more important services, disliked his pen. Charles,
for whom elegancy of composition had no charms, told Sir
Philip Warwick that " he had two Secretaries ; one a dull
man in comparison of the other, and yet the first best pleased
him ; for," said he, " my Lord Carleton ever brought me my
own sense in my own words ; but my Lord Falkland most
commonly brought me my instructions in so fine a dress that
I did not always own them/' Warwick informs us that he
possessed the King's unbounded confidence, and adds a few
concise remarks on his character, which, since a solitary
sceptic has ventured to charge Lord Clarendon's nobler
picture with partiality, acquire an increased value as the
corroborative testimony of an honest and judicious contem-
porary, to whom he could not but have been perfectly well
known. " The Lord Falkland," says Warwick, " had pro-
digious natural parts ; a memory, and a fancy which retained

SECOND VISCOUNT FALKLAND. 135

all it read or heard, and then as rhetorically set it forth ; and
his notions were useful, and not common. He loved his
book, and so was a great master of books, but in temper
somewhat hypochondriac, and therefore men of business often
found that in him which they practised not themselves, nor
perchance would not, if they could, have imitated him. That
which crowned all was that he was a person of great probity
and sincerity." The fantastic censures to which I have
alluded, fell, it is much to be lamented, from the delightful
pen of the late Lord Orford, the hasty escapes of a love of
singularity and controversy, and the bitter fruit of inveterate
prejudices, imbibed in a school of perverse politics. They
have been overthrown by Sir Egerton Brydges, in the third
volume of his Biographical Peerage, with a force, and candour,
and closeness of argument, before which all doubt on the
subject must vanish.

Little remains to be said by me of this excellent man.
The noble historian informs us that " his stature was low,
and smaller than most men ; his motion not graceful ; and
his aspect so far from inviting that it had somewhat in it of
simplicity ; and his voice the worst of the three, and so un-
tuned, that, instead of reconciling, it offended the ear, so
that nobody could have expected music from that tongue ;
and sure no man was less beholden to nature for its recom-
mendation into the world." The lady who had been capti-
vated by the incomparable spirit which inhabited this un-
polished exterior, herself an example of all female worth,
was Lettice, daughter of Sir Richard Morison, of Tooley
Park, in Leicestershire ; by whom he had two sons ; Lucius,
who died at Paris in 1646 ; and Henry, who inherited the
title and estates. Grainger speaks of a third, of whom I find
no mention elsewhere.

Lord Falkland fell in the field at Newbury, on the
twentieth of September, 1643. " In this unhappy battle,"
says Lord Clarendon, "was slain the Lord Viscount Falk-
land, a person of such prodigious parts of learning and know-

136 LUCIUS CAREY,

ledge ; of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversa-
tion ; of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to
mankind ; and of that primitive simplicity 'and integrity of
life ; that if there were no other brand upon this odious and
accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be most
infamous and execrable to all posterity.

" Turpe mori, post te, solo non posse dolore.

" Before this Parliament his condition of life was so happy
that it was hardly capable of improvement. Before he came
to be twenty years of age he was master of a noble fortune,
which descended to him by the gift of a grandfather,
without passing through his father or mother, who were then
both alive, and not well enough contented to find themselves
passed by in the descent. His education for some years had
been in Ireland, where his father was Lord Deputy, so that
when he returned into England to the possession of his for-
tune he was unentangled with any acquaintance or friends
which usually grow up by the custom of conversation, and
therefore was to make a pure election of his company, which
he chose by other rules than were prescribed to the young
nobility of that time : and it cannot be denied, though he
admitted some few to his friendship for the agreeableness of
their natures, and their undoubted affection to him, that his
familiarity and friendship for the most part was with men of
the most eminent and sublime parts, and of untouched reputa-
tion in point of integrity, and such men had a title to his bosom.

" He was a great cherisher of wit, and fancy, and good
parts, in any man, and if he found them clouded with poverty
or want, a most liberal and bountiful patron towards them,
even above his fortune, of which in those administrations he
was such a dispenser as if he had been trusted with it to
such uses ; and, if there had been the least of vice in his
expense, he might have been thought too prodigal. He was
constant and pertinacious in whatever he resolved to do, and
not to be wearied by any pains that were necessary to that
end ; and therefore having once resolved not to see London,

SECOND VISCOUNT FALKLAND. 137

which he loved above all places, till he had perfectly learned
the Greek tongue, he went to his own house in the country,
and pursued it with that indefatigable industry that it will
not be believed in how short a time he was master of it, and
accurately read all the Geeek historians.

" In this time, his house being within little more than ten
miles of Oxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship
with the most polite and accurate men of that University,
who found such an immenseness of wit, and such a solidity
of judgment in him ; so infinite a fancy, bound in by a most
logical ratiocination ; such a vast knowledge that he was not
ignorant in anything, yet such an excessive humility, as if he
had known nothing ; that they frequently resorted and dwelt
with him as in a College, situated in a purer air ; so that his
house was a University in a less volume, whither they came
not so much for repose as study, and to examine and refine
those grosser propositions which laziness and consent made
current in vulgar conversation.

" Many attempts were made upon him, by the instigation
of his mother (who was a lady of another persuasion in
religion, and of a most masculine understanding, allayed with
the passion and infirmities of her own sex) to pervert him in
his piety to the church of England, and to reconcile him to
that of Rome, which they prosecuted with the more confi-
dence because he declined no opportunity or occasion of con-
ference with those of that religion, whether priests or laics,
having diligently studied the controversies, and exactly read
all, or the choicest, of the Greek and Latin fathers, and
having a memory so stupendous that he remembered on all
occasions whatsoever he read ; and he was so great an enemy
to that passion and uncharitableness which he saw produced
by difference of opinion in matters of religion, that in all
those disputations with priests and others of the Roman
church he affected to manifest all possible civility to their
persons, and estimation of their parts, which made them
retain still some hope of his reduction, even when they had

138 LUCIUS CAREY,

given over offering farther reasons to him for that purpose.
But this charity towards them was much lessened, and any
correspondence with them quite declined, when by sinister
arts they had corrupted his two younger brothers, being
both children, and stole them from his house and transported
them beyond seas, and perverted his sisters, upon which
occasion he writ two large discourses against the principal
positions of that religion, with that sharpness of style, and
full weight of reason, that the church is deprived of great
jewels in the concealment of them, and that they are not
published to the world.

"He was superior to all those passions and affections which
attend vulgar minds, and was guilty of no other ambition
than of knowledge, and to be reputed a lover of all good men,
and that made him too much a contemner of those arts which
must be indulged in the transactions of human affairs. In
the last short Parliament he was a Burgess in the House of
Commons, and from the debates, which were there managed
with all imaginable gravity and sobriety, he contracted such
a reverence to Parliaments that he thought it really impossi-
ble they could ever produce mischief or inconvenience to the
kingdom, or that the kingdom could be tolerably happy in
the intermission of them : and from the unhappy and un-
seasonable dissolution of that convention he harboured, it may
be, some jealously and prejudice to the Court, towards which
he was not before immoderately inclined, his father having
wasted a full fortune there in those offices and employments
by which other men use to obtain a greater. He was
chosen again this Parliament to serve in the same place, and
in the beginning of it declared himself very sharply and
severely against those exorbitances, which had been most
grievous to the State, for he was so rigid an observer of
established laws and rules that he could not endure the least
breach or deviation from them, and thought no mischief so
intolerable as the presumption of ministers of state to break
positive rules for reasons of state, or Judges to transgress

SECOND VISCOUNT FALKLAND. 139

known laws upon the title of conveniency or necessity,
which made him so severe against the Earl of Strafford, and
the Lord Finch, contrary to his natural gentleness and temper ;
insomuch as they who did not know his composition to be
as free from revenge as it was from pride thought that the
sharpness to the former might proceed from the memory of
some unkindnesses, not without a mixture of injustice, from
him towards his father. But without doubt he was free
from those temptations, and in both cases was only misled
by the authority of those who he believed understood the
laws perfectly, of which himself was utterly ignorant ; and
if the assumption, which was then scarce controverted, had
been true, that an endeavour to overthrow the fundamental
laws of the kingdom was treason, a strict understanding
might make reasonable conclusions to satisfy his own judg-
ment from the exorbitant parts of their several charges.

" The great opinion he had of the uprightness and inte-
grity of those persons who appeared most active, especially
of Mr. Hampden, kept him longer from suspecting any design
against the peace of the kingdom ; and though he differed
from them commonly in conclusions, he believed long their
purposes were honest. When he grew better informed what
was law, and discerned in them a desire to controul that law
by a vote of one or both Houses, no man more opposed those
attempts, and gave the adverse party more trouble by reason
and argumentation, insomuch as he was by degrees looked
upon as an advocate for the Court, to which he contributed
so little that he declined those addresses, and even those
invitations which he was obliged almost by civility to enter-
tain ; and he was so jealous of the least imagination that he
should incline to preferment, that he affected even a morose-
ness to the Court and to the courtiers, and left nothing undone
which might prevent and divert the King's or Queen's favour
towards him but the deserving it ; for when the King sent
for him once or twice, to speak with him, and to give him
thanks for his excellent comportment in those councils, which

140 LUCIUS CAREY,

his Majesty graciously termed doing him service, his answers
were more negligent, and less satisfactory, than might be
expected ; as if he cared only that his actions should be just,
not that they should be acceptable ; and that his Majesty
should think that they proceeded only from the impulsion of
conscience, without any sympathy in his affections, which
from a stoical and sullen nature might not have been mis-
interpreted, yet from a person of so perfect a habit of gene-
rous and obsequious compliance with all good men might
very well have been interpreted by the King as more than
an ordinary averseness to his service ; so that he took more
pains, and more forced his nature to actions unagreeable and
unpleasant to it, that he might not be thought to incline to
the Court, than most men have done to procure an office
there ; and if anything but not doing his duty could have
kept him from receiving a testimony of the King's grace and
trust at that time, he had not been called to his Council ; not
that he was in truth averse from receiving public employ-
ment, for he had a great devotion to the King's person, and
had before used some small endeavour to be recommended
to him for a foreign negotiation, and had once a desire to be
sent Ambassador into France, but he abhorred an imagination
or doubt should sink into the thoughts of any man that in
the discharge of his trust and duty in Parliament he had any
bias to the Court, or that the King himself should apprehend
that he looked for a reward for being honest.

" For this reason, when he heard it first whispered that
the King had a purpose to make him a Privy Councillor, for
which there was in the beginning no other ground but be-
cause he was known sufficient (haud semper errat fama, ali-
quando & eligit) he resolved to decline it, and at last suffered
himself only to be overruled by the advice and persuasions
of his friends to submit to it. Afterwards, when he found
that the King intended to make him Secretary of State, he
was positive to refuse it, declaring to his friends that he was
most unfit for it; and that he must either do that which

SECOND VISCOUNT FALKLAND. 141

would be great disquiet to his own nature, or leave that un-
done which was most necessary to be done by one that was
honoured with that place ; for the most just and honest men
did every day that which he could not give himself leave to
do ; and indeed he was so exact and strict an observer of
justice and truth that he believed those necessary condescen-
sions arid applications to the weakness of other men, and
those arts and insinuations which are necessary for discoveries
and prevention of ill, would be in him a declension from his
own rules of life, though he acknowledged them fit and abso-
lutely necessary to be practised in those employments. He
was in truth so precise in the practic principles he prescribed
himself (to all others he was as indulgent) as if he had lived
' in republica Platonis, non in faece Romuli.'

" Two reasons prevailed with him to receive the Seals,
and but for those he had resolutely avoided them : the first,
the consideration that his refusal might bring some blemish
upon the King's affairs, and that men would have believed
that he had refused so great an honour and trust because he
must have been with it obliged to do somewhat else not
justifiable ; and this he made matter of conscience, since he
knew the King made choice of him before other men espe-
cially because he thought him more honest than other men.
The other was, lest he might be thought to avoid it out of
fear to do an ungracious thing to the House of Commons, who
were sore troubled at the displacing Sir Harry Vane, whom
they looked upon as removed for having done them those
offices they stood in need of ; and the disdain of so popular
an incumbrance wrought upon him next to the other ; for as
he had a full appetite of fame by just and generous actions,
so he had an equal contempt of it by any servile expedients ;
and he so much the more consented to and approved the
justice upon Sir Harry Vane in his own private judgment, by
how much he surpassed most men in the religious observation
of a trust, the violation whereof he would not admit of any
excuse for.

142 LUCIUS CAREY,

" For these reasons he submitted to the King's command,
and became his Secretary with as humble and devoted acknow-
ledgement of the greatness of the obligation as could be ex-
pressed, and as true a sense of it in his heart : yet two things
he could never bring himself to whilst he continued in that
office, that was to his death, for which he was contented to
be reproached, as for omissions in a most necessary part of
his place ; the one, employing of spies, or giving any counte-
nance or entertainment to them. I do not mean such emis-
saries as with danger would venture to view the enemy's
camp, and bring intelligence of their number, or quartering,
or any particulars that such an observation can comprehend ;
but those who, by communication of guilt, or dissimulation
of manners, wind themselves into such trusts and secrets as
enable them to make discoveries. The other, the liberty of
opening letters, upon a suspicion that they might contain
matter of dangerous consequence. For the first, he would
say such instruments must be void of all ingenuity and
common honesty before they could be of use, and afterwards
they could never be fit to be credited : and that no single
preservation could be worth so general a wound and corrup-
tion of human society as the cherishing such persons would
carry with it. The last he thought such a violation of the
law of nature that no qualification by office could justify him
in the trespass : and, though he was convinced by the neces-
sity and iniquity of the time that those advantages of informa-
tion were not to be declined, and were necessarily to be
practised, he found means to put it off from himself, whilst
he confessed he needed excuse and pardon for the omission ;
so unwilling was he to resign any part of good nature to an
obligation in his office.

" In all other particulars he filled his place with great suffi-
ciency, being well versed in languages, to understand any
that are used in business, and to make himself again under-
stood. To speak of his integrity, and his high disdain of any
bait that might seem to look towards corruption, ' in tanto

SECOND VISCOUNT FALKLAND. 143

viro, injuria virtutem fuerit.' Some sharp expressions he
used against the Archbishop of Canterbury, and his con-
curring in the first bill to take away the votes of Bishops in
the House of Peers gave occasion to some to believe, and
opportunity to others to conclude and publish, that ' he was
no friend to the church, and the established government of
it,' and troubled his friends much, who were more confident
of the contrary than prepared to answer the allegation. The
truth is, he had unhappily contracted some prejudice to the
Archbishop ; and, having observed his passion when, it may
be, multiplicity of business, or rather indisposition, had pos-
sessed him, did wish him less entangled and engaged in the
business of the Court or State: though, I speak it knowingly,
he had a singular estimation and reverence of his great
learning, and confessed integrity ; and really thought his -own
letting himself loose to those expressions which implied a
disesteem of the Archbishop, or at least an acknowledgement
of his infirmities, would enable him to shelter him from part
of the storm he saw raised for his destruction, which he
abominated with his soul.

" The giving his consent to the first bill for the displacing
the Bishops did proceed from two grounds : the first, his not
understanding then the original of their right and suffrage
there ; the other, an opinion that the combination against
the whole government of the church by Bishops was so
violent and furious that a less composition than the dis-
pensing with their intermeddling in secular affairs would not
preserve the order ; and he was persuaded to this by the
profession of many persons of honour, who declared they did
desire the one, and would not then press the other, which in
that particular misled many men : but when his observation
and experience made him discern more of their intentions
than he before suspected, with great frankness he opposed
the second bill that was preferred for that purpose, and had
without scruple the order itself in perfect reverence, and
thought too great encouragement could not possibly be given

H4 LUCIUS CAREY.

to learning, nor too great rewards to learned men. He was
never in the least degree moved or swayed by the objections
which were made against that government in the church
(holding them most ridiculous), or affected to the other, which
those men fancied to themselves.

" He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper, and
so far from fear that he seemed not without some appetite of
danger, and therefore upon any occasion of action he always
engaged his person in those troops which he thought by the
forwardness of the commanders to be most like to be farthest
engaged ; and in all such encounters he had about him an
extraordinary chearfulness, without at all affecting the exe-
cution that usually attended them, in which he took no
delight, but took pains to prevent it, where it was not by
resistance made necessary ; insomuch that at Edge Hill,
when the enemy was routed, he was like to have incurred
great peril by interposing to save those who had thrown
away their arms, and against whom it may be others were
more fierce for their having thrown them away ; so that a
man might think he came into the field chiefly out of
curiosity to see the face of danger, and charity to prevent
the shedding of blood. Yet in his natural inclination he
acknowledged he was addicted to the profession of a soldier,
and shortly after he came to his fortune, before he was of
age, he went into the Low Countries, with a resolution of
procuring command, and to give himself up to it, from which
he was diverted by the complete inactivity of that summer ;
so he returned into England, and shortly after entered upon
that vehement course of study we mentioned before, till the
first alarm from the North : then again he made ready for
the field, and though he received some repulse in the com-
mand of a troop of horse of which he had a promise, he went
a volunteer with the Earl of Essex.

" From the entrance into this unnatural war his natural
chearfulness arid vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sad-
ness and dejection of spirit stole upon him, which he had

SECOND VISCOUNT FALKLAND. 145

never been used to ; yet, being one of those who believed
that one battle would end all differences, and that there
would be so great a victory on one side that the other would
be compelled to submit to any conditions of the victor
(which supposition and conclusion generally sunk into the
minds of most men, and prevented the looking after many
advantages that might then have been laid hold of) he
resisted those indispositions, * et in luctu, bellum inter
remidia erat.' But after the King's return from Brentford,
and the furious resolution of the two Houses not to admit
any treaty for peace, those indispositions which had before
touched him grew into a perfect habit of unchearfulness, and
he who had been so exactly easy and affable to all men that
his face and countenance was always present, and vacant to
his company, and held any cloudiness and less pleasantness
of the visage a kind of rudeness or incivility, became on a
sudden less communicable, and thence, very sad, pale, and
exceedingly affected with the spleen. In his clothes and
habit, which he had minded before always with more neatness,
and industry, and expense, than is usual to so great a soul,
he was not now only incurious, but too negligent ; and in
his reception of suitors, and the necessary or casual addresses
to his place, so quick, and sharp, and severe, that there
wanted not some men, strangers to his nature and disposi-
tion, who believed him proud and imperious, from which no
mortal man was ever more free.

" It is true that as he was of a most incomparable gentle-
ness, application, and even submission, to good, and worthy,
and entire men, so he was naturally (which could not but
be more evident in his place, which subjected him to another
conversation and intermixture than his own election would
have done) adversus malos injucundus, and was so ill a
dissembler of his dislike and disinclination to ill men that
it was not possible for such not to discern it. There was
once in the House of Commons such a declared acceptation of
the good service an eminent member had done to them, and,

IV. L

146 LUCIUS CAREY,

as they said to the whole kingdom, that it was moved, he
being present, that the Speaker might, in the name of the
whole House, give him thanks ; and then that every member
might as a testimony of his particular acknowledgement,
stir, or move his hat towards him ; the which, though not
ordered, when very many did, the Lord Falkland, who
believed the service itself not to be of that moment, and
that an honourable and generous person could not have
stooped to it for any recompence, instead of moving his hat,
stretched both his arms out, and clasped his hands together
upon the crown of his hat, and held it close down to his
head, that all men might see how odious that flattery was to
him, and the very approbation of the person, though at that
time most popular.

" When there was any overture or hope of peace, he would
be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to
press any thing which he thought might promote it ; and,
sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silence, and
frequent sighs, would with a shrill and sad accent, ingemi-
nate the word peace, peace, and would passionately profess
that the very agony of the war, and the view of the calami-
ties and desolation the kingdom did and must endure, took
his sleep from him, and would shortly break his heart. This
made some think, or pretend to think, that he was so much
enamoured on peace that he would have been glad the King
should have bought it at any price, which was a most unrea-
sonable calumny ; as if a man that was himself the most
punctual and precise in every circumstance that might reflect
upon conscience or honour could have wished the King to have
committed a trespass against either. And yet this senseless
scandal made some impression upon him, or at least he used
it for an excuse of the daringness of his spirit ; for at the
leaguer before Gloucester, when his friends passionately
reprehended him for exposing his person unnecessarily to
danger (for he delighted to visit the trenches and nearest
approaches, and to discover what the enemy did) as being so

SECOND VISCOUNT FALKLAND. 147

much beside the duty of his place that it might be under-
stood rather to be against it, he would say merrily that his
office could not take away the privilege of his age, and that a
Secretary in war might be present at the greatest scene of
danger; but withal alledged seriously that it concerned
him to be more active in enterprises of hazard than other
men, that all might see that his impatiency for peace pro-
ceeded not from pusillanimity, or fear to adventure his own
person.

" In the morning, before the battle, as always upon action,
he was very chearful, and put himself in the first rank of
the Lord Byron's regiment, then advancing upon the enemy,
who had lined the hedges on both sides with musqueteers,
from whence he was shot with a musket in the lower part
of the belly, and, in the instant falling from his horse, his
body was not found till the next morning, till when there
was some hopes he might have been a prisoner, though his
nearest friends, who knew his temper, received small com-
fort from that imagination. Thus fell that incomparable
young man, in the four and thirtieth year of his age, having
so much dispatched the true business of life that the eldest
rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest
enter not into the world with more innocency. Whosoever
leads such a life needs be the less anxious upon how short
warning it is taken from him."

Lord Falkland left " A Discourse of the Infallibility of
the Church of Rome," " A Discourse concerning Episco-
pacy," and some other pieces of controversial divinity,
which were published, singly, soon after his death. Many
of his speeches too remain in print, and some scattered
poems, the most considerable of which is one on the death
of Ben Jonson.

L2

[HI E IM BW FID A M V K Ift^,
DANBT.

OB, 1643,

HENRY DANVERS,

EARL OF DANBY,

THE first and last of his family who held that dignity,
seems to have owed his elevation as much to its great wealth,
and to the splendour of his descent, both on the side of his
father and mother, as to any distinguished personal merits.
He was the second son of Sir John Danvers, of Dantsey, in
Wilts, maternally of very noble blood, by Elizabeth, daughter
and coheir of John, ninth and last Lord Latimer of the
Nevilles, and was born on the twenty-eighth of June, 1573.

Our notices of the story of his life are few and desultory.
We are told that he was early engaged in military service in
the Netherlands as a volunteer under Prince Maurice, who
appointed him, at the age of eighteen, to the command of a
company of infantry ; and that he was, three years after,
with higher rank, in the armies of France, in which he served
with such gallantry that he was honoured with knighthood in
the field by the hand of Henry the Fourth. How long he
remained abroad is uncertain, but we find him in 1597 com-
manding "a large ship" in the expedition of that year to the
coast of Spain, under the Admiral Earl of Nottingham, who
is said to have reputed him (t one of the best captains in
his fleet." In this voyage he acquired, probably through a
medium of interest which will presently be mentioned, the
patronage of Essex, who commanded the troops, and who,
soon after his return, was appointed Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, where Danvers was immediately placed by him in
the stations of Lieutenant General of the Horse, and Sergeant

150 HENRY DANVEBS,

Major of the whole army in that island. Between his elder
brother, Sir Charles Danvers, and Henry Wriothesley, Earl
of Southampton, the bosom friend of Essex, and his com-
panion in the military service just now spoken of, the most
cordial attachment subsisted, and was in the end fatal to Sir
Charles, for it drew him into Essex's wild insurrection in
1601. He suffered on the scaffold soon after the execution
of that nobleman, having vainly offered ten thousand pounds,
and submission to perpetual imprisonment, as the price for
his life, and the subject of this memoir succeeded to the
doubtful prospect of an inheritance sullied by crime and
blood, and held by no better tenure than the precarious for-
bearance of claim to the penalties of an attainder.

He was however soon relieved from this melancholy sus-
pense. His father had lately died, and James, on the twenty-
first of July, 1603, four months after his accession, advanced
him to the dignity of a Baron, by the title of Lord Danvers
of Dantsey, and in 1606 he was restored in blood by act of
Parliament. We meet with him frequently as a partaker in
the ceremonies and festivals of the Court in this reign, and
occasionally in its quarrels. Mr. Chamberlaine, in a letter of
news to Sir Dudley Carleton, of the ninth of September,
1613, having spoken of some other discords there, adds
"but there is more danger 'twixt the Earl of Rutland and
the Lord Danvers, though I heard yesterday it was already,
or upon the point of, compounding ;" and other such instances
occur, not worth particularising. James, probably soon after
he succeeded to the crown, conferred on him the office of
Lord President of the province of Munster ; and in 1621
appointed him, by patent, Governor of the island of Guernsey
for life.

Charles, in the first year of his reign, called him to the
Privy Council ; on the fifth of February, created him Earl of
Danby ; and presently after gave him the Garter. We almost
entirely lose sight of him from this period. His health
decayed, and he suffered severely from some of the many

EARL OF DANBY.

151

wounds which he had received in early life. He retired to
his seat of Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire, in improving and
decorating which he passed several of the latter years of his
life ; but he is most honourably and lastingly commemorated
by a munificent public foundation in its neighbourhood, the
Physic Garden in Oxford ; which, says Dugdale, in his
Baronage, "he encompassed with a strong wall of perfect
ashler stone, and a beautiful gate, the charge whereof amounted
to little less than five thousand pounds, and caused this
inscription to be placed above the entrance thereinto Glorias
Dei Opt. Max. Honori Caroli Regis. In usum Acad. et Rei-
pub. Henricus Comes Danby, d. d. MDCXXXIP." He died
at Cornbury, on the twentieth of January, 1643, and was
buried with his ancestors in the chancel of the church at
Dantsey, under a superb monument of white marble, with a
long inscription, to which are subjoined these lines, from a
pen capable of far better things, in which an obscure conceit
is conveyed in language yet more obscure

" Sacred marble, safely keep
His dust, who under thee must sleep,
Until the years again restore
Their dead, and time shall be no more.
Meanwhile, if He which all things wears
Does ruin thee; or if thy tears
Are shed for him dissolve thy frame,
Thou art requited, for his lame,
His virtue, and his worth, shall be
Another monument for thee.

G. HERBERT."

To a story so barren of circumstance, I will make little
apology for adding two original letters written by this noble-
man, the one in his youth, the other when an old man.
From such documents, however insignificant the subjects, we
seldom fail to obtain some traits of the character of the writer.
The first, from the Cotton MSS., is attached to a narrative, to

162 HENRY DANVBRS,

which it refers, of An action in Ireland between the English
army and that of the Earl of Tyrone, in which Danven
appears to have fought gallantly. The letter ii addressed
" to the right wor. my lovinge coien, Mr, Ate esquier," and
the whole it endoned " Touching the Fight at Kinsale,"

" Now in halt, and never no good pen man, I have
went you my boolt," (arrow) "w* you muit piece and fether.

The imlitt.or iiuj.vol.aM.'. YOU must Molt out or iwoiirilvis
1 hav ouiittr.l many nirumslamvsoposito toothor ivl.-itions.

The Englishe you muit amend in all. And then, if of on
li&t you can make uie, I ihall thinke my laboure well
beitowed j though I will rather referr you to the OTOM in the
margent, correspondent w 1 the crow in the line, then wright
it out thii night againe for a million; having bine, till win
this hower, ever in companye, ai Sir Oliver St. John can
wittnes, who will be w 1 you to morrow morninge. You have
practised many ill handes, and, whether you can or can not
reade it y* selfe, I praye lett no bodye els, Commend me to

my COS.MI. ami hohvvo I iloo dosiro to bo ost.vmo.l.

Y r very assured lovinge cosen and frend,
J/OMM, " H . DANVBRS.

The second letter from the Sidney Papers, is to Dorothy
Percy, Countess of Leicester, and relates to her daughter,

m.uuol soon altov to Henry Sp.Muvr Karl of Sumlorlmul.

w MADAM,

" If my Lord and you be not otherwayse ingaged
for the marriadge of my Lady Dorathye, I have commission

to triuloi tho ina-h ,f my l,>nl Lovrlrs. now no\vly out of
Ins inotlu-i-'s uar.lslup. and |>ivs>ntly possess,'.! of land ;m.l
\\Ai\\ iuuous;h. rvrn in th<> piiin.-st j.artcs of this kingdom ;
^h.-t.-unto may l>o \v,-ll a.1,1,-,1 his own alV.vtion oxpivst to
tlu- prison an.l fauu- of that tayro la.ly. your daui;httM, mon>-

i:\KI, OF DANIIY. 163

tinge, in my opinion, booth regard and valew ; for, although
peradventure his breedinge hath not bine precisely of the
best since his father's disoease, yett, beinge well inclined,

wilhoul all doul.t my l.-id <>l I ,,-ir,--.ln ' -. ;;,,-.,) w.sdomr, an.l
HIP KOOI| x.-impl.' of your sonn, will HOIIII sett, him into UIOPN

courses that are fittest for his qualetye. Whearfore I pre-

minii' to wishr that my I, on IP'S ahs.-nro in I'Vanm may not.
protract NOIIIII jnvsrni i.-solulion in HUM IMISIIIOM, h.-.-air;.-
thrar is my-hlir nirans UN.M! lo drawp this youth an olliPi
way, and murhn m.ur monyo otVn-d in |M,rli..n thru is mrrl.

for you to geve, But, to conclude, whatsoever your Lady-

ship will I,,- ,,l,.;,s,,| lo dnrrl hrann shall |,n ra.rlully
indrayoilird l.y,

^Madttm,
" Your Ladyship's most affectionate cosen, &c.

"('onitntiv /'<!!<', f/iix " DANIIY.

"!7 of M<tir//, l(i:57."

Lord Danby having never married, his titles became

rxlinH. ly his .li-alh. 1 1 IN family was vny unloil.unafr in

his generation, and in that which immediately succeeded.
Lloyd, in his " State Worthies," tells us that, " by his will,

,,ud.- in If.:;!), In- :,.|||,,| In in . , l.,l, .. In. In-,,, l,,|
in'phnw, llrniy I >an\ n.-i, Niialchr.l away IM-IMIV fully of a^',
|.o Ihr /;.val. ,;.irl of all K oo,| mm." Tho sad lalo of Ihn
Mai Ps rldrr hrol.hrr ha:i IHTII al.rady mm! ionr.l in || 11;i
ski'U-h ; and that, of Ihr tlnid, and y< ;;.:, I , Sn .l,,|in, wa.-i

yet more deplorable ; for, instead of having suffered death

HH ho di'Hprvtxl, 1m was dooiiK'd to Mm iniNny f paNHJng MOIIIK

years of old age in utter infamy, scorn, and abhorrence. He
was one of the miscreants who sat in judgment on their Sove-

PMKII, in whosr hoiisi-lmhl hr had IHTII a M-rv.'inl, and M^n.-d

the warrant for his murder.

IM LA UP*

.\N TERBUltY.
1645,

WILLIAM LAUD,

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

THE life of this prelate can be here but slightly sketched,
for it comprised, with the history of the Church of England,
most of the political history also of his time. The mutual
dependence on each other of the ecclesiastical establishment
and the state has never been at any other epoch so clearly
proved ; and the proof is self-evident in the awful ruin of
both which immediately followed their disjunction. Laud
saw the danger, and endeavoured to avert it, but he was not
master of the means. With great simplicity of mind, and
equal warmth of temper ; an admirable scholar ; an acute
logician ; sincerely pious and honest, and eminently loyal ;
he was qualified neither for the primacy nor the cabinet.
He possessed great talents, but scarcely any of the faculties
necessary to form what is usually called a great man, except
firmness, which, in the absence of the rest, was worse than
useless. He fondly sought to cool the rage of faction by fair
and sound argument ; and to correct the obstinacy of schism
by pastoral exhortation, and just, but imprudent discipline.
The only faults in his moral character were passion and
haughtiness ; and the great error of his life was his belief
that innocence of heart, to use the words of Lord Clarendon,
and integrity of manners, was a guard strong enough to secure
any man in his voyage through the world, in what company
soever he travelled, and through what ways soever he was to
pass ; " and sure," adds the great historian, " never any man
was better supplied with that provision."

156 ARCHBISHOP LAUD.

His birth was decent. He was the son of William Laud,
a clothier of Reading, in Berkshire, and a man of property,
by Lucy, sister of William Webb, a citizen of London, who
became afterwards an alderman and knight, and served the
office of Lord Mayor in 1591. He was born on the seventh
of October, 1573, and bred in the free school at Reading,
from whence he removed to St. John's college in Oxford,
where he was entered a fellow commoner at the age of six-
teen. From his tutor, John Buckeridge, then a fellow of
that house, and who died Bishop of Ely, a zealous opponent
equally of popery and puritanism, he imbibed that earnest
attachment to the church, to which he owed his exaltation
and his fall. He remained several years in the University ;
became a fellow of his college ; took the degrees of bachelor,
and master of arts, and bachelor of divinity ; and served the
office of proctor. The boldness and perseverance with which
he denied the doctrines of Calvin had already procured him
much fame, and many enemies, among whom Dr. Abbot,
then Vice-Chancellor, and afterwards Archbishop of Canter-
bury, who was strangely inclined to that wayward profession,
was the most formidable :; and a circumstance of his private
ministry, which occurred during the heat of his academical
disputes, contributed to cloud his prospects. Charles Blount,
Earl of Devonshire, a gallant soldier, and a man of careless
morals, who in 1603 had appointed Laud his domestic chap-
lain, had been warmly attached to Penelope, one of the
daughters of Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, and wife to
the Lord Rich, before her marriage to that nobleman ; and
an adulterous intercourse having been afterwards discovered
between them, she was repudiated with the due forms of
law. The Earl, on his return from the wars of Ireland,
resolved to marry hJr, and Laud, at his request, in 1605,
performed the nuptial service. This act, though strictly
legal, gave much offence. The life of the lady had been
peculiarly scandalous ; and it was deemed a profanation of
the sacred rite to lend it to her benefit. His enemies magni-

ARCHBISHOP LAUD. 157

fied his fault to the utmost of their power ; and it was repre-
sented in the worst light to the King, who knew, and had
been before inclined to favour him ; and James resented it so
warmly, that for several years he would not suffer Laud's
name to be mentioned in his presence. Laud, on his part,
felt so keenly the sense of his misconduct and his misfortune
in this affair, that he ever after made the twenty-sixth of
December, on which the marriage took place, a day of fast-
ing and humiliation ; and a long penitential prayer is extant,
which he composed for the occasion.

He possessed no benefice till 1607, when he was inducted
into the vicarage of Stanford in Northamptonshire ; and in
the following year he obtained the rectory of North Kilworth
in Leicestershire ; proceeded Doctor in Divinity ; and was
appointed by Neile, Bishop of Rochester, his domestic chap-
lain. He now exchanged his Leicestershire living for the
rectory of West Tilbury, in Essex, to which Neile, who be-
came his warm patron, soon after added that of CuckstonCj
in Kent. That prelate, having been in 1610 translated to
the See of Lichfield and Coventry, was succeeded at Roches-
ter by Laud's first and firmest friend, Dr. Buckeridge, who,
through that promotion, vacated the presidency of St. John's
college, and these Bishops exerted their best influence to
procure his election to that office. Abbot, now Primate, as
earnestly opposed it, and prevailed on the Chancellor Elles-
mere to mention Laud unfavourably to the King ; telling the
Chancellor, according to Heylin's account, that he was " at
least a Papist in his heart, and that if he were suffered to
have any place of government in the University, it would
undoubtedly turn to the great detriment of religion." Neile
however interfered ; and, some irregular practices having
been used at the election to Laud's disadvantage, prevailed
on James, to whom such offices were always agreeable, to
determine it by his authority. The King employed three
hours in the examination of the case ; was convinced that
Laud had been treated unjustly ; and not only decided the

158 ARCHBISHOP LAUD.

question in his favour, but soon after appointed him one of
his chaplains. Four years however elapsed without any
further sign of royal grace. In the mean time Neile, who
was now translated to the See of Lincoln, and had appointed
him a prebendary of that church and Archdeacon of Hunt-
ingdon, endeavoured earnestly to recommend him, and was
opposed by Abbot, with at least equal vigilance. Neile at
length succeeded; and, in November 1614, the King bestowed
on Laud the Deanery of Gloucester, a dignity more important
to him as an earnest of future favour than for the value of its
revenues.

But he received soon after a stronger mark of James's
good opinion, as well of his ministry as of his talents, in
being appointed one of the clerical attendants on that Prince
in his journey into Scotland in the spring of 1617 ; the
arduous object of which was to bring that Church to a uni-
formity with the Church of England. The pains taken by
him in that unsuccessful design highly gratified the King ;
yet he rose very gradually. He received no profitable mark
of favour till January, 16--, when he was appointed to a
Prebend of Westminster ; and on the twenty-ninth of the
following June was nominated Bishop of St. David's. He
had however acquired about this time the good will of the
Marquis of Buckingham, then the chief fountain of promotion
both in church and state, and his elevation became certain.
His conference with Fisher, in which he became engaged im-
mediately after he was raised to the prelacy, was instituted
at the Marquis's request, for the especial purpose of guarding
his mother against the arguments of that acute Jesuit, em-
ployed by the Romanists, who knew her influence over her
son, to endeavour to reconcile her to their faith ; and that
celebrated disputation, which is indeed a masterpiece of
argument, as well as of Christian erudition, bound the
favourite to him in the strictest friendship. When Bucking-
ham made his memorable journey to Spain, it soon became
evident that he had left to Laud the superintendence of his

ARCHBISHOP LAUD.

159

affairs at court. In this situation the most mild and cautious
could scarcely have escaped jealousy : it is not strange then
that Laud should have provoked it to the utmost. The Lord
Keeper Williams, not less choleric, resented openly this
diversion of Buckingham's good graces from himself; and their
quarrel was extended nearly to personal violence. In the
meantime his old enemy Abbot, and others, revived to his
disadvantage the matter of the Earl of Devonshire's mar-
riage, which had slept for twenty years ; and he found it
prudent to defend himself, by making a full exposition of
his conduct in it to the King. While these feuds were
raging, Williams fell into disgrace ; Abbot was sequestered
in consequence of an accidental homicide ; King James died ;
and Laud, who seemed thus to have become suddenly a
favourite of fortune, rose presently to a degree of considera-
tion which, while it placed him for a time above the reach of
his enemies, served in the end but to enhance the weight of
his fall.

In 1626, soon after the accession of Charles, he was ap-
pointed Dean of the Chapel Royal, sworn of the Privy Coun-
cil, and translated to the See of Bath and Wells ; and in
1628 to that of London. In the same year the first parlia-
mentary attack was made on him by the puritan faction in
the House of Commons. There was too much decency yet
remaining in the^ majority of that body to allow it to counte-
nance the accusation of Popery, which had been so long
levelled at him without doors ; but he was charged with
Arminianism, in the remonstrance which was voted not long
before the dissolution of that Parliament. It is probable
that this blow was rather intended to aggravate the weight
of the vengeance then meditated against his great friend
Buckingham, than to injure the Bishop himself. Be this as
it might, the Duke, within very few weeks after, was taken
off by assassination, and Charles, with more good meaning
than judgment, instantly bestowed on Laud the same degree
of confidence and power which that extraordinary man had

160 ARCHBISHOP LAUD.

so long held; and by that grace placed him in the same
peril from which his patron had been just before removed.
This partiality of the King's towards him was visible only in
its effect in public affairs, for Laud acquired then no tem-
poral appointment ; so that he was considered rather as a
favourite than a minister, which increased his unpopularity.
In the mean time he governed in ecclesiastical matters with
a strictness that bordered on severity ; and yet those who
can examine his conduct dispassionately will find that he
never uttered nor countenanced a judicial sentence that was
not strictly just. Such even were those of the Star-chamber
(where, by the way, though he incurred all the odium, he
sat but as an ordinary member), under the authority of which,
frightful corporal punishments, and great fines, were inflicted
on the flagitious libellers, Leighton, Burton, Bastwick, and
Prynne. The prudence of those measures may indeed be
reasonably doubted ; but this is no place for lengthened dis-
quisition. On the twelfth of April, 1630, he was elected
Chancellor of the University of Oxford ; and in the spring of
1633 waited on the King at his coronation in Scotland. He
renewed there with earnestness his favourite plan of accom-
plishing a union of the two churches ; and the partial suc-
cess of his endeavours produced afterwards the worst conse-
quences. On the fourth of August in that year, within very
few days after his return from Scotland, he succeeded Abbot
in the Archbishopric of Canterbury.

It is the intention of this small memoir to give chiefly such
circumstances of the life of Laud as have been slightly, or
not at all, mentioned in history, and to touch in a more gene-
ral way on those which have been already largely recorded.
To pursue that course, therefore, for the events of his primacy
are well known, I will observe that his activity, which had
gradually increased with his power, arose now to its utmost
height, and that the obstinacy of his adversaries at least kept
pace with it. Their refractory spirit did but increase his
vigour, for his courage was equal to his zeal. Among his

ARCHBISHOP LAUD. 161"

regulations for the restoration of the genuine usages of the
Church of England, no one was more resisted by the sec-
taries than his order to replace the altar in its ancient situa-
tion : and they affected to regard with the utmost horror the
revival of what was called the Book of Sports, the true and
original intention of which was to prevent the profanation of
Sunday by immoral recreations. In his eagerness for uni-
formity of worship, he prohibited the use of their own litur-
gies to Protestant foreigners resident in England, who quitted
it therefore in great numbers ; and, as almost all those per-
sons were merchants or manufacturers, he rendered himself
odious by this measure to the whole commercial body of his
own country, to whom it occasioned considerable loss and
inconvenience. The same disposition led him, though less
openly, to exert his authority, or at least his endeavours, to
restrict the freedom of the Romish worship in the Queen's
family ; and thus he lost the good-will of the Catholics, even
while the Puritans were insisting that he was in his heart a
Papist. But his measures in Scotland produced results
equally miserable to his country and himself. In his late
visit to that kingdom he had prevailed on the Bishops there
to enjoin the use of a liturgy approved, in fact composed, by
himself, and his brother prelates in England, together with
certain canons for the government of the Scottish Church ;
and the promulgation of these, which had been long delayed,
produced instantly the most frantic tumults, and caused in
the end the formation of that vile and fatal code of fanaticism
and rebellion, which its authors dignified with the title of
the Solemn League and Covenant.

Such were his proceedings with regard to the Church ; nor
was his political conduct more temperate. It was not till
1634 that he was first named to temporal offices. He was
then appointed a member of the Committee for Trade and
the King's Revenues ; and, within a few weeks after, when
the Treasury was put into commission on the death of Wes-
ton, Earl of Portland, was chosen one of the Commissioners,

IV. M

162 ARCHBISHOP LAUD.

and also placed on what was then called the Foreign Com-
mittee. In these several situations the King's partiality,
and the character of his own temper, naturally led him to
assume a dictatorial authority ; and feuds arose, injurious to
the public service, between himself and his colleagues, par-
ticularly in the Treasuiy, which at the end of a year deter-
mined him to quit it. He prevailed however on Charles not
only to dissolve that commission, which was certainly com-
posed of wise and experienced persons, but to nominate for
Lord Treasurer his friend, Bishop Juxon, an incomparable
ornament in all respects to his sacred profession, and perhaps
therefore wholly unfit to sit at the helm of public affairs.
Here, as in all the rest, Laud erred from good motives. He
had discovered that great frauds and peculations were prac-
tised in the department of the Treasury, and that many
former Treasurers had connived at them, in order the more
effectually to secure to themselves the largest share of the
spoil ; and, charmed by his conviction of ,Juxon's perfect
integrity, he overlooked his various disqualifications. Of
this appointment, unfortunately made at a moment when the
conciliation of parties was most essential to the King's
interests, Lord Clarendon says that " the eyes of all men
were at gaze who should have this great office, and the
greatest of the Nobility, who were in the chiefest employ-
ments, looked upon it as the prize of one of them ; when on
a sudden the staff was put into the hands of the Bishop of
London, a man so unknown that his name was scarce heard
of in the kingdom. This inflamed more than were angry
before, and no doubt did not only sharpen the edge of envy
and malice against the Archbishop, who was the known
architect of this new fabric, but most unjustly indisposed
many towards the Church itself, which they looked upon as
the gulf ready to swallow all the great offices." Not less
unpopular, however necessary, were the ordinations by
which, in 1637, he vainly endeavoured to curb that gigantic
creature of careless forbearance which has since obtained

AECHBISHOP LAUD. 163

the name of the liberty of the press. On the eleventh of
July in that year he procured a decree in the Star-chamber
to regulate the trade of printing, by which the printers were
restricted to a precise number, and the publication of any
book which had not been licensed by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, or the Bishop of London, or by one of their
chaplains, or by the Chancellor, or Vice-Chancellor, of one
of the Univerities, strictly prohibited.

The public character of Laud, which was in fact balanced
between good intentions and bad management, has perhaps
never yet been fairly estimated, even by the most impartial ;
and it has been truly observed that of no other man has so
much good and so much evil been reported. This however
is certain, that he fell a sacrifice, not to justice, but to the
inordinate rage of a faction. He was one of the first objects
of the vengeance of the Long Parliament. On the eighteenth
of December, 1640, not many weeks after the meeting of that
fatal assembly, an impeachment of high treason against him
was earned up by Denzil Holies to the Peers, and received
by them with equal satisfaction ; but his enemies, in the
extravagancy of their hatred, had forgotten to provide them-
selves with specific charges. At length, at the end of ten
weeks, during which he was confined in the custody of the
Usher of the Black Rod, Sir Henry Vane presented to the
Lords fourteen articles, most of which were notoriously false,
and not one of them approaching to treason. He was now
removed to the Tower, where he remained a close prisoner
for three years, in which interval he was gradually stripped,
under the illegal authority of various votes, sometimes of one
House of Parliament, sometimes of the other, not only of all
the functions and revenues of his Archbishopric, but nearly
of the whole of his private property. At last, on the twelfth
of March, 1643-4, he was brought to trial on the fourteen
charges first preferred against him, to which the Commons
had lately added ten others, and had adopted also a large
and confused body of accusation supplied by the Scottish
M 2

164 ARCHBISHOP LAUD.

commissioners then in London. Twenty days were
in the proceeding, which was equally distinguished by the
ingenuity and the malignity with which it was conducted,
and yet in the end his prosecutors durst not call either on
the House of Peers, or on a jury, to decide on the evidence.
The Commons, however, had determined to shed the blood
of this champion of the Church and the Monarchy, and, even
in the hour of their most tender solicitude for the liberties of
the subject, and the just administration of the laws, had
recourse therefore to an engine of tyranny so monstrous and
hateful that it had been rarely used, even in the most despo-
tic times. On the sixteenth of November following his trial
they passed a bill for his attainder, which they immediately
sent up to the Lords. In that assembly, deprived as it then
was of the flower of itagorder, and bitterly inimical to the
accused, some remnant of justice, as well as of dignity, yet
resided. The bill remained with them, scarcely noticed, till
the beginning of the succeeding January, on the fourth of
which month it was passed, in a very thin house, awed by
the threats of a savage mob, at that moment besieging its
doors with outcries for justice. Prynne, the most bitter of
his enemies, but for whose hatred the infirmity of nature may
be fairly pleaded in apology, and whom the House of Com-
mons had most scandalously invested with a formal agency
in his prosecution, tells us that " he made on his trial as full,
as gallant, and as pithy a defence, and spake as much for
himself, as was possible for the wit of man to invent ; and
with as much art, vivacity, oratory, audacity, and confidence :"
and Ludlow, one of the most honest, though one of the
sternest, of the Puritan regicides, frankly owns that " he was
beheaded for the encouragement of the Scots." He suffered
death on Tower Hill, with the same courage and piety
which had distinguished his whole life, on the tenth of
January, 1644-5.

The moral character of Laud was of such perfect purity
that his most rancorous enemies never durst attempt to im-

passed

ARCHBISHOP LAUD, Ifi5

peach it, unless we could give credit to their vulgar cry of his
inclination to Popery, and charge him therefore with hypo-
crisy. It may be worth while to observe on that head that
the Romanists themselves, not only in England but also on
the Continent, considered him as the most formidable enemy
to their church. Salmonet, an ingenious Frenchman, who
wrote a history of the troubles of Great Britain, makes the
following acute remark on his revival of those decent and
dignified forms and ceremonies which the fanatics considered,
or rather affected to consider, as infallible proofs of his
affection to that Church : " II pensoit si peu a y restablir la
communion Catholique, qu'au contraire il esperoit par cette
face exterieure qu'il donnoit a toutes choses, et qui ressem-
bloit fort a celle des premiers temps de 1'eglise, d'attirer les
Catholiques de ce royaume la a la communion Anglicane, et
de rompre ce lien d'unite qui les tient attachez a la chaire de
St. Pierre." Lord Clarendon, who argues, perhaps, with
unnecessary earnestness, to clear him from that imputation,
tells us that "he was always maligned and persecuted by
those who were of the Calvinian faction, which was then
very powerful, and who, according to their usual maxim and
practice, call every man they do not love Papist." " The
Archbishop," says Lord Clarendon, in another place, speaking
of the contest between the followers of Arminius and the
Calvinists, "had all his life opposed Calvin's doctrines in
those controversies, before the name of Arminius was taken
notice of, or his opinions heard of ; and, thereupon, for want
of another name they had called him a Papist, which nobody
believed him to be ; and he had more manifested the contrary
in his disputations and writings than most men had done ;
and it may be the other found the more severe and rigorous
usage from him for their propagating that calumny against
him."

For the rest, the noble historian informs us that "he was a
man of great parts, alloyed and discredited by some unpopular
natural infirmities, and of great courage and resolution ; and,

166 ARCHBISHOP LAUD.

being most assured within himself that he proposed no end in
all his actions and designs but what was pious and just, as
sure no man ever had a heart more entire to the King, the
Church, or his country, he never studied the easiest ways to
those ends : he thought, it may be, that any art or industry
that way would discredit, at least make the integrity of the
end suspected, let the cause be what it will. He did court
persons too little, nor cared to make his designs and purposes
appear as candid as they were, by shewing them in any other
dress than their own natural beauty, though perhaps in too
rough a manner ; and did not consider enough what men
said, or were like to say, of him. If the faults and vices were
fit to be looked into and discovered, let the persons be who
they would that were guilty of them, they were sure to find
no connivance of favour from him. He intended the disci-
pline of the Church should be felt as well as spoken of, and
that it should be applied to the greatest and most splendid
transgressions, as well as to the punishment of smaller
offences and meaner offenders ; and thereupon called for, or
cherished, the discovery of those who were not careful to
cover their own iniquities, thinking they were above the
reach of other men, or their power, or will, to chastise.
Persons of honour and quality, of the Court and of the
country, were every day cited into the High Commission
Court, upon the fame of their incontinence, or other scandal
in their lives, and were there prosecuted, to their shame and
punishment." But it is said that Laud wanted prudence.
Had he possessed what the world usually calls prudence,
Lord Clarendon must have sought for other materials where-
with to embalm his memory.

Laud's disinterestedness and munificence were in every
way remarkable. His private charities were unbounded. It
was his constant practice to allot a certain number of poor to
each of his church preferments, in proportion to the amount
of their revenues respectively, whom he maintained, and he
commenced that practice on his induction into the first bene-

ARCHBISHOP LAUD. 16?

fice ever held by him. His public foundations, especially in
Oxford, were princely. He built almost the whole of the
inner quadrangle of St. John's College ; augmented its library
with many manuscripts ; and bestowed on it a gift of five
hundred pounds in money. He erected an extensive building
at the west end of the Divinity school, and the Bodleian
library, the lower part of which was appropriated to the Con-
vocations, and other public meetings of the University, and
the upper part, opening into the public library, to the recep-
tion of books, in which is deposited his own splendid collec-
tion ; for he had given, at different times to the University,
thirteen hundred manuscripts, collected by himself at im-
mense expense. He founded there also an Arabic lecture,
and obtained for St. John's College the advowson of St. Lau-
rence, at Reading, in Berkshire, in which town he built a
hospital, and endowed it with an annual revenue of two
hundred pounds. When the persecution against him was
instituted, he was deeply engaged in perfecting some of the
noblest plans for the advancement of piety and learning that
had ever been devised by a subject.

His published works are fewer, and less important, than
might have been expected from such a man. They consist of
seven sermons, preached on public occasions, between the
years 1620 and 1629, which were first printed singly, and
reprinted together in 1651 : his conference with Fisher,
which has been spoken of above : an answer to the remon-
strance of the House of Commons in 1628 : a speech delivered
in the Star-chamber, on the censure of Prynne, and the rest.
These were printed by himself. The following did not
appear till after his death : a Diary of his life, exquisitely
illustrative of his true character, which was published with
"an History of his Troubles and Tryal," by the learned
Henry Wharton : " Annotations or Memorables, of King
James the First," which may be found in Rushworth's Col-
lections : a letter to Sir Kenelm Digby, and many others : an

168

ARCHBISHOP LAUD.

historical Account of the affairs of the University of Oxford
during his Chancellorship ; " Officium Quotidianum ; " and
another Manual of private devotions.

Archbishop Laud died unmarried. His body was buried
in the Church of Allhallows Barking, in London, but was
removed, after the Restoration, to the chapel of his favourite
house, St. John's College in Oxford.

Ujtensp*.

CRAHFIELP,

EARL OF MIDDLESEX.
OB, 1645-

LIONEL CRANFIELD,

FIBST EARL OF MIDDLESEX.

To those, if such are still to be found, who would main-
tain that James the First either felt the dignity, or under-
stood the interests, of royalty ; or possessed the wisdom, or
even the cunning, of a politician ; it will be sufficient to
answer that he advanced this person to the first post in his
government, and nearly to the highest rank of the peerage,
at the precise moment when the public respect to the aris-
tocracy began evidently to fail, and when the aid of that
body was more than ever necessary to the support of the
throne. Lionel Cranfield was a man of such ordinary birth
that even the names and stations of his parents have never
yet' been accurately published. Fuller, quoting too, in some
very strange mistake, the register of the parish of St. Michael
Basinghall, states him to have been the " son of Randal
Cranfield, citizen, and Martha his wife, daughter to the Lady
Denny, of Gloucestershire." Lloyd asserts, without the
smallest foundation, that " his family was ancient in that
county." And Dugdale, who, had he taken the trouble to
consult the records of his own college, would have instantly
discovered the truth, tells us no more than that his father was
Thomas Cranfield, of London ; to whose name however he
wantonly adds the style of Esquire, a distinction which, so
lately as in Dugdale's time, was very rarely abused by any.
Even Lord Clarendon believed him to be well descended.
The fact is, that he was the youngest of the two sons of
Thomas Cranfield, a mercer of London, whose ancestors are

170 LIONEL CRANFIELD,

utterly unknown, by Martha, daughter of Vincent Randall,
who seems also to have been a tradesman of that city, though
really of a gentleman's family. Armorial ensigns were
granted by Camden in 1613, to Lionel, and his elder brother,
Randall.

Of his education we know nothing. The quaint Lloyd
says that " he was his own tutor, and his own university ; "
and adds, in which Arthur Wilson and others agree, -that he
was bred in the Custom House, which he left for the mer-
cantile profession ; and a merchant he remained till he had
nearly reached the fortieth year of his age. But he was a
merchant of rare character ; for, while he practised with
industry the vulgar conduct of trade, he studied it as a
science, and became master, if a noble term may be so
applied without profanation, of the philosophy of commerce.
Thus recommended, at a time when commercial revenue
was in its infancy, and the necessities of the state and of the
court at their utmost height, he was, by means till now
unknown, brought to the notice of James the First, as a
person likely to devise eligible projects to raise money. His
introduction to that prince has been erroneously ascribed,
owing probably to the hasty construction of a passage in
Lord Clarendon's account of him, to Villiers, afterward Duke
of Buckingham ; but Cranfield was in some degree of favour
before Villiers was even known to the King. Mr. John
Chamberlaine, in a letter to Sir Ralph Winwood, dated
" London, July 8, 1613," says "Sir Thomas Waller, Lieu-
tenant of Dover Castle, is lately dead of a burning fever,
and his place, they say, is bestowed upon one Sir Lionel
Cranfield, a merchant of this town, of Ingram's profession,
who is grown in great favour with the Lord Privy Seal,
and rides ordinarily in his coach with him, and by his
means, was knighted on Sunday last." Howard, Earl of
Northampton then, who at that time held the privy seal,
and who was himself a projector, and a commercial theorist,
was evidently Cranfield's first patron, and procured, or

FIRST EARL OF MIDDLESEX. 171

rather conferred on him, this his first appointment ; for
Northampton, as Warden of the Cinque Ports, was Governor
of Dover Castle.

The commencement of Villiers's influence may be fixed
with certainty to the spring of 1615, in the course of which
year he leaped from the place of a Gentleman of the Bed-
chamber to the superb office of Master of the Horse, and
within very few months after obtained the Garter and the
Peerage. On the twentieth of November, 1616, Cranfield
was appointed a Master of the Requests ; soon after, Master
of the King's great wardrobe ; and on the fifteenth of January,
1618, Master of the Court of Wards. These important pro-
motions he owed, in all probability, to Villiers ; for, at some
time within the period just now referred to, he had married
a first cousin of that favourite, who was now Marquis of
Buckingham. But Buckingham had other motives for be-
friending Cranfield. The pursuit of selfish views, like all
other things, is subject to the fashion of the time ; and
opposite means, in politics as well as in morals, may pro-
duce the same effect. Ministers then sold favours, instead
of purchasing them ; and public employments, instead of
being conferred as bribes, were obtained by bribery. In the
Harleian MSS. No. 1581, is the following original letter to
the Marquis, unluckily without date of the year, but doubt-
less soliciting some one, most probably the latter, of the
appointments just mentioned.

My most honnored Lord,

I know yo r power, and nothinge doubte yo r ho ble
favour towardes me, but ther are so manye and so greate
competitors for that I desire, and ther wilbe so greate
meanes and greate offers made unto yow for it, that it
wilbe a myracle in this fallce adge yf yow shalbe pleased
to continewe constant to me, the first mover, and to whom
yowr L p was pleased with a noble freenes, to engadge yo r
ho ble worde, upon w ch I do wholly relye. It is the place I

172

LIONEL CRANFIELD,

onlye affecte, and in wh ch I desire to doe his Ma" e service,
w h shalbe with that faithfulnes and paynes executed, yf by
yo r ho ble favor I may have it, as no man shall do better.

I have done the King many profitable services, w* hazard
of my estate and lyfe, and no man hath beene more willinge
to do yo r Lo p service then my selfe, for both W* I suffer, and
have lose all other frends. Now, if ever, is the tyme for
yo r Lo p to settle me, in despight of all my enemies, by letting
me fynde the fruites of yo r ho ble favor in this perticuler, for
w ch you shall ever conTaund my estate and lyfe to do yow
service. Besides, for the present, I will bringe to yo r L p , to
be disposed of at yo r pleasure, fower thowsand pounds in
golde, and yet will acknowledge yo r favor to be such as I
shall never be able to deserve. I am now upon the stadge
for it, allthowghe I observed yo r com~aund most strictlye,
so that I feare the contents of my former letter were dis-
covered. To prevent the licke in this, I praye yo r Lo p after
yow have reade it to burne it, and to wrighte me yo r pleasure
but in S^lynes w* yo r own hande ; for, as I have made no
meanes but to yo r ho b!e selfe im~ediately, so I humblye desire
no creature lyvinge may be acquainted w th what passeth, for
I will w th all willingnes subscribe to any conditions shalbe
propounded, my humble suite now beinge no more but that
by yo r ho ble favour I may be preferred before any other.

It is my misfortune to be stayed here upon the King's
waightie buysines at this tyme when it were most fitt I should
waight upon yo' L p to solicit yo r favor about that w ch above
all thinges I desire ; but within few dayes I shall waight
upon yo r L p to give such an accompte of that imployment
as I hope shalbe welcom to yo r Honnor, and most acceptable
to the Kinge; and therfore conclude my letter w th this
humble request ; that yo r L p wilbe pleased to keepe the
Kinge free of promis abowt it, and that yo 1 L p will stand no
otherwise ingaged but for me, untill I come to the courte,
w ch shalbe within 3 or 4 dayes, at w h tyme I hope to give
yo 1 Honnor such content as yow shall thinck this ho hle favor

FIRST EARL OF MIDDLESEX. 173

well bestowed. And so I humblye tacke leave, ever resting
yo r L ps humble and faithfullest servant,

LIONEL CRANFIELD.
London, the 28 Januarye.

He now rose with uncommon rapidity. On the fifth of
January, 1620, he was sworn of the Privy Council ; on the
ninth of July in the succeeding year, advanced to the
Peerage, by the title of Baron Cranfield, of Cranfield, in
Bedfordshire ; on the thirteenth of the following October
received the staff of Lord Treasurer ; and on the sixteenth
of September, 1622, was created Earl of Middlesex. He
fell suddenly. James, whom he really seems to have served
faithfully as well as wisely, had become weary of the thraldom
in which he was held by the imperious Buckingham, and
sought relief in the boldness of Middlesex, who undertook
to protect him. The favourite presently began to consider
him as a rival ; but we find nothing of treachery in the
conduct of the Treasurer towards him, nor indeed much of
ingratitude, for indeed he had probably purchased most of
his favours with money. Their quarrel began during Buck-
ingham's absence with the Prince in Spain. The expenses
of that romantic expedition were enormous ; the Exchequer
was drained ; and the Treasurer, honestly enough, it should
seem, had counselled frugality. In an original letter from
him to Buckingham, No. 1581, in the Harleian papers, and
in an extract from another, we find hints to that effect, as
well as of their incipient division.

My most honnored Lord,

I wrott unto you some 10 days synce w' h an
intendment to have sent it by my Lord of Leppington, but,
he being wynde bound, I send it by this bearer. Synce the
wrighting whereof the certeyne news of The Prynce's salffe
aryvall, and yo r Lo p ' 8 , at the court of Spayne w th yo r royall
entretaynement, and the content the Prynce tacketh in his

J74

LIONEL CBANFIELD,

Prynces, hath overjoyed the Kinge, and all honest well
affected subjectes ; for the ladye givinge his Highnes content-
ment is of more consequens, and more to be respected, than
ten times her portion ; for his Highnes beinge pleased in her,
all compforts and blessings will followe them both, w ch God
in nTcye grant, and send a happy and speedy conclusion.

The shippes wilbe all redy to sett sale by the last of
Aprill next, for the monye to -sett them forth is allredy paid.
I was never put to such a plunge for monye, the som beinge
so greate, and to be all disbursed so suddeynlye. I hope the
Prynce, w th his ladye, wilbe as forward, w ' 1 I beseech yo r L p
by all meanes hasten, for it is not fytt, nor wilbe salffe, that
the Prynce, and the strengthe of the kingdome, w ch are the
shippes, should be longe owt of the kingdome together,
espetially considering so manye of his Ma tie ' 8 subjectes are ill
affected to the buyssines. I hope yo r L 1 will not forgett the
monye. I knowe not whether the necessetye or the expecta-
tion of it are greater. I beseeche y r L p tacken care of it, as a
thinge of mayne importance.

The clowdes w** begane to gather upon the PryncVdep~ture,
and yo r I/', are, upon this last news of yo r salffe aryvall, and
royall intretaynement at the court of Spayne, much dispersed;
but of those passag~s heraftr, when I shalbe so happy to see
yow ; in the meane tyme, blesse God for having a most con-
stant and gracious maister.

There is now an excesse of kyndnesse between the Lady
my wyffe and myselffe, and hope it shall not bee in the power
of the Dyvell himselffe ever to macke it otherwyse heraftr ;
and yett I assure yo r L p those evill spiritts that weare
very active at Christmas to devyde yo r L p and mee are cot
yet quiett, but have been more buyssye than ever synce
yo* dep~ture : but I laughe, and skorne the basenesse
and poorenes of their plotts, and so will yo r L p when I
shall acquaint yow w th them ; and therfore I beseech yo r L p
to rest confident that my love and thanckfullnes to yow,
althowghe they bee worth nothinge more than yow shalbe

FIRST EARL OF MIDDLESEX. 175

pleased to vallewe them, are so rooted as they cannot be
shacken ; no, not by that damned feinde jelosye, w ch hathe so
undermyned the p~fectest love, and intirest friendship. And
so, w th my humble and hartie love and service, I rest yo r L^'
faithfullest freind and servant, and loving kynsman,

MIDDELSEX.
Chelsey, this 30 th March, 1623.

And in another letter, dated from Chelsea, on the third of
May following, he says, " The fleet is ready to tacke the first
wynde : God grant yow may be as redy there. I praye
yo r L p to be as sparinge in the matter of chardges as
the honnor of the service will pennitt, for never man was
so putt to it to provyde mony as myself am at this instant.
And I beseeche yo r L p to take espetiall care to bringe as much
of the portion in mony w th the fleete as is possible. I dare
not wrighte how much it will concerne the King."

Lord Clarendon, having stated the circumstances of his eleva-
tion, speaks thus of his fall. " He had gained so much credit
with the King, being in truth a man of great parts and notable
dexterity, that during the Duke's absence in Spain, he was
not only negligent in the issuing out such sums of money as
were necessary for the defraying those unlimited expenses,
and to correspond with him with that deference he had used
to do, but had the courage to dispute his commands, and to
appeal to the King, whose ear was always inclined to him,
and in whom he began to believe himself so far fastened that
he should not stand in need of the future support of the
favourite. And of all this the Duke could not be without
ample information, as well from his. own creatures, who were
near enough to observe, as from others, who, caring for
neither of them, were more scandalized at so precipitate a
promotion of a person of such an education, and whom they
had long known for so much their inferior, though it could not
be denied that he filled the places he held with great abilities."

" The Duke no sooner found the Parliament disposed to a

176 LIONEL CRANFIELD,

good opinion of him, and being well assured of the Prince's
fast kindness, than he projected the ruin of this bold rival of
his, of whom he saw clearly enough that the King had so
good an opinion that it would not be in his sole power
to crush him, as he had done others in the same, and in
as high a station : and so he easily procured some leading
men in the House of Commons to cause an impeachment, for
several corruptions and misdemeanors, to be sent up to the
House of Peers against that great minister, whom they had
so lately known their equal in that house ; which, besides
their natural inclination to that sort of correction, disposed
them with great alacrity to this prosecution. When it was
first entered upon, and that the King clearly discerned it was
contrived by the Duke, and that he had likewise prevailed
with the Prince to be well pleased with it, his Majesty sent
for them, and with much warmth and passion dissuaded them
from appearing farther in it, and conjured them to use all
their interest and authority to restrain it, as such a wound to
the Crown that would not be easily healed. And when he
found the Duke unmoved by all the considerations, and
arguments, and commands he had offered, he said, in great
choler, ' By God, Stenny, you are a fool, and will shortly
repent this folly, and will find that in this fit of popularity
you are making a rod with which you will be scourged your-
self :' and turning, in some anger to the Prince, told him he
would live to have his belly full of parliament impeachments :
and ' When I shall be dead, you will have too much cause to
remember how much you have contributed to the weakening
of the Crown by the two precedents you are now so fond of;'
intending as well the engaging the parliament in the war, as
the prosecution of the Earl of Middlesex. But the Duke's
power, supported by the Prince's countenance, was grown so
great in the two houses, that it was in vain for the King to
interpose ; and so, notwithstanding so good a defence made
by the Earl that he was absolved from any notorious crime
by the impartial opinion of many of those who heard all the

FIRST EARL OF MIDDLESEX. 177

evidence, he was at last condemned to a great fine, to a long
and strict imprisonment, and never to sit in parliament
during his life ; a clause of such a nature as was never before
found in any judgment of parliament, and, in truth, not to be
inflicted on any peer but by attainder."

This severe sentence was passed on him in the winter of
1624. His fine, twenty thousand pounds, was paid, in great
part, by transfer of estates to the Crown ; and it has been
said that Buckingham descended to accept the Earl's house
and grounds at Chelsea, which was his favourite residence,
as a gift from the King ; but Wilson, who is too often a slan-
derer, and from whom other writers have derived the tale,
merely says that it was so reported ; and Welden, who
delighted in vilifying the Duke, does not mention it. Middle-
sex, after his enlargement, retired to his fine seat of Copt-Hall,
in Essex, where, says Fuller, "he enjoyed himself contentedly,
entertained his friends bountifully, his neighbours hospitably,
and the poor charitably." There is good reason indeed to
believe that no public man of his time was more beloved.
He seems to have been blessed with a frankness and gene-
rosity of temper which neither mercantile selfishness nor
ministerial caution could chill ; and a liveliness of humour,
not to say wit, adorned his conversation. One of his table
jests has escaped oblivion. A question having arisen on the
best means of prolonging human life, he said, " Let a man
get himself appointed Lord Treasurer, for no one ever died
in that office." He amused himself in the earlier part of his
life with poetical composition, of which too a single specimen
remains, which, at the worst, entitles him to the reputation
of a smooth versifier. " The following mock-commendatory
verses, by this nobleman," says the ingenious editor of Lord
Orford's Noble Authors, "were prefixed in 1611 to the
Travels, or Crudities, of Tom Coryat, * the whetstone of all
the wits;' who must have been stimulated by a preposterous
species of vanity to publish so many ludicrous lampoons
upon himself, before his book."

IV. N

178 LIONEL CRANFIELD,

" Great laude deserves the author of this worke,
Who saw the French, Dutch, Lombard, Jew, and Turke,
But speaks not any of their tongues as yet,
For who in five months can attaine to it ?
Short was his time, although his hooke be long,
Which shewes much wit, and memory more strong
An yron memory for who but he
Could glue together such a rhapsodic
Of pretious things, as towers, steeples, rocks,
Tombes, theaters, the gallowes, bels, and stocks,
Mules, asses, arsenals, churches, gates, and townes,
The Alpine mountaines, cortezans, and Dutch clownes ?
What man before hath writ so punctually,
To his eternall fame, his journey's story ?
And he is the first that I can finde,
So will he be the last of this rare kinde.
Me thinks, when on his booke I cast my eies,
I see a shop replete with merchandize;
And how the owner, jelous of his fame,
With pretious matter garnisheth the same.
Many good parts he hath ; no man too much
Can them commend ; some few I '11 only touch.
He Greeke and Latin speakes with greater ease
Than hogs eate akornes, or tame pigeons pease.
His ferret eies doe plod so on his booke,
As makes his lookes worse than a testie cooke.
His tongue and feete are swifter than a flight,
Yet both are glad when day resignes to night.
He is not proude ; his nature softe and milde ;
His complements are long ; his lookes are wilde :
Patient enough, but, oh ! his action
Of great effect to move and stirre up passion.
Odcombe, be proude of thy odde Coryate,
Borne to be great, and gracious with the state.
How much I him well wish let this suffice.
His booke best shewes that he is deeply wise.

" Explicit LIONEL CRANFIELD."

He was twice married : first to Elizabeth, daughter of

FIRST EARL OF MIDDLESEX, 179

Richard Shepherd, a merchant of London, who brought him
three daughters ; Martha, wife of Henry Carey, Earl of
Monmouth ; Elizabeth, of Edmund Sheffield, Earl of Mul-
grave ; and Mary, who died unmarried. His second lady
was Anne, daughter of James Bret, of Howby, in Leicester,
by Anne his wife, daughter of Anthony Beaumont, and sister
to Mary, wife of Sir George Villiers, the father and mother
of the great George, Duke of Buckingham. By her he had
two sons, and one daughter. James, his successor, who, by
his wife Anne, daughter and coheir of Edward Bourchier,
Earl of Bath, left an only daughter, who was married to
John Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater. Lionel, who succeeded
to his brother James, and in whom, dying without issue, the
titles became extinct. And Frances, who became therefore
heir to his estates, and who married Richard Sackvile, fifth
Earl of Dorset, in whose eldest son and successor, Charles,
the titles of Baron Cranfield and Earl of Middlesex were
revived in 1675, during the life of his father. As little is
known of extinct peerages, I have given the genealogical
account of this family rather more at large than usual.

The Earl of Middlesex survived his disgrace, if the suffer-
ing a punishment of enormous severity for misdemeanors so
trivial that history has forborne to particularise them may be
so called, for more than twenty years. He died on the sixth
of August, 1645, and was buried in St. Michael's chapel, in
Westminster Abbey, under a superb tomb of black and
white marble, with a long inscription in Latin (of which very
erroneous transcripts have been given in Dugdale's Baronage,
and by Dart, in his history of the Abbey), alluding to his
prosecution, and asserting his innocence.

SOMERSET*

FIRST MARQUIS OE WORCESTER.
OB, I646x

HENRY SOMERSET,

FIRST MARQUIS OF WORCESTER,

WAS the second born of the eight sons of that not less
honourable than accomplished statesman and courtier Ed-
ward, fourth Earl of Worcester, by Elizabeth, daughter of
Francis Hastings, second Earl of Huntingdon. He was born
in or about the year 1562, and, his family having never
deserted the ancient faith, was sent for education to the
College of St. Omer ; nor is it altogether improbable, con-
sidering the uncommonly abundant issue of his father, that
he might have been at that time designed for the ecclesias-
tical profession. His elder brother, however, William Lord
Herbert, having died unmarried, he became heir-apparent to
the dignities and great estates of his superb House.

He was already an old man when he succeeded to the inhe-
ritance of them, for his father survived till the year 1627.
During the whole of this long season of expectancy, not a
single fact of his life has been recorded, except that he had
lived long in Spain and in Italy, and that he was summoned
by anticipation to the House of Peers in the first Parliament
of James. Collins, indeed, in his Peerage, infdrms us, but
without citing his authority, that "he was a nobleman of
great parts, piety and wisdom, and of a free and generous
disposition" a combination of qualities peculiarly calcu-
lated, ambition and vanity being absent, to lead to a prefer-
ence of the serenity of private life. He might too have
had prudential motives for retirement yet more cogent, for
he had married early, and had, as well as his father, a very

182 HENRY SOMERSET,

numerous progeny. Thirteen of his younger brothers and
sisters, and thirteen children of his own, seem to have been
living at the same time ; and, as the nobility had not yet
stooped to mix their blood with that of the sons and daughters
of commerce, alliances could be sought only in the country,
where they were matured and perfected in the calmness of
social intercourse.

On the King's appearing however in arms, he flew from
his privacy with all the ardour of youth, and embarked in
the royal cause with enthusiastic sincerity. He had indeed
before made a clear manifestation of the loyalty which to the
last distinguished him, by defraying almost the whole of the
expense of transporting Charles and his train to York, when
that Prince was compelled to quit London in the spring of
1642 ; and this was the commencement of a series of muni-
ficence from subject to Sovereign perhaps wholly unparal-
leled. He had the honour of raising and equipping the first
regiment of Horse which appeared for the King, and in the
course of that and the following year actually levied two little
armies in Wales, at the charge of upwards of forty thousand
pounds. These, successively commanded by his eldest son the
Lord Herbert, better known by the title of Earl of Glamorgan,
to whom a memoir will hereafter be especially appropriated,
had the ill fortune to be almost uniformly unsuccessful, and
were at length totally dispersed by the rebels ; the King
despatched Lord Herbert to Ireland, with a commission, the
intention of which has since unnecessarily excited much
historical disquisition ; and, on the second of November,
1642, advanced the Earl to the title of Marquis of Worcester.
He now retired to his noble seat of Ragland Castle in Mon-
mouthshire, which at length he fortified at enormous expense,
and garrisoned with eight hundred men, and here, in the
summer, of 1645, and soon after the battle of Naseby, the
unhappy Charles, whose fate was now fast waning, became
for some weeks the guest of his splendid hospitality, and
received from him a great supply of money.

FIRST MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 183

A change of quarters, which a very few months after
brought the King again into that part of the country, and his
increasing necessities, produced a second visit to Ragland, in
which a very remarkable circumstance is asserted to have
occurred. The Marquis was not only a Roman Catholic, but
he was a zealot. He had formed a design for the conversion
of Charles to that faith, and took this opportunity of formally
inviting him to a debate on the comparative claims to cre-
dence of the two Churches. The King's gratitude to so
devoted a servant would not permit him to decline the
challenge, nor would it have been prudent to disgust one
whose friendship was so important to his affairs. Their
disputation is narrated in a small volume, of considerable
rarity, printed in 1649, and entitled " Certamen Religiosum,
or a conference between Charles, late King of England, and
Henry, late Marquis of Worcester, concerning Religion, at
his Majesty's being at Ragland Castle, 1646," (a mis-print
for 1645) " wherein the main differences now in controversy
between the Papists and the Protestants are no less briefly
than accurately discussed and bandied ; now published for the
world's satisfaction of his Majesty's constant affection to the
Protestant Religion, by Tho. Baylie, Doctor in Divinity, and
Sub-dean of Wells. Mutare vel timere sperno." The
author, or rather editor, was a younger son of an estimable
Prelate, Dr. Lewis Baylie, Bishop of Bangor : he appears to
have been domesticated in the Marquis's family, and well
known to the King : was a man of lively talents ; of a dis-
position somewhat eccentric ; and who at length embraced
the Catholic faith. This latter circumstance, together with
a strong suspicion of his having published as his own a
Life of Bishop Fisher which had been written by another,
have contributed to cast a doubt generally on his veracity,
and consequently on the authenticity of his report of the
"Conference" in question. His prolix introduction to it,
however, exhibits such strong internal evidence of truth ; so
many little natural circumstances and coincidences which

184 HENRY SOMERSET,

could scarcely have suggested themselves even to the most
lively and artful invention ; that we cannot well forbear to
give an extended degree of credit to the whole. But let him
speak for himself in some necessarily long extracts from it.

" It is not to be imagined otherwise," says he, " but that
every man who pretends unto religion makes the same
religion which he professeth either his Jacob's ladder, or his
fiery chariot, to ascend to heaven. Neither is it to be sup-
posed but that the same man, if he thought any religion
better than his own, or his own not the only way to heaven,
would forsake that religion which he had formerly embraced,
and matriculate himself a member of that Church whose
purer hands were likeliest to give him the truest blessing :
Wherefore burning zeal is not to be blamed, though the fire
be misplaced, if it operate according to its own nature, which
is to congregate homogeneous beings, and to make them love
to sit by the same fire. Thus affected was that noble, and
indeed, in his way, heavenly disposed, Henry, late Marquis
of Worcester, to play the greatest prize that ever was
played between any two that ever entered within those lists.
Three Diadems were to encounter with the Triple Crown,
and the Triple Crown with three sceptres. Opportunity,
that lucky gamester that hardly loses a game in twenty, was
on the Marquis's side : time and place directed him how to
take points in his own tables ; the King at this time being
in the Marquis's own house at Ragland, and necessitated to
borrow money to buy bread after so great a loss at Naseby.
The King, being thus put to play the after-game with the old
Marquis, was a little mistrustful that he had not played the
fore-game with him so well as that he had not thereby
prejudiced the latter. There were some things which hap-
pened as having relation to this family which were not
altogether pleasing ; however, though his Majesty came
thither ushered by necessity, yet he came neither un welcomed
nor uninvited, and entertained as if he had been more King
by reason of some late achievements rather than otherwise :

FIRST MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 185

and, though money came from him like drops of blood, yet
he was contented that every drop within his body should be
let out at his command, so that he might perform so
meritorious a piece of work as he thought the being an
instrument of bringing the father of his country to be the
son of his Church would be unto his soul's health. The
Marquis, having these resolutions within himself, thought to
give them breath at the same time that his Majesty should
make his motion for a further supply of money, which he
daily and hourly expected, but was deceived in his expecta-
tions, for the relation having already reached the King's ear
how an accident had made me no less fortunate to his Lord-
ship than in being the means of preserving his Lordship's
person, and no inconsiderable fortune, then in the same
venture with him ; and how that I preserved both the one
and the other in concealing both, for the space that the moon
useth to be twice in riding of her circuit (the particulars
whereof here to insert would tend rather to much arrogance
than any purpose, wherefore I further forbear) untill such
time as the trust that Providence had reposed in me was
crowned by the same hand with such success as brought the
Marquis safe to his own house in peace, which I had no
sooner brought to pass but the Marquis drew from me a
solemn engagement never to leave him so long as we both
should live, which I was so careful for to observe that I
neither left him in life nor death, fair weather nor foul,
untill such time as he led me, and I laid him under the
ground in Windsor Castle, in the sepulchre of his ancestors."

The event in the Marquis's life to which Baylie alludes
towards the conclusion of the foregoing paragraph is, and
must remain, utterly unknown. He goes on to state at
great length that he had received a commission from the
King to solicit a further pecuniary aid from that nobleman,
and then informs us thus of the result, and, first, of his com-
munication to the Marquis of Charles's request.

" ' My Lord, the thing that I feared is now fallen upon me.

186 HENRY SOMERSET,

I am made the unwelcome messenger of bad news. The
King wants money.' At which word the Marquis inter-
rupted me, saying ' Hold Sir that's no news go on with
your business.' e My Lord/ said I, 'there is one comfort
yet ; that, as the King is brought low so are his demands ;
and, like his army, are come down from thousands to hun-
dreds ; and from paying the soldiers of his army to buying
bread for himself and his followers. My Lord, it is the
King's own expression, and his desire is but three hundred
pounds.' Whereupon my Lord made a long pause before he
gave me one word of answer ; I knowing by experience that
in such cases it was best leaving him. to himself, and to let
that nature that was so good work itself into an act of the
highest charity, like the diamond, which is only polished with
its own dust. At last he called me nearer to him, and asked
me if the King himself had spoken unto me concerning any
such business, to which I answered that the King himself had
not, but that others did in the King's hearing ; whereupon he
said, ' Might I but speak unto him (but I was never thought
worthy to be consulted with, though in matters merely con-
cerning the affairs of my own country) I would supply his
wants, were they never so great, or whatsoever they were ;'
whereupon I told his Lordship that if the King knew as
much he might quickly speak with him : then, said the
Marquis, 'the way to have him know so much is to have
somebody to tell him of it.' I asked his Lordship if he
would give me leave to be the informer, and he told me he
spake it to the same purpose. I hastened from him with as
much fear of being called back again as I did towards the
King with a longing desire of giving his Majesty so good an
account of my so much doubted embassy.

" I told his Majesty, apart, that I had moved his Lordship
in matter of money, but found him a little discouraged, in
regard that his Majesty having been twice at Ragland, a
month at a time, and that at neither of those times he ever
vouchsafed his Lordship so much honour as once to call him

FIRST MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 187

to Council, though it was in his own house, and must needs
be acknowledged to be one who knew the country, and
the constitution of the inhabitants, better than any other
man that was about his Majesty had reason to understand ;
wherefore, I told the King, I thought his Lordship lent my
motion a deafer ear than he would have done if his Lordship
had not been thought so useless -a creature ; and that I per-
ceived his Lordship had a desire to have some conference
with his Majesty, which being obtained, I believed his Ma-
jesty's request would be easily granted, and his expectations
answered in a higher measure than it may be his Majesty
believed. The King said ' With all my heart ; and as to the
other business which so much troubles my Lord, in troth
I have thought it a neglect in us heretofore ; but the true
reason why I did forbear to do so was because I thought my
Lord of Worcester did not desire it, by reason of his retired-
ness, unwieldiness of body, and unwillingness of mind to
stir abroad, and therefore I thought it a contentment to him
to be let alone, and,' said the King, ' I pray tell my Lord of
Worcester, that I did not forbear that respect unto him out
of any disestimation I had either of his wisdom or loyalty,
but out of some reasons I had to myself, which indeed re-
flected as much upon my Lord as they did on me ; for,
had he used to come to the Council board, it would have been
said that I took no other council but what was conveyed unto
me by Jesuits by his Lordship's means, and I pray tell him
that was the true cause.' I intimated to his Majesty that I
knew the Marquis had an earnest desire to have some private
conference with his Majesty this night, which, if granted, it
might conduce very much to his Majesty's behoof. The King
said, ' How can that be ? ' I told his Majesty that my Lord
had contrived it before his coming to the castle, and told his
Majesty of the privacy of the conveyance, and that therefore
his Lordship had appointed that for his bedchamber, and not
in the great tower, which was the room he most esteemed of
all in the castle. Hereat his Majesty smiled, and said ( l

188 HENRY SOMERSET,

know my Lord's drift well enough either he means to chide
me, or else to convert me to his religion.' Whereupon I told
his Majesty I doubted not but that his Majesty was tempta-
tion-proof, as well as. he was correction-free, and that he
might return the same man he went, having made a profitable
exchange of gold and silver for words and sleep ; at which
the King suddenly replied, ' 1 never received any of the
Marquis' gold but it was all weight, and I would have my
words to be so with him, which cannot be, because I have
no time to weigh the matter, much less the words that I
shall speak concerning it. I must expect to find my Lord
very well prepared, and all the force that is in argument
against me. Had I been aware of it, or could stay, I would
have taken some days' labour to have been as hard for my
Lord as I could, and not to have given him so extemporary a
meeting as both of us must be fain to steal from sleep.' 'Sir/
said I, ( I am employed by you both, and I must do your
Majesty's service as I may. This way I can : otherwise I
know not. I do not think his Lordship expects disputation,
but audience. What he hath to say I know not ; neither
did I know that he had any such intention untill the time
that I moved his Lordship in your Majesty's behalf.' ' Well,'
said the King, ' my Lord's desires are granted ; and, if he
have any such intention, I hope to let him know that I will
not be of a religion that I am not able to defend against any
man, and let me hear from you concerning the time and
place.' So I departed his presence, giving this pleasing ac-
count unto the Marquis, who, transported with joy, com-
manded me to haste unto the King and tell him that at
eleven of the clock that night he would not fail to attend his
Majesty, in such a place, whither he had given me direction
to light his Majesty, which place of meeting was known by
the name of my Lord Privy Seal's Chamber, who was father
to this Marquis, and died in it, wherefore this Marquis would
never suffer any man to lie in it afterwards, or scarce any
body so much as to come into it, which was the reason why

FIRST MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 189

this chamber at this time was so conveniently empty, when
all the rooms in the castle were more than full."

The whole of Baylie's narrative is so interesting, that it is
to be regretted that its length should prohibit the insertion of
every word. In the Marquis's anxiety that the meeting
should be wholly secret, he directs Baylie to go to the yeoman
of his wine cellar, and ask him for his keys, " and then," says
the Marquis, " all that you find in your way, invite them
down into the cellar, and shew them the keys, and I warrant
you you shall sweep the rooms of them if there were an
hundred, and when you have done, leave them there." The
Marquis then retired " to take a nap," and when the time
came for the King's arrival, and Baylie, by his order, called
him, he awakened horror-struck at the boldness of his under-
taking, and said " God bless us all what if we should be
discovered 1 what construction would they make of our
doings ? what advantage would they be ready to take of such
constructions 1 what if this harmless and innocent design of
mine should be thought a conspiracy, such a one as Gowry's ?
Then they will take an occasion to plunder me of all that I
have. I protest I never thought of this. I wish I never had
attempted any such thing." Baylie answered him "My
Lord, you know your own heart best. If there be nothing in
your intentions but what is good and justifiable, you need not
fear : if otherwise, it is never too late to repent." The Mar-
quis, hurt at this, replied, "Ah, Doctor, I thought I had
been sure of one friend, and that you would never have
harboured the least suspicion of me. God knows my heart,
I have no other intention towards his Majesty than to make
him a glorious man here, and a glorified saint hereafter."
" Then," said Baylie, "my Lord, shake off these fears with
the drowsiness that begat them Honi soit qui mal y pense."
" 0," rejoined the Marquis, " I am not of that order, but I
thank God I wear that motto about my heart, to as much
purpose as they do about their arms ; and now began," says
Baylie, " to be a little pleasant, and took a pipe of tobacco,

190 HENRY SOMERSET,

and a little aqua mirabilis, and said ' Come now let us go,
in the name of God/ crossing himself ; but I had no sooner
brought my Lord to the door of the meeting chamber than
the clock struck eleven, when I presently left my Lord in the
portal, and went to the place where I was to expect the
King. I had not been long there when he came, saying
softly ' I have escaped one danger none within my cham-
ber knows of my coming abroad this night.'" He added
" Misprisions, evil constructions, and false judgements, are
dangers worth escaping at any time ; and therefore where I
run a hazard I always escape a danger. They who carry
only their own eyes in their head, and have no other upon
them, may go which way they please, but he that hath all
the people's eyes upon him must look which way he goes ;
neither is it sufficient for him to lead their's according to the
perspicuity and quickness of his own, but he must allow them
the abatements which either the distance of the object, the
indisposition of the organ, or the mis-disposition of some bad
mediums, may require in vulgar spirits, by reason of their
incapacity of looking further than appearance."

The conference, which is given in the shape of regular
dialogue, presently follows, and it must be confessed that the
Marquis had the superiority in argument. Baylie indeed
premises in his " Epistle to the Reader" " For the Marquis
of Worcester's learning, he that knew him well knew him to
be more than ordinarily versed in controversy, especially for
a man who was no professed scholar, and a nobleman." He
also furnishes us, as we have lately seen, with the sufficient
apology, previously made by Charles, for any probable de-
ficiency on his part. A vein of good temper and cheerfulness,
with no small mixture of a dry and jocular humour, runs
through the whole of the good old nobleman's discourse, even
in the disputation itself, as well as in Baylie's report of the
circumstances which led to it. His reputation indeed as a
sayer, to use a familiar modern phrase, of good things, is on
record. An extremely scarce little volume, printed in 1658,

FIRST EARL OF WORCESTER. 391

is extant, entitled " Witty Apophthegms, delivered at several
times, and upon several occasions, by King James, King
Charles, the Marquis of Worcester, Francis Lord Bacon, and
Sir Thomas More." The memory however of his genius
would derive little honour in our day from the republication
of those which it attributes to him.

The King left Ragland in the second week of September,
1645, and the Parliament, about the same time, proceeded to
the confiscation of the estates of the Marquis and his family ;
for Whitelocke informs us that, on the twentieth of the next
month, on a petition from two persons, t( for payment for pro-
visions sent by them to Ireland, it was ordered that the pro-
fits of the estates of the Earl of Worcester, Lord Herbert,
and Sir John Somerset (his sons), should be paid to them in
part of satisfaction." Early in the succeeding spring, Ragland
Castle was besieged by a part of Fairfax's army, under the
command of a person of the name of Morgan, and at length
of Fairfax himself. " On the ninth of June, 1646," says
Whitelocke again, " letters and papers were read of trans-
actions between the Marquis of Worcester and the Commis-
sioners of Monmouth, and Lieut-General Morgan, and his
Lordship, for the surrender of Ragland Castle, which Morgan,
by command of Sir Thomas Fairfax, summoned, and the
Marquis desired liberty to send to the King, to know his
pleasure, which Morgan denied, alledging that the King was
in the army of the Scots, our friends, who had proclaimed
that none formerly in arms against the Parliament should be
admitted to any conference with him. The Marquis resolved
to stand it out to the utmost." And so he did, with a bravery
and perseverance to which the whole of that unhappy war
scarcely produced a parallel instance. Dispirited however
by the hopelessness into which the royal cause had fallen ;
exhausted of provisions and ammunition ; and deprived of
the means of procuring supplies of either ; he was at length
compelled to listen to offers of treaty. Fairfax was a gentle-
man, and his terms were liberal, except with respect to the

192 HENRY SOMERSET,

Marquis himself, as to whom it appears that he was
allowed to exercise his own discretion. On this head White-
locke has left us also the following memorandum" August
the seventeenth, 1646, letters from the leaguer before Rag-
land certify that the M. of Worcester wrote with much re-
spect to Sir Thomas Fairfax, that he honoured his family,
and was more willing to agree to his proposals than if they
had come from any other ; that he was intimately acquainted
with Sir Thomas Fairfax, his grandfather ; and other compli-
ments ; and concluded to agree to a treaty : in which all
propositions were consented to but concerning the person of
the Marquis, whom they would only admit to the mercy of
the Parliament, and that the Marquis thought hard ; and,
being eighty-four years of age, was thought the more capable
of favour and pity." He experienced indeed little of either,
for he was sent a prisoner to London, where he was com-
mitted to the custody of the Usher of the Black Rod, and
afterwards to a more severe confinement, from which within
three months he was released by death, for we find that on
the nineteenth of December following his surrender the
Parliament voted a thousand pounds for the expenses of his
funeral. His great estates were dispersed by grants to various
persons, and by sale. A considerable share of them was
given to that sour and crafty old republican the Lord Say ;
and on the seventh of March, 1647-8, to quote the words of
Whitelocke once more, "an ordinance was sent up to the
Lords, for settling lands of the Marquis of Worcester, of two
thousand five hundred pounds yearly value, on Lieutenant
General Cromwell, and his heirs, in recompence of his great
services." The whole of the sacrifices made by this noble-
man and his sons to their loyalty, in gifts heartily bestowed,
in loans never repaid, and in the entire loss at last of his
splendid patrimony, extended nearly to the enormous sum of
a million sterling.

Henry, Earl of Worcester, married Anne, only surviving
child of John Lord Russell, who died in the lifetime of his

FIRST EARL OF WORCESTER. 193

father, Francis, second Earl of Bedford of that family. He
had by that lady nine sons, and four daughters, of whom the
eldest, Edward. Lord Herbert, succeeded to his dignities :
Sir John, the second, married, and left issue ; William, and
Henry, died unmarried, as did also probably Thomas, the
fifth son, who was living in Rome towards the end of the
seventeenth century ; Charles, a canon of the Church of Cam-
bray in Flanders ; Frederic, Francis, and James, died minors.
Of the daughters, Elizabeth, Anne, who was a nun, and
Mary, were unmarried, and another Elizabeth, the youngest,
was the wife of Francis Browne, third Viscount Montagu.

TIKI IM1 AS H>0WAR

O'F ARTLNJ)EL & S
OB, 1646,

THOMAS HOWARD,

EA.RL OF ARUNDEL AND SURREY.

THIS celebrated nobleman was the only son of Philip, first
Earl of Arundel of his family, by Anne, sister and coheir of
Thomas, the last Lord Dacre, of Gillesland. It has been
stated that he was born on the seventh of July, 1592 : an un-
accountable error, in which most who have written of him
concur, while they at the same time tell us that he was tilting
in 1606; married, and had children in 1609; and was in
that year sworn a Privy Counsellor. The precise date of his
birth is not known ; but Sir Edward Walker, who could not
possibly have been mistaken, expressly tells us in his " His-
torical Discourses," that the Earl was seventeen years old
when Queen Elizabeth died, which fixes it to 1586. He re-
ceived his education at home, under the eye of his discreet
and virtuous mother, with whom he lived during the latter
years of Elizabeth's reign, in a privacy better suited to the
adverse circumstances of his family than to his rank, or, more
properly, to his hopes, for he inherited no dignity : of four
succeeding descents of his immediate predecessors two had
suffered death on the scaffold ; one was strongly suspected to
have been poisoned in the mysterious recess of his prison ;
and all were attainted. He had however in that time, by
courtesy, the title of Lord Maltravers, a Barony derived from
his great ancestors the Fitzalans.

In 1603, soon after James's accession, he was restored in
blood by act of Parliament, and to such honours as he had
lost by his father's attainder, as well as to the Earldom of
o2

190 THOMAS HOWARD,

Surrey, and to most of the Baronies which had been forfeited
by the attainder of his grandfather, Thomas, fourth Duke of
Norfolk. It was matter of surprise that the dukedom was
withheld from him, especially considering the favour in which
his uncle and great-uncle, the Earls of Suffolk and Northamp-
ton, the former Lord Treasurer, and the latter Privy Seal,
were held by the King : it is probable, however, that Suffolk
himself might have prevented that grace, with the hope of
obtaining a revival of it in his own line in the event of the
young Earl's death without issue. Soon after he came of
age, he married Alathea, third daughter and coheir of Gilbert
Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury ; a match of great advantage, for
her two elder sisters, the Countesses of Pembroke and Kent,
dying childless, the most part of her father's noble revenues
in the end devolved on her.

He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1607 ; and on the
seventeenth of June in that year the King was godfather, in
person, to his first-born son. He soon after travelled into
France and Italy, a journey which his untoward family cir-
cumstances had hitherto prevented, and during his stay in
those countries imbibed that enthusiastic affection for the
fine arts by which he was afterwards so eminently dis-
tinguished. He remained abroad till 1611, and on his return
was chosen a Knight of the Garter. The marriage of the
Princess Elizabeth to the Elector Palatine happened soon
after, and he was appointed to escort them to their dominions.
Finding himself once more on the Continent, he could not
resist the temptation of revisiting the favourite objects of his
taste : he went again into Italy, and at that time began to
form his celebrated collection. When he returned to his own
country, in 1614, he embraced the communion of the Church
of England, for he had been bred a Roman Catholic, in the
strictest austerities of that persuasion.

He experienced little favour in this reign. The familiar
coarseness of James's manners, the immoralities of that
Prince's favourites, and the general corruption of the Court,

EARL OF ARUNDEL AND SURREY. 197

were equally abhorrent to his nature and his habits. We
find him therefore for several years no otherwise publicly
employed than in the reception of Ambassadors and other
dignified ceremonies ; which suited his disposition, as well
as his rank, for no man better understood the exactness of
propriety in such matters. Two circumstances relative to
him in the performance of duties of this sort are recorded ;
the one that he had nearly lost his life by the falling of a
temporary wooden platform, in conducting Gondomar, the
Spanish Minister, to his first public audience, in 1619 ; the
other, that being appointed in the following year to visit
the Marquis de Cadenet, the French Ambassador, at Graves-
end, the Frenchman, on the Earl's arrival and departure,
advanced no further than the head of the staircase : the
Earl therefore, who was to conduct him the next morning to
London, would then meet him only in the street ; and, on
their arrival at Somerset House, would go no further than
the foot of the stairs, telling the Ambassador that his gentle-
men would show him to his lodgings. The King, who,
though without dignity, was not wanting in pride, approved
of the Earl's conduct, and the Ambassador apologised.

James, though he could not love the Earl, respected him.
It was remarked that he was the only enemy of the Duke of
Buckingham who ever .had any degree of countenance from
the King. That favourite had for a time courted him, but,
finding him too high-spirited to be bought by any practicable
means of temptation, and too honest and cool-headed to
become a regular partisan, had neglected him. The mode of
the Duke's endeavours to gain his political friendship, rather
than the slights which were subsequently put upon him,
provoked his lasting resentment towards Buckingham ; yet
the King, on the removal of Bacon in 1621, nominated him a
Commissioner for holding the Great Seal, and, on the twenty-
ninth of August, in the same year, appointed, or rather
restored, him to the place of Earl Marshal of England. His
endeavours in that exalted oifice to maintain the just and

198 THOMAS HOWARD,

wholesome weight of the aristocracy were generally wise and
moderate : " Had all men in power," says Sir Edward
Walker, " had but the same inclinations, the great and fatal
period these times have brought on all of them possibly had
not been." Walker, however, was Garter King of Arms, and
perhaps somewhat prejudiced by his official habits ; and it
must be confessed that the Earl's foible was a too vehement
affection to the ancient nobility. The amiable and high-
spirited Lord Spencer, a new Peer, but the heir of a long line
of wealthy and irreproachable progenitors, who had lived
quietly on their great estates, happening in a debate in the
House of Lords to use some allusions to the conduct of noble-
men in former times, the Earl of Arundel said, " My Lord,
when those things were doing your ancestors were keeping
sheep." Spencer, with a happy quickness of reply, but very
unjustly, answered, " When my ancestors, as you say, were
keeping sheep, yours were plotting treason." This matter
was taken up by the Peers with great warmth, and the Earl
was committed to the Tower, from whence he was soon after
released, on James's personal intercession with the House.

No concessions however could induce him to any cordiality
with the Court while Buckingham remained at its head. We
find him therefore the steady, but dignified and moderate
opponent to it at the commencement of the succeeding reign.
Charles continued him in his office of Earl Marshal, and
appointed him one of the supporters to himself at the funeral
of the deceased King ; a Commissioner for determining claims
at his coronation, and for making such Knights of the Bath as
were chosen for that occasion ; and immediately after, by one
of those intemperate acts which too frequently occurred in
that unfortunate reign, disgusted him perhaps irreparably.
The Earl's eldest surviving son, Henry Frederic Lord Mal-
travers, had wedded the Lady Elizabeth Stuart, sister of the
Duke of Lennox, and related to Charles, who had designed
to marry her to the Lord Lome, heir to the Earl of Argyll,
and so to reconcile the ancient feuds between those two

EARL OF ARUNDEL AND SURREY. 199

powerful Scottish Houses. The match had been made by
the Duchess of Lennox and the Countess of Arundel, and
the Earl, on being angrily taxed with it by the King, utterly
denied any previous knowledge of it : he was however,
together with his lady, confined to his house of Horsely, in
Surrey, and soon after committed to the Tower, solely by the
authority of a royal warrant, in which the nature of his
offence was not stated. This happened while the Parliament
was sitting ; and the Peers presently complained of it in
repeated petitions, as a serious invasion of their privileges, to
which they received for answer that " the Earl of Arundel
was restrained for a misdemeanor personal to the King, which
lay in his proper knowledge, and had no relation to matters
of Parliament." The Lords, however, continued firm, and
reiterated their claims in a bold remonstrance ; and Charles,
after a contest which lasted nearly three months, set the Earl
at liberty on the eighth of June, 1626.

After the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham he came
again to the Court, and soon acquired a cousiderable share of
favour and confidence. In 1631 he was appointed a Commis-
sioner to examine into the extravagant fees exacted in Courts
of Justice and public offices, and in 1633 attended the King
at his coronation in Scotland : in the same year he was
deputed Ambassador extraordinary to the States General,
and was made Chief Justice of the forests north of Trent.
But his most important public service about that period was
in an embassy in 1636 to the Emperor Ferdinand the Second,
and the Imperial Diet, on the subject of the restoration of the
Palatinate to the Elector, Charles's nephew, a measure which
the King had so entirely at heart that he could not have
given a stronger proof of his confidence in the Earl's wisdom,
as well as in his fidelity, than by entrusting it to his manage-
ment. The misson however proved unsuccessful ; and the
Earl having passed nine months in Germany, during which
he expended not less than forty thousand pounds from his
own private fortune in augmenting his already splendid

200 THOMAS HOWARD,

library and cabinet, returned to London, and was received by
the King with peculiar marks of grace and approbation. A
journal of the occurrences which took place in this voyage
was published in :the succeeding year by William Crowne,
gent., a book now of extreme rarity.

In 1637 the memorable opposition to the liturgy and the
hierarchy broke out in Scotland, and Charles, after many
fruitless endeavours to negociate, determined to have recourse
to arms. He appointed the Earl of Arundel Commander in
Chief of the forces raised for that purpose, but his military
services were superseded by a new treaty, in which he was
the first Commissioner. He was soon after placed in the
office of Steward of the Royal Household ; and in 1640,
during Charles's absence at York, was nominated General in
Chief of the country south of Trent, where it was the King's
intention to have raised a powerful army. The violence,
however, which marked the meeting of the Long Parliament
gave a sudden turn to all public affairs, and prevented the
effect both of his civil and military commissions. One of its
first measures was the impeachment of the Earl of Strafford,
at whose trial Arundel presided as Lord High Steward, with
a judgment and impartiality which was admired by all parties.
It fell also to his lot to be deputed to give the royal assent to
those two fatal bills which cost Charles his crown and his
life, and deluged the country in blood ; the bill of attainder
against Strafford, and that by which it was enacted that the
Parliament should not be dissolved but by its own consent.

Soon after, that is to say in June 1641, he presented a
petition, supported by another from several Peers of great
worth and power, beseeching the King to restore him to the
dukedom ; but Charles, for some unknown reasons, would
favour him no further than by the grant of a patent creating
him Earl of Norfolk. Disgusted by this half measure, and
foreseeing the dreadful storm which was then gathering, he
determined to quit his country ; and the King favoured his
design by appointing him to escort the Queen's mother, Mary

EARL OF ARUNDEL AND SURREY. 201

de Medicis, Queen Dowager of France, to end there her sor-
rowful days in security. His family accompanied him, and
he returned alone early in the following winter, and remained
in England till February, when the King gave him another
opportunity of leaving it, by deputing him to attend to
Holland Henrietta Maria, and her daughter the Princess Mary,
who had been married in the preceding summer to William
Prince of Orange. He returned no more. After a short stay
in the United Provinces, he went to Antwerp ; and from
thence, leaving there his Countess, whom he never met again,
to Spa. He wandered slowly over most parts of France and
Italy, and at last settled at Padua. He was attended in this
long and various journeying by two of his grandsons, who,
from having been his prime comforts, became now the causes
of his greatest misery : Thomas, the elder, by being suddenly
seized by an incurable insanity ; and Philip, the third, by an
obstinate determination not only to embrace the Roman
Catholic communion, but to become a member of its priest-
hood. The Earl died at Padua, on the fourth of October,
1646, and was buried at Arundel.

The character of this magnificent nobleman has been in
some respects very differently represented; on the higher
parts of it, however, little doubt can be entertained. The
main-spring of his whole conduct appears to have been, in
the strictest meaning of the phrase, a true sense of honour,
which manifested itself in every instance of his demeanour
towards all sorts of persons, in all sorts of dealings. His
loyalty was pure, though without personal regard to the
Sovereign ; his religious faith (and here his memory has been
most unjustly traduced) sincere and steady, but without
ostentation ; his friendships, though not warm, were unalter-
able ; and his enmities, though violent, were never disgraced
by the common intemperate illiberalities of resentment. His
affection to his own offspring, which was remarkably constant,
is said to have been without the usual signs of fondness and
endearment. He seems to have been left at leisure, uninter-

202 THOMAS HOWARD,

rupted by the extravagance of any passion, sentiment, or
appetite, to mark out, and pursue an undeviating line of irre-
proachable conduct; and such a character will always be
misunderstood. He had many enemies, for he was the
proudest man in the world among his equals, though the
most affable towards his inferiors. He has been largely
described by a writer of each of those classes ; the great Earl
of Clarendon, and Sir Edward Walker. The former, though
evidently anxious to censure, has been at a loss to discover
vulnerable parts in his character : the latter, though. bound
by many motives to praise him, honestly allows him some
faults. Let them speak for themselves.

" The Earl of Arundel," says Lord Clarendon, " was gene-
rally thought to be a proud man, who lived always within
himself, and to himself, conversing little with any who were
in common conversation ; so that he seemed to live as it were
in another nation, his house being a place to which all people
resorted who resorted to no other place ; strangers, or such
who affected to look like strangers, and dressed themselves
accordingly. He resorted sometimes to the Court, because
there was only a greater man than himself : and went thither
the seldomer, because there was a greater man than himself.
He lived towards all favourites and great officers without any
kind of condescension, and rather suffered himself to be ill-
treated by their power and authority (for he was often in
disgrace and once or twice prisoner in the Tower) than to
descend in making any application to them. And upon these
occasions he spent a great interval of his time in several
journeys into foreign parts, and, with his wife and family,
had lived some years in Italy, the humour and manners of
which nation he seemed most to like and approve, and
affected to imitate. He had a good fortune by descent, and
a much greater from his wife, who was the sole daughter upon
the matter, (for neither of the two sisters left any issue,) of
the great house of Shrewsbury, but his expenses were without
any measure, and always exceeded very much his revenue.

EARL OP ARUNDEL AND SURREY. 203

He was willing to be thought a scholar, and to understand
the most mysterious parts of antiquity, because he made a
wonderful and costly purchase of excellent statues whilst he
was in Italy and in Rome (some whereof he could never
obtain permission to remove from Rome though he had paid
for them), and had a [rare collection of the most curious
medals. As to all parts of learning he was most illiterate,
and thought no other" part of history so considerable as what
related to his own family, in which no doubt there had been
some very memorable persons. It cannot be denied that he
had in his person, in his aspect, and countenance, the appear-
ance of a great man, which he preserved in his gait and
motion. He wore and affected a habit very different from
that of the time, such as men had only beheld in the pictures
of the most considerable men, all which drew the eyes of
most, and the reverence of many, towards him, as the image
and representative of the primitive nobility, and native gra-
vity of the nobles, when they had been most venerable ; but
this was only his outside, his nature and true humour being
much disposed to levity, and delights which indeed were
very despicable and childish. He was rather thought not to
be much concerned for religion than to incline to this or that
party of any, and had little other affection for the nation, or
the kingdom, than as he had a great share in it, in which,
like the great leviathan, he might sport himself, from which
he withdrew as soon as he discerned the repose thereof was
like to be disturbed, and died in Italy, under the same
doubtful character of religion in which he lived."

Sir Edward Walker speaks of him thus " He was tall of
stature, and of shape and proportion rather goodly than neat.
His countenance was majestical and grave ; his visage long ;
his eyes large, black, and piercing : he had a hooked nose,
and some warts or moles on his cheeks : his countenance was
brown ; his hair thin, both on his head and beard : he was of
a stately presence and gait, so that any man that saw him,
though in never so ordinary a habit, could not but conclude

204 THOMAS HOWARD,

him to be a great person, his garb and fashion drawing more
observation than did the rich apparel of others ; so that it
was a common saying of the late Earl of Carlisle, ' Here
comes the Earl of Arundel, in his plain stuff, and trunk
hose, and his beard in his teeth, that looks more like a noble-
man than any of us.' He was more learned in men and
manners than in books, yet understood the Latin tongue very
well, and was master of the Italian ; besides, he was a great
favourer of learned men, such as Sir Robert Cotton, Sir
Henry Spelman, Mr. Camden, Mr. Selden, and the like. He
was a great master of order and ceremony, and knew, and
kept greater distance towards his sovereign than any person
I ever observed, and expected no less from his inferiors, often
complaining that the too great affability of the King, and the
French garb of the Court, would bring Majesty into con-
tempt. In council he was grave and succinct, rather dis-
charging his conscience and honour than complying with
particular interests, and so was never at the head of business,
or principal in favour, contenting himself to be, as it were,
the supporter of ancient nobility and gentry, and to interpose
in their behalf ; witness the care he had in the education of
the now Earl of Oxford, and the young Lord Stafford, in his
own house, together with his grandchildren : yet wanted he
not a share of the royal favours, as may appear by the
many employments he had under King James, and the late
King, the first of which I believe loved him more, and the
last had him in greater veneration and regard, though not in
intimacy of favour, he being a person by years, quality, and
parts, of an austere disposition, and not so complaisant as
other persons that had more of ends. He was the greatest
favourer of arts, especially painting, sculpture, designs, car-
ving, building, and the like, that this age hath produced ;
his collections of designs being more than of any person liv-
ing, and his statues equal in number, value, and antiquity, to
those in the houses of most princes ; to gain which he had
persons many years employed, both in Italy, Greece, and so

EARL OF ARUNDEL AND SURREY. 205

generally in any part of Europe where rarities were to be
had. His paintings likewise were numerous, and of the most
excellent masters, having more of that exquisite painter Hans
Holbein than are in the world besides ; and he had the honour
to be the first person of quality that set a value on them in
our nation; and so the first person that brought in uniformity
in building, and was chief commissioner to see it performed
in London, which since that time has added exceedingly to
the beauty of that city. He was likewise sumptuous in his
plate, and household stuff, and full of state and magnificence
in his entertainments, especially of strangers, and at his table
very free and pleasant. He was a person of great and uni-
versal civility, but yet with that restriction as that it forbad
any to be bold or saucy with him ; though with those whom
he affected, which were lovers of State, nobility, and curious
arts, he was very free and conversible, but they being but
few, the stream of the times being otherwise, he had not
many confidents qr dependants, neither did he much affect
to have them, they being unto great persons both burthen-
some and dangerous. He was not popular at all, nor cared
for it, as loving better by a just hand than flattery to let the
common people to know their distance, and due observance :
neither was he of any faction in Court or Council, especially
not of the French or puritan. He was free from covetousness,
and so much above a bribe or gratuity for favours done, as no
person ever durst tempt him with one. He was in religion
no bigot or puritan, and professed more to affect moral virtues
than nice questions and controversies. He was most faithful
and affectionate to his lady, indulgent to his children, and
more to his grandchildren. His recreations were conversation
with them, and care of their education ; overlooking his rare
collections, and, , when not diverted by business, pleasing
himself in retirement to the country. If he were defective
in anything it was that he could not bring his mind to his
fortune, which, though great, was far too little for the vast-
ness of his noble designs ; but it is pardonable, they being

206 THOMAS HOWARD,

only for the glory and ornament of his country. To conclude,
he would have appeared far more eminent had the times he
lived in heen more consonant to his disposition : however,
as they were, he must by all wise and noble persons be
looked upon as the greatest assertor of the splendour and
greatness of the Crown, and the ancient honour of the
nobility and gentry, that lived in his time, and as the last
great and excellent person that our age of peace hath bred."

As a cultivator of the fine arts, a patron of their professors,
and a collector of their finest monuments, the Earl of Arundel
stands beyond all praise. His unwearied pains, and un-
bounded expense, in amassing the largest and choicest
treasure of Greek and Roman antiquities that was ever
possessed by an English subject, have perhaps procured
him credit for more learning than he really had. Indeed
it is little probable that such a man, in such an age, should
have been a minute scholar ; but, whatever were the degree
of his literature, his sagacity and his taste directed it to the
noblest means of national improvement. He had almost the
sole merit of first diverting the occupation of learned men
from the wretched and unprofitable cavils of the schools to
the classical elegances of antiquity. He encouraged them by
his example ; supported them with his purse ; placed full in
their view the most splendid memorials of that ancient per-
fection which he wished them to emulate ; and founded a
new sera in the studies of his countrymen. It is somewhat
strange that he should not have taken all possible precautions
to fix his unparalleled collection always in the possession of
his male heirs ; and indeed his apparent carelessness on that
head might lead us to suppose that he rather wished it to be
dispersed, as in fact it was within a few years after his
decease. He divided his personal estate between his eldest
and second surviving sons, Henry Frederic Lord Maltravers,
and William, afterwards Viscount Stafford. Henry, second
son of the former, and sixth Duke of Norfolk, about the year
1668, gave a part of his moiety, the celebrated Parian Chro-

EARL OF ARUNDEL AND SURREY. 207

nicies, as they are called, to the University of Oxford, and
the remainder descended to his son, Henry, the seventh Duke,
and were afterwards mostly possessed, we know not by what
means, by his divorced lady. She sold the statues to the
Earl of Pomfret (whose widow gave them also to that Uni-
versity) and left the gems to her second husband, Sir John
Gerrnaine, whose second wife, Lady Elizabeth (Berkeley)
owned them, in her widowhood, not many years since. Lord
Stafford's portion remained with his heirs till 1720, and was
in that year sold by auction, at his house, called Tart Hall,
just without Buckingham Gate, which was then pulled down.
Some curious relics of the collection fell into the hands of the
Hon. Charles Howard, ancestor to the present Duke of Nor-
folk, as residuary legatee to his grandmother, the Dowager
Countess Alathea, and were by him carried to his mansion of
Greystock Castle, where they still remain.

Thomas Earl of Arundel married, as has been before said,
Alathea, one of the coheirs of George Talbot Earl of Shrews-
bury. He had issue by that lady six sons ; James, Lord
Mowbray and Maltravers, who died a minor, and unmarried,
at Ghent in Flanders, while abroad with his mother : Henry
Frederic, who succeeded to the Earldom, and was progenitor
of all the noble persons who have since his time enjoyed the
Dukedom of Norfolk ; William, from whom descended the
extinct Earls of Stafford ; Thomas, Gilbert, and Charles, who
died unmarried in the lifetime of their father.

"Walker px

EARL OE ESSEX.
OB, 1646,

ROBERT DEVEREUX,

EARL OF ESSEX.

THAT admirable, imprudent, and ill-fated nobleman of the
same names, almost the only royal favourite on whose me-
mory that appellation throws no discredit, left, by his
Countess, Frances, daughter and heir to Sir Francis Walsing-
ham, and widow of Sir Philip Sidney, an only son, the
subject of this memoir, and the third and last Earl of Essex
of his ancient Norman House.

He was born in 1592, and was restored in the twelfth year
of his age by James the First to the dignities, as he was
afterwards to the estates, which had been forfeited by his
father's attainder, soon after which period he was removed
from Eton School to Merton College, where in 1605 he took
the degree of Master of Arts. He is said to have been
at that time a favourite companion to Prince Henry, and
a story, perhaps not very well authenticated, is extant of the
Prince having received a heavy blow from him in a quarrel
at tennis, a circumstance into which the King inquired with
becoming seriousness, and decided on it with good sense and
moderation. In this season of mere boyhood he was un-
happily chosen as an instrument for the reconciliation of
jarring interests, and the furtherance of ambitious views.
The enmity between his father and the family of Cecil
is well known to all readers of English history. Robert,
Earl of Salisbury, now Prime Minister, at once anxious to
close this breach, and to attach more firmly the House of
Howard to his party, proposed to the Earl of Suffolk, a

iv. p

210 ROBERT DEVEREUX,

nobleman hourly rising in the royal favour, and to whose
eldest daughter his own heir was already married, the young
Essex, as a husband to the second, the Lady Frances Howard,
who had then barely reached the age of thirteen. The nego-
tiation was speedily concluded; the marriage was solemnized
on the fifth of January, 1606, 0. S. ; and in consideration of
the extreme youth of the parties, Essex was despatched on
foreign travel, having been permitted scarcely to see his bride
after the celebration of their nuptials.

The young Countess remained domesticated with her
mother, a thorough courtier, and one to whom the world gave
little credit for principle of any sort. She became eminently
beautiful and profligate ; was addressed, and perhaps success-
fully, by the Prince of Wales ; but at length, with a steadi-
ness unusual to females of her unhappy disposition, devoted
herself to the embraces of the favourite, Car, Viscount
Rochester, afterwards Earl of Somerset. Essex, on return-
ing to England in 1610, was received by her with coldness
and disgust ; and it was with much difficulty, though aided
by the stern authority of her father, that he could induce her
even to the decency of residing in the same house with him.
Her aversion soon increased to the deepest hatred. For the
double purpose of managing her intercourse with Rochester,
and of persecuting her husband even to death itself, she
connected herself with a notorious procuress, and with a base
pretender to supernatural arts. Essex, though sinking at
once under incessant distress of mind, and the diabolical
practices secretly contrived by these confederates for the
gradual destruction of his bodily health, resolved rather
to submit in silence than to make a public exposure of his
misery ; and thus more than two years passed, in expecta-
tion on the part of the lady that she might be released either
by his death or his resentment, from the tie which she had
thus dishonoured, till at length, in the madness of dis-
appointed appetite, she instituted a suit against him in the
summer of 1613, founded on charges which none but a

EARL OF ESSEX. 211

woman who had parted with the last spark of delicacy could
have been capable of preferring.

To detail the judicial proceedings in this odious affair, and
the frightful consequences which resulted from it, would
extend this memoir beyond any reasonable length, as well as
impose a painful task on the author. Most of our historians,
especially Wilson, in his life of James, have analysed it
and argued on it with a particularity very offensive, and even
unnecessary; for had not the King, in shameful submission
to the will of his minion, made himself a party, it could
scarcely have been deemed proper matter of public history.
To his interference may be traced much of the infamy, and
all the injustice, which marked this singular case, in which
the purity of the religion and law of the land was noto-
riously outraged by the timid and courtly truckling of the
judges and prelates, to whom the question had been referred
by commission under the Great Seal. At length, after a
tedious inquiry, the most inoffensive character of the evi-
dence received in which was its gross indecency, Essex was
induced to make an indistinct allowance of the truth of the
Countess's allegations, and a sentence of nullity of marriage
was pronounced on the twenty-fifth of September : he was
compelled to restore her portion, which he accomplished with
great difficulty; and on the twenty-sixth of the following
December she was wedded to her paramour, with much
pomp, in the King's chapel.

Mortified, indignant and helpless, he retired to his ancient
castle of Chartley in Staffordshire, where he remained for
seven years, exercising in a confined circle the hospitality
suited to his rank, when at length he was prevailed on by
his friend Henry Vere, Earl of Oxford, to join him in raising
troops to serve in the Palatinate, whither they went on an
unsuccessful expedition in the spring of 1620, and in the
following year served there as volunteers under Prince Mau-
rice of Nassau. On the close of that campaign he returned,
and appeared in Parliament in opposition to the measures of
p 2

212 ROBERT DEVEREUX,

the Court, and excited James's displeasure by signing, with
several others of the nobility, a petition against the intercep-
tion of the precedence of the ancient Barons of England by a
practice, into which the King had lately fallen, of bestowing
the titles of Earl and Viscount in Scotland and Ireland
on English gentlemen. James is said to have expressed him-
self to him, in a personal conversation on this occasion, with
great asperity, insomuch that the Earl thought it prudent
again to return to military service in Germany ; and when
the States of the United Provinces were permitted, in 1625,
to levy four English regiments, he was nominated to com-
mand one of them, as he did, with small success, but without
loss of honour. He revisited England on the accession of
Charles the First, who presently after appointed him General
in Chief in an expedition against Spain, which proved even
more unfortunate than the rest of his services ; yet, so ena-
moured was he of a military life, or rather so eager to
dissipate his cares in the activity which it requires, that,
having allowed himself barely time to explain personally to
the King the causes of his failure, he again embarked for
the Low Countries, and resumed the command of his regi-
ment, which having been soon after much reduced by sick-
ness, was incorporated with the remains of others, and he
seems to have returned home merely because he foun
himself unemployed.

A long interval of private life again ensued, during which
he once more ventured to form a matrimonial connexion, and
was once more unfortunate. The lady was Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir William Powlett, of Edington in Wilts,
a natural son of the Marquis of Winchester. She disgraced
herself by an intrigue with a Mr. Uvedale, and was divorced
within two years after her marriage, having had a son of
doubtful paternity, whom the Earl however owned, and who
died at the age of five years. This new calamity perhaps
increased his desire for active occupation, for we find him
soon after commanding, with the title of Vice Admiral, a

EVRL OP ESSEX. 213

squadron appointed for the defence ;of the coast on some
expectation of a war with France and the United Provinces.
His taste, if the expression may be allowed, for warlike ser-
vice, joined perhaps to a politic inclination in the King to
atone for past injuries, and to secure the attachment of a
nobleman whose undoubted honesty had placed him high in
popular esteem, induced Charles to give him the commission
of Lieutenant General, under the Earl of Arundel, of the
army sent in 1639 against the Scottish Covenanters. He
was directed to advance with a powerful body of troops
against Berwick, and was met on his way thither by several
of the nobility, who, with many hypocritical professions
of loyalty, assured him that the insurrection was confined
solely to the maintenance of their religious faith, and
exhorted him to avoid, by retracing his steps, the certainty
of falling into the hands of an overwhelming force. Essex
heard them with a dignified civility ; replied by expediting
his march ; and, having entered Berwick without opposition,
presently discovered that the rebels were in fact without an
army. In the meantime the insidious negotiators whom he
had thus disappointed, applied themselves with better success
to the General, and to the Earl of Holland who commanded
the Horse, and, through the unpardonable representations of
those noblemen, aided by the advice of some great presby-
terian leaders about his person, Charles was induced to enter
on that wretched treaty with the Scots which was the fore-
runner of so many misfortunes, at a moment when "the
fighting English-hearted Essex" (as Sir Philip Warwick,
in speaking of this affair, calls him) could have reduced
them to submission merely with his own division of the
forces which had been equipped for that purpose.

The chagrin excited in his mind by this unexpected deter-
mination was heightened by personal offence. " The Earl of
Essex," says Lord Clarendon, " who had merited very well
throughout the whole affair, and had never made a false step
in action or counsel, was discharged in the crowd without ordi-

214 ROBERT DEVEREUX,

nary ceremony ; and an accident happening at the same time,
or very soon after, by the death of the Lord Aston, whereby
the command of the forest of Needwood fell into the King's
disposal, which lay at the very door of that Earl's estate, and
would infinitely have gratified him, was denied to him, and
bestowed upon another ; all which wrought very much upon
his high nature, and made him susceptible of some impres-
sions afterwards, which otherwise would not have found such
easy admission." Essex, who, with an honest heart and
a weak head, cherished the most exalted notions of the
dignity of his birth and station, presently betrayed the vexa-
tion which he felt from these slights, but it was not till the
discontented had evidently in some measure availed them-
selves of it, that Charles endeavoured by several courtesies
to repair the error which had been committed. A sort of
contest for the possession of him now arose between the two
parties. The King named him one of the Commissioners for
the treaty with the Scots at Ripon ; called him to the Privy
Council ; and in May, 1641, appointed him Lord Chamber-
lain of the Household, and soon after Lieutenant General
south of Trent ; while the Parliament pressed for his being
placed in the chief command of the army ; the Lords elected
him chairman of what they called their standing committee,
to which in fact they delegated their functions during ad-
journments ; and the Commons, when they petitioned the
King for a guard, under the pretence of ensuring their safety
amidst the popular tumults which they themselves had
raised, made it a part of their request that it might be placed
under his orders. The factious party prevailed. When the
King, on quitting his capital in January 1642, to avoid the
outrageous disturbances which followed his visit to the
House of Commons to demand the five members, required
as usual the attendance of his household, Essex refused,
alleging the necessity of attending his duty in Parliament.
He was dismissed therefore from his office of Lord Cham-
berlain, and from that moment publicly threw himself

EARL OF ESSEX. 215

wholly into the hands of the rebels, who in the following
July appointed him General in Chief of their army, then
raising ; the Parliament adding to their vote to that effect the
singular declaration that they would " live and die with him."
A minute detail of his military operations and their effects
Would be in fact a history of the first three years of the
deplorable war which succeeded, and would suit neither the
intention nor the space of a memoir like this. On the ninth
of September, 1642, Essex left London in great state,
escorted by the two Houses of Parliament, to assume his
command at Northampton, from whence, at the head of
fifteen thousand men, he marched across the country, hang-
ing on the rear of the King's army, which was on its way
from Shrewsbury to London. A sharp rencounter, in which
a strong detachment of his troops was routed near Worces-
ter by a party under Prince Rupert, encouraged the King to
turn on him, and the sanguinary battle of Edgehill ensued,
distinguished by much bravery, and many errors, on both
sides, and in which it was difficult to name the victor.
Essex however retreated to Warwick, and Charles having
marched to Oxford, the Earl contrived to pass him, and the
King became in his turn the pursuer, yet not so closely as to
prevent Essex from entering London, where he received the
thanks of both Houses, and a present of five thousand pounds.
These greetings were interrupted by the arrival in the neigh-
bourhood of Brentford of the royal army, and the Earl rein-
forced by the trained bands, left the city to meet it. The
opponents faced each other for a whole day, and the onset
was every minute expected, when the King suddenly drew
off his forces in good order, and retreated unmolested to
Oxford, which became soon after the scene of a treaty with
the Parliament, on the abortive termination of which Essex
marched towards that city, intending, as was conceived, to
besiege it, and attempt to seize the King's person, but he
suddenly directed his course to Reading, which, after a short
siege capitulated on the twenty-seventh of April, 1643.

216 ROBERT DEVEREUX,

A violent sickness which now raged in his army combined
with a deficiency of necessary supplies, to detain him in a
state of inactivity for several weeks in that town, from whence
at length he removed his quarters to Thame, on the edge of
Buckinghamshire, where the royalists lay in considerable
force. Here his outposts were harassed by Prince Rupert
with signal success, particularly in the affair of Chalgrave
Field, where Hampden was among the slain. Here too he
quarrelled with Waller, the best of his subordinate generals,
and from hence he was obliged to retire to Uxbridge by the
arrival of the Queen at Oxford, with a strong reinforcement
of troops and artillery. These adverse matters occurred at
a period when the expectations of his employers were raised
to the highest. He became unpopular; doubtful of the
success, and yet more of the justice, of the enterprise in
which he had embarked ; and perhaps almost repentant. In
this temper of mind he addressed to the House of Commons
a letter of a most singular character, which may be found in
Rushworth's Collections, but has been scarcely noticed by
our historians, in which he seriously proposed that the King
and the Parliament should mutually bind themselves to rest
the decision of their great contest on the issue of a single
battle ; and that, in order thereto, the whole of the two
armies might be drawn out on an appointed spot, in readi-
ness to engage on receiving the word. The rulers how-
ever in London, sensible of the importance to their cause not
only of his military merit but of his mere name, presently
took measures to soothe this splenetic disposition. They
recruited his army with all possible expedition, and on the
twenty-ninth of August he set out, at the head of twenty
thousand men, towards Gloucester, before which town, then
so important to the interests of home commerce, Charles had
for some time lain with a considerable force. After a
march, some peculiar obstructions to which he displayed
considerable skill in avoiding, he compelled the King to
raise the siege at the moment that the garrison was reduced

EARL OF ESSEX. 217

to the last extremity, and on his return surprised Cirencester,
where he captured two regiments of the Royal Horse, with
abundance of ammunition and provisions, deposited there
for the service of the army which had been employed before
Gloucester.

He now marched Vith renewed spirits towards London,
followed closely by Charles, who sought to bring him to a
general engagement, and succeeded. This severe action,
distinguished as " the first battle of Newbury," confirmed
his military reputation. " Without doubt it was performed
by him," says Lord Clarendon, " with incomparable conduct
and courage, in every part whereof very much was to be
imputed to his own personal virtue, and it may be well
reckoned among the most soldierly actions of this unhappy
war." Yet it was but a drawn battle, for the King pursued
him on the following day ; withdrew from the pursuit but
to fix a garrison in Reading, an object of great importance to
his affairs in that part of the country ; and even disappointed
many of his own best friends by not pressing forwards to
London. The Parliament however affected to esteem it a
victory on their part, and ordered a public thanksgiving, and
sent the Speaker with their acknowledgments to the Earl,
who came to town for a day or two for the purpose of cere-
moniously receiving them. New jealousies however pre-
sently arose. A committee was elected for recruiting and
reforming the army, which weakened his command, and the
ruling faction, which secretly aimed at the complete over-
throw of the constitution for which he fondly but sincerely
thought he was fighting, anxious to place the army in the
hands of their own creatures, left no vexatious artifice
untried to drive him to a resignation. Thus in the spring of
1644, when by a well-contrived disposition of his forces
about Oxford it had become even more than probable that
the King's person might fall into his hands, they forbade
him by a short and peremptory letter to receive his majesty's
surrender without their express orders. Charles however

218 ROBERT DEVEREUX,

fortunately found means to withdraw himself from the town,
and Essex, on commanding Waller to pursue him, had the
mortification to be answered by argument instead of obedi-
ence. Waller even wrote to the Parliament, remonstrating
against the orders of his general, and Essex, in a consequent
letter of explanation to them, not deficient however in high
spirit, condescended to subscribe himself "your innocent,
though suspected, servant."

It was indeed the innocence, the honour, of his intentions
that rendered him obnoxious to the faction which was now
rapidly mounting into sovereign rule. The part which he
had taken in the great contest was wholly uninfluenced by
selfish views, and he had never entertained a thought of
applying the mighty engine which had been placed in his
hands to any other purpose than the attainment of a clear
and honest definition of the regal and ecclesiastical powers.
The party, soon after publicly headed by Cromwell, which
was already contending for superiority in Parliament with
those who thought, or affected to think, with Essex, aimed,
on the other hand, at the total overthrow of monarchy, few
steps towards which could be taken while he held the con>
mand of the army. It would however have been unsafe to
break with him at present. He was allowed, therefore,
after the King had escaped from Oxford, to march into the
west, where he possessed himself of Weymouth ; relieved
Lyme, which had been for some time besieged by Prince
Maurice ; and proposed to lay siege to Exeter, but was
induced, contrary to his own judgment, to advance into
Cornwall. Charles, urged rather by ill fortune in other
parts of the country than by any sanguine hope of success
in that, followed him, and Essex presently found himself
cooped up on a narrow peninsula, with no alternative but
to engage at great disadvantage, or to withdraw by sea.
Neither, and yet it may be said both, occurred. After
several skirmishes, Essex's forces passed, almost miraculously,
through the King's quarters in the dead of night ; and the

EARL OF ESSEX. 219

Earl himself embarked at Fowey, and sailed to Plymouth,
and from thence in a man-of-war to London, where he was
received with that exactness of respect which politicians
generally show to those against whom they cherish secret
designs.

Here ceased his active services in the cause which he had
unhappily pledged himself to support. He was once more
seen at the head of the army, when it was assembled to
attack the King on his return from the west, and was pre-
sently after taken ill, and visited with great ceremony by a
committee of the two Houses, to propose, as Whitlocke
insinuates, under the mask of affectionate regard to his wel-
fare, that he should in future forbear to expose his person
in any military engagement. Be this as it might, it is cer-
tain that he was not present in the second battle of Newbury,
which speedily followed ; as well as that the orders which
he thought proper to issue in consequence of that action >
were made the grounds of new complaints against him. It
was now systematically resolved to tempt him by unceasing
mortifications to resign ; till at length, in spite of his natural
phlegm, he was roused into resentful opposition, and deter-
mined, in concert with several of the original authors of the
rebellion, who were now struggling to disengage themselves
from the gripe of the monsters whom they had unwittingly
created, to impeach Cromwell in Parliament. A conference
to that effect was held at Essex House, in which the two
celebrated lawyers, Whitlocke and Maynard, were parties.
They discouraged the idea, and there is good reason to sus-
pect that they imparted the design to Cromwell. The
famous self-denying ordinance followed, which left to Essex
only the choice between relinquishing his seat in Parliament,
or his command ; and he accordingly resigned the latter on
the fifth of April, 1645, at a conference between the Lords
and Commons, who on the following day complimented him
with a personal visit at his house to offer their thanks for
his services.

220 ROBERT DEVEREUX,

He was spared from the regret of witnessing the consum-
mation of the mischief in the compassing of which he had
taken so large a share. In the beginning of September, in
the following year, he was suddenly attacked by an illness,
which, as its nature was not at all understood, was, ac-
cording to the frequent fancy of that time, ascribed to poison,
and died on the fourteenth of that month. Of his character
nothing has been said in the preceding sketch, because we
have already a picture so glowing, so simple, so candid,
from the hand of the .greatest master, that it would be im-
pertinent to presume to add even the slightest tint. Of the
Earl of Essex, says Lord Clarendon, u it shall suffice to say
that a weak judgement, and some vanity, and much pride,
will hurry a man into as unwarrantable and as violent
attempts as the greatest and most unlimited and insatiable
ambition will do. He had no ambition of title, or office, or
preferment, but only to be kindly looked upon, and kindly
spoken to, and quietly to enjoy his own fortune ; and, with-
out doubt, no man in his nature more abhorred rebellion
than he did ; nor could he have been led into it by any
open and transparent temptation, but by a thousand dis-
guises and cousenages. His pride supplied his want of
ambition, and he was angry to see any other man more
respected than himself, because he thought he deserved it
more, and did better requite it ; for he was in his friendship
just and constant, and would not have practised foully
against those whom he took to be enemies. No man had
credit enough with him to corrupt him in point of loyalty
to the King whilst he thought himself wise enough to know
what treason was ; but the new doctrine and distinction of
allegiance, and of the King's power in and out of Parliament,
and the new notions of ordinances, were too hard for him,
and did really intoxicate his understanding, and made him
quit his own to follow theirs who he thought wished as well,
and judged better than himself. His vanity disposed him to
be l His Excellency/ and his weakness to believe that he

EARL OF ESSEX. 221

should be ' the General ' in the Houses as well as in the
Field ; and be able to govern their counsels, and restrain their
passions, as well as to fight their battles ; and that by this
means he should become the protector, and not the destroyer,
of the King and kingdom. With this ill-grounded confi-
dence he launched out into that sea where he met with
nothing but rocks and shelves, and from whence he could
never discover any safe port to harbour in."

CAPEL

OB, 1648,

ARTHUR, LORD CAPEL.

LORD CLARENDON has drawn the public character of this
admirable person with a knowledge so intimate, and an affec-
tion so sincere, and with such strength and exquisite sweet-
ness of expression, that he who might be arrogant enough to
add a single touch to so masterly a picture, could not but in-
fringe on its truth and weaken its effect. I shall therefore
relate little more than the mere circumstances of his life, and
the simple detail will be found to furnish one of the brightest
ornaments on the page of English history.

He was the only son of Sir Henry Capel, by his first wife,
Theodosia, sister to Henry Montague, Earl of Manchester.
His father died, having scarcely reached the prime of life,
and he was bred under the care of his grandfather, Sir Arthur
Capel, of Hadham, in Hertfordshire, whom at length he suc-
ceeded in the inheritance of a vast fortune, which had been
gained in trade, in the reign of Henry the Seventh, by his
ancestor Sir William Capel, a junior descendant from a respect-
able gentleman's family in Suffolk. He was at that time
completing, at Clare Hall, in Cambridge, an education in
which he afterwards proved that no pains had been spared,
either by his friends or himself. His first entrance into life
displayed, with a mild but incessant brightness, those qualities
which, even in the best men, seldom appear during the fever
of youth but in irregular and uncertain flashes. He sat down
at his superb seat in Hertfordshire in the spirit of a prince
and of a philosopher. His hospitality, and his charity to the
poor, though scarcely equalled by those of any other English

224 ARTHUR, LORD CAPEL.

subject, were supported as much by his prudence as by his
wealth and his inclination. He was distinguished by a quiet
and unostentatious piety, and the excellent moral dispositions
which belonged to his nature were polished to the last degree
by that dignified generosity of conduct in which we find the
true meaning of the word honour. It is scarcely then neces-
sary to say that he was exemplary in all the domestic rela-
tions of life. His mind was powerful, and the clearness and
acuteness of his judgment were equalled by the activity of
his observation. He had read much, and thought more, and
wrote with an elegant and forcible conciseness which bespoke
at once the gentleman and the scholar. Such was Arthur
Capel when about twenty-five years old, and on the eve of
the unhappy war between the King and the Parliament.

Thus qualified and recommended, he was chosen, without
opposition, to represent the county of Hertford in the Parlia-
ment which met on the thirteenth of April, 1640. He
immediately joined the popular party, which then comprised
many real patriots, and, on the third day after he had taken
his seat, delivered to the House a petition from the freeholders
of his county, remonstrating against the abuses of the star
chamber and high commission courts, ship-money, and other
imposts of doubtful legality, which happened to be the first
of the great number about that time presented on the same
subjects. That Parliament was dissolved on the fifth of the
succeeding month, and he was re-elected by his neighbours,
with the same unanimity, to the next, which assembled on
the third of November following, in which he heartily sup-
ported the measures which were at first proposed for the fair
and wholesome circumscription of the power of the crown.
In this spirit, like many other honest men at that time, he
went one step too far, and unwarily suffered a spirit of
vengeance against past errors to grow out of his dissatisfaction
with the present. He voted for the attainder of the Earl of
Strafford ; and the keen sense which in cooler moments arose
in his mind of the injustice of that measure, and of the exe-

ARTHUR, LORD CAPEL, 225

cution that followed, which he fully acknowledged in the
hour of his death, joined to a clear judgment that enough
had been before done, or fully prepared, to secure to the
nation the enjoyment of the utmost degree of liberty con-
sistent with its peace and welfare, he quitted a party which
he beheld already intoxicated with a first taste of blood, and
intent only upon new sacrifices and new systems.

The accession to the royal cause of a commoner in every
way of so high consideration was peculiarly gratifying to the
King, who immediately acknowledged his obligation. On
the sixth of August, 1641, Capel was advanced to the dignity
of a Baron, by the title of Lord Capel, of Hadham, in Herts-
He strove for some months in the House of Peers, with equal
spirit and moderation, to stem the torrent ; and, finding all
his efforts ineffectual, took leave for ever of that assembly,
with the solemn assertion that "the King's Majesty had
granted so much for the ease and security of the kingdom,
that they who asked more intended the disturbance of it."
He now joined Charles at York, where, on the fifteenth June,
1642, he signed, with the other nobles and statesmen there,
a declaration testifying their firm conviction that the King
had no intention to make war on his Parliament, and engaged
himself to raise one hundred horse for his Majesty's service
and security. Early in the following year, the King sent
him to Shrewsbury, with the commission of Lieutenant
General of Shropshire, Cheshire, and North Wales, where
he collected a formidable body of horse and foot, and afforded
considerable relief to the brave garrison of Chester, by keep-
ing the Parliament forces, under Sir William Brereton, em-
ployed at Nantwich. Charles was about that time devising,
with much anxiety, some method of disposing of the Prince of
Wales, so as to provide at once for the security of his person,
and to allay the jealousies which had been entertained of a
design to send him privately, to the Queen, in France. To
forward these views, he nominated a council for the direction
of all matters relating to the Prince, consisting of six of his

IV. Q

226 ARTHUR, LORD CAPEL.

most trusty servants, of whom Lord Capel was one and the
one most trusted, and this appointment drew him from his
military services. Upon his receiving it he raised at his own
expense a regiment of horse, and another of foot, for the
Prince's standing guard, and had the King's commission to
command them ; and the various duties of his new charge
left him little room for the performance of any other during
the four succeeding years. He was, however, one of the
commissioners for the King at the treaty of Uxbridge.

In the summer of 1645, the Prince being then in the west
of England, Capel, who, with Lord Colepeper, attended
him there, had a considerable share in the direction in the
campaign in those parts, where Waller and Cromwell com-
manded for the rebels ; but the King's affairs in that quarter
having taken an unfavourable turn, owing rather to differ-
ences among his commanders than either to any signal defeat
or to disaffection in the country, the Prince was obliged to
retire gradually towards the coast of Cornwall, and at length
put to sea. He landed on the isle of Scilly, and, having
remained there for six weeks, at the end of which he was
joined by Capel, they sailed together to Jersey. The fatal
battle of Naseby occurred just at this period, and the
miserable King left Oxford privately, and fled towards Scot-
land. The Queen, who had been long anxious that her son
should reside with her in France, now urged it with the most
vehement importunity, but was resisted by Capel, whose
gallant spirit could not endure the flight of the heir-apparent
while a ray of hope remained. At length the Prince himself
determined to depart, and Capel remained in Jersey, waiting
for orders from the King, of whose situation he was in a great
measure ignorant, and who was now in fact a prisoner in the
hands of the Scots, and prevented by them from communi-
cating with his servants.

In 1647, while he resided in Jersey, the House of Commons
passed a vote for the sale of his estates, to raise money for
the service in Ireland, and he went to Paris to ask the Prince's

ARTHUR, LORD CAPEL. 227

permission to return home on that occasion. He came by the
way of Zealand, and having compounded for his lands with
the rebel government, retired to his mansion at Hadham, to
meditate at leisure on the few chances which might yet exist
of rendering service to the royal cause. The King, who had
been lately sold by the Scots to his subjects, and who since
that monstrous event had been capriciously hurried from
place to place, was soon after brought to Hampton-court,
where Cromwell, with some design of policy which has never
been understood, permitted to him, for some time, the free
access of his friends. Capel was among the first to seize the
opportunity: he waited on his Majesty there for the last time,
and made that final engagement which he soon after sealed
with his blood. " To the Lord Capel," says Clarendon,
speaking of his conversation on that day with the King, " his
Majesty imparted all his hopes and all his fears ; and what
great overtures the Scots had again made to him ; and that
he did really believe that it could not be long before there
would be a war between the two nations, in which the Scots
promised themselves an universal concurrence from all the
presbyterians in England, and that, in such a conjuncture, he
wished that his own party would put themselves in arms,
without which he could not expect great benefit by the suc-
cess of the other ; and, therefore, desired Capel to watch such
a conjuncture, and draw his friends together, which he pro-
mised to do effectually."

Capel entered into these designs with the greatest warmth,
and commenced immediately a correspondence with the leaders
of the King's party, if it deserved to be so called, in Scotland.
He passed the latter part of the winter of 1647, and the follow-
ing spring, in arranging with them the detail of their proposed
invasion of England, and in preparing for a levy of forces in
his own county of Hertford. He wrote to Sir Edward Hyde,
afterwards Lord Clarendon, whom he had left in Jersey, to
apprise him that all was ready for the projected enterprise,
and to request him to recall the Prince to that island, in order
Q 2

228 ARTHUR, LORD CAPEL.

that his Royal Highness might be in readiness there to pass
over into England, on receiving the news of those successes
which he had fondly anticipated. In the latter end of May,
1648, he appeared in arms, and marched into Essex, where
he was joined by Goring, Earl of Norwich, who had retreated
thither from the superior force of Fairfax, in Kent. They
shut themselves up, with many other brave officers, and
about four thousand men, in the town of Colchester, under
cover of such fortifications as the time allowed them to pre-
pare, and awaited the approach of the Scottish army, or of
Fairfax. They were presently attacked, and closely besieged
by that general, and defended themselves with the utmost
bravery and judgment. In the meantime the Scots, under
the command of the Duke of Hamilton, entered England, and
were totally defeated in Lancashire; an ill-concerted, and
worse executed, rising in Surrey, under the Earl of Holland,
was_ presently subdued ; and the brave but worn-out garrison
of Colchester, finding that the King's affairs were thus on a
sudden rendered hopeless, after having sustained a close
siege from the twelfth of June to the twenty-eighth of August,
submitted on that day at discretion, in opposition to the
commands and entreaties of Lord Capel. The enormities and
the treachery which followed the surrender of Colchester
have left a deep stain on the memory of Fairfax, which our
historians have generally endeavoured to transfer to that of
the bloody Ireton, by whom he had then the misfortune to be
accompanied. Two of the bravest gentlemen who had served
in the garrison, Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, were
brought before Fairfax, then presiding at a council of war,
immediately after he had taken possession of the town ; and
having been told that, after so obstinate a resistance, it was
necessary, for the example of others, that a summary punish-
ment should be executed, were led into an adjoining yard,
and there shot to death. This done, Fairfax and his officers
went to the town-hall, where the rest of the prisoners were
confined, and addressing himself to the Earl of Norwich and

ARTHUR, LORD CAPEL. 229

Lord Capel, told them, says Lord Clarendon, " that having
done that which the military justice required, all the lives of
the rest were safe, and that they should be well treated, and
disposed of as the Parliament should direct : But," continues
Clarendon, " the Lord Capel had not so soon digested this so
late barbarous proceeding as to receive the visit of those who
caused it with such a return as his condition might have
prompted to him ; but said, that they should do well to finish
their work, and execute the same rigour to the rest ; upon
which there were two or three such sharp and bitter replies
between him and Ireton as cost him his life in a few months
after."

Capel was sent prisoner to Windsor Castle, where he
remained till November. In the mean time, a bill of attain-
der against him was brought into the House of Commons, to
which he pleaded that Fairfax had not only promised that his
life should be spared, but had also expressly acknowledged
that promise in a letter to the House ; upon which Fairfax,
being called on by the Commons to explain his meaning in
that letter, was base and cowardly enough to reply, that,
" his promise did not extend to any other but the military
power ; and that the prisoners were, notwithstanding, liable
to trial and judgment by the civil power." He was now
removed to the Tower of London, and, on the tenth of No-
vember, the House determined that he should be banished :
but, on the first of February, voted that he should be " pro-
ceeded against for justice." On the evening of that day he
escaped from the Tower, having let himself down from the
wall by a rope, and waded, with the greatest difficulty, though
aided by an uncommon stature, across the ditch. His friends,
who waited for him on the opposite bank, secreted him for a
few days in the Temple, and then, for his better security,
removed him to a house in Lambeth-marsh ; but, in cross-ing
the Thames thither, late in the evening, the boatman, who
had by some means discovered him, gave notice to an officer
in the neighbourhood, and he was seized soon after he had

230 ARTHUE, LORD CAPEL.

landed, and again conveyed to his prison. On the tenth of
February, he was brought, with the Earl of Norwich, and
others, before what was called the high court of justice, to be
tried for high treason, where he behaved with the most un-
daunted firmness, asserting that, " in the condition of a sol-
dier and a prisoner of war, the lawyers and the gown-men
had nothing to do with him, and, therefore, he would not
answer to anything which they had said against him." He
urged, however, Fairfax's engagement, and concluded by in-
sisting that, " if he had committed any offence worthy of
death, he ought to be tried by his peers, which was his right
by the law of the land ; " to which the arch-regicide Brad-
shaw, who sat as president, amidst many other expressions
of vulgar brutality, answered, that " he was tried before such
judges as the Parliament had thought fit to appoint, and who
had judged a better man than himself." The court, at length,
finally decided, that Fairfax's declaration, "that the Lord
Capel was to have fair quarter for his life," should be inter-
preted to mean a freedom from any execution of the sword,
but not any protection from the judicial proceedings of a
civil court ; and three days after, he was again brought up ?
and condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

It was necessary that the sentence should be confirmed by
a vote of Parliament, and he had so many friends in the
House, that his acquittal there was confidently expected ;
especially when Cromwell, who had been of his acquaintance,
commenced a long speech on the question, "whether the
prayer of a petition for his life, presented by his lady, should
be granted ? " with praises of his character, and large
acknowledgments of kindness and respect for him. But the
hypocrite at length concluded, " that his affection to the .
public so much weighed down his private friendship, that he
could not but tell them that the question was now whether
they would preserve the most bitter and implacable enemy
they had : that he knew the Lord Capel very well, and knew
that he would be the last man in England that would forsake

ARTHUR, LORD CAPEL. 231

the royal interest : that he had great courage, industry, and
generosity ; that he had many friends who would always
adhere to him ; and that, as long as he lived, what condition
soever he was in, he would be a thorn in their sides ; and
therefore, for the good of the commonwealth, he should give
his vote against the petition." These expressions produced
the effect which the speaker intended ; the question was
negatived by a majority of three or four voices ; and on the
ninth of March, 1648, the ignominious mode of execution at
first prescribed having been previously altered, he was be-
headed before the great gate of Westminster Hall, having
made a speech of considerable length to those around him, in
which it is difficult to say whether his piety, his heroism, or
his loyalty, was the most to be admired.

Lord Clarendon, to whose character of this true nobleman I
have above referred, says of him, " He was a man in whom
the malice of his enemies could discover very few faults, and
whom his friends could not wish better accomplished ; whom
Cromwell's own character well described, and who indeed
would never have been contented to have lived under that
government. His memory all men loved and reverenced,
though few followed his example. He had always lived in a
state of great plenty, and general estimation, having a very
noble fortune of his own by descent, and a fair addition to it by
his marriage with an excellent wife, a lady of very worthy ex-
traction, of great virtue and beauty, by whom he had a numer-
ous issue of both sexes, in which he took great joy and comfort ;
so that no man was more happy in all his domestic affairs ; and
he was so much the more happy in that he thought himself
most blessed in them. And yet the King's honour was no
sooner violated, and his just power invaded, than he threw all
those blessings behind him ; and, having no other obligations
to the Crown than those which his own honour and conscience
suggested to him, he frankly engaged his person and his
fortune, from the beginning of the troubles, as many others
did, in all actions and enterprises of the greatest hazard and

232 AETHUR, LORD CAPEL;

danger ; and continued to the end, without ever making one
false step, as few others did ; though he had once, by the
iniquity of a faction that then prevailed, an indignity put
upon him that might have excused him for some remission
of his former warmth : but it made no other impression on
him than to be quiet and contented, whilst they would let
him alone, and with the same cheerfulness to obey the first
summons when he was called out, which was quickly after.
In a word, he was a man that, whoever shall after him deserve
best of the English nation, he can never think himself under-
valued, when he shall hear that his courage, virtue, and
fidelity, is laid in the balance with, and compared to, that of
the Lord Capel."

This nobleman, as has been here already hinted, had some-
what applied himself, in the less busy time of his life, to
literary composition. His remains were printed in 1654,
with the title of " Daily Observations, or Meditations Divine
and Moral, written by a Person of Honour ;" and republished
some years after, with some account of his life. A few
extracts from the aphorisms, which chiefly form that little
volume, will serve to show that the qualities of his head and
of his heart were well matched with his greatness of soul:
"Biting jests, the more truth they carry with them, the
broader scarred memory they leave behind them : many
times they are like the wounds of chewed bullets, where the
ruggedness causeth almost incurable hurts." " In this tem-
pestuous world no line holds the anchor of contentment so
fast as a good conscience : man's favour is but a fine thread,
that will scarcely hold one tug of a crafty tale-bearer: honour
slips the noose when vulgar breath, wearied with constant
virtue, is more affected to novelty : riches are gnawn asunder
by the greedy teeth of devouring leviathans ; but this cable
is so strong and compact, that when force is offered to it, the
straining rather strengthens by uniting the parts more close."
" In the heat of argument men are commonly like those
that are tied back to back, close joined, and yet they cannot

ARTHUR, LORD CAPEL. 233

see one another." " Those that behave themselves with an
uneven and captious conversation towards others, are but tell-
tales of their own unpeaceable and miserable unsettled minds
within themselves." " The idle man is more perplexed what
to do, than the laborious in doing what he ought." I close
these quotations with some regret.

Lord Capel married Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Sir
Charles Moryson of Cashiobury, in Hertfordshire, and had by
her four sons ; Arthur, his successor, who was created Earl
of Essex ; Henry, to whom an English Barony was granted
by the title of Lord Capel of Tewkesbury, and who died
without issue ; Edward and Charles, who died unmarried ;
and four daughters ; Mary, married first to Henry Seymour,
Lord Beauchamp, heir apparent to William Earl of Hertford,
and secondly to Henry Somerset, Marquis of Worcester,
afterwards Duke of Beaufort ; Elizabeth, to Charles Dormer,
Earl of Caernarvon ; Theodosia, to Henry Hyde, Lord Corn-
bury, son and heir to the Earl of Clarendon ; and Anne, to
John Strangways, of Melbury, Sandford, in Dorsetshire.

CHARLES THE IF OR ST.

OB, 1648,

KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

IT has been long difficult to treat fairly either of the history
or the character of this unfortunate Prince, without writing a
political essay ; and yet more to steer a steady and impartial
course between the whirlpools of vulgar censure and intem-
perate vituperation and the dull and lifeless calm of feeble
and timid panegyric. His memory has been attacked with-
out justice or mercy, and defended without spirit or ingenu-
ousness. He has been accused of trampling on a system of
law and government which was scarcely called into existence
till nearly half a century after his death, and his few advocates
have virtually admitted the truth of the charge by confining
their pleadings to encomiums on his exemplary private con-
duct. All this is exactly to the taste of Englishmen. Me-
moirs of their Princes of the two last centuries are not to be
safely entrusted to their pens. Most even of the treatises
which have been dignified by the appellation of histories of
our Kings, from the accession of the House of Stuart to the
day in which we live, deserve hardly any higher place than
in the first class of political pamphlets, abounding in the
distorted facts, and unfair arguments, by which those publi-
cations are always distinguished, but rendered more mischie-
vous by the increased care bestowed on their composition.
These abuses however, amidst a cloud of evil consequences,
have had one good effect, they have largely contributed to
flatter the vanity, and to soothe the unquiet humours, of the
vainest and most restless people on the face of the earth. A
tacit permission to libel the Throne and its counsellors has

236 KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

done more towards persuading us that we are a free people,
than all the institutions that have been devised for that pur-
pose ; and we sacrifice with rapture at the altar of the phantom
liberty the reputations of our rulers, in happy ignorance of
the fact that we live under a government possessed of more
power than any absolute monarch in the world ever dared to
exercise.

Such a work however as the present affords little room for
controversy, and must confine itself chiefly to facts. Charles,
the second son of King James the first, by Anne, daughter of
Frederic the second, King of Denmark, was born at Dunferm-
line in Scotland on the nineteenth of November, in the year
1600. His early childhood was sickly, and afflicted by so
much bodily weakness that his limbs performed their func-
tions with difficulty, and his speech was interrupted by a
painful impediment, which, as it almost wholly left him as
he gained strength, may be presumed to have arisen from the
same cause. His father, on his arrival in England, committed
the care of his person to the wife of Sir Robert Carey, the
gentleman whose surprising expedition in conveying the news
of Queen Elizabeth's death to James in Scotland has been so
frequently mentioned ; and at the age of six years placed
him under the tuition of James Murray, a Scot of extensive
erudition, and a moderate Presbyterian. Charles's temper
was mild, patient, and serious. His infirmities, as they in
great measure prohibited personal activity, were advantageous
to his education. He became passionately fond of general
study, and even famous for his rapid acquisition of the learned
languages. We are told that his elder brother Henry, alluding
to this disposition, in a moment of frolic, and perhaps of
envy, snatched one day at Court the cap of the Primate
Abbot, and placed it on the head of Charles, telling him that
he would by and bye make him Archbishop of Canterbury ;
and this trifling jest the enemies of his memory have wrested
to his disadvantage by inferring, with as much absurdity as
malice, that Henry meant to convey his opinion that Charles

KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 237

was better qualified for a churchman than for a King ; and
this when no one entertained the slightest expectation of his
ever attaining to that station.

Prince Henry however died in 1612, and on the fourth of
November, 1616, Charles was created Prince of Wales. He
was now in the full possession of health and strength.
Amidst the pains which had been taken to inform his mind,
the lighter and more elegant accomplishments had not been
neglected, and he excelled in the practice of all of them. We
are told, in particular, that " he was thought to be the best
marksman, and the most graceful manager of the great horse
in the three kingdoms ; " and it is recorded that he peculiarly
distinguished himself in the splendid justs which were he-Id
at Whitehall in 1620, on the anniversary of James's accession
to the Throne. Thus his years passed, undisturbed by the
excess of any passion, and unconnected with any party in
the State, till he reached the age of twenty-three, when
Buckingham, who, by a most rare chance, was not less the
favourite of the son than of the father, persuaded him to that
singular visit to Madrid, on the circumstances of which all
our historians have so amply enlarged. The object of it may
be said to have been at once frustrated and accomplished, for,
though it finally broke up the negotiation for his marriage to
the Infanta, it unexpectedly procured him a consort in an-
other court. On his way through France, he had seen, and
not with indifference, the beautiful Henrietta Maria, the
younger daughter to Henry the Great and Mary de Medicis.
A treaty for their union was commenced presently after his
return, and was on the point of conclusion, when on the
twenty-seventh of March, 1625, his father died, and he suc-
ceeded to the Throne.

He found the country in a state of perfect prosperity and
happiness, after many years of profound peace, which the
brief contest with Spain, arising out of Buckingham's resent-
ment of certain offences that he had conceived during his
abode at Madrid, and his hatred of the Earl of Bristol, the

238 KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

English ambassador there, could scarcely be said to have
interrupted. That war and the impeachment of the Lord
Treasurer Middlesex, had been the last acts of the favourite's
despotic reign over James, in despite of whose inclination and
opinion both were accomplished in Parliament through the
influence of the Prince and Buckingham. The two Houses,
especially the Commons, were elated beyond measure by the
accession of power which they derived from these false steps,
gratuitously taken at the very epoch when they were insisting
on a degree of independence hitherto unheard of, nor was the
King less sensible of the wound which had been inflicted on
his Prerogative. We learn from the highest authority that,
on hearing of their design, he sent for the Prince and the
favourite, and, after long but vain expostulation, said, in the
highest anger to Buckingham, " By God ! Stenny, you are a
fool, and will shortly repent this folly ; and will find that in
this fit of popularity you are making a rod, with which you
will be scourged yourself:" and then, turning to Charles, pro-
phetically told him that he would live to have his belly full
of parliamentary impeachments ; and added, " when I shall be
dead, you will have too much cause to remember how much
you have contributed to the weakening of the Crown by the
two precedents you are now so fond of." The fate of the
government was in fact at that time balancing unseen between
monarchy and republicanism, and Charles commenced his
political career by throwing himself into the wrong scale.

The Commons had testified the delight with which they
received these and other concessions by holding up to the
people the Prince and Buckingham as idols, an advantage, if
it deserves to be called so, of which Charles no otherwise
availed himself on mounting the Throne than by using it as
an excuse to the nation and to himself for loading the favourite
with new and extravagant bounties, who, on his part, was
but encouraged by it to multiply his demands. Wealth and
dignities were showered on every branch of his family ; he
was advanced to a Dukedom ; and the government of the

KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 239

whole realm was in a manner committed to one of the most
rash and intemperate of mankind. As these imprudences,
the errors of kind-hearted inexperienced youth, increased,
the dearly purchased complaisance of the Commons faded
away in a measure yet more rapid. Charles's first Parliament,
which met only three short months after the demise of the
late King had suddenly closed the functions of its predecessor,
though composed chiefly of the same persons, was animated
by a spirit wholly different. It was indeed a spirit of con-
tradiction. In answer to his demand of a supply for the
maintenance of the war which themselves had imposed on
the Crown, they voted him two subsidies, a sum little ex-
ceeding one hundred thousand pounds, and inexorably re-
sisted all his instances for any further grant ; consumed
their time in tedious discussion of the dangers which they
alleged to exist from the encouragement of Popery, and
pressed the King to revive against the professors of that faith
the persecution which had disgraced the reign of Elizabeth ;
and, finally, certainly with better colour, broke out into
murmurs against their late minion, Buckingham, so loud and
serious that he found it necessary to defend himself in a long
apologetic speech, answering, article by article, the several
faults with which they had charged him. Two days after,
Charles once more reiterated his request for a supply, by a
message in the most condescending terms, and received in
return a very short declaration, for it was so called, in which,
amidst some cold professions of loyalty and obedience, he
was told that his faithful Commons would, " in convenient
time, freely and dutifully do their endeavours to discover
and reform the abuses and grievances of the realm and state,
and in like sort afford him all necessary supply upon his pre-
sent, and all other his just occasions and designs." Charles
immediately dissolved a Parliament which denied him the
means of supporting the dignity of his crown and the cha-
racter of his people.

That Buckingham encouraged the King to this measure

240 KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

always

cannot be doubted. Would that his advice had been
as just and blameless ! Charles had now no alternative but
to retire from the war, a step not less dangerous than dis-
graceful, or to obtain the means of prosecuting it by the
simple exercise of an authority to which the uniform sub-
mission for ages had given the character of Prerogative. He
adopted the latter, and called on the Lords Lieutenants of
counties to return the names of such persons within their
respective jurisdictions as were best able to contribute to the
public necessity, and to those persons addressed letters, under
his privy seal, requiring of them loans of such sums as might
suit their several abilities, to be repaid within eighteen
months. The money procured by this expedient fell far
short of the expected amount, but it was sufficient to equip a
considerable military and naval force for that ill-managed
expedition against the coast of Spain in the autumn of 1625,
which utterly failed in the bay of Cadiz. A second Parlia-
ment was now called, which met in the succeeding February.
Charles had adopted some puerile expedients to prevent a
few of his most clamorous opponents from sitting in it, such
as rendering some of them ineligible by nominating them to
the office of sheriff, and these measures were resented with a
warmth which sufficiently indicated the temper that he
might expect in the new assembly. It exceeded that of the
former in harshness. A larger, but still very insufficient
supply was voted, but the Commons annexed a resolution that
it should not pass into a law till, the end of the session : thus
tacitly declaring their determination to withhold the payment
till they should have canvassed and removed the grievances
of which they, and their predecessors, had, without making
any specification of them, incessantly complained. No sove-
reign, unless he were a captive in the hands of his subjects,
had ever before been insulted by the proposal of so gross a
condition. Charles's necessities however induced him to
bridle his resentment, and he resolved to wait for the ap-
pointed period, but it never arrived.

KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 241

This show of patience by the King had its natural effect,
and increased the adverse vigour of the Parliament. Buck-
ingham was impeached in both Houses, and the coolness of
Charles's temper now gave way. He chose that moment to
bestow, in the most public manner, a new mark of favour on
the Duke, and, presently after, so completely undefined at
that time were both the Royal Prerogative, and the privileges
of Parliament, interdicted any further proceeding against him
by a special command, delivered by the Lord Keeper ; and
in a message to the House of Commons threatened, in terms
not to be misunderstood, that unless he found them more
compliant, he would devise the means of governing wholly
without their assistance. This intimation, monstrous as it
may seem to us of later days, had then little remarkable in it
beyond the imprudence of asserting a right to do that which
all his predecessors had practised in undisturbed silence. The
menace was accompanied by some acts of power which
seemed to show the sincerity of his professions. Members
of both Houses were imprisoned, and soon after released, by
his sole authority. While these matters were passing, the
prosecution of Buckingham was carried on with tedious in-
dustry, and at length failed, for the times were not yet ripe
for conviction without clear evidence. The House of Com-
mons consoled itself by perplexing the King with new insults
and difficulties, and instead of passing the bill for a supply,
prepared a remonstrance, reiterating its complaints of Buck-
ingham, and claiming the control over the great imposts of
tonnage and poundage, the right of the Crown to which had
never before been questioned. The Lords, who had hitherto
preserved a grave neutrality, began now to show signs of
discontent, and presented an address to the King, tacitly
approving the conduct of the other House. The faculties of
government became in some measure paralysed by a warfare
in which both parties fought with a blind obstinacy, and with
new and untried weapons which they knew not how to wield.
It was evident that all hope of reconciliation had fled, at least

242 KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

for the time, and on the fifth of June, 1626, this second Par-
liament was dissolved.

Charles, in the fullness of his honesty and inexperience,
explained the causes of these differences to his people by
declarations and manifestoes ; and the disbanded Commons,
on their part, published the remonstrance which the dissolu-
tion had prevented them from presenting to him. He now
proceeded to seek, by exertions of his own single authority,
the necessary relief which the perverseness of his Parliaments
had so long denied to him, and made his experiments with as
much imprudence as his enemies could have wished. They
consisted in taking fines for extensive grants of Crown lands ;
in compounding with recusants for their forfeitures, incurred
by absenting themselves from the established public worship ;
in soliciting loans and benevolences from wealthy individuals ;
and in putting on the sea-ports and maritime counties the
charge of furnishing and maintaining ships of war. All these
imposts, though frequently levied by his predecessors, were
now more or less resisted, for the tone of the Parliament had
been effectually communicated to the people. Many de-
faulters' were imprisoned by wan-ants of the Privy Council
and released on submission, but at length five gentlemen,
knights, were bold enough to demand a trial at law of the
question whether they had been legally imprisoned ; and the
matter was solemnly heard in the Court of King's Bench.
The judges however contrived to avoid a definitive sentence,
and contented themselves by refusing to admit bail, and the
offenders were probably soon after released in a private and
summary way. Amidst these difficulties and dangers at
home, Charles, who had made a peace with Spain imme-
diately after the dissolution of the Parliament, astonished the
country by declaring war against France, which had so lately
given him a Queen. That Buckingham was the author of
this imprudent step there can be no doubt. In the court of
Paris, as well as -in that of Madrid, his haughty spirit had
received some offence which filled him with resentment, and

KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 243

which most historians ascribe to a cause nearly too romantic
to be credited. France was attacked by an army and a fleet,
and the Duke, incompetent to direct either, took the command
of both. His expedition terminated accordingly. He closed
a series of enterprises, deficient in all military merit except
personal courage, by that unfortunate descent on the isle of
Rhe which is always coupled with his name, and returned
with the shattered remnant of his forces, to sustain new dis-
credit, and aggravated unpopularity.

A large portion of the money which had been with so
much difficulty and irregularity collected was presently
swallowed up by these and other occasions of the war,
and Charles was convinced by painful experience that any
attempt to raise further contributions by similar means
would be, at least for the present, nearly fruitless. He
determined to call another Parliament, and, in the spirit
of popular artifice, appointed Buckingham to propose it in
the Privy Council. It met on the seventeenth of March,
1628, N. S. and was opened by a speech more remarkable
for sincerity than prudence. The Commons commenced
business with a calm and decorous gravity which had been
little used in the two former Parliaments, and was thought
to augur well both for king and people, but it was in truth
only the result of that coolness which generally attends the
determined adoption of a thoroughly digested plan. They
entered immediately on the accustomed topic of grievances,
and presently displayed an increased warmth and severity,
while the King reiterated his demand of supplies, and
enumerated in fourteen articles the public disbursements
which were necessary. . The Commons, without condescend-
ing to read them, came to a vote to grant a considerable
sum, but it was a mere general resolution, leaving the
amount indefinite, and sent their Speaker to him, who told
him that l< he was the breath of their nostrils, and the light
of their eyes," and then presented a long petition against
the billeting of soldiers in private houses. Meanwhile they

244 KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

were preparing a full statement of their claims, under the
bold title of " A Petition of Right," which the King in vain
endeavoured to avoid, and the Lords to moderate. It was,
however, presented ; and the Commons, to convince him
that they were resolved to act only conditionally in the
matter of supplies, made simultaneously a single and insig-
nificant step towards their promised grant. Charles answered
their petition graciously, and pledged himself to maintain
the laws, and the rights and liberties of his subjects; but
the terms of his reply were thought too general, and he was
rudely urged to declare his compliance separately with each
individual requisition. The demand was intolerable, but
the King passed it over in silence, and at length so far
submitted as to answer to the whole by the ancient par-
liamentary phrase, " soit droit fait comme il est desire," to
which he added his signature.

So far were the Commons even from affecting to be
satisfied for a single week with this concession, that they
instantly composed two long remonstrances, the one, chiefly
on the pretended imminent danger of the Church, which all
men of common sense knew to be wholly groundless ; the
other, on the question as to tonnage and poundage, of all
claim to which it was now alleged that the King had
deprived himself by the terms of his answer to the Petition
of Right. Charles, however, avoided the reception of these
remonstrances by proroguing the Parliament, which he did
while the second was reading in the House of Commons, in a
short speech, manfully avowing his right to levy the duties
of tonnage and poundage, and indeed uttered merely for the
sake of making that avowal. At the same time was pre-
sented to him for his assent the long delayed bill for five
subsidies, which the Parliament could no longer evade
without too clearly exposing its motives to a people not
yet fully prepared to approve them. On its meeting after
the recess, Charles's first care was to explain fully to both
Houses on the subject of the imposts just mentioned. He

KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 245

declared explicitly that he did not consider them as " apper-
taining to his hereditary prerogative," but that he claimed
only that control over them which his predecessors had for
more than two centuries exercised, under the authority of a
Parliamentary grant for life made to each of them on mount-
ing the throne, but which had not yet been accorded to
himself. A very few days after he proved the sincerity of
this declaration by condescending to send to the Commons a
message requesting them to prepare a bill so to authorise
him, and, in consideration of the urgent want 'of money for
the public service, to allow it to take place of all other
affairs : and they instantly resolved to proceed, without
suffering any interruption, on the interminable discussion of
the perils of the reformed church ; and, in addition to that
perverse insult, voted a general answer to the King that "his
messages were inconvenient, and bred debates, and loss of
time." Very few days passed before they broke their own
order, laid aside for the time their pious fears, and went
into a committee on the cases of persons who had been
proceeded against for refusing to pay the tonnage and
poundage. These were held up as martyrs in the cause of
freedom, and those who had paid the duties were branded
as betrayers of their countiy. All the usual business [of
the Government and of Parliament was suspended. At
length, on the second of March, 1629, N. S. the Speaker,
having informed the House that the King had commanded
him to adjourn it for a week, was seized, while he was rising
to quit the chair, by a few of the malcontent members, and
held down in it by force, while a furious protestation or
remonstrance was hastily prepared, and irregularly voted.
The King having been apprised of these disorders, despatched
messengers to the house, but the doors were locked against
them till after the votes had been read, when the Usher of
the Black Rod entered, and broke up the sitting by taking
the mace from the table. The principal movers in this riot
were presently brought before the Council, and charged with

246 KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

sedition, and, on refusing to answer for their conduct in
Parliament to any other authority, were for a few days
committed to the Tower. In the mean time the King went
to the House of Lords, and, after a short speech, com-
plimenting them on their loyalty and good temper, and
arraigning with severity the adverse faction in the Com-
mons, dissolved the Parliament, without calling for the
attendance of that House.

It will not be thought at all surprising that Charles should
have resolved^ as perhaps at this period he did, to endeavour
to govern in future without Parliaments. He may now be
said to have been for a time his own minister. He had no
favourite, for the mighty and imprudent Buckingham had
been the year before taken off by assassination. His Council
was composed of able and honest, rather than of great men,
who contented themselves with discharging, each in his
proper station, the duties which belonged to it. If he had
a private adviser, it was the Queen, to whom he was pas-
sionately attached ; and the first step which he took on his
temporary release from the oppression of the Parliament was
ascribed to her influence, a peace with France, which indeed
his own necessities demanded. The urgency and altered
character of the time put him, however, on new plans of
policy, which eventually threw his affairs into the hands of
men of brighter talents and bolder spirits. He sought, and
it is needless to say with success, to bribe the ambition or
the avarice of several of the popular leaders with con-
siderable appointments in his government. Among these
the most remarkable was Sir Thomas Went worth, who had
been from the beginning a formidable opponent in the House
of Commons of the Prerogative. This gentleman, better
known as Earl of Strafford, a dignity which was soon after
conferred on him, had become of late disgusted by the in-
creasing fury of his party, and thought, with many other
wise and honest men, that the power of the Crown was now
sufficiently circumscribed. He presently became Charles's

KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 247

"most confidential counsellor in the affairs of the state, while
an almost unbounded authority over those of the Church
was committed to Laud, then Bishop of London.

Both these appointments were injudicious. Charles, with
an excellent understanding, possessed little penetration into
the characters of men, and, from an innate modesty, fre-
quently fell into the error of undervaluing his own judgment.
The temper of the times required ministers of consummate
artifice, and of some real, and much affected pliancy quali-
ties in which these great men were as deficient as they were
abundant in honour and fidelity. They seemed to have
agreed that the art of government consisted in the exertion
of simple and open authority. Strafford was too haughty to
endeavour to conciliate any of the friends from whom he had
lately withdrawn, and Laud too zealous to permit the Puri-
tans, who were in fact now the life and soul of the opposing
faction, even to doubt of the intensity of his hatred towards
them. They were held out, therefore, to the people, the one
as the obsequious minister of a tyrant, the other, as a favourer
of the Church of Rome : an exaggeration founded on his
imprudent introduction into the reformed discipline and
worship of certain ceremonious novelties, and on the rigour
with which he enforced perhaps a more than due respect to
the Hierarchy. Strafford, on his part, encouraged and assisted
the King in the various devices that were now instituted to
raise those necessary supplies which the pertinacity of Par-
liament had denied to him, some of which were warranted
by express statutes, and the rest, if any weight be allowed to
precedent, by the uncontroverted practice of his royal prede-
cessors for ages. If any one of the imposts in question was
incapable of being referred to either of those authorities, it
was that which was levied in just proportions on the several
counties for the maintenance of the navy, and so obtained
the name of "ship money;" a tax, the entire produce of
which was religiously applied to that purpose, and equipped
the largest fleet that England had ever possessed. It will be

248

KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

recollected that the notorious Hampden thought fit soon after
in a court of law to question its legality, which was then
confirmed by a solemn adjudication, more injurious in the
event to the royal cause than would have been a contrary
decision.

The history of a monarch reigning over a tranquil and pros-
perous country must be always in a great measure confined
to the incidents of his private life, and for seven years, ending
in 1637, no country ever more justly deserved that description
than England. At peace with all foreign powers, and with
the great mass of his own subjects, who, in the undisturbed
consciousness of the blessings they enjoyed, were gradually
losing the apprehensions which had been infused into them
by the factious and ambitious few, Charles was left somewhat
at leisure to offer to his brother princes a bright example of
the practice of all domestic virtues, and of all the refinements
of a highly cultivated taste. A cloud, however, now arose in
the north which presently obscured these views. Scotland,
the chief nursery of Puritanism in his realms, rejected the
liturgy which, less prudently than zealously, had been pre<-
scribed for its form of worship, with a suddenness and fury
which strongly indicated the secret influence of a foreign
interference. Even before the King could determine what
measures to adopt, a new-fangled and self-appointed legisla-
ture started up in that country, and one of its first institutions
was that vile compact, which received the title of the " Solemn
League and Covenant," and was presently enthusiastically
subscribed by the entire population of the capital and its
vicinity, and, before the lapse of many weeks, by that of
nearly the whole of the kingdom.

Charles met these acts of disobedience by repeated conces-
sions, which were received with scorn. He offered even to
withdraw the liturgy and the canons, and to curtail consider-
ably the powers of the Bishops, but with no better success.
He convoked a Parliament, and a general assembly of the
Church, and, finding them completely infected with the dis.-

KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 249

ease of the time, dissolved them ; but they continued to
exercise their functions in contempt of his authority, and, by
a few sweeping acts, hastily passed, abolished episcopacy ;
denounced the penalty of excommunication against all who
should refuse to take the covenant; discarded every feature of
the Church of England ; and, as though they had determined
that no doubt should remain of their being in actual rebellion,
levied an army, and put all the strongholds on the frontiers
of Scotland into a state of defence against their Sovereign.
Charles had no alternative but to take up arms against them,
or to relinquish one of his kingdoms. He levied with diffi-
culty an army of between twenty and thirty thousand men ;
marched at the head of them to the borders, while his fleet
cast anchor in the harbour of Leith ; and detached some
regiments into Scotland, which, after having proceeded a
very few miles, faced about, panic-struck at the formidable
appearance which the Scottish General, Leslie, had by an
artful arrangement given to his very inferior force, and shame-
fully retreated to the royal camp. In the mean time the
covenanters despatched messages to the King in the most
submissive terms, and besought that they might be admitted
to a treaty, and Charles, whose motives at this juncture have
never been clearly comprehended, readily consented. Had
he been decisively vanquished in the field, and without the
means of renewing the contest, harder terms could scarcely
have been demanded of him than those to which he submitted
in this monstrous mock pacification. He agreed to disband
his army without delay ; confirmed all the obnoxious acts of
the late spurious and rebellious parliament and assembly,
even including that for the abolition of episcopacy, which of
all measures regarding that country he had most earnestly
deprecated ; and returned to his capital disappointed, morti-
fied, and with no chance of consolation for the ill success of
his expedition but in the possible satisfaction and gratitude
of those to whom he had made such extravagant sacrifices.
The vanity of such expectations, if Charles entertained

250 KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

them, very soon became evident. The Parliament, and the
assembly, which on leaving Scotland he had again summoned,
reviewed with bitterness his very favours ; set up new claims,
with increased turbulence ; and negotiated secretly with
France, and other states, for supplies of men and arms.
Charles determined anew to endeavour to reduce them by
force ; but so deficient were not only his finances but his
credit, that when his armament was complete, both were
exhausted. One source only of relief seemed to be open, for
he could scarcely entertain a doubt that in such circumstances
the representatives of his people would, at least for a time,
suspend their hostility towards him, and enable him to main-
tain the dignity of his Crown, and the integrity of his domi-
nionsafter a disuse of such assemblies for more than eleven
years, he called a Parliament, and it met on the thirteenth of
April, 1640. He required their instant aid ; informed them
that his army was ready to take the field ; that the monthly
charge of maintaining it would be a hundred thousand pounds ;
and that he was utterly destitute. Were it not a well esta-
blished historical fact, it would be absolutely incredible
to relate that the Commons passed over in a manner silently
the grave and urgent subject of the Scottish rebellion, and
entered, with a triply increased fury, on that of public griev-
ances. Charles pressed them by repeated messages, and
sought to conciliate them by new and most important con-
cessions, which were contemptuously disregarded. The Lords
demanded a conference, and earnestly urged them to grant
the necessary supply ; and they voted the interference a high
breach of privilege, and pursued their wayward course with
redoubled obstinacy. Charles dissolved this Parliament on
the twenty-third day after its meeting, and has been more
blamed for it than for any other act of his life ; with what
justice let the impartial judge.

The wretched circumstances which had disgraced the pre-
ceding year with respect to Scotland, were now reacted with
little variation. By sundry means, among which should not

KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 251

be omitted a subscription of three hundred thousand pounds
by the King's private friends, that is to say, by his statesmen
and courtiers, he was again enabled to march an army north-
ward. The covenanters however had entered England before
his arrival on their borders, carrying, at the head of twenty
thousand armed men, with all possible professions of loyalty,
and earnest prayers for his welfare and glory, ail humble peti-
tion to lay at his royal feet. At Newburn, near Newcastle-
on-Tyne, they were opposed by a strong body of the King's
troops, of whom they mildly requested permission to pass
towards the presence of their beloved Sovereign, and then
attacked them furiously, and drove them into Yorkshire.
Charles's army panic-stricken as well as tainted with sedi-
tion, never recovered from the shock, and himself, now dis-
tressed on all sides, most averse, and with abundant reason,
to comply with the numerous petitions for a Parliament
which his mal -content subjects had taken advantage of the
difficulties of the moment to pour in on him, and which he
durst not expressly deny, took a middle course and sum-
moned a Great Council of the Peers to attend him at York,
an ancient expedient in cases of great urgency which had not
yet been declared unconstitutional. Its first advice to him
was to treat with his Scottish rebels, and another humiliating
negotiation was presently commenced at Ripon, the speedy
result of which was an agreement that the King should bear
all the expenses of their army, and that it should remain, for
the time, in the free possession of the country north of York-
shire : and to this was added a fatal agreement that the treaty
should be adjourned to London.

All circumstances now united to form a crisis in the for-
tunes of this unhappy Prince, and his little less unfortunate
kingdom. A sudden access of timidity in himself, or in his
counsellors, impelled him, who had so frequently and so fear-
lessly adopted means of doubtful legality in raising finances,
to forego all such expedients in a case where the universal
practice of ages, and the voice and the law of the whole

252 KING CHAJILES THE FIRST.

world, would have held him fully justified in the resistance
of a palpable and unqualified rebellion. But he submitted in
the very moment when he might have fairly made the boldest
assertions of right ; abandoned his clear regal authority, and
negotiated on equal terms with his Scottish rebels ; legalised
the abode of their army in a great part of the mother country,
subsisted that army till his treasury was utterly exhausted ;
and, finally, invited to his capital the main promoters of the
mischief, and summoned a Parliament, the leading members
of which he could not but have foreseen would be men
already deeply engaged with them in the conspiracy which
produced it the never-to-be-forgotten Long Parliament,
which, after deluging the country in blood, meanly surrendered
its authority to a shapeless and nameless vision of govern-
ment, the parent at length of a despotism nearly destitute of
any of those glowing features which frequently throw a
deceitful glare around successful rebellion and tyrannical
usurpation. Perverse and unreasonable as Charles's former
Parliaments had shown themselves, this memorable assembly
far exceeded them in violence and injustice. Its leaders
appeared to have suddenly adopted principles widely different
from those which actuated their predecessors. Instead of
sullenly and slowly working their way by petitions and re-
monstrances, and by measures covertly and indirectly con-
trived to distress and weaken the government, they assumed
at once a tone of distinct and independent authority, and a
restlessness of activity new in parliamentary proceedings.
The precise time had arrived for concentrating at one focus
all the bolts which wisdom or folly, honesty or wickedness,
discontent or malice, had been for many years aiming at the
Throne, and it can scarcely be doubted that a determination
was now first regularly formed to employ their united force
in accomplishing the overthrow of monarchy.

The Parliament met on the third of November, 1640 ; on
the eleventh Strafford was impeached of high treason ; and
on the eighteenth of the next month followed the impeach-

KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 253

ment of Laud. The Keeper of the Great Seal, and one of
the Secretaries of State, having reason to expect to be the
next objects of vengeance, fled the country. The Scottish
Commissioners in the meantime arrived in London in a sort
of triumph, and were received with extravagant respect and
kindness by both Houses, on whose journals an order was
entered that they should be styled on all formal public occa-
sions " our brethren of Scotland." The Puritans were now
caressed to the utmost, and thrust into pulpits on all occa-
sions where they might be most mischievous, and no oppor-
tunities were neglected of vilifying and depressing the
Bishops, and with them the established Church. Every law
and regulation which had been publicly, however wantonly,
complained of as a grievance was abrogated, and new grounds
of complaint gained instant attention if they were either
directly or indirectly levelled against the Crown or the Hier-
archy. Seditious petitions were encouraged, and compla-
cently received ; insurrectionary mobs, and public tumults,
threatened with impunity the safety of all who were not
marked as friends to the popular party ; and the press, though
then but in its infancy as an engine of abuse and slander,
daily poured forth libels, the malignity of which met with no
correction but from their own absurdities and falsehoods.
All these tremendous novelties occurred within less than six
months after the meeting of the Long Parliament.

Charles, in a state of utter helplessness, sate among the
complicated miseries with a patience which, as it resulted
neither from apathy or fear, may be fairly called magna-
nimous. He was in a great measure without counsellors :
some had deserted him ; others were sequestered by the
omnipotent Commons, to whom a majority of the Peers, self-
devoted, as the event proved, had now attached themselves.
'Tis true that an illustrious host of the most conspicuously
virtuous, and many of the wisest, of both Houses, who, from
the purest motives, had long stood among the foremost of the
popular party, were now convinced of the iniquities meditated

254 KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

by the most active of their compeers ; abandoned them ; and
ranged themselves publicly with the firmest supporters of
the falling Throne. These, however, could at present render
him no assistance, beyond such as might arise from the addi-
tion of the weight, then almost useless, of their characters to
an overwhelmed and dispirited minority. Charles tried in
vain new concessions. He relinquished some of the most
important prerogatives of the Crown by passing a bill for
triennial Parliaments, armed with securities so strict and
numerous as to prevent the possibility of evasion ; and as-
sented to another, by which the duties of tonnage and poundage
were at last insultingly granted to him, not for life, as has been
before observed was customary, but for two months, renew-
able for some such short periods at the pleasure of Parlia-
ment. Finally, he received at once into his Privy Council
eight of the most powerful and popular leaders of the mal-
contents in the House of Lords, and engaged in treaty with
them for the admission of themselves, and several others of
the party, into important offices in the State. It was thought,
and perhaps correctly, that these efforts at conciliation were
made in the hope of averting the blow which impended over
Strafford and Laud. Vain hope, if so ; for the boons were no
sooner granted than the former was put to death, after a trial
marked by circumstances of the grossest injustice. No suffi-
cient apology can ever be found for the assent given by
Charles to the bill of attainder under which that great man,
his firm and heroic friend, fell a sacrifice. He passed on the
same day that monstrous act by which the Parliament ren-
dered itself perpetual. The first of these errors has left a
solitary stain on his moral reputation ; the second weakens
our opinion as well of his understanding as of his courage.

The two armies in the north were now disbanded, and in
order, as it should seem, to publish to the three Kingdoms
the affection in which the Parliament held that of the Scottish
invaders, and its masters, a gratuity of three hundred thou-
sand pounds was voted in addition to the monthly twenty-

KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 255

five thousand which had been paid to it ever since its rebellious
entry into England. The pacification with Scotland was
now finally concluded, and, by a hateful ingenuity, it was
contrived that the very terms of expression gratuitously in-
troduced into the instrument by which it was ratified and
recorded were rendered even more humiliating to the King
than the conditions of the treaty itself. The Scots were
complimented in it on their invariable loyalty, and their in-
vasion was ascribed to their affection to his honour and wel-
fare. The Parliament, in appointing a public thanksgiving
for the happy return of peace, tacked to their vote an order
that this precious document should be on the same day read
in all the churches in England. Charles, however, from
motives that have never been clearly understood, but with
professions that it was to discharge a promise which he had
made to the Scots " to settle their government " about that
period, now undertook a journey to Edinburgh. The Parlia-
ment opposed this expedition, but the King was resolved, and
left London on the eighth of August, 1641, in the custody, as
may be said, of a very few commissioners appointed by each
House, the objects of whose attendance may be easily inferred
from the fact that the inveterate and inflexible Hampden was
of the number.

Charles, from whom so much had been, with difficulty as
well as with injustice, already extorted, seems now to have
determined to grant all requests made on behalf of his subjects,
however unreasonable : in Scotland he went yet further, and
his favours even outstript their demands. He rendered the
Parliament of that country nearly independent of him ; relin-
quished wholly the prerogative of issuing proclamations to
be obeyed under pain of high treason ; and consented to
submit in future to the absolute control of Parliament his
appointment of officers of state there, not excepting that of
his own Vicegerent. He advanced several of those nobles
who had been the chief patrons of the covenant to higher
degrees of dignity ; gave pensions and appointments to the

256 KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

most famous preachers of their new schism ; and frequently
attended their public worship, and listened to their tedious
sermons, with a show of patience the reality of which it is
impossible that they should have credited. These sad experi-
ments were cut short by the news of that horrible insurrec-
tion of the Catholics in Ireland, which in 1641 bathed the
island in blood. Charles's first impulse was to seek the
succour of those to whom he was at that moment in the act
of dispensing the most extravagant bounties. He implored
the aid of the Scottish Parliament, and was coldly answered
that they would communicate on the subject "with their
good brethren the Parliament of England." In the furious
eagerness of these Puritans to overthrow the Crown and the
Hierarchy, they forgot for the time even their hatred to
Papists. Their "good brethren" not only participated in
their feelings and in their practice, or rather in their forbear-
ance, but spread a diabolical insinuation that the Irish rebel-
lion had been contrived and fomented by the secret machina-
tions of the King and Queen. It was neglected, and suffered
in a manner to die away on the embers which survived the
frightful conflagration, and when Charles returned to London,
he was met by a remonstrance from the Commons, so virulent,
so unreasonable, so indecent, as to leave no doubt in the minds
even of the most ignorant of either party that it was the issue
of a deliberate plan formed by that assembly to annihilate all
regal power.

Indeed, the faculties, and privileges, and forms, of the other
branches of that constitution towards the integrity of which
so much veneration had not long since been pretended, began
now to be wholly disregarded. In many cases which required
the concurrence of the entire legislature, the authority of the
Peers had been as much slighted as that of the Crown ; and
those abuses, through an unaccountable infatuation, had been
endured by them with patience. A Bill had already passed
the Lower House for depriving the Bishops of their right to
vote in Parliament, and had received all the aid, then of

KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 257

daily occurrence on most popular questions, which public
tumult could confer on it ; when, on the occasion of a serious
attack on the persons of some of them by a furious mob, they
met, at the suggestion of Williams, Archbishop of York, and
hastily drew up, and presented to the King, a declaration of
their rights, including a protest against the validity of the
measures which had been taken to impair them. Charles,
perhaps imprudently, received it without disapprobation, and
sent it to the Lords, who communicated it to the Lower House,
by a vote of which twelve Prelates who had signed it were
instantly impeached of high treason, and of course committed
to custody by their Peers.

This remarkable event occurred on the eleventh of Decem-
ber, 1641, and on the fourth of the succeeding month, the
King, as it were in a childish spirit of retaliation, exhibited
by his Attorney- General articles of high treason against the
Lord Kimbolton, and five of the most conspicuous and active
members of the faction in the Commons, and a serjeant at
arms soon after arrived to claim the delivery to him of their
persons. The House deigned him no answer, and adjourned
in silence, save voting the whole proceeding a high breach of
privilege. All endeavours to arrest the accused were evaded ;
and on the following day Charles took the singular resolution
of placing himself in the Speaker's chair, and personally
demanding their surrender. To this almost romantic fact
have been very idly ascribed all the horrors which speedily
followed, when its sole influence on them, was merely to give
a few weeks of pre-maturity to their monstrous birth. To
enumerate the disorders which instantly followed would
increase this already tedious sketch to a volume. London
was in a state of insurrection, and the Royal family sought
their personal security in flight. On the following day the
impeached members were brought in triumph from the city>
where they had concealed, or rather affected to conceal,
themselves, by a countless multitude, and surrounded by the
trained bands, at the head of which the Commons, by a special

iv. s

258 . KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

commission of their own, had placed a leader, with the title
of Major-General. Reports were industriously spread to
inflame the people, with others equally absurd, that the King
was returning with an army of Papists ; and the House, in an
affectation of dread for their own safety, held irregular and
abrupt sittings, protected by their newly retained armed
guard. None of their meetings however passed without votes
and resolutions the most unconstitutional, and scarcely a day
without new usurpations of the executive power. They
appointed governors of some of the King's garrisons, arid
demanded of him that he should place the rest, as well as
the whole body of the militia, in the hands of persons to be
recommended by them ; to which the King of course demur-
ring, they passed ordinances, to which the remnant of Peers
who still gave their attendance assented, enjoining the sub-
mission of the whole military force of the kingdom to their
commands. These, and several less important acts of palpa-
ble rebellion, were always qualified by an abuse of terms too
gross to deceive even the most ignorant they enjoined the
parties to whom their commands were addressed to obey such
and such " the orders of his Majesty, signified unto them by
both Houses of Parliament."

Charles, who during this period of confusion had sojourned
at his different houses not far from the capital, was now
convinced of the necessity of preparing for a civil war, which
had become inevitable, and of providing for the safety of
himself and his family. Having seen the Queen embark for
Holland, taking with her the Crown Jewels, wherewith to
raise some supply for the commencement of the awful struggle
which approached, he moved northward by slow journeys,
amid the daily increasing acclamations and loyal vows of his
country-people of all classes, and surrounded by the flower
of his nobility ; and, having passed some time at York, in the
councils and preparations which the greatness of the occasion
required, at length set up his standard at Nottingham, on the
twenty-fifth of August, 1642.

KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 259

Thus began that tremendous war, in which the one party
strove to defend his possession of powers and faculties which
had descended to him by a hitherto uncontroverted inherit-
ance from a long line of ancestors, and to the exercise of
which he conscientiously believed himself to be completely
entitled the other, not only to divest him of every attribute
his right to which lay within the possibility of doubt, but to
wrest from him, and to arrogate to itself, many of yet higher
importance to which it could not legitimately pretend even
to the shadow of a claim. At this memorable point we mean
to close the present memoir, the main objects of which have
been to unfold the events which gradually produced the awful
contest ; to lay a ground for inferences to be drawn from them
by others of the true character of the unfortunate Monarch ;
and to show, by a succinct but faithful outline of facts, that
Charles, throughout the whole of the collision between him-
self and his Parliaments, was rather " sinned against than
sinning ;" and that he fell at length a sacrifice to his endea-
vours to support the integrity of that ever fluctuating system
called " the constitution," in the state in which he found it
when he ascended the Throne. To answer these purposes
enough has been already shown.

Indeed a detail of the circumstances of the five years' war,
if these sheets could allow scope for it, would be almost
impertinent. Such, in strictness, belong to the general
history of a country, and have, with some few modern excep-
tions of dazzling effect, little actual concern with the personal
memoirs of the Prince who rules it. If he appear with his
army in the field, the connection is, singularly enough, yet
more remote, for he becomes then merely the dignified organ
of his military councils, and the exalted encourager by his
presence of the confidence and the prowess of his legions.
That such was the station in which Charles appeared during
nearly the whole of the war, is well known to all historical
readers ; nor is it less notorious that, after its sad termina-
tion, when the authors of the rebellion had, according to the
s2

260 KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

almost fatal progress of revolutions, given place to the
wretched herd by which they were overpowered, he fell a
captive into those base and bloody hands, sold for money by
his Scottish subjects. Here thrown wholly on his own re-
sources, his true character at length shone forth in all the
splendour of virtue, piety, perfect heroism, and almost wis-
dom. Such was the Prince who, through the ambition, the
folly, or the malignity of a few of his subjects ; and the igno-
rance, the fanaticism, the groundless fears, or the low interests,
of the rest, was consigned by the vilest of them to a violent
death on the thirtieth of January, 1648.

E > W A H% D,

LOUD HERBERT OE CHERJVURY.
OB, 1648,

EDWARD,

FIRST LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY.

OF that anomaly of character, by the abundance and variety
of which foreigners are pleased to tell us that our country is
distinguished, we meet with few examples more striking
than in the subject of this memoir wise and unsteady ;
prudent and careless ; a philosopher, with ungovernable and
ridiculous prejudices ; a good-humoured man, who ever
sought occasions to shed the blood of his fellow creatures ;
a deist, with superstition too gross for the most secluded
cloister. These observations are not founded on the report
of others, but on the fragment which remains of his own
sketch of his life, a piece of infinite curiosity, to which these
pages will chiefly owe any degree of interest that they may
be found to possess.

He was eldest son and heir of Richard Herbert, of Mont-
gomery Castle, in North Wales, great-great-grandson of Sir
Richard Herbert, of Colebrook, in Monmouthshire, who was
next brother to William, first Earl of Pembroke. His mother
was Magdalen, daughter and heir of Sir Richard Newport, of
High Ercal, in Shropshire, and he was born in the year 1581,
at Eyton in that county, a seat derived by his father from her
family. At the age of twelve he was sent, with an ample stock
of classical learning, to Oxford, and was entered a gentleman
commoner of University College, where he studied with such
determined assiduity that he would not suffer his marriage,
which, through some prudential family considerations, took
place with a kinswoman before he had reached the age of

262 EDWARD, FIRST LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY.

sixteen, to interrupt the course of his education, and there-
fore brought his wife to reside in the town. He remained
there till the year 1600, when he settled in London, and
presented himself, without introduction, at the Court of
Elizabeth, who, having with some difficulty discovered who
he was, twice gave him her hand to kiss, and twice, to use
his own words, " clapped him on the cheek, swearing her
ordinary oath, and lamenting that he had been married so
young." These, however, appear to have been the only
favours that he received from her, but on the accession of
James he attended his powerful kinsman, the Earl of Pem-
broke, to meet that Prince on his road from Scotland ; was
received by him with distinguishing grace ; and presently
after made a Knight of the Bath, the chivalrous ceremonies
used on his reception into which order seem to have made an
indelible impression on a mind not less romantic than ho-
nourable, and even to have influenced the whole conduct of
his youth and middle age.

Unfit for and averse to the quietude of domestic life, he
became now impatient to visit foreign countries, and pro-
posed to accompany the Earl of Nottingham in his embassy
to Madrid, but his relations, to detain him at home, contrived
to have him placed in the office of Sheriff of the county of
Montgomery ; in 1608, however, he went to Paris, leaving
his wife pregnant, and three young children. Here he became
intimate with the brave old Constable Henry de Montmorency,
on a short visit to whose country-house he quarrelled with
and challenged a French cavalier, for refusing to restore a
ribbon which he had jestingly snatched from the head of a
little girl of ten years old ; an absurdity for which he apolo-
gises by declaring, with much solemnity, that he thought
himself bound to commit it by the oath which he had taken,
as a Knight of the Bath, "to defend maidens in their rights."
During his stay in France, he perfected himself in the accom-
plishments of riding, fencing, and music, and improved his
erudition in the conversation of the celebrated Isaac Casau-

EDWARD, FIRST LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY. 263

bon, in whose house he seems to have dwelt. Having made
a short visit rather to the Court of London than to his family,
he embarked in the spring of 1610 for the Netherlands, and
served as a volunteer with the English troops commanded by
the Prince of Orange at the siege of Juliers, where he dis-
tinguished himself by the utmost extravagance of rashness
and unnecessary valour, as well in incessant private quarrels
as in military exploits ; insomuch that even Balagny, at that
time the most notorious and frequent duellist of the French
Court and army, had discretion enough to decline his invi-
tation to decide by combat on the merits of their respective
imaginary mistresses. " On this refusal," says Herbert, " I
went to M. Terant, a gentleman that belonged to the Duke
of Montmorency, who, telling me he had a quarrel with
another gentleman, I offered to be his second, but he saying
that he was provided already, I rode thence to the English
quarters, attending some fit occasion to send again to the
Lord Walden," whom also he had challenged. He had,
however, no sooner arrived there than he was wounded in a
rencontre with another English officer of rank ; and all this
seems to have been the work of a single day. It is true that
duelling was a prevailing fashion of that period, but it is not
less true that Herbert must have had a strong predisposition
to follow that fashion. Having visited the Imperial Court,
he returned to London, where this misplaced bravery, as well
as his uncommon talents and good breeding, rendered him a
favourite in the highest society. The most eminent and
accomplished men of the time courted his intimacy, and the
women procured miniature copies of his picture, and wore
them secretly about their persons : a compliment that had
nearly cost him his life, for a Sir John Ayres, discovering
such a one in his wife's possession, became furiously jealous,
and, having waylaid him, with a party of men, in the street
near Whitehall, left him covered with wounds, received in a
defence of himself almost incredibly heroic. In 1614 he
again volunteered in a campaign under the Prince of Orange ;

264 EDWARD, FIRST LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY.

which ended, he made a hasty tour of Italy, passed his
Christmas at Rome, and, returning by Turin, engaged with
the Duke of Savoy to recruit his army with four thousand
French protestants. He went therefore into Languedoc,
where he was met by an edict newly issued by the Queen
Mother of France, prohibiting the enlistment of troops for
the service of foreign powers ; and, having challenged the
Governor of Lyons for performing an act of public duty con-
sequent on that edict, which he could scarcely have avoided,
was corrected by the slightest possible show of imprisonment,
and presently after embarked for England.

In 1616 he was nominated Ambassador to Louis the
thirteenth, for the professed purpose of renewing the oath of
alliance between James and the deceased Henry the Fourth,
but in fact to negotiate in favour of the protestants. He
appears to have executed his mission with much sagacity and
gravity ; but its object was uniformly thwarted by the Duke
de Luynes, a young man to whose government the King had
implicitly surrendered himself and who had determined to
extirpate them by force of arms. To this nobleman, after
long delays, the King referred him, when the extraordinary
conference ensued which is here given nearly in Herbert's
own words. On De Luynes dryly demanding of him, as
soon as they were seated, the cause of his visit, he answered
that he was commanded by the King, his master, to mediate
a peace between the King of France and his protestant sub-
jects. " What," said the Duke, " hath the King, your master,
to do with our actions? Why doth he meddle with our
affairs ? " " The King, my master," answered Herbert,
" ought not to give an account of the reason that induced
him hereunto, but if you ask me in more gentle terms, I will
do my best to give you satisfaction." To this De Luynes
replied simply with the word "bien," and Herbert went on
to say that James, in conformity to his stipulation with
Henry the Fourth that the survivor of either should always
endeavour to procure the tranquillity of the other's estate,

EDWARD, FIRST LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURT. 265

had now sent him for that purpose ; and that he hoped that
when the present civil discord should be accommodated,
Louis might be disposed to assist the Elector Palatine, the
ancient friend and ally of the French crown. The Duke
interrupted him by saying, "we will have none of your
advice ; " and Herbert rejoined that he " took those words
for an answer, and was sorry that the affection and goodwill
of his master was not understood," adding, " since you reject
them on these terms, I have it in charge to tell you that we
know very well what we have to do." " We do not fear
you," said De Luynes. " If you had said," replied Herbert,
" that you had not loved us, I should have believed you,
and should have returned you another answer, but now I can
only repeat that we know what we have to do." De Luynes,
apprised doubtless of his passionate nature, and desirous to
take advantage of it, now cried, in apparent wrath, " Par
Dieu, si vous n'etiez Monsieur 1'Ambassadeur, je vous
traiterois d'une autre sorte." He succeeded. Herbert in-
stantly rose, and saying, that as he was an Ambassador,
so also was he a gentleman, laid his hand on the hilt of
his sword, and adding "this shall make you an answer,"
departed.

The strange circumstances of this interview were the result
of artifice on the part of the French favourite. He had con-
trived that a person of some importance among the protestants
should be so secreted behind the hangings of the apartment
as to overhear the conversation, in order that he might be
enabled to assure them of the hopelessness of any good effect
to their cause from the mediation of England. De Luynes
passed over in silence the implied challenge which he had
received, but prevailed on Louis to send his brother, the duke
de Chaulnes, to London, in the character of Ambassador
Extraordinary, chiefly for the purpose of procuring Herbert's
disgrace, as he did in fact his recal ; while Sir Edward, on
his part, lost no time after his return, in suing for James's
permission to summon De Luynes, by a trumpet, to single

266 EDWARD, FIRST LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY.

combat. The opportune death however, soon after, of that
favourite, removed all difficulties on this singular affair ;
Herbert was again appointed Ambassador to Paris ; and the
King on this occasion paid him the high but perilous compli-
ment of leaving all matters to his discretion, by refusing to
give him any written instructions. His second mission how-
ever seems to have had no objects of peculiarly high consi-
deration, nor did it produce any remarkable events.

Herbert never filled any other public station. On the
twenty-second of December, 1624, shortly before the death
of James, he was raised to the Peerage of Ireland, by the title
of Lord Herbert, of Castle Island in the county of Kerry,
in which he possessed a considerable estate; and on the
seventh of May, 1630, was advanced by Charles the First
to that of Baron Herbert of Cherbury in England. His con-
duct amidst the sad disorders which disfigured the latter years
of that unfortunate Prince's reign is involved in some obscu-
rity. The Parliamentary History informs us that he gave
great offence to the House of Peers by a warm speech on the
side of loyalty, and that he was among those of the nobility
who attended the King at York ; while Lord Orford, without
citing his authority for the assertion, charges him not only
with having sided with the majority in the Long Parliament,
but expressly with having " taken up arms against the
Crown." Whitelock says that, on the twenty-fifth of Febru-
ary, 1644, the Parliament " granted him an allowance for his
livelihood, having been spoiled by the King's forces ; " and
Wood, on the other hand, tells us that " he received satis-
faction from that assembly for their having caused his castle
of Montgomery to be demolished ." These perhaps ought not
to be considered as contradictory reports. Herbert probably
temporised. It is true that it might seem reasonable to
expect, from the heat of his temper, and the constancy of his
chivalrous habits, to find him in such a time a determined
and inflexible partizan ; but if we attentively examine his
character, and he has himself unwarily laid it before us, we

EDWARD, FIRST LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY. 267

shall discover that his warmth was not of the heart but of
the head, and that his romantic notions of honour were the
offspring, not of sentiment, but of fashion, egotism, and pre-
judice. In the singular detail which he has given us of the
most active years of his life we cannot trace a single instance
of his conduct to any motive of love, or friendship, or pity.
He seems to have been in a great measure without passions,
and so to have been enabled, by the aid of a powerful judg-
ment, and under the influence of early habits of strict
morality, to form his own character. Hence arose the irre-
concileable features which occasionally distinguished it, for
it is only in nature that we can find consistency.

Lord Herbert, however, at length obeyed the dictates of
that disposition which really belonged to him. He devoted
himself to literature, and suddenly came forward as the pro-
found speculatist, the acute reasoner, and the well informed
and careful historian : characters in which his fame will long
survive the recollection of his military or political story, or of
his eccentricities. He was the first writer who attempted to
form those opinions which since his time have been called
deistical into a regular system ; and, while we lament the
ability with which he executed his task, we cannot but
respect the modesty with which he urges his arguments, and
the evident sincerity with which he avows his belief in the
doctrines which he endeavours to establish. It extended,
indeed, to the utmost extravagance of fanaticism, for he was
even persuaded that he had received a sensible mark of the
Divine approbation of his desire to promulgate them, which,
after stating somewhat at large his secret deliberations on the
question, he goes on to describe in these words "Being
thus doubtful in my chamber one fair day in the summer,
my casement being opened towards the south, the sun shin-
ing clear, and no wind stirring, I took my book De Veritate
in my hand, and kneeling on my knees, devoutly said these
words ' thou eternal God, author of the light which now
shines upon me, and giver of all inward illuminations, I do

268 EDWARD, FIRST LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY.

beseech thee of thy infinite goodness to pardon a greater
request than a sinner ought, to make. I am not satisfied
enough whether I shall publish this book, De Veritate. If
it be for thy glory, I beseech thee give me some sign from
heaven ; if not, I shall suppress it.' I had no sooner
spoken these words," he continues, " but a loud, though yet
gentle noise came from the heavens, for it was like nothing
on earth ; which did so comfort and cheer me that I took my
petition as granted, and that I had the sign I demanded,
whereupon also I resolved to print my book. This, how
strange soever it may seem, I protest before the eternal God
is true ; neither am I in any way superstitiously deceived
herein, since I did not only clearly hear the noise, but, in the
serenest sky that ever I saw, being without all cloud, did, to
my thinking, see the place from whence it came. And now
I sent my book to be printed at Paris," &c. On such a con-
summation of human vanity and credulity it is needless to
offer any observations.

This remarkable book, having been twice printed in Paris,
at length was republished in London in 1645, together with
two other treatises, &c., under the following title " De
Veritate, prout distinguitur a Revelatione, a verisimili, a
possibili, a falso. Cui operi additi sunt duo alii Tractatus ;
primus, de Causis Errorum ; alter, de Religione Laici. Una
cum Appendice ad Sacerdotes de Religione Laici ; et quibus-
dam Poematibus." He wrote also "De Religione Genti-
lium, Errorumque apud eos Causis ; " " Expeditio Bucking-
hami Ducis in Rheam Insulam" and three Latin Poems
"de Vita Humana de Vita coelesta Conjectura" and
" Haered. ac Nepot. suis Prsecepta et Consilia E. B. H. de C."
He left many specimens, too, of English poetry, which do
little credit to his genius in that line, most of which were
collected and published together by his younger son, in 1665,
in a volume now of rare occurrence, entitled " Occasional
Verses." His book De Veritate was animadverted on with
much severity by several contemporary and succeeding

EDWARD, FIRST LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY 269

writers, but fortunately not till after his death, for doubtless
he would have returned to the charge with vivacity, and in
the issue of such contests the true interests of religion are
frequently more injured by the obstinacy of defence than by
the fierceness of original attack. To conclude this brief
notice of Lord Herbert's works, it is scarcely necessary to
say that his History of the Reign of Henry the Eighth is the
production on which his literary fame chiefly rests ; a noble
effort in its kind, in which it is difficult to say whether
industry of research, accuracy and impartiality of relation
and reflection, distinctness of arrangement, or dignity of
style, claim with most justice our respect and praise. In
this great work the cynical and envious Anthony Wood insi-
nuates that he was mainly assisted by Thomas Master, an
eminent scholar, wit, and poet of that day. Wood, however,
could have deprived Lord Herbert of the honour due to the
author only by insisting that Master wrote the whole, for it
requires no great portion of critical ability to pronounce it
positively to have been the work of a single hand.

Lord Herbert died on the twentieth of August, 1648, at his
house in Queen Street, London, doubtless that which, in his
own curious sketch of part of his life, he calls " my house
among gardens, near the Old Exchange," and was buried in
the chancel of St. Giles's in the Fields. Cherishing to the
last, let us hope piously, his affection for his sceptical work,
the following inscription was by his order graven on his tomb.
" Heic inhumatur corpus Edvardi Herbert, Equitis Balnei,
Baronis de Cherbury et Castle Island, auctoris libri cui titulus
est De Veritate. Redder ut herbae, vicesimo die Augusti,
A.D. 1648." He married Mary, daughter and heir of Sir
William Herbert of St. Julians, in the county of Monmouth,
by whom he had two sons, Richard, his successor ; and Ed-
ward ; and one daughter, Beatrice, who died unmarried. His
titles became extinct in Edward, his grandson.

cj) A M E S,

."DUKE OF HAMILTON
OB, 1649,

JAMES, FIRST DUKE OF HAMILTON.

THIS nobleman, whose invariable fidelity, and untimely
sacrifice, atoned in some measure for the detestable treachery
of a wretched few of his countrymen toward his royal master,
was the eldest son of James, second Marquis of Hamilton,
by Anne, daughter of James Conyngham, seventh Earl of
Glencairn. He was born in the year 1606, and brought at an
early age to England, where he completed his education in
the University of Oxford, and was a student there, and in
the eighteenth year of his age, when he succeeded to the
titles and estates of his family, on the death of his father.
His attachment to Charles the First, who was but a few
years older than himself, had commenced in his childhood.
He had been one of the few of that Prince's chosen com-
panions, originally perhaps on account of his propinquity in
blood, but the sweetness and pliancy of his disposition soon
furnished a stronger tie ; and it was observed, contrary to
the usual event of such exaltations, that Charles after mount-
ing the throne manifested towards him an increasing affec-
tion. He went however towards the end of the first year of
that reign into Scotland, where the magnificence of his
father had produced heavy incumbrances on his estate, and
resisted as long as he could with decency the repeated
invitations of the King, who, with a familiarity which he
seldom used to any, constantly corresponded with him
during his absence. At length, in the winter of 1628,
Charles sent the Earl of Denbigh, who was his father-in-
law, expressly to hasten his return to the Court, and he

272

JAMES, FIRST DUKE OF HAMILTON.

obeyed, and on his arrival was sworn of the Privy Council,
appointed a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and soon after
Master of the Horse, which office had become vacant by the
murder of the Duke of Buckingham.

He became presently an object of jealousy, for many of
the courtiers suspected that he would succeed also to the
unbounded favour which had been enjoyed by that noble-
man ; and it arose perhaps more from his own prudence than
from the King's choice, that a new destination, which might
lessen their envy by removing him from their sight, was
soon after allotted to him. The heroic Gustavus Adolphus
was preparing to stem the torrent of the Emperor's unjust
conquests in Germany, and Charles, the first desire of whose
heart was to regain the Palatinate, which had been wrested
from his sister's husband, was anxious to lend his best aid to
the enterprise. Gustavus had solicited him to that end, but
Charles, for some reasons of state now unknown, was desirous
that the levies to be made for that purpose should appear to
proceed from the voluntary inclination of his subjects, and
Hamilton agreed to procure and command them as at his own
charge, while the King of Sweden, on his part, conde-
scended to sign a treaty with the Marquis, differing nothing
in its language and forms from the accustomed usage on such
occasions between brother Sovereigns. This negotiation was
not concluded till the spring of 1631, though Hamilton had
employed several preceding months in raising troops, chiefly
in his own country. In the mean time a private quarrel
between two persons whom he had employed in Holland
to forward the purposes of his plan, Mackay, Lord Reay,
and David Ramsay, produced against him an accusation of
high treason. Reay, in malice to his adversary, had in-
formed Lord Ochiltree, a Scottish nobleman then in London,
who entertained an hereditary hatred to Hamilton, that
Ramsay had assured him that the Marquis's design in this
armament was to assert his title to the crown of Scotland.
Ochiltree gladly communicated the intelligence to the Lord

I

JAMES, FIRST DUKE OF HAMILTON. 273

Weston, then High Treasurer, adding an insinuation of the
peril to which the King exposed himself by permitting
Hamilton to sleep in his room, which, according to the
custom of the time, was the Marquis's duty as a Gentle-
man of the Bedchamber ; Weston presently carried the
news to the King ; and the Marquis, on returning to London,
for the purpose of ceremoniously taking his leave of the
King, had from his Majesty the first intimation of this
slander, accompanied by an assurance of his utter disbelief
of it. Charles, with that cool magnanimity which his
bitterest enemies have never denied to his characte'r, com-
manded Hamilton to lie that night in his bedchamber, and
the affair concluded in the award of a sentence of perpetual
imprisonment against Lord Ochiltree, and in that appeal to
single combat by Reay and Ramsay, which has been largely
treated of in a late admirable disquisition on the obsolete
law of duel.

On the sixteenth of July, 1631, Hamilton, lately decorated
with the order of the Garter, sailed, with about forty vessels,
and six thousand men, and on the twenty-ninth reached the
mouth of the Oder, where he received an order from
Gustavus to march into Silesia. The Imperialists were
panic-struck on his arrival, and the Protestants in an equal
measure elated, for the reputation of Scottish valour stood
very high in Germany, and rumour had magnified his num-
bers to twenty thousand, but a little time restored to the
spirits of each party their former tone : he found himself in
a country completely wasted by war, and frightfully infected
by the plague, which carried off one-third of his force within
a few days in the neighbourhood of Frankfort ; yet, un-
daunted by these calamities, he plunged with ardour and
activity into the service that he had undertaken, relieved
Crossen, and took Guben, two considerable garrison towns on
the Silesian frontier, and marched from thence into Lower
Saxony, to lay an ineffectual siege to Magdebourgh. His
brave Scots were now reduced to fifteen hundred, and, with

IV. T

274 JAMES, FIRST DUKE OF HAMILTON.

the German and Swedish troops which had been joined
them, too weak to undertake any exploit of importance ;
reinforcements which had been promised by Gustavus were
delayed from time to time, and in fact never arrived ; and he
discovered, to his infinite mortification, that the success of
the Palatinate cause was regarded by that Prince with in-
difference, if not with aversion. He now attached his force
to the main army, and set out alone to seek the King of
Sweden, by whom he was entertained for many months with
fair words and expectations, till, weary and ashamed of the
character of a mere volunteer, he returned to England, with
the remnant of his little army, almost at the precise time
that Gustavus fell at the battle of Lutzen.

Charles received him with all the kindness to which he
had been accustomed, but we find him in no important em-
ployment in the State till 1638, when he was appointed Lord
High Commissioner for the affairs of the Scottish Church, an
office always of great weight, and at that period involved in
peculiar difficulties. It was the year which gave birth to the
detestable covenant, and to the concomitant discord on points
of ecclesiastical discipline which soon after blazed forth into
open rebellion. The Marquis arrived in Edinburgh when
the confusion was at its height, and left nothing undone that
wisdom, humanity, and patriotism could devise to restore
order, and to satisfy sincere scruples of conscience. At
length, after six months passed in calm persuasion, and
reasonable concessions, on his part, and in subtle intrigue,
and sturdy obstinacy, on that of the covenanters, he pro-
nounced the dissolution of the general assembly, which, in
utter contempt of his authority, continued its sittings, and
published its decrees ; abolished episcopacy ; and assumed,
without professing it, a complete independence in the govern-
ment of the Church. Hamilton now issued a proclamation
declaring those who continued to sit in the assembly traitor^,
and returned to England, while the covenanters threw off
the mask, and proceeded to levy troops ; and Charles, as is

JAMES, FIRST DUKE OP HAMILTON. 275

well known, went in person to York in the spring of 1639,
at the head of an army, to endeavour to reduce them to
obedience.

The Marquis remained for a few days in London, to super-
intend the embarkation of troops, with which he landed on the
first of May in Leith Roads. Here he received an insidious
letter, signed by the Earls of Rothes and Argyll, and other
noblemen of the covenant party, which, together with his
answer, have fortunately been preserved. The concluding
words of the latter may furnish, for all such times and occa-
sions, a salutary lesson to the senseless herd on whose credu-
lity faction always builds its strength " Whereas you desire
me," says Hamilton, " to be a means that your supplications
may have free access to his Majesty's ears, it is a work of
no difficulty, for his Majesty hath never stopt his ears to the
supplications of any of his subjects when they have been
presented to him in that humble and fitting way which became
dutiful subjects; nor did I ever refuse any all the time I was
among you, or conceal any part of them from his Majesty ; so
that your allegation of not being heard is grounded upon the
same false foundations that your other actions are, and serves
only for a means to delude the simple people, that by making
them believe what you have a mind to possess them with,
they may become backers of your unwarrantable actions ;
which, as it is generally lamented by all his Majesty's good
subjects, so it is more particularly by me, who have had the
honour to be employed in this business with so bad success."
He was now every hour assailed by insolent or hypocritical
letters and messages from the chiefs of the covenanters, justi-
fying their cause, and magnifying the force by which they
threatened to defend it, but always concluding with offers of
treaty. He had remained for nearly a month on board, im-
patiently expecting orders to march against the rebels, when
he received a mortifying command from the King not to dis-
embark without his Majesty's orders. Charles, confused by
jarring counsels ; ill-provided of money to bear the charges
x2

276 JAMES, FIRST DUKE OF HAMILTON.

even of the shortest campaign ; convinced by his own obser-
vation of the bitter obstinacy and strength of his opponents ;
and utterly hopeless of succour from England ; already
repented of his enterprise. After a few days however had
passed, encouraged by some transient ground of hope, he
recalled the prohibition. " All these things considered," says
he, in a letter of the 2nd of June from his camp at Berwick,
" it were a shame I should be idle : wherefore now I set you
loose, to do what mischief you can do to the rebels for my
service with those men you have, for you cannot have one
man from hence : " yet this resolution was no sooner made
than revoked ; for on the fourth of the same month the
Marquis was commanded to make the best arrangement in
his power for mere defence, and to repair without delay to
the King, on his arrival at whose camp he found a treaty
already commenced. It was concluded on the eighteenth,
and conceded to the Scots almost all that they had required,
and much more than they had expected.

Hamilton's conduct in the affairs of Scotland at this mo-
mentous period, faithful and loyal as it had been, incurred
much censure. While he abhorred the rebellion, he scarcely
disapproved of the professed motives of its leaders, and incur-
red at once the hatred of the covenanters by his determined
resistance to their violence, and of the rest of his countrymen
for having at length advised Charles to purchase a peace by
the sacrifice of the hierarchy. Conscious of this unpopu-
larity, and of the ill effect to be expected from it on his
future public services in Scotland, he steadily resisted the
King's earnest inclination to continue him in the office of High
Commissioner, which indeed by the terms of the treaty had
now sunk nearly into an empty title, and contented himself
with the character of a private counsellor, and his master's
unimpaired favour and confidence. Charles, however, still
committed his affairs in that country to his charge, and
showed little disposition to conceal that determination, having
placed his brother, William Hamilton, then also created Earl

JAMES, FIRST DUKE OF HAMILTON. 277

of Lanerick (Lanark), in the office of Secretary of State there.
Thus matters stood with him when, in August 1640, the
Scottish army invaded England ; worsted the King's forces in
the battle of Newburn ; and compelled Charles in the end of
the following month, to a treaty at Ripon, for which he
named as one of his three commissioners the Marquis, with
whom the enemy positively refused to negociate. Every
demand made by the covenanters was soon after complied
with, and it was by his advice that the King made these
bitter concessions.

He now for a time declined in his master's favour. The
most industrious efforts had been made to prejudice Charles
against him by insinuations, if not of direct treachery, at least
of sacrificing the royal interest to his own. Charles, however,
among whose many virtues a constancy in friendship was
peculiarly conspicuous, was soon reconciled to him. A most
memorable letter from the unhappy monarch on that occasion,
dispatched to him by his brother Lanerick, which, though it
has long been in print, is little known, highly deserves to be
here recalled to observation.

" Hamilton,

" Though the trust of this bearer needs not a cre-
dential letter, yet the civility of a friend cannot but under his
hand, as well as by word of mouth, express his kindness, and
resentment of courtesies which of late have been such that you
have given me just cause to give you better thanks than I
will offer at in words. I shall not neglect the lazy use of so
trusty a bearer by referring to him not only the estate of my
affairs here, but likewise in what way you will be of most use
to me ; yet I cannot but tell you I have set up my rest upon
the justice of my cause, being resolved that no extremity or
misfortune shall make me yield ; for I will either be a glori-
ous King, or a patient martyr ; and, as yet, not being the
first, nor at this present apprehending the other, I think it
now no unfit time to express this my resolution unto you.

278 JAMES, FIRST DUKE OF HAMILTON.

One thing more, which, but for the messenger, were too much
to trust to paper the failing to one friend hath indeed gone
very near me ; wherefore I am resolved that no considera-
tion whatsoever shall ever make me do the like. Upon this
ground I am certain that God hath either so totally forgiven
me that he will still bless this good cause in my hands, or
that all my punishment shall be in this world, which without
performing what I have resolved I cannot flatter myself will
end here. This accustomed freedom will I am confident add
cheerfulness to your honest resolutions, seeing, beside genero-
sity, to which I pretend a little, my conscience will make me
stick to my friends, assuring you I have none if I am not
Your most assured constant friend,
Oxford, CHARLES R."

2d Decemb. 1642.

Within very few weeks after the date of this letter the
King's affection for him was declared to the world by a patent
creating him Duke of Hamilton, and this grace seems to have
highly aggravated the malice of his numerous enemies. He
had remained in Scotland for more than two years without
any ostensible public character, combating or soothing the
fury of parties by promoting coalitions, sowing jealousies,
threatening vengeance to some, and offering rewards to others ;
while at home loyalists and rebels, episcopalians and cove-
nanters, joined in endeavouring to ruin him in the King's
opinion. Charles, thus perpetually besieged, perhaps began
to doubt his fidelity, and the Marquis of Montrose, who had
lately quitted the popular party of his country and attached
himself to the royal cause, and whose candour, zeal, and
courage had rendered him a universal favourite, was his bitter
foe. The representations of Montrose at length turned the
scale against him. He had remonstrated with the King on
the aspersions which had been cast on his conduct, and was
consoled by the following letter, dated at Oxford, on the
twenty-eighth of September, 1643 :

JAMES, FIRST DUKE OF HAMILTON. 279

" Hamilton,

" Having much to say. and little time to write,
I have commanded this trusty bearer to supply the shortness
of this letter, which, though it be chiefly to give trust to what
he shall say to you in my name, yet I cannot but assure you
by my own hand that no ill offices have had the power to
lessen my confidence in you, or my estimation of you, for
you shall find me

" Your most assured, real, constant friend,

" CHARLES R."

Emboldened by these kind expressions, and every day
more clearly informed of the activity of his adversaries, he
now determined to justify himself personally to the King,
and on the sixteenth of December arrived at Oxford ; but
they had employed the short interval so successfully that he
was arrested, together with his brother Lanerick, on entering
the town. The matters charged against him, couched in
eight articles of great length, were delivered to him, and if
we are to give them credit, the whole of his long administra-
tion of the affairs of Scotland was a continued tissue of dis-
loyalty and selfishness. He answered them however severally
with great clearness and plausibility, and besought for a
speedy trial, but his accusers replied that till the public com-
motions should be quieted it would not be possible for them
to procure the attendance of their witnesses. His complaints
of this injustice were disregarded, and he was sent, a close
prisoner, to Pendennis Castle, in Cornwall, with Lanerick,
who soon after availed himself of a less rigorous confinement
to make his escape ; and the Duke's place of captivity was
changed within a few months to St. Michael's Mount, in the
same county, where he remained till the latter end of April,
1646, when he was liberated by the surrender of that fortress
to the rebels. He is said now to have determined to retire
from public affairs, but that the unhappy resolution taken
ust at that time by Charles to throw himself into the hands

280 JAMES, FIRST DUKE OF HAMILTON.

of the Scots drew him again into action. He waited, at
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the succeeding July, on the King,
who not only received him with kindness, but apologised to
him for having given the order for his imprisonment, saying
that ' ' it was extorted from him much against his heart, and
that he had stood out against all the importunities of the
Duke's enemies till the very morning he came to Oxford, on
which most of the whole Court came about him, and said
they would all desert him if he yielded not to their desires."
The nineteen bitter propositions by which the English Parlia-
ment, in concert with the Scottish commissioners, sought to
destroy the ecclesiastical establishment, and to strip the
crown of most of its authority, were now delivered to the
King ; Hamilton pressed him with earnestness to accede to
them, and, on his steady refusal, asked and obtained leave to
quit the little shadow of a Court which still surrounded him.
The Duke departed with a degree of disgust, which however
did not prevent him from exerting his vain endeavours in
the country against the fury of the rebellion by various
devices on which he constantly corresponded with Charles,
whose friendship for him seemed unalterable, and he was so
engaged when that miserable Prince was sold by his country-
men to the English, and led into captivity.

Scotland now vainly employed, to retrieve its disgrace, the
means which, had they been lately exerted in defence of the
King, would have redounded to its lasting honour. An army
was raised for the purpose of rescuing Charles, and replacing
him on his throne, and the Duke of Hamilton was appointed
Commander in Chief. In spite of vehement opposition from
the fanatic clergy, extensive levies were made, and the troops,
ten thousand infantry, and four thousand horse, ill provided,
ill accoutred, and without artillery, marched into England in
July, 1648. The rebel force in the north retreated before
them, and, having on their way into Lancashire reduced
Appleby Castle, they proceeded to Kendal, where they were
joined by the Scottish regiments, which had for some time

;

JAMES, FIRST DUKE OF HAMILTON. 281

served in Ireland, and had now left that country to attach
themselves to the Royal cause. Almost destitute of intelli-
gence, they reached Preston before they discovered that the
troops under Lambert, which they had expected to meet,
had been lately joined by a force yet superior, commanded
by Cromwell, whose very name was now a host. The rebel
army was so near that Hamilton had no choice but to engage,
and the result of a short action left him no chance of avoiding
ruin but in a hasty retreat towards Scotland. He marched
precipitately into Staffordshire, and reached Uttoxeter, where
the misery and confusion of the remnant of his troops having
been completed by a mutiny among them, he was on the
point of surrendering to the Governor of Stafford, and the
militia of the county, when he was spared that ignominy by
the appearance of Lambert, with whom, in the last week of
August, 1648, he signed articles of capitulation, one of which
expressly provided for the security of the lives of himself and
those who were captured with him. He was now conducted
to Ashby de la Zouch, in Leicestershire, where he remained
a close prisoner in the castle till the beginning of December,
when he was removed to Windsor, where he had the melan-
choly gratification of seeing once more his unfortunate Prince.
On the twenty-first of the month the King was led through
that town to the place of his approaching sacrifice, and
Hamilton obtained leave to speak to him for a moment. It
was a pathetic moment. The Duke knelt on the road as the
royal victim passed, and, kissing his hand, exclaimed, " My
dear master ; " Charles embraced him with tenderness, and
said, " I have indeed been so to you." They were then
hastily separated.

During his confinement at Windsor, Cromwell repeatedly
visited him, in the vain hope of tempting him to discover the
persons in England with whom he had concerted his late ill-
fated enterprise, and in their conversations let fall some
expressions, which, together with the diabolical fury that
marked the proceeding then carrying on against the King,

282 JAMES, FIRST DUKE OF HAMILTON.

left him no room to hope either for justice or mercy,
resolved therefore to attempt an escape, and, having planned
the means with a Mr. Cole, one of his faithful retainers, and
bribed his keeper, left his prison on the night of the memo-
rable thirtieth of January, and rode towards London, where,
through an alteration imprudently made by himself as to the
appointed place of meeting with Cole, he fell into the hands
of some rebel soldiers in Southwark, and was immediately
committed to strict custody. On the sixth of the following
month he was brought to a trial before the same persons who,
under the assumed denomination of the high court of justice,
had a few days before decreed the murder of their King. It
was extended to eleven days, in a hypocritical affectation of
solemn and candid enquiry, of which there needs no better
proof than the determination of his judges that the engage-
ment in the treaty at Uttoxeter for the safety of his life had
no further meaning than that he should be protected at the
time from the vengeance of the soldiery. At length on the
sixth of March they pronounced him guilty, and sentenced
him to be beheaded, and on the ninth he suffered in New
Palace Yard, with admirable patience and heroism, in com-
pany with the Earl of Holland, and the gallant Lord Capel.
His death was little regretted, for he had been the constant
object of envy in the English Court and State, and of doubt
and jealousy in his own country. The true nature of his
public services was correctly known only by the King, and
himself, and a discovery of it would probably have exposed
him to the bitterest hatred. Flattering, dividing, balancing,
and betraying factions, it may perhaps be no injustice to his
memory to consider him as an over-zealous partisan, who
not unfrequently sacrificed the exactness of honour and
truth to personal affection and profound loyalty. That such
a character should have provoked much obloquy might fairly
be expected, but that a writer so wise, so well-informed, and
so candid, as Lord Clarendon, should have so repeatedly and
severely arraigned it, without adducing a single fact of sinister

JAMES, FIRST DUKE OF HAMILTON. 283

conduct whereon to ground his multifarious censures, is
altogether astonishing.

The Duke married Mary, daughter of William Fielding,
first Earl of Denbigh, by whom he had three sons, Charles,
James, and William, all of whom died children ; and three
daughters, of whom Mary, the eldest, died also young. The
second, Anne, inherited under a special entail, the title of
Duchess of Hamilton, on the death of her uncle, mentioned
here as Earl of Lanerick, who was her father's immediate
successor : she married William Douglas, Earl of Selkirk,
eldest son of William, Marquis of Douglas, and obtained for
him, soon after the Restoration, the title of Duke of Hamilton.
The youngest, Susannah, married John Kennedy, seventh
Earl of Cassilis.

ER$iT

BAROfTESS A11U.N T DEL OE WA'RDOTJR.
OB, 1649,

BLANCH SOMERSET,

BARONESS ARUNDELL OF WARDOUR.

THE name of this lady stands foremost among the few
examples of feminine heroism recorded in the dismal history
of the grand rebellion. She was the sixth of the seven
daughters of Edward, fourth Earl of Worcester of the Somer-
sets, by Elizabeth, third and youngest daughter of Francis
Hastings, second Earl of Huntingdon of his family, and was
married at an early age to Thomas, second Lord Arundell of
Wardour. This nobleman, the heir of a warlike and loyal
sire, had, from the commencement of the differences between
the King and the Parliament, though wholly unconnected
with the court or the government, manifested the firmest
attachment to the royal cause. When Charles appeared'in
arms, Lord Arundell joined him with a regiment of horse,
raised and equipped at his own expense, and was presently
distinguished as much by his bravery as his fidelity. That
such an opponent should become a peculiar object of the
vengeance of the rebels, might be reasonably expected : he
foresaw it ; and when he quitted his noble seat of Wardour
Castle, in Wilts, for the camp, exacted a promise from his
lady that it should be defended against them to the last
extremity.

On the second of May, 1643, while this nobleman was at
Oxford with the King, Sir Edward Hungerford, who was
much trusted by the Parliament in their military affairs in
Wiltshire, required admittance, with some soldiers, into the
castle, to search, by order of that assembly, for cavaliers and
malignants, as the royalists were called by the enemy. His

286 BLANCH SOMERSET,

demand being disdainfully refused, and the castle presenting
an appearance of strength, which he did not expect, he called
to his aid a body of troops in the neighbourhood, under the
command of Colonel Strode, which augmented his force to
thirteen hundred men, and, having summoned it in form to
surrender, was answered by Lady Arundell that " she had a
command from her Lord to keep it, and would obey that
command." The inmates of the castle were, herself, then
sixty years old ; the wife of her only son, Cecily, daughter
of Sir Henry Crompton, of Brambletye in Sussex, Knight of
the Bath ; the three young children of that lady, two sons
and a daughter, and about fifty servants, of whom, say the
accounts of that time, twenty-five were fighting men.

On the following day Hungerford brought up his cannon
within musket shot of the walls, and played on the castle
without intermission for six days and nights, springing two
mines, of which the second, having been introduced into a
vaulted passage, which communicated with almost all the
lower apartments, shook the building to its foundation. In
the meantime the little garrison defended itself with the
most signal obstinacy and valour; the men incessantly on
the alert, and the women supplying them with ammunition,
loading their pieces, and extinguishing the fiery missiles
which the besiegers threw in abundance over the walls.
Worn, however, at length by continual watching and labour
to positive incapacity, and all hope of succour failing, Lady
Arundell demanded a parley, and offered terms of capitula-
tion, but not till the very moment when the enemy had
applied petards to a gate, the forcing of which they who
were within knew must have opened a free passage into the
castle. Such an impression of their strength and resources
had been made on the besiegers, that they readily acceded
to the following favourable terms :

" First, that the ladies, and all others in the castle, should
have quarter.

" Secondly, that the ladies and servants should carry

BARONESS ARUNDELL OF WARDOUR. 287

away all their wearing apparel ; and that six of the serving-
men, whom the ladies should nominate, should attend upon
their persons wheresoever the Parliament forces should dis-
pose of them.

" Thirdly, that all the furniture and goods in the house
should be safe from plunder : and to this purpose one of the
six nominated to attend the ladies was to stay in the castle,
and to take an inventory of all in the house, of which the
commanders were to have one copy, and the ladies another."

"But," adds the Mercurius Rusticus, in which I find
these articles, " being on these terms masters of the castle,
and all within it, 'tis true they observe the first article, and
spare the lives of all the besieged, though they had slain in
the defence at least sixty of the rebels, but for the other two
they observe them not in any part. As soon as they enter
the castle, they first seize upon the several trunks and packs
which they of the castle were making up, and left neither
the ladies or servants any wearing clothes but what was on
their backs. There was in the castle, amongst many very
rich ones, one extraordinary chimney-piece, valued at two
thousand pounds : this they utterly deface, and beat down
all the carved works thereof with their poll-axes. There
were likewise rare pictures, the work of the most curious
pencils that were known in these latter times of the world,
and such that if Apelles himself, had he been now alive,
needed not to blush to own for his. These in a wild fury
they break and tear in pieces, a loss that neither cost nor
art can repair. Without, they burn all the out-houses : they
pull up the pales of two parks, one of red deer, the other of
fallow : what they did not kill they let loose to the world for
the next taker. In the parks they burn three tenements and
two lodges. They cut down all the trees about the house
and grounds ; these they sold for four-pence, six-pence,
or twelve-pence apiece, that were worth three, four, or five
pound a tree. They dig up the heads of twelve great ponds,
some of five or six acres apiece, and destroy all the fish :

288 BLANCH SOMERSET,

they sell carp of two foot long for two-pence and three-pence
apiece. They drive away and sell the horses, kine, and other
cattle ; and, having left nothing either in the air or water,
they dig under the earth, the castle being served with water
brought two miles by a conduit of lead, and cut up the pipe
and sold it, as these men's wives in North Wiltshire do bone
lace, at six-pence a-yard. They that have the unhappy
occasion to sum up these losses value them at no less than
an hundred thousand pounds."

Nor was their breach of the treaty confined to this plunder
and devastation. They led the ladies and children prisoners
to Shaftesbury, and having kept them for some time confined
there, proposed to send them to Bath, at that time afflicted
with the plague. Lady Arundell, whose health was sinking
under the fatigue and anxiety that she had suffered, and who
was then confined to her bed, and, at her instance, her
daughter-in-law, heroically declared that they would not
submit to be removed thither unless by actual force, and the
rebels fearing to render themselves unpopular by so odious
a step in a country where the objects of their persecution
were exceedingly beloved, relinquished the design. In mere
malice however, for to no other motive can it be assigned,
they wrested the two sons of Mrs. Arundell, the one nine
the other seven years old, from their mother and grand-
mother, and sent them under a guard to Dorchester.

Whether any of the noble sufferers were enlarged before
the impending calamitous widowhood of Lady Arundell, we
are not informed. On the fifth of the following July, her
Lord, fighting gallantly at the head of his regiment in the
battle of Lansdown, received a brace of pistol-bullets in
the thigh, and died of those wounds at Oxford. Lady Arun-
dell survived till 1649, on the twenty-eighth of October in
which year she died at Winchester, and was buried, with
her husband, at Tisbury in Wilts. Their children were,
Henry, who succeeded to the title and estates ; and three
daughters ; Catharine, wife of Francis Cornwallis ; Anne,

BARONESS ARUNDELL OF WARDOUR. 289

married to Roger Vaughan ; and Clara, to Humphrey Weld
of Lulworth Castle, in Dorsetshire.

It is proper to observe that the plate which accompanies
these notices has been executed from a picture comparatively
of recent date ; and this deviation, solitary as it is, from a
rule laid down of excluding all but originals, however high
their authority, demands explanation. The only portrait
extant of this lady was long preserved at Wardour Castle
with the greatest care, yet had suffered such partial decay
from the silent operation of time that the whole except the
head, which fortunately remained in a perfect state, was
destroyed or nearly obliterated. At a subsequent period, all
the damaged parts of the picture were cut away ; and
Angelica Kauffmann, at the instance of the noble proprietor,
copied the head, adding to it, with exquisite taste, a figure
and drapery. It is a fortunate circumstance that this admi-
rable copy was executed, for it has preserved to the world
the only likeness of a heroine who is so eminently distin-
guished in the dark annals of the rebellion, the small rem-
nant of the original picture being subsequently consumed in
the fire which had nearly proved fatal to the splendid edifice
of Wardour.

H IE F$ R Y [R C
EAKL O'F HOLLAND.

OB, 1649,

HENRY RICH,

FIRST EARL OF HOLLAND.

THIS Nobleman appears to have been incomparably the
most accomplished English courtier of his time, for he
joined to the highest politeness, and general good breeding,
the most profound skill in every branch of the minor sort of
policy so peculiarly adapted to that character. He evidently
possessed talents, natural and acquired, worthy of far more
exalted application, but ambition seems to have been a
stranger to his mind, and vanity his ruling passion, in seeking
the gratification of which he frequently hesitated not to em-
ploy means little less than sordid. Under a veil of universal
complaisance and condescension he concealed the purest
selfishness ; and affected the utmost devotion to the duties of
the several employments from time to time intrusted to him,
without the slightest feeling of public principle, or of grati-
tude to the power from which he had derived them, and the
rest of the distinctions and dignities with which he was
loaded. He had in short all the qualities that most readily
attract regard, with very few of those which are usually
found to retain it ; and, with a fate not uncommon to men of
his character, terminated a life of undeserved good fortune in
calamity equally unmerited.

He was the second son of Robert Lord Rich, first Earl of
Warwick of his family, by his first Countess, Penelope,
daughter of Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, an unhappy
woman, of whom some remarkable particulars may be found
in a lately preceding memoir of Charles Blount, Earl of
u 2

292 HENRY RICH,

Devonshire. To a cadet of an impoverished noble family,
with the recommendations already stated, to which were
added all the profits of a complete education, and the ad-
vantage of perfect beauty of form and visage, the Court of
James the First seemed to offer the strongest ground of hope.
He appeared there accordingly at a very early age, and imme-
diately attracted the favourable notice of the King, and was
one of the many Knights of the Bath appointed to grace the
creation of Henry Prince of Wales. Too young, however,
then for public employment, he travelled for a year or two in
France and Italy, and afterwards complied with the fashion
of the time by serving for more than one campaign as a volun-
teer in the Low Country war. On his return, in 1617, he
was appointed Captain of the King's Guard. He now applied
himself with the utmost sedulity to the making of his for-
tune ; cultivated a strict intimacy with Hay, Earl of Carlisle,
yet in high favour, whose liberality was proverbially profuse ;
and courted the omnipotent Buckingham with the most sub-
missive respect, " He took all the ways he could," says
Lord Clarendon, " to endear himself to the Duke, and to his
confidence, and wisely declined the receiving any grace or
favour but as his donation : above all, avoided the suspicion
that the King had any kindness for him upon any account
but of the Duke, whose creature he desired to be esteemed,
though the Earl of Carlisle's friend ; and he prospered so well
in that pretence that the King scarcely made more haste to
advance the Duke than the Duke did to promote the other."
And first, to use again the words of the same noble author,
Buckingham "preferred him to a wife." This lady was
Isabel, daughter and heir of Sir Walter Cope, a part of whose
ample inheritance was the manor of Kensington, in Middlesex,
which, on the eighth of March, 1622, on being advanced to a
Barony, he took as his title. In the succeeding year he
followed Prince Charles and the Duke to Madrid, and, soon
after his return with them from that abortive expedition, was
despatched to the Court of France as a sort of Ambassador

FIRST EARL OF HOLLAND. 293

incognito, if the phrase may "be allowed, to ascertain the
inclinations of Mary de Medicis, and her daughter, the fair
Henrietta Maria, on the question of the project for the mar-
riage of Charles to that young Princess. Of his reception and
transactions there in that character many curious particulars
remain, in a broken series of his original letters preserved in
the Harleian collection, some of which, without apologising
for their length, I will take leave to insert in this memoir.
It appears that the proposal was received with nearly unqua-
lified encouragement. In a letter to Buckingham, of the
twenty-sixth of February, 1623 0. S., almost immediately
after his arrival at Paris, he says : " The Queen Mother told
me she had not lost those inclinations that she had heretofore
expressed, to desire her daughter may be given to the Prince,
(with many words of value unto the King, and person of the
Prince,) and more 'than this she could not she thought well
say, it being more natural for the woman to be demanded and
sought." Ten days after, we have the following letter to the
Prince

" Maye it pleas your Highnesse,

I can but make you continuall repetisions of the
value you have heir to bee (as justly e wee know you) the
most compleat yonge Prince and person of the world. This
reputation hath begotten in the sweet Princesse, Madame, so
infinit an affection unto your fame as shee could not containe
herself from a passionat desiring to see your picture, the
shadow of that person so honer'd, and knew me not by what
means to compas it, it beeing woren about my necke ; for,
though others, as the Queens and Prinseses, wold open it and
consider it, the which ever brought forth admirasion from
them, yet durst not the poore yonge lady looke any otherwise
on it then afarre off, whose hart was nearer it than any of the
others that did most gaze upon it. But at the last, rather
than want that sight the which she was so impasient of, she
desired the gentlewoman of the house where I am lodged,

294 HENRY RICH,

that had bene her servant, to borrow of mee the picture in all
the secresye that maye bee, and to bringe it unto her ; saying
shee could not want that curiositie, as well as others, towards
a person of his infinit reputasion. As soon as shee saw the
partye that brought it she retired into her cabinette, callinge
only her into it, where shee opened the picture in such haste
as shewed a true picture of her passion, blushing in the
instant at her own guiltinesse. She kept it an hower in her
hands, and when shee returned it, she gave with it many
praises of your person. S r ., this is a businesse so fitte for
your secresy as I know it shall never go farther then unto the
Kinge, your father, my Lord Duke, and my Lord of Carlyle's
knowledge. A tendernesse in this is honorable ; for I would
rather dye a thousand times than it should be published,
since I am by this yong ladye trusted, that is for bewtye and
goodnesse an angelle.

I have reseved from my Lord of Buckingham an advertis-
ment that your Highnesse' opinion is to treat of the generall
leage first that will prepare the other. S'., whatsoever shall
be propounded will have a noble exceptasion ; though this,
give me leave to tell you, when you are free, as by the next
nues wee shall know you to bee, they will expect that upon
these declarasions they have here already made towards that
particularitie of the aliance, that your Highnesse will goe the
readier and nearer waye to unight and fasten by that notte
the affection of this kingdome. S'., for the generall, they all
hear speake just that langwage that I should and doe unto
them of the power and usurpasion of the Spaniards ; of the
aproches they make to this kingdome ; the danger of the
Lowcuntries ; and the direct conquest of Germanye and the
Valteline; by which we have cause to joyne in the oposision
of the ambisions and mightiness of this Kinge, the which
they all hear say cannot bee so sertainlye done as by an
aliance with us. This they speake perpetuallye, and urge it
unto my considerasion. S r ., unlesse we precede very roundly,
though they be never so well affected, we may have interrup-

FIRST EARL OF HOLLAND. 295

sions by the arts of Spaine, that make offers infinit to the
advantage of this State at this tyme ; but they harken to
none of them untill they see our intensions towards them,
the which if they finde to be reall, indeed they will give us
brave satisfaction. But, S r . your father's and your will, not
my opinion, must be folowed, and what comandements your
Highnesse shall geve mee shall be most strictlye obeyed by
the most devoted of
Paris this 9 l . h of March Your Highnesse's most dutifull

1623 and humblest servants,

For his Highnesse. H. KENSINGTON."

The treaty proceeded prosperously, and Kensington was
now publicly joined to the Earl of Carlisle, the resident
minister, whom, in the ensuing letter to Buckingham, he calls
his colleague in the embassy. The manner in which he
mentions that nobleman's desire for the vacant Garter, which
he obtained, tends to prove the correctness of Lord Claren-
don's report of the different demeanour which he had the
ingenuity to use towards those two great men, without
offending either.

" My most deare and noble Lord,

Besides that joinct letter to your Lo? from my col-
league and myself, I thinck fitt to adde this particular
accompt of what passed yesterday, at Ruel, betwixte Queen
mother and me ; whither going to give her double thancks,
as for the libertie she had given me of accesse at all tymes to
Madame, to enterteyne her henseforth with a more free and
amorous kinde of language from the Prince, so for having so
readily condiscended to an humble suite of myne, in the
behalf of my Lo. of Carlile, for a favorable letter for him to
yo' Lo^ , she was pleased to oblige me further in telling me
she did it meerly for my sake. I redoubled my thanckes,
and added that I knew your Lo? would esteeme it one of the
greatest happinesses that could befall yow to have any occa-

"296 HENRY RICH,

sion offred whereby yow might witnesse how much yow
adored her Ma"''* royall vertues, & how infinitely yow were
her servant, ready to receyve lawe from her, whensoever by
the least syllable of her blessed lips or pen she should please
to impose it : And this I did, as, on the one side to gratify e
my colleague, who would be infinitly sensible of y disgrace
he apprehends in the misse of the ribban, being thus brought
upon the stage for it, as also to healp to mesnage that yo'
gracious favour wh c . h Mons' de Fiatt's letter to my Lord repre-
sents unto him, by giving yow meanes withall to oblige this
sweet and blessed Queen, who hath yo. r Lo? in a very high
accompt, and would be glad to finde occasions how to witnesse
it. The mention of my Lord of Carlile upon this occasion
refreshed her remembrance of the late falling out betwixt
the Cardinall and him ; and, though she was fully informed
of y particulars by the Card? himsel/, yet she would needs
have a relasion from me, who, in a merry kinde of fashion,
obeyed her command, and salved everything the best I
could. She would needs know my opinion of the Cardinall,
who so magnified to her his wisdome, his corage, his curtesie,
his fidelity to her service, his afection to our buisinesse, as
pleased her not a little ; neither did my heart and my tongue
differ, for I esteeme him such.

This discourse she left to fall uppon a better subject, the
Prince, concerninge whose voyage into Spaine, the censure of
Italie she said was that two Kings had therin committed two
great errours ; the one in adventuring so precious a pledge to
so hazardous an enterprise ; the other in so badly u singe so
brave a guest : ( The first, Madame,' answered I, ' maye be
excused from y" ende, the comon good of all Chrystendome ;
which then, standing upon desperat terms, had neede of a
desperat remedy : The second had need of a better advocate
then I, to putt any color of defence upon it ; but his Highnes
had observed as great a weaknes & folly as that in that, after
they had used him so ill, they wold suffer him to depart,
w h was one of y* first speaches he uttred after he was

FIRST EAR1 OP HOLLAND. 297

entred into his ship.' * But did he say so 1 ' sayd the
Queen : ' yes, Madame, I will assure you,' quoth I, ' from
y? witnesse of my owne eares.' She smiled and replied,
' Indeed I heard he was used ill.' 'So he was,' answered I ;
'not in his entertaynnV, for that was as splendid as that
country could afford it ; but in their frivolous delayes, and
in the unreasonable conditions w"! 1 they propounded &
pressed, upon the advantage they had of his princely person ;
and yett,' smilingly added I, ' yow here, Madame, use him
farre worse.' ' And how so 1 ' presently demaunded she. ' In
that you presse,' quoth I, ' upon that most worthy & noble
Prince, who hath, with so much affection to yo! Ma 1 '!' 8 service,
so much passion to Madame, sought this alliance, the same,
nay more unreasonable conditions then the other ; and what
they traced out for the breaking of the match yow follow,
pretending to conclude ; very unreasonably, in this conjunc-
ture of tyme especially, when the jealousies that such great
changes in state are apt to begett are cunningly fomented by
the Spanish Embass' in England, who vaunts it forth that
there is not so great a change in la Vieuville's particular
person as there is in the generall affections w c . h did but
follow before yt streame of his greatnes & credit ; thus
casting in yf King's mynde the seed of doubts, whereunto
yf Conde d'Olivarez in Spaine has been willing to contribute,
by this braving speech to our royall master's Embass' that
if the Pope ever granted a dispensation for the match with
France, the King of Spaine wold march with an army to
Rome, & sack it. ' Vrayement nous 1'en empescherons bien,'
promptly answered she, 'car nous luy taglierons assez de
besoigne ailleurs : mais qu'est ce qui vous presse le plus 1 '
I represented to her the unfitnesse of y! seventh article, even
qualified by that interpretation that it is ; and the impossi-
bility of yf last, wh ch requyres and prescribes an oath ; desired
that the honor of the Prince, with whom she pretended a will
to match her daughter, might be deerer to her than to be
balanced w^ that w c . h coulde adde nothing to their assurance ;

298 HENRY RICH,

humbly besought her to employ her credit with the K. her
sonne ; her authority to y e ministers ; for a reformation, of
these two articles specially ; & a friendly & speedy dispatch
of all : and, if we must come to that extreamitie that more
could not be altred then alredy was, yet, at least she would
procure the allowance of this protestation by y" King
o' master when he should swear them that he intended no
further io oblige himself by that oath then might well stand
with y." surety, peace, tranquillity, and conveniency of his
State. This she thought reasonable, & promised to speake
with yf King^& Card, about it : ' and, if yow speake as yow
can,' replied I, ( I know it wilbe done ; though when all this
is done, I knowe not whether the King, my master, will con-
discend so farre gon or not.'

Heere I entreated I might wearie her Ma 1 ; 6 no farther, but
take the libertye she had pleased to give me to interteyne
Madame with such conTandements as yf Prince had charged
me with to her. She would needs know what I would say.
1 Nay then,' smilingly quoth I, c your Majestic will impose
upon me the like lawe that they in Spaine did upon his
Highnes.' 'But the case is now different,' sayd she, 'for
there the Prince was in person : heer is but his deputy.'
' But a deputy,' answered I, ' that represents his person.'
' Mais pour tout cela,' dit-elle, ' qu'est ce que vous direz ? '
' Rien,' dis-je, < qui ne soit digne des oreilles d'une si vertu-
euse Princesse.' ( Mais qu'est ce ? ' redoubled she. ' Why
then, Madame,' quoth I, ' if you will needs knowe, it shalbe
much to this effect that yo. r Ma t; . e having given me the
libertie of some freer language than heretofore, I obey the
Prince his com~aundment in presenting to her his service,
not by way of compliment any longer, bu{ out of passion &
affection, wf both her outward and inward beauties (the
vertues of her mynd) so kindled in him as he was resolved
to contribute to the uttermost he could to y' alliance in
question ; and wold thincke it the greatest happines in the
world if the successe thereof might minister occasion of

FIRST EARL OF HOLLAND. 299

expressing in a better & more effectuall manner his devotion
to her service, with some little other such like amorous
language.' ' Allez, allez ; il n'y a point de danger en tout
cela,' smilingly answered she ; ' je me fie en vous ; je me fie
en vous.' Neither did I abuse her trust, for I varyed not
much from it in delyvering it to Madame, save that I ampli-
fied it to her a little more, who drunk it downe with joy,
and with a lowe curtesie, acknowledged it to the Prince,
adding that she was extreamely obliged to his Highnes, &
wold thincke herself happie in the occasion that should be
presented of meriting the place she had in his good graces.

After that, I turned my speach to the ould ladies that
attended, and told them that sith yf Queen was pleased to give
me this liberty, it would be hensforth fitt for them to speake
a suitable language ; lett them know that his Highnes had
her picture, w c . h he kept in his cabinet, & fedd his eyes many
tymes withe y* sight and contemplation of it, sith he could
not have y happiness to behold her person ; all which e, &
other such like speeches she, standing by, quicklye tooke up,
without letting any one fall to y e . grownd. But I fear yo' Lo p
will thincke I gather together too much, to enlarge my letter
thus farre ; but it is that by these circumstances yo r . Lo p may
make a perfecter judgement of the issue of o r . negotiation,
w* I doubt not but will succeed to his Ma"? 8 , his Highnes',
& yo* Lo p ' s contentment, and so yeild matter of triumph to
yow, and infinite joy to me, your Lo ps must humble, most
obliged, & most obedient servant,

H. KENSINGTON."
Paris,
Aug. 31, 1624, st. n 1 ;

On the twenty-fourth of September following, Buckingham
prevailed on the King to create him Earl of Holland ; and
here, as a remarkable specimen of the gross but indirect flat-
tery which he could descend to use towards that generous
and imprudent minion, let me insert one more of his epistles,

HENRY RlCfl,

that

written to James exactly a fortnight before the death of tha
Prince

" S r , "the malis of this Blainville is so great unto youi*
worthye servant, my Lord Duke, as hee hath written a privat
letter unto the Kinge, the which I saw by the favour of a
frend, that he is in a condission of danger to bee ruined by
the furye and power of the parliament ; and to conferm him
in that opinion, hath sent all the passages amongst them that
consern my Lord Duke ; adding to that, of great transactions
against him at the Counsell Table, and naming som lords ;
the which makes mee see he hath intelligence with all those
that hee beleeves may contribut any thinge towards the
mischeving of him ; but those that knowes the magnanimitie
and nobleness of your Majestie's hart knowes that so noble a
vessell of honor and service as hee is shall never be in danger,
for all the stormes that can threten him, when it is in your
Ma', hands not only to calm all theis tempests, but to make
the sunnebeams of your favor to shine more cleerely upon his
deservings than ever, the which upon this occasion your
courage and vertue will no doubt ode, to the incoragement of
all deserving and excellent servants, and to his honor and
comfort that is the most worthye that ever prince had, and
so affectionat that the world hath no greater admirasions then
the fortunes that the master and servant hath runne together ;
and sertainly our good God will ever preserve that affection
that in so many accidents, and one may say afflictions, hath
preserved your person. S' , this bouldnes that I take pro-
seeds not from the least doubt these foolish rumors give me
of changes, but out of a passionat meditasion of those axci-
dents that your courage and fortune hath carried you
thorough, blessing God for your prosperitie, the which will be
by his grace most glorious and lasting, accordinge unto the
prayers of your Majestie's most humble and most obedient
subject and servant.

Paris, & March> 1625. HOLLANDE."

FIRST EARL OF HOLLAND. 801

The accession of Charles, as it increased the influence of
Buckingham, brought fresh honours and graces to the new
Earl, He was appointed Groom of the Stole ; on the thir-
teenth of December, in the first year of that Prince, was
installed a Knight of the Garter, and joined to the Duke in
an embassy to the United Provinces ; and in 1627 had the
command of the army of reserve on that nobleman's expedi-
tion to the Isle of Rhee. The murder of his great patron
occurred in the following year, but he had secured a new
friend in the young Queen, whom he had charmed during his
stay in France by the elegance and sweetness of his manners
and conversation. The death of Buckingham had left him at
liberty to cultivate her favour without reserve, and, to please
her, he now embarked, apparently for the first time, in poli-
tical warfare, and distinguished himself by his bitterness
against all those whom she disliked, particularly the Lord
Treasurer Weston. He seems to have somewhat given way
at this period to an inclination for office in the State, but he
obtained none. In 1629 he was appointed Governor of Har-
wich, and Landguard Fort ; in the succeeding year, Constable
of Windsor Castle, and Ranger of all its parks ; and in 1632,
Chief Justice in Eyre, south of Trent, an office in which he
rendered himself peculiarly obnoxious to all owners of estates
in the vicinity of any of the royal forests.

In this state he remained, caressing and caressed, flattering
and flattered, and with all the marks of a favourite but those
inflicted by the malice with which that character is commonly
pursued, till the breaking out of the war with Scotland in
1638, when the King named him to command the Horse of
the army then marched into that country. Here he distin-
guished himself in the very outset of the contest, if it may be
so called, only by a disgraceful retreat from an inferior force,
which the enemy had collected at Dunse, on the border : and
by a quarrel with the amiable Earl of Newcastle, and a refusal
to meet that nobleman in single combat. Of the shameful
and unfortunate pacification with the Scots which followed it

302 HENRY RICH,

is needless to say more than that it served but to increase their
insolence, and it became necessary to raise a new army against
them in the following year. Holland's commission however
was not renewed ; and now, whether on that ground, or from
an enmity amounting to hatred towards the Earl of Strafford,
or through the persuasion of his elder brother, the Earl of
Warwick, who was among the first seceders from royalty in
that unhappy time, or from all these motives together, he
became suddenly a lukewarm courtier and a busy politician.
He engaged in correspondence with the puritanical Scottish
leaders ; affected to sympathise with their tender consciences ;
and urged in Council a compliance with all their demands.
Charles, whose foible it was to cherish overmuch his early
friendships, beheld this change with regret, but without sus-
picion. He even appointed Holland one of his Commission-
ers to treat with the Scots at Ripon in the summer of 1640,
and afterwards General-in-chief of the forces lately raised,
for the purpose of his superintending the disbanding of both
armies : but the Queen, with the common frankness of femi-
nine resentment, openly withdrew from him all favour and
even courtesy, and thus he stood at that fatal epoch, the
meeting of the Long Parliament.

On the King's arrival at York, on his way to Scotland, in
the following autumn, Holland requested of him for one of
his friends a grant of the title of Baron, and the refusal of
that boon seems to have been the signal for his open abandon-
ment of his bountiful master. He now addressed a letter to
the Parliament, filled with mysterious and indistinct hints of
an alleged plan by the King to gain over the soldiery impli-
citly to his interests, and it was received with the highest
approbation. The disbanding, in consonance with the late
treaty, of the two armies immediately followed, and towards
the end of September, he returned to his mansion at Kensing-
ton, still known by the name of Holland House, which
became from that hour a chief resort of the factious and
seditious of his own rank, to whom he treacherously dis-

FIRST EARL OP HOLLAND. 303

closed the most confidential communications which he had
from time to time received from the King and Queen. His
disaffection arose soon after to such a height as to betray him
into acts of personal disrespect and insolence. When the
King, in January, 1642, removed with his family to Hampton
Courtj to avoid the popular celebration in London of the
triumph of the five impeached members of the Commons, the
Earl not only bluntly refused his accustomed duty of attend-
ance, in his office of Groom of the Stole, but persuaded the
Earl of Essex, who was Lord Chamberlain, to follow his
example; and when the King, presently after, necessarily
dismissed them, both Houses of Parliament agreed in a vote
that " whosoever might accept of either of those offices should
be reputed an enemy to his country." He now became a
regular manager, on the part of those assemblies, of their
intercourse with the King, to whom, on the fifteenth of July,
1642, not without arguing on the subjects of it, he presented
that insolent petition which was in effect a declaration of war.
And at this period the war did in fact commence, and
before the end of the first year of the long and awful contest
which succeeded, Holland became weary of his new associates
and occupations, and having, through the means of Lord
Jermyn, established an indirect correspondence with the
Queen, and recovered some share of her former good graces,
suddenly presented himself in the King's garrison at Walling-
ford, and sent his offers of service to his Majesty, then at
Oxford. They were received, however, with more gravity.
The King referred to the Privy Council the question whether
he should be admitted, where it met with much opposition,
but was at length determined in the affirmative. He came
accordingly, but with no apparent consciousness of having
offended ; resumed with infinite ease all the airs of a cour-
tier ; became disgusted by encountering some degree of
reserve, and at length mortally offended because he was not
reinstated in his office of Groom of the Stole ; and, after a
very short stay at Oxford, took the advantage of a dark night,

804 HENRY RICH,

Parlia-

and, riding into the rebel quarters, again joined the Pi
ment. His reception, however, was not perfectly cordial.
He was for a short time imprisoned, and during his confine-
ment, attempted to make his peace by writing and publishing
a declaration of his patriotic motives to the singular steps
which he had lately taken, seasoned with reports of the King
and his Council equally false and injurious.

He had now, however, lost all credit with the rebels, and
was forced into retirement. He remained, unnoticed and
forgotten, impatiently beholding from afar, the gradual ruin
of both the parties which he had alternately served and
betrayed. One more opportunity to vacillate at length pre-
sented itself, and it was the last. In the spring of 1648,
when the despair of the presbyterians, as well as of the royal-
ists, suggested to them too late so many wild insurrections
for the rescue of the King from the base hands into which he
had fallen, Holland engaged the young Duke of Buckingham,
and a few others of high rank, in a plan for a rising in Surrey.
He received from the Prince of Wales a commission of Gene-
ral, and the Queen, who was at Paris, promised supplies of
money. Few endeavours were used to conceal the design,
and, though the fruition of it had been long expected, it
was prematurely executed. The Earl appeared in arms at
Kingston-on-Thames, at the head of a small force, expecting
to be joined by thousands, and on the following day, the
seventh of July, was surrounded by a superior body of the
rebel Horse and Foot, from which contriving to escape, with
about an hundred cavalry, he fled, without resting, till he
reached St. Neots, in Huntingdonshire, where he was seized
and confined in Warwick Castle, and afterwards in the Tower
of London. After an imprisonment of eight months, he was
declared guilty of high treason by that detestable body which
had named itself ft the high court of justice," and his sentence
referred to the House of Commons, where he was doomed to
die by the casting vote of the Speaker, and, on the ninth of
March, 1649, was beheaded in Palace Yard.

FIRST EARL OF HOLLAND. 305

This unworthy nobleman, whose Lady has been already
mentioned, left issue by her four sons, and five daughters.
Robert, who succeeded to his titles, and afterwards to those of
his uncle, the Earl of Warwick; Charles ; Henry ; and Cope.
His daughters were Frances, married to William, fifth Lord
Paget ; Isabel, to Sir James Thynne, of Longleate, in Wilts ;
Susanna, to James Howard, third Earl of Suffolk of his
family ; Mary, to Sir John Campbell, afterwards created Earl
of Breadalbin in Scotland ; and Diana, who died unmarried.
The titles of Earl of Warwick and Holland became extinct
in this family by the death, in 1759, of Edward Rich, eighth
Earl of Warwick, and fifth Earl of Holland, without male
issue.

J

^

E

MARQUIS OF HUNTLEY.
OB- 1649-

GEORGE GORDON,

SECOND MARQUIS OF HUNTLY.

THIS nobleman was one of the many exalted persons whom
a firm and honest attachment to the established government
of their country had drawn from a splendid privacy to serve
Charles the First in the field. He appears to have taken no
concern in the political affairs of the time, nor to have pos-
sessed more than an ordinary share of the royal confidence or
affection. The earlier part of his life had passed little dis-
tinguished from those of others of his eminent rank, and the
latter affords few circumstances of rare occurrence in the
history of a military leader, a character in which perfect
fidelity to the cause which he serves, and untarnished honour
in his conduct in that, and in all others, are necessarily
supposed.

He was the eldest son of George, sixth Earl of Huntly,
whom James the Sixth raised to the dignity of Marquis in
1599, by Henrietta, eldest daughter of Esme Stuart, Duke of
Lenox. In his youth, but after his marriage, he had entered
into the service of Louis the Thirteenth of France, in whose
army he commanded, in 1624, a company, which I find
designated the Scottish gens-d'armes, and which seems to have
been in great measure formed by himself, since we are told
that he carried with him from his own country, te a party of
gallant young gentlemen, well appointed." He remained
long in France, and, during his stay there, was created
Viscount of Aboyne, with remainder, after his death, or suc-
cession to his father's titles, to his second son ; nor did he
x2

308 GEORGE GORDON,

return to Scotland till the autumn of 1636, shortly after
death of his father. The unhappy contest on ecclesiastical
questions which soon after produced the Scottish covenant
and rebellion had then arisen to a formidable height, and the
Marquis, on his arrival, instantly ranged himself with the
defenders of the established church. At length, in the
beginning of the year 1639, the covenanters appeared in arms
under the command of David Lesley, whom they had elected
their General, and Huntly flew to Aberdeen, and placed him-
self at the head of the citizens, who were already in array to
oppose them. The great and excellent Earl of Montrose,
who in the beginning of the troubles had attached himself to
the malcontent party, was now despatched by Lesley to raise
troops in that part of the country, and to attack the Marquis,
who, on the appearance of Montrose 's superior force, pro-
posed to surrender the town under articles of capitulation,
which were accepted. These, however, from motives now
unknown, he revoked the next day ; surrendered at discre-
tion ; and was led to Edinburgh, together with his heir, the
Lord Gordon, and imprisoned in the castle ; having suffered
the mortification before his departure of seeing his second
son, the Lord Aboyne, subscribe to the covenant.

The term of their imprisonment, which appears to have
been intended rather as a proof of the power and resolution
of the rebels than as a caution or punishment, little exceeded
two months, and the Marquis on being released, retired into
the country, where he remained, apparently unconcerned in
public affairs, till the commencement of the year 1644, when,
having received a commission from the King constituting him
his Majesty's Lieutenant in the north of Scotland, he raised
his vassals and tenants, and suddenly appeared again in arms.
This demonstration seems to have excited much anxiety in
the covenanters. A convention of the disaffected estates was
called at Edinburgh, and the Marquis of Argyll was directed
to raise three regiments with all practicable speed, and to
attack Huntly, against whom, and several of his adherents,

the

SECOND MARQUIS OF EUXTLY. 309

the assembly issued a sentence of excommunication. Argyll
performed his task with a spirit and expedition which
enabled him to appear, even unexpectedly, with a superior
force in the sight of the little army of Huntly, who imme-
diately disbanded his men, and retired, " privately," as my
authority expresses it, to Strathnaver, where he remained for
some time with the Lord Reay. Huntly's conduct on this
occasion did not escape without blame. One of his clan, the
Laird of Haddo, an ancestor of the Earls of Aberdeen, and a
chief perhaps more fierce than prudent, insisted that Argyll's
attack ought to have been withstood ; threw himself into his
castle, with such soldiers as he could keep together ; and
defended it with great bravery, till he was put into the hands
of the enemy by his own treacherous garrison.

In the mean time the Lord Gordon had exerted himself
with even more than the usual ardour and generosity of his
years. He had attached himself to the Marquis of Montrose,
who, having quitted a party, the wickedness of whose designs
had filled him with horror, was now firmly riveted to the
royal cause. He joined Montrose, in February 1645, with
many adherents, at the commencement of a series of victories
gained by that nobleman over the covenanters, and, as well
by his amiable manners and excellent talents as by his signal
bravery, had acquired Montrose's perfect esteem, when, on
the second of the following July, he fell, fighting by the side
of his illustrious patron, in the battle of Alford. Between
that great commander, however, and the Marquis of Huntly,
little cordiality seems to have subsisted. In the autumn of
that year we find Huntly availing himself of the commission
which, as has been stated, he had received from the King,
in 1644, to thwart the measures and weaken the authority of
Montrose, who, after long and fruitless endeavours to obtain
his aid, was necessitated to leave him in inactivity, and to
depend on his own resources. The conduct of Huntly on
these occasions however otherwise blameable, was in no
degree tinctured by disloyalty ; for, it was immediately after

310 GEORGE GORDON,

this period, that Charles, having fatally put himself into the
hands of the covenanters, was compelled by them to command
his faithful servants in Scotland to lay down their arms, an
order which the Marquis refused to obey while the King was
in the power of his rebellious subjects. Such indeed was the
opinion held of his fidelity by the English Parliament, that
in the propositions which were in the following year offered
to his Majesty by commissioners from that assembly, Huntly's
name was inserted among those whom he was required
specially to except from pardon, and this was one of the
articles which Charles positively rejected.

It is too well known that in the succeeding January the
Scottish puritans sold their King, who had so lately put him-
self under their protection, for a sum of money to his English
rebels. So monstrous a stroke paralysed, as might reasonably
be expected, the efforts of his yet faithful friends. Among
these, Huntly and his band were driven into the Highlands,
and the Marquis, with a few of his relations, having retired
to the northernmost part of that country, wrote to Lesley to
request him to intercede for permission that they might
remove themselves out of the kingdom. This boon was
refused ; his castles were plundered, and afterwards garrisoned
by the rebels ; and, having wandered for six months in a
country the natural desolation of which had been heightened
by the ravages of war, he was seized in Strathnaver, where
he had for some weeks concealed himself, and led a prisoner
to Edinburgh. Here the Committee of the Estates, as it was
called, was then sitting, and the question was proposed with-
out delay, whether he should be immediately put to death,
or respited till the meeting of Parliament ? The Marquis of
Argyll, being his brother-in-law, had the decency to withdraw
before the division, in which it was determined by a single
voice that his life should be spared for the time. He
remained a close prisoner from the month of December,
1647, till the sixteenth of March, 1649, when he was brought
to a trial, and condemned to suffer death, and on the twenty-

SECOND MARQUIS OF HUNTLT. 311

second of that month was beheaded at the market cross of
Edinburgh.

This nobleman married Anne, eldest daughter of Archibald
Campbell, seventh Earl of Argyll, by whom he had five sons
and as many daughters. George, his eldest son, fell, as has
been already said, in the field of battle ; the second, James,
Viscount of Aboyne, died unmarried not long before his
father ; Lewis, the third son, succeeded to the titles of
Marquis of Huntly, &c. ; Charles, the fourth, was created
Earl of Aboyne in 1660 ; and Henry passed his life in the
military service of the King of Poland. Of the daughters,
Anne was married to James Drummond, third Earl of Perth ;
Henrietta, first to George, Lord Seton, and, secondly, to John
Stewart, second Earl of Traquair ; Jane, to Thomas Hamilton,
second Earl of Haddington ; Mary, was wife of Alexander
Irvine, of Drum ; and Catherine, of Count Morstain, High
Treasurer of Poland.

Vandyke :pinx*

OB, 1650,

GEORGE, LORD GORING.

SIR George Goring, of Hurst Pierrepont, in Sussex, repre-
sentative of a junior line of the respectable family of Goring
which still maintains its importance in that county, was bred
in the court, under the care of his father, one of Elizabeth's
gentlemen pensioners, and was placed in the household of
Henry Prince of Wales, by James the First, to whom,
recommended equally by his sagacity and by a peculiar
jocularity of humour, he became a familiar companion, and
at length a sort of minor favourite. Buckingham, whose
friendship he had gained by his bravery and politeness, pre-
vailed on Charles the First to raise him to the peerage :
in 1629 he was created Lord Goring of Hurst Pierrepont,
and in 1645 was advanced to the title of Earl of Norwich,
which had then lately become extinct by the death, without
male issue, of his maternal uncle, Edward Denny, the first
and last of his name by whom it had been borne. To this
nobleman, by his wife Mary, daughter of Edward Nevile,
Lord Bergavenny, the subject of the present memoir, was
heir apparent ; and I have given this particular and some-
what lengthened account of the father in order to mark
effectually that distinction of him from the son, a want
of attention to which has betrayed almost all writers who
have mentioned either, into error and confusion. Even Lord
Clarendon is by no means free from this blame, and Granger,
in the course of a few lines, more than once ascribes the
actions of the one to the other. These mistakes were per-
haps easy. Both bore the same names and title ; flou-
rished at the same time, and in similar characters : both

314 GEORGE, LORD GORING.

were courtiers, wits, warriors, and loyalists. It was in morals
only that they differed, and the disadvantage lay on the side
of the son.

Of the date of his birth, and of the place and mode of his
education, no intelligence remains. It is indeed probable
enough that his ardent and eccentric spirit broke through all
those wholesome trammels by which youth are usually re-
strained. He married, when very young, Lettice, daughter
of Richard Boyle, Earl of Corke ; increased certain embar-
rassments under which he had before laboured ; and left her,
to fly from his creditors, within a year, as it should seem,
after their nuptials. Lord Went worth, afterwards the great
Earl of Strafford, in a letter of the twentieth of May, 1633,
to James Hay, Earl of Carlisle, says "young Mr. Goring is
gone to travel, having run himself out of eight thousand
pounds, which he purposes to redeem by his frugality abroad,
unless my Lord of Corke can be induced to put to his help-
ing hand, which I have undertaken to solicit for him the best
I can, and shall do it with all the power and care my credit
and wit shall in any wise suggest unto me."

Soon after his arrival on the continent, he determined
to adopt a military life, not as a temporary volunteer, but in
the regular profession of a soldier. Wentworth, in another
letter to Carlisle, dated on the seventh of October, in the
same year, writes " Mr. Goring's business is settled reason-
ably well I hope, and my opinion is strong I shall be able to
persuade the Earl of Cork to quit two thousand pounds my
Lord Goring owes him, for so good a purpose as the pro-
curing for his son-in-law my Lord Vere's regiment in the
Low Countries ; therefore my advice is, that it be put on as
much and as speedily as may be." This matter was soon
after successfully negotiated, for Mr. Garrard, the lively and
incessant correspondent of Lord Wentworth, in a letter
to that nobleman, of the sixth of the following December,
says" young Mr. Goring hath compounded with my Lord
Vere for his colonel's place in the Low Countries. Twenty-

GEORGE, LORD GORING. 315

two companies he hath under his command, and his troop of
horse."

At the head of this force, which was afterwards augmented,
he distinguished himself by the most determined bravery.
How long he remained in the Low Countries is uncertain,
but we are told also in the Strafford Letters, that he was at
the famous siege of Breda, and received there a severe
wound in October, 1637. From that period we have no
intelligence of him till the spring of 1641, when we find him
at home, in the office of governor of Portsmouth, then the
strongest and best fortified place in the realm, and pro-
moting a petition to the King from the officers of the army,
tendering their services in the suppression of the insur-
rectionary tumults which were then daily occurring. To a
draft of this singular and imprudent document Charles was
persuaded to sign his initials, in token of approbation ; and
indeed there can be little doubt that the plan was originally
adopted with his concurrence, and in concert with some of
his most faithful servants. It was kept as secretly as might
be, yet the popular leaders in both Houses were soon apprised
of it. Mr. Pym disclosed it with much solemnity ; a com-
mittee of the Commons was appointed to examine into the
plot, as it was called ; and they addressed the King to
require that he would grant no passes to any of his servants
to go into foreign parts. Some who had been most active in
forwarding the measure immediately absented themselves,
and were impeached of high treason ; but Goring, who was a
member, from some unknown motive, for he was a stranger
to fear, voluntarily made a full disclosure, and even told the
House that his advice had been to march the army to London,
and to surprise the Tower, but that none of the petitioners
would second his motion, and that the King had utterly
disapproved of it. For this act of treachery, for such it was
to one party or the other, he received the thanks of the
House, accompanied by a declaration that he had " preserved
the Kingdom, and the liberties of Parliament."

316 GEORGE, LORD GORING.

He now became for a time a great favourite with the
republicans, and yet had the address to maintain no small
degree of credit with the Court ; before the end of the year,
however, the jealousy of the Commons was again awakened,
and again laid asleep. In November, 1641, they called him
before them to account for some alterations made by him
in the garrison of Portsmouth which seemed to favour the
royal cause. On the nineteenth of that month Sir Edward
Nicholas says, in a letter to the King " Colonel Goring is
come up by command of the Commons, and suspected, for
that it hath been informed that he hath fortified that garrison
to the land, and put forth some old soldiers, and put in new,
whereby your M. may see that every small matter minis-
ters fear here amongst us :" and in another of the twenty-
second, he tells the King "Col. Goring gave the House of
Commons good satisfaction Saturday last touching his fidelity
and good affections, and was therefore dismissed." Goring
possessed, it seems, a faculty of dissimulation so perfect and
universal, that it extended itself to his very looks and ges-
tures. "He could help himself," says Lord Clarendon,
"with all the insinuations of doubt, or fear, or shame, or
simplicity, in his face, that might gain belief, to a greater
degree than I ever saw any man ; and could seem the most
confounded when he was best prepared, and the most out of
countenance when he was best resolved ; and to want words
and the habit of speaking, when they flowed from no man
with greater power." Thus he cajoled the popular party
into a belief that they had reclaimed him to their views,
while he was secretly corresponding with the King's friends,
to whose cause he was, as seriously as he could be, attached.
At length in July, 1642, he threw off the mask ; refused to
obey the orders of the Parliament ; and openly declared that
he held Portsmouth for the King. This was in fact the first
event of the war, and it compelled Charles to set up his
standard earlier than he intended, and before he was suffi-
ciently prepared.

GE011QE, LORD GORING. 317

Portsmouth was presently besieged by sea and land, and
surrendered, almost without defence, to the astonishment
of those who thought they knew the governor's character.
Goring made scarcely any condition but that he might be
allowed to transport himself beyond the seas. He went, but
returned in the summer of 1644, when their wonder was
increased by seeing him immediately appointed to command
in Lincolnshire the Horse of the Marquis of Newcastle's
army, with which he importantly assisted in forcing the
rebels to raise the siege of York. He was soon after
named to supersede the Lord Wilmot, between whom and
himself a mortal jealousy and enmity subsisted, in the
high station of General of the Horse of the royal army,
now commanded by Prince Rupert, and joining the King in
that character in Cornwall, marched with him into Wiltshire
and Berkshire, and gained much credit by his gallantry in
the second battle of Newbury. In the winter of the follow-
ing year his father obtained the Earldom of Norwich, and
from that period he used of course the title of Lord Goring,
decorated with which, and with a commission of Lieutenant-
General of Hampshire, Sussex, Surrey, and Kent, in which
parts of the kingdom he assumed to possess considerable
influence, he led into the first of those counties, to little
purpose, a powerful force, with which, after an ineffectual
attempt to possess himself of the scarcely fortified town
of Christchurch, he was obliged to retire, with some loss,
to Salisbury. It was now discovered that he had none of
the qualities of a commander but ambition and personal
courage ; and that his natural carelessness, and the licentious
habits in which he was known to indulge, had already in no
small degree infected his troops. "At Salisbury," Lord
Clarendon tells us, "his Horse committed the same horrible
outrages and barbarities as they had done in Hampshire,
without distinction of friends or foes ; so that those parts,
which before were well devoted to the King, worried by op-
pression, wished for the access of any troops to redeem them."

318 GEORGE, LORD GORING.

It is in speaking of Lord Goring at this precise period that
the same noble author digresses into one of those incomparable
delineations which frequently suspend for a moment so grace-
fully the chain of his narration. He draws the following
exquisite parallel between the characters of Wilmot and his
successor Goring, from which, however little this memoir may
have to do with the former, it would be impossible to with-
draw the one without weakening the force, and destroying the
delicacy, with which the other is depicted " Goring," says
Lord Clarendon, " who was now General of the Horse, was
not more gracious to Prince Rupert than Wilmot had been :
had all the other's faults, and wanted his regularity, and pre-
serving his respect with the officers. Wilmot loved de-
bauchery, but shut it out from his business : never neglected
that, and rarely miscarried in it. Goring had a much better
understanding, and a sharper wit, a much keener courage, and
presentness of mind in danger. Wilmot discerned it farther
off, and because he could not behave himself so well in it,
commonly prevented it, or warily declined it, and never drank
when he was within distance of an enemy. Goring was not
able to withstand the temptation when he was in the middle
of them, nor would decline it to obtain a victory. Neither of
them valued their promises, professions, or friendships, accord-
ing to any rules of honour and integrity, but Wilmot violated
them the less willingly, and never but for some great benefit
or convenience to himself ; Goring without scruple ; out of
humour, or for wit's sake ; and loved no man so well but that
he would cozen him, and then expose him to public mirth for
having been cozened, therefore he had always fewer friends
than the other, but more company, for no man had a wit that
pleased the company better. The ambition of both was un-
limited, and so equally incapable of being contented, and
both unrestrained by any respect to good nature or justice
from pursuing the satisfaction thereof ; yet Wilmot had more
scruples from religion to startle him, and would not have
attained his end by any gross or foul act of wickedness :

GEORGE, LORD GORING, 319

Goring could have passed through those pleasantly, and would
without hesitation have broken any trust, or done any act of
treachery, to have satisfied an ordinary passion or appetite,
and, in truth, wanted nothing hut industry (for he had wit,
and courage, and understanding, and ambition, uncontrolled
by any fear of God or man) to have been as eminent and
successful in the highest attempt of wickedness as any man
in the age he lived in, or before. Of all his qualifications
dissimulation was his masterpiece, in which he so much
excelled, that men were not ordinarily ashamed, or out of
countenance, with being deceived but twice by him." It
may be matter of reasonable surprise that a prince of Charles's
character should have employed, nay deeply trusted, such a
servant. The truth is, that Lord Digby, who was Secretary
of State, and who, though himself of loose principles, possessed
considerable influence, had become attached to him, and deter-
mined to forward his views.

Goring marched' from Salisbury to dispossess the rebels of
Weymouth, at the head of three thousand horse, and fifteen
hundred foot. This post, which was of great importance, was
already on the point of surrendering to the few royalist troops
which were then in the neighbourhood, yet he suffered it to
be retaken by the garrison, which had been driven into the
suburbs before his arrival. He retired from thence into
Somersetshire, and remained long in the west, inactive, except
in two or three gallant nightly attacks on the quarters of Sir
William Waller, to whom, as it should seem, he ought to
have given battle. At length he received orders at Wells
from the Prince of Wales, who was now at Bristol, invested
with the nominal command of the royal armies, to detach his
infantry and artillery to reduce Taunton, and to take the com-
mand of that enterprise, or to remain with his Horse, as he
might think fit. He would choose neither, but requested
leave to go to Bath for the benefit of his health, and went
thither, affecting to be full of chagrin, and making heavy
complaints of ill usage : his object, however, was to be near

320 GEORGE, LORD GORING.

vith the

the Prince : he had been for some time intriguing, with the
aid of his friend Digby, to obtain the commission of Lieu-
tenant-General under his Royal Highness, not alone for the
gratification of his ambition, but to avoid the being engaged
in any service jointly with Prince Rupert, who on his part,
from a jealousy of the credit which Goring's talents were
gradually gaining with the King, was not less desirous of
forwarding any plan which might remove him from among
Charles's military counsellors. An object thus sought by
enemies as well as friends could scarcely fail of attainment.
On the tenth of May, 1645, the King wrote to the Prince,
directing that Goring should be admitted to exercise all the
functions and privileges of one of his established Council ;
that all military commissions should be granted by him ; and
that the Prince should give him no orders so binding as to
preclude him from using his own discretion, as circumstances
might seem in his opinion to require : thus invested with
almost absolute military powers, Goring was presently after
again sent into the western counties.

The circumstances of this his last campaign in the civil war
present an almost unvaried tissue of misfortune and miscon-
duct. The dismay and confusion in which the King, and
those immediately about him, became involved by the fatal
issue of the battle of Naseby, which happened almost imme-
diately after Goring had received this new appointment, left
him in a manner without control, and he gave way unre-
servedly to all the extravagances of his nature. The autho-
rity which he had obtained seemed worthless to him merely
because the title of Lieutenant-General to the Prince had not
been annexed to it ; and the state of independence in which
he had been placed of his Royal Highness and his council,
answered no end but to make them the objects of his insolence
and derision. He compelled the rebels to raise the siege of
Taunton, attacked them on their retreat with much gallantry
and effect, and rendered those services abortive by the gross
errors into which he fell immediately after. He suffered,

GEORGE, LORD GORING. 321

through mere negligence, a detachment of his Horse, amount-
ing to more than a thousand, to be surprised by the rebels in
the neighbourhood of that town ; and on the following day
was unexpectedly attacked at the head of his main force by
Fairfax, routed, and driven disgracefully into Bridgewater. He
slighted the King's positive order that he should march, with
the remains of his Horse, to Oxford, and from thence to join
his Majesty near Newark, and, while in the very commission
of this act of disobedience, pressed the Prince with arrogant
and indecent importunities to enlarge the faculties, already
too extensive, which had been lately placed in his hands, and
was refused. Finding himself at length a General without an
army ; a public servant without confidence ; and an object of
universal disgust in a country which had suffered more from
the rapine of his troops than from the enemy : he suddenly
asked the Prince's permission to visit France for a time ;
transported himself thither before he had obtained it ; and
never returned : leaving behind him a character known to be
of little worth, and strongly suspected of infidelity to the
cause in which he had been engaged.

Lord Goring left England in November, 1645, from which
period few particulars of him have been preserved. After
having passed some time in France, he went into the Nether-
lands, where he obtained a commission of Lieutenant-General
in the Spanish army. He afterwards, as Dugdale informs us,
served in the same rank in Spain, under a commander named
Don John de Silva, whom, finding him to have been corrupted
by Cardinal Mazarine, he seized at the head of his troops, and
sent prisoner to Madrid, where he was soon after put to death
for that treason. We learn from the same authority, that
Goring closed his irregular life in that country in the character
of a Dominican friar. He left no issue, and his father, sur-
viving him till 1662, was succeeded by his second son
Charles, in whom the titles of Earl of Norwich and Baron
Goring became extinct.

JJ A fiW E S GR

MARQUIS OF MONTR OS.K

JAMES GRAHAM,

FIRST MARQUIS OF MONTROSE.

JAMES, fifth Earl of Montrose, a nobleman whose admirable
heroism and loyalty at once threw the highest blaze of splen-
dour on his many other great qualities, and left his faults, if
he had any, in total shadow, was the only son of John, the
fourth Earl, President of the Session in Scotland, by Margaret,
daughter of William Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie. He was
bora in 1612, and having received the best education that
his country could give, passed several of the early years of
his maturity in France, where he became passionately
attached to the military profession, and accepted a commis-
sion of Captain in the royal guard of Louis the Thirteenth.
.At length, in 1637, he visited the Court of his master, invited,
as is said, by the Marquis of Hamilton ; but Charles, for
some cause now unknown, conceived a distaste to him, and
he presently retired, mortified and enraged, into Scotland,
where he attached himself to the covenanting malcontents.
It may be reasonably conjectured that Hamilton himself,
who possessed a great influence over the mind of the King,
and who, with a temper much inclined to jealousy and envy,
possessed all the refined arts of a courtier, had infused this
disgust, since from that period Montrose held him in a bitter
enmity, for the origin of which no cause has been assigned.

The purity and nobleness of his heart soon withdrew him
from a party which had deceived him for a time by the
warmth of its professions, and the reasonableness and
simplicity of its declared views. Though mere anger had

324 JAMES GRAHAM,

induced him to embark with the covenanters, he became a
sincere convert to their pretended principles, and his unaf-
fected zeal, joined to their observation of his great qualifica-
tions, and their knowledge of his personal influence in the
country, induced them to receive him into their secret coun-
cils. He now discovered that their latent design was to
overthrow the monarchy, and, abandoning his private resent-
ments, resolved to oppose it to his utmost ; engaged in the
royal cause such of the nobility as he could trust ; and laid
a plan to carry over to the King a force of two thousand
foot and five hundred horse, which the covenanters, when
they appeared in arms in the spring of 1639, had intrusted
to his command. A treaty, however, soon after ensued,
during which he found means to convey to the King an
earnest proffer of his services, in a letter which, as after-
wards appeared, was purloined from his Majesty's person by
an attendant who transmitted it to the covenanters. It is
needless to say that he was now held by them in fear and
abhorrence, but as their resistance had commenced, according
to the cautious custom of rebellions, with professions of
attachment to the person of the King, they were withheld
for a time from prosecuting one whose only crime was loyalty.
Montrose, on his part, well aware of their discovery, but
regardless of their vengeance, availed himself of the oppor-
tunity of the truce, to institute, with several of the first men
in the country,, a sort of counter-covenant, by which they
vowed to defend the Crown, and its lawful prerogatives,
against all enemies, foreign or domestic. This was not to
be endured. He was seized, on an indirect charge of having
conspired against the religion and government of Scotland,
and imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh ; on the meeting
of the Parliament, which was then just at hand, he earnestly
solicited a trial by his peers, but the request was evaded ;
and when the King left Scotland in 1641 was set at liberty.

Shortly after that period the Scots, as is well known,
resolved to march their army into England, to the aid of the

FIRST MARQUIS OF MONTROSE. 325

Parliament. With that narrow policy, and ignorance of
noble spirit, which almost always belong to those who com-
bine for wicked purposes, they now addressed themselves to
Montrose's ambition, and love of military distinction, and
offered to him the appointment of Lieutenant-General of
their forces, with concessions of power and profit never
before attached to that station. He returned no answer,
but immediately passed into England, and met the Queen,
on her arrival at Burlington, from Holland, whom he earn-
estly besought to move her royal consort instantly to raise
an army in Scotland. Henrietta Maria listened with plea-
sure and approbation to his arguments, when the persuasions
of the Marquis of Hamilton, who immediately after appeared
to congratulate her on her arrival, awakened her fears, and
chilled her resolution. That nobleman, by a strange error,
at least in judgment, seems to have been equally attached to
the King and to the covenant ; and Montrose, perhaps some-
what prejudiced, had from the commencement of the dis-
orders in Scotland anticipated the most fatal consequences
from his counsels. He had indeed, with the usual openness
of his nature, denounced Hamilton and Argyll to the King
as traitors, and, in one of the few interviews which he had
in Scotland with Charles, " offered," says Lord Clarendon,
" to make proof of their treasons in the Parliament, but
rather desired to have them both made away, which he
frankly undertook to do ; but the King, abhorring that expe-
dient, though for his own security, advised that the proofs
might be prepared for the Parliament." Let not Montrose
be branded with the name of assassin for this proposal.
Inveterate national habit extenuates, though it cannot
sanction crime, and they who are moderately read in the
history of Scotland well know that an attack on the life of
an enemy, if made in the form of military enterprise, in-
curred not at that time either the appellation or the odium
of murder. Montrose prepared his proofs, but Charles durst
not institute the enquiry, and was soon after compelled, by

326 JAMES GRAHAM,

means which it is not to our present purpose to state, to
create Hamilton a Duke, and Argyll a Marquis.

In the mean time the Parliament of Scotland having taken
on itself to sit without the King's authority, and in spite of
his prorogations, Montrose and his friends refused to appear
in it, unless Hamilton, who held the great office of High
Commissioner, would pledge his honour to oppose, should it
become necessary, the evils which it was known to meditate,
even with force of arms. Hamilton refused, and Montrose
retired to his country seat, with the air of a man to whom
public affairs had become indifferent. It was now rumoured
that he had received some cause of disgust from the King, as
well as from Hamilton, and the covenanters once more
thought to allure him to their interest by the most magni-
ficent offers. He affected to listen with complacency;
received with courtesy Alexander Henderson, a person not
less admired by them as a preacher than trusted as a coun-
sellor, whom they had deputed to treat with him; and,
having artfully contrived to obtain from that minister, subtle
as he was, an explicit declaration of the most secret designs
of the party, flew with his intelligence to the King, who
was then besieging Gloucester in person. From this indu-
bitable authority he demonstrated to Charles that the coven-
anters had now bound themselves by the strictest ties to the
English rebels, and besought his instant permission to levy
in Scotland in his name an army formidable enough to
furnish them with employment at home. He reiterated his
former charges against Hamilton and Argyll. Charles gave
way to all his representations. Hamilton was soon after
arrested ; Montrose was empowered to raise troops in his
own country, whither the Earl of Antrim undertook to send
a force from Jreland to serve as the foundation of his army ;
and in the autumn of 1643 he set out towards Scotland,
dignified with the new title of Marquis.

With the aid of a small party furnished by the Marquis
of Newcastle, who commanded for the King in the north of

FIRST MARQUIS OF MONTROSE. 327

England, he set up the royal standard at Dumfries, but was
presently obliged to retreat to Carlisle, where, finding no
means which might enable him to carry on active operations,
he resolved to return at all events into Scotland. The out-
set of his journey was completely chivalrous. He left
Carlisle, attended by a number of his friends, who had
determined to share the fortune of his hazardous expedition ;
but having reflected that so numerous an escort would be
ill-suited to the secrecy which he was anxious to maintain,
he determined to quit them silently on the road. Accord-
ingly, when arrived near the border, he withdrew himself in
the night, not only, says Lord Clarendon, quite alone, but on
foot, and so, with equal address and fatigue, passed through
the whole country in the hands of the enemy, and reached
the Highlands in safety. Here he lay quietly for many weeks,
till the arrival of the Irish, consisting only of fifteen hun-
dred, whom he met, still on foot, and in the habit of a
peasant, in Athol, a province entirely devoted to him. On
the following day he found himself at the head of between
two and three thousand undisciplined men, and instantly
attacked the enemy, whose force in that part of the country
consisted of thrice his number.

The series of conquests which now rewarded his loyal and
generous exertions affords one of the finest instances extant of
the prodigies which may, I had almost said must, be wrought
by an enthusiastic fidelity in a leader to the cause for which he
fights a sentiment which with electric certainty and rapidity
communicates its mysterious warmth through thousands
who never could be taught to comprehend its motives.
Montrose thus fascinated his handful of almost unarmed
men, to more than the half of whom he was an utter stranger.
On the thiid of September, 1644, he gained a complete
victory, called the battle of Tippermoor, over the forces of the
covenanters, commanded by Lord Elcho, in the neighbour-
hood of Perth. Having reduced the town of that name, he
marched to Dundee, which also surrendered to him. Joined

328 JAMES GRAHAM,

there by some powerful men of the country, the rebel govern-
ment, already seriously alarmed, issued a commission to the
Marquis of Argyll to raise an army with all expedition.
Montrose, in the mean time, flew through the shire of Angus
to Aberdeen, strengthening as he went, and being met near
that town by the rallied remains of the troops which he had
lately vanquished, reinforced by the clans of Fraser and
Forbes, gave them battle, and totally routed them. The gal-
lantry of the soldier now gave place to the caution and dex-
terity of the experienced general. He called in his scattered
posts, and retreated with great skill before the increasing
force of Argyll, who, soon weary of a fruitless pursuit, and
apprehensive of an attack on his own domains, resigned his
command to Sir John Urry, and shut himself up with a strong
garrison in his castle of Inverary. Such were the events of
the first month after Montrose had appeared in arms.

He kept the field during the whole of the winter, increasing
his numbers, and laying waste, as had been anticipated, the
Campbell country : in the mean time the rebel Parliament
met at Edinburgh, and in the month of January passed
against him an act of forfeiture and degradation, and seized
his estates accordingly. Argyll at length again appeared, at
the head of a powerful body, and the army under the com-
mand of Urry advancing towards him on the other side,
Montrose, in danger of being hemmed in, resolved to attack
the former, and after a forced march, which occupied the
whole of a night, totally overthrew Argyll, near Inverness,
on the second of February, with great slaughter, the Marquis
himself escaping alone, and with difficulty, in a boat which
he found on the neighbouring river. He now marched south-
ward, and obtained considerable reinforcements ; was busily
engaged in a correspondence with the King, who had about
this time formed a resolution to join Montrose in Scotland
with his army ; and on the unfortunate abandonment of that
plan, again sought the enemy. On the 4th of May, 1645, he
completely routed the troops under the command of Urry,

FIRST MARQUIS OF MONTROSE. 329

and, on the 2d of July, gained a signal victory over a select
and very powerful force, led by Colonel Baillie, a distin-
guished officer, from whose skill and courage the covenanters
had anticipated the most ample success. These actions re-
ceived the names of the battles of Old Earn, and of Alford.

The rebel government, now seriously alarmed, issued a
proclamation for the raising within ten days a new array of
ten thousand, which was promptly obeyed. Montrose as
instantly advanced to meet them, but they refused at first to
accept his challenge. At length on the fifteenth of August
he attacked them with the greatest fury, and, after a most
unequal contest, his troops not exceeding the number of five
thousand, gained the most glorious of his victories in the
battle of Kilsyth, in which six thousand of the enemy were
slain. Submissions and addresses now poured in on him from
all quarters. He took possession of the capital, and released
the loyal nobility who were imprisoned there, many of whom
were under sentence of death, while Argyll, and several
others of the chief leaders of the rebels, fled to Berwick, and
other places in the north of England, to await the final event
of these wonders. He was in fact now master of the king-
dom, and at this juncture received from the forlorn Charles a
commission constituting him Captain-General and Governor
of Scotland, with powers almost unlimited, which he caused
to be proclaimed in Edinburgh, Stirling, Linlithgow, and
Glasgow, and immediately summoned a parliament to meet
in the last of those towns on the twentieth of the following
October.

An unhappy reverse, however, was at hand. Several
powerful noblemen, who, though known to side with the
covenanters, had not engaged actively in the war, now joined
his standard, with earnest protestations of assistance and
fidelity. Even those who stood aloof sent their congratula-
tions on his successes, and professed to court a pacification.
They pressed him earnestly to march his army southward,
and offered to place their broken forces under his orders.

330 JAMES GRAHAM,

Montrose was hesitating between his doubts of their sincerity
and his unwillingness to suspect such exalted persons of rank
treachery, when a messenger arrived from the King, ordering
him to hasten to the Tweed, and to embrace the proffered
accord, and promising to secure him from all danger by a
powerful reinforcement. The Marquis obeyed, and the
traitors on hearing that he was in motion, dispatched an
express to the General who commanded their army in
England, the famous David Leslie, requiring him instantly to
march circuitously into the heart of Scotland ; to cut off the
retreat of Montrose to the Highlands ; and to force him into
an action. The Marquis, on receiving an imperfect report
of Leslie's unexpected motion, resolved to retrace his steps,
but it was too late. Leslie, at the head of troops compara-
tively veteran, and abounding in horse, with which Montrose
had always been but indifferently furnished, attacked him
suddenly at Philiphaugh, near Selkirk, and gained a complete
victory.

Montrose, whose spirit was utterly invincible, instantly
applied his attention to the recruiting his shattered army.
He retired to the Highlands, and presently raised a numerous
but irregular force. In the mean time the covenanters
wreaked a dreadful vengeance on such of his friends as the
fortune of war had thrown into their hands ; most of the
nobility who had of late joined him withdrew to their
homes ; and the powerful Marquis of Huntly, who, though
sincerely attached to the royal cause, held him in an in-
curable jealousy, not only refused to co-operate with him, but
even actively thwarted his plans. Amidst these formidable
impediments he marched to Glasgow, to show at least his
readiness to keep his engagement of holding a Parliament in
that city, which was then in the hands of the rebels. Un-
provided of the means to drive them from it, he sought in
vain for several days to tempt them to sally forth, and to
give him battle. The winter was now far advanced, and he
was in no condition to commence offensive operations;

FIRST MARQUIS OF MONTROSE. 331

Charles had engaged in an indirect and worse than useless
treaty with the covenanters ; and Montrose retired for a
time to await the event, and to prepare himself for any kind
of service that the royal cause might require.

Early in the spring of 1646 that unhappy Prince became a
voluntary prisoner to his Scottish rebels. Among the first
concessions which they demanded of him was the disbanding
of Montrose's army, and the Marquis presently received his
command to that effect. Montrose hesitated. He found
means of opening a private communication with the King,
proposing to disobey the order, should it appear to have been
unduly extorted from him. Charles repeated the command,
accompanying it by a secret letter in which he stated to Mon-
trose the reasons which seemed to him to render it necessary.
The Marquis still paused, and at length a third messenger
arrived, not only charging him, under pain of high treason,
to disband, but also to transport himself to France before the
first of September. He now submitted ; took a pathetic
leave of his troops ; and on the third of that month, hastily
and in disguise, embarked in a small vessel of Norway, and
was landed at Bergen, from whence he soon after sailed for
France. At Paris he found little encouragement, and abun^
dant cause for disgust. The Queen of England, who had
retired thither, received him with coldness. Henrietta
Maria, not liberal in her prosperity, was now more than ever
inclined to make new friends than to acknowledge past
services ; and Montrose, who had brought with him many
whom he loved, with little to support them, perhaps expected
from her supplies which she was unable to grant. Cardinal
Mazarine, to whom he applied to raise an army to serve for
Charles in Scotland, entertained his request with a caution
and ambiguity intolerable to the warmth and generosity of
his nature. He removed into Germany, and, soon after the
murder of the King his master, received an invitation from
Charles the Second to join him at the Hague, where he found
two parties of his countrymen, the Commissioners of the

332 JAMES GRAHAM,

Kirk, who came to bargain with the young King for
admission on their terms into Scotland, and the more mode-
rate covenanters, headed by the Duke of Hamilton ; enemies
to each other, and agreeing only in their mutual aversion to
himself, and in a settled resolution to avoid all intercourse
with him.

Amidst these impediments to any service that he might
have hoped to render to the King near his person, he gladly
availed himself of the sanction of a commission which he had
not long before received from Charles, authorising him to
treat with some of the northern Potentates for the raising
troops in their dominions, to serve under his command in
Scotland. He now passed with that view into Germany ;
commenced his negotiations ; and appointed Hamburgh as
the rendezvous for his expected levies. The project, how-
ever, proved nearly abortive. At the end of some months
his numbers very little exceeded five hundred men, whom
he had obtained from the Duke of Holstein, and with
these, pressed by the repeated solicitations of his friends
in the Highlands, he determined to prosecute his enter-
prise. He embarked them in the depth of the winter of
1650, and, speedily following, landed on the Isles of Orkney,
and, crossing into Caithness, lodged his troops, with their
necessaries, in an old castle, from whence he issued a spirited,
but moderate declaration, and presently received communi-
cations from many of the neighbouring chiefs, requesting
him to advance further into the country, and engaging to
bring large reinforcements. He now hoisted his standard,
whereon he had caused to be painted the portrait of his
murdered master, with the motto " Judge and revenge my
cause, Lord." The rebel Parliament, then sitting at Edin-
burgh, and wholly swayed by his mortal enemy, the Marquis
of Argyll, had speedy notice of his arrival. Colonel Strachan,
a favourite officer, was instantly dispatched to meet him,
with a choice party of cavalry ; and such was the dread of
the hero, that Leslie himself, within a few days, followed

>r his

FIRST MARQUIS OF MONTROSE. 333

with a formidable force. Montrose had marched forward,
with his usual ardour, and, being wholly without horse,
gained no intelligence of the approach of the enemy till he
was almost in sight. His promised aids, some from fear,
others from treachery, had wholly failed him. Indeed a
body of fifteen hundred, under the Earl of Sutherland, which
was advancing to support him, joined Strachan on his march.
The straggling Highlanders whom he had incorporated, fled
without waiting for the attack, and Montrose, left only
with his few foreigners, was in a moment overwhelmed by
Strachan's horse. Having barely gained time to throw away
the ribband and George which he had lately received from
the King, and to change dresses with a peasant, he gained on
foot the house of a country gentleman in his confidence, who
engaged to conceal him.

It has been almost generally asserted that he was betrayed
to the enemy by his host, Macleod, Laird of Assyn, whose
name I mention because some writers have incautiously cast
a groundless blemish on another of the greatest purity, by
calling him "the Lord Aston." Montrose was a prisoner
before the arrival of Leslie, to whom he was delivered, and
who led him in triumph with brutal insolence, not suffering
him to change the mean garb in which he was seized, to
Edinburgh. The Parliament, before his arrival there, had
passed its sentence on him, which I insert in the words of a
very respectable historian, who gives it from the original,
lest the ordinary narration of a proceeding so horribly black-
ened by a mean and savage malice, might be suspected of
exaggeration. The report of the committee employed to
form it was, " that so soon as he should come to town, he
should be met at the Water Gate by the magistrates and
hangman ; that he should be tied with cords upon a chair,
bare-headed, and the hangman to ride upon the horse that
drew the cart, covered, before him ; and so be brought through
the town to the Tolbooth, from whence he should be carried
to the Cross of Edinburgh, and hanged on a gibbet, thirty

334 JAMES GRAHAM,

feet high, with his declaration about his neck ; and so hang
three hours in public view ; after which he should be
beheaded and quartered ; his head to be fixed upon the Tol-
booth of Edinburgh, and his legs and arms over the gates of
Aberdeen, Perth, Stirling, and Glasgow ; and, in case he
repented, and was absolved of the sentence of excommunica-
tion, his body should be buried in the Grey Friars ; if not, to
be buried in the Borrowmuir."

It was thought fit, however, to add yet another feature to
the barbarous triumph before its consummation. He was
brought before the Parliament, to be insulted by the Chan-
cellor Loudon, and to hear his sentence read. Here, as
indeed throughout his whole life, he displayed an almost
supernatural magnanimity. Being allowed to address the
assembly, he commenced a short justificatory speech, in
which it was difficult to say whether the language of an
elegant scholar, the politeness of a finished gentleman, or the
firmness of a soldier, shone most conspicuously, by telling
them that, " since the King had so far owned them as to
treat with them, he had appeared before them with rever-
ence, and bare-headed, which otherwise he would not have
done.'* He was then informed that on the morrow he
should suffer death, and the whole sentence, even with some
aggravations, was accordingly executed on the twenty-first
of May, 1650. Such was the vengeance of those who blas-
phemously professed to fight, and to judge as well as to
preach, in the name of King Jesus.

Lord Clarendon alone has left us any insight, and that but
superficially, into the private character of this celebrated
nobleman. " Montrose," says he, "was in his nature fearless
of danger, and never declined any enterprise for the difficulty
of going through with it, but exceedingly affected those which
seemed desperate to other men, and did believe somewhat to
be in himself above other men, which made him live more
easily towards those who were, or were willing to be, inferior
to him (towards whom he exercised wonderful civility and

FIRST MARQUIS OF MONTROSE. 335

generosity) than with his superiors or equals. He was
naturally jealous, and suspected those who did not concur
with him in the way not to mean so well as he. He was not
without vanity, but his virtues were much superior, and he
well deserved to have his memory preserved and celebrated
amongst the most illustrious persons of the age in which he
lived." It may be truly added that he possessed an elegant
genius ; spoke eloquently, and wrote with a graceful and
perspicuous turn of expression. A few of his small poetical
pieces have been preserved, but the choicest relic of his muse
is enshrined in those exquisite lines which he wrote on
hearing of the murder of Charles, into which he may be said
to have transferred the force, the keenness, and the polish, of
the sword with which we are told they were written. They
are well known, but no apology will be necessary for once
more recording them.

" Great, good, and just, could I but rate
My griefs, and thy too rigid fate,
I 'd weep the world to such a strain
As it should deluge once again.
But, since thy loud-tongued blood demands supplies
More from Briareus' hands than Argus' eyes,
I '11 sing thy obsequies with trumpet's sounds,
And write thy epitaph with blood and wounds."

The Marquis of Montrose married Magdalen, sixth daughter
of David Carnegy, first Earl of Southesk, by whom he had
two sons. The elder, whose name is unknown, died in 1645,
in the sixteenth year of his age ; and the younger, James,
succeeded to his father's dignities. From him the present
Duke of Montrose is lineally descended.

"VaaeLjrke px.

PC4HLOP HEKIB.EIRT,

OF PE'MBI-LOKE fe MONTGOMERY.
OB, 1660,

PHILIP HERBERT,

EARL OF PEMBROKE, AND FIRST EARL OF MONTGOMERY.

THIS very singular and eccentric person, for we will not
call him nobleman, as he thought fit to divest himself of
that dignity, as well as all claim to it in its more general
sense, was the second of the two sons of Henry, fourth Earl
of Pembroke of his surname, by his third Lady, Mary, the
amiable and accomplished daughter of Sir Henry, and sister
of Sir Philip, Sidney.

Of the sort of education bestowed on a son of parents in
every way so exalted there can be no doubt, but we have no
particulars of it, save that it was concluded at New College
in Oxford : all else that is certain is that he derived no profit
from it, for Anthony Wood tells us that " he was so illiterate
that he could scarcely write his name." His high rank, and
probably a restlessness of temper for which he was ever
remarkable, brought him to Elizabeth's court at a time of
life uncommonly early. That agreeable newsmonger Rowland
White, in a letter to Sir Robert Sidney, of the nineteenth of
April, 1597, calls him " little Mr. Philip Harbert ; " and in
another, of the twenty-sixth of the same month, in the year
1600, written from the court, says " Mr. Philip Harbert is
here, and one of the forwardest courtiers that ever I saw in
my time, for he had not been here two houres but he grew as
bold as the best." His chief anxiety at this time seems to
have been, naturally enough, to get a wife, and in each of those
letters different ladies are mentioned to whom he was then
a suitor ; "one of them the heir of his kinsman, Sir William

338 PHILIP HERBERT, EARL OF PEMBROKE,

Herbert of Monmouthshire, the other of Sir Arthur Gorges,
but both those enterprises failed.

Presently however after the accession of James, this incli-
nation was fully gratified, and by a very splendid alliance.
He married on the twenty-seventh of December, 1604, Susan,
daughter of Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford,
and their nuptials were celebrated with an expense and
magnificence almost unparalleled in the annals of courtly
extravagance. Sir Thomas Edmonds, recounting several
particulars of them, on the following day, in a letter to
Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, one of whose daughters
was married to Philip's elder brother, William Earl of Pem-
broke, says " the charge of the gloves and garters given were
esteemed to amownt to well near a thousand powndes ; his
graunte is passed unto him for his twelve hundred pound
land, and it is expected that 'erre it be long, the King will
also bestowe some dignitie on him." Sir Dudley Carleton
too, in a letter, nearly of the same date, detailing at large an
abundance of circumstances which attended the marriage,
some of which it would be improper as well as unnecessary,
to repeat here, tells him that " the presents of plate, and
other things given by the noblemen, were valued at two
thousand five hundred pounds ; but that which made it a
good marriage was a gift of the King's of five hundred
pounds" (p r ann.) "land, for the bride's joynture : " and
Rowland White again, on the fourth of February, writes to
Lord Shrewsbury " Mr. Sandford and myself have dis-
patched the great gifte his. Ma'f bestowed upon hym, and we
doe yeld him a very good account of our labour, for he hath
two brave seates in Kent and Wiltshire." Indeed all the
private correspondence of the nobility at that precise period
abounds with such recitals.

Such circumstances in the story of a mere youth, a younger
brother, of no fame nor attainments, might seem singular,
but the fact was that he possessed singular beauty of coun-
tenance and person, in the knowledge and practice of all the

AND FIRST EARL OF MONTGOMERY. 339

little fopperies and artifices that could contribute to' the
adornment of which he excelled. It has been again and
again repeated that such qualifications were irresistibly
attractive of James's regard, and on these precious preten-
sions Philip Herbert, whom he presently knighted, gained
his favour almost in the hour of the arrival of that Prince in
London. " The young worthy Sir Philip," says Mr. White,
in the letter last quoted, "growes great in his Majestie's
favor, and carries it without envy ; for he is very humble to
the greate Lords; is desirous to doe all men good ; and
hurtes no man." Doubtless he spared no pains till this
period, and for some time after, to disguise his real character,
and of this, for he abounded in cunning, he was fully capable.
The truth is that his mind and heart were wholly without
principle, as well as without any amiable affections ; that
his temper was furious, almost to madness, and that he was
withal a notorious coward. Osborne, a bitter memoir writer
of the time, to whom he was well known, tells us that he
was " intolerable choleric and offensive, and did not refrain
to break many wiser heads than his own." His perpetual
quarrels with persons of distinction were at once the amuse-
ment and disgrace of the Court, in one of which, at a
horse-race at Croydon, Ramsay, a Scot, who was afterwards
created Earl of Holderness, chastised him personally with
impunity in the presence of thousands : such was the man
whom James on his arrival in England first chose as his
favourite, and called to his Privy Council ; and on whom, in
addition to the great pecuniary bounties just now mentioned,
he conferred, on the fourth of May, 1605, the dignities of
Baron Herbert, of Shurland, in the Isle of Sheppey, and
Earl of Montgomery, and shortly after, the Order of the
Garter.

Charles the First, one of whose few foibles was to cherish,
without due discrimination, a kindness for those whom his
father had distinguished, placed this unworthy man in the
high station of Lord Chamberlain of his household, and

S40 PHILIP HERBERT, EARL OF PEMBROKE,

appointed him Warden of the Stannaries, in both which
offices he grossly misconducted himself. In the one, to give
an instance from many of his brutal intemperance, he is
recorded to have beaten Thomas May, a well-known literary
character of the time, with his Chamberlain's staff, in the
Banqueting-house at Whitehall : and in the other, to have
driven the people of Devon and Cornwall nearly to insurrec-
tion by the tyrannies and exactions with which he tormented
them. His shameful irregularities, according to a sort of
charity not unfrequent in judging of the conduct of the great,
were considered for some years as foibles and eccentricities,
but the time soon arrived in which he was to give the last
finish to his absurdities by assuming the character of a states-
man and an orator, and to crown his faults by the addition
of the basest ingratitude. In May, 1641, on the very eve, if
it might not be said already to exist, of the grand rebellion,
he quarrelled violently in the House of Peers with the Lord
Mowbray, eldest son of the Earl of Arundel, and some blows,
or menaces of blows, passed. They were committed the next
day to the Tower, under the authority of the House ; and
Charles, at length weary and ashamed of longer countenancing
so unworthy a servant, availed himself of an opportunity so
favourable, and deprived him of his staff.

From that hour he ranged himself with the most bitter
enemies of the Crown, to whom the importance conferred on
him by the noble estates to which he had a few years before
succeeded, together with the Earldom of Pembroke, on the
death of his accomplished elder brother, rendered him a wel-
come acquisition. Fully conscious however of his inability
to furnish any other means of aid to their detestable cause, as
well as of the dangers which might be incurred to it by the
well known folly and fury of his conduct, they admitted him
into no degree of their confidence, and employed him only in
the company, and under the observation, of trusty persons.
Thus he was a commissioner, with several other of the mal-
content Lords whom the King was obliged to name, for the

AND FIRST EARL OF MONTGOMERY. 341

treaty with the Scottish rebels at Ripon in 1640 ; and again,
in the spring of 1642, one of the Committee appointed by
both houses to present their outrageous declaration of that
time to his Majesty at Newmarket. On that occasion the
indecent importunity with which he pressed the King to
abandon for a time to the Parliament the control of the
militia, drew from his mild and bounteous master an expres-
sion which perhaps never before fell from his lips " No,"
said Charles, " by God ! not for an hour. You have asked
that of me in this was never asked of a King, and with which
I would not trust my wife and children." When the King,
after the battle of Edgehill, alarmed the Parliament by
marching to the neighbourhood of London, this Earl was sent
to him, with several members of each House, to make that
sham overture of peace which ended in the ineffectual
negociation at Oxford, in January, 1643, where also he was
one of the commissioners, as well as in that of Uxbridge in
the following year.

On the death in 1630 of his elder brother, William, Earl
of Pembroke, who had held that dignified office, he had been,
strangely enough, chosen Chancellor of the University of
Oxford ; into which he now used, but, to the honour of that
great body, almost wholly without effect, his utmost influence
to introduce the fanatical and republican principles which he
had lately assumed. He was a frequent speaker in Parlia-
ment, and disgraced even the cause in which he had embarked
by the intemperate absurdities which he uttered there ; and
was mean and impudent enough to print from time to time
as his speeches the compositions of others, many of which
are still to be met with. Thus he pursued his wayward
course till the final abolition of the dwindled legislative body
to which he had long been an incumbrance, and at length
concluded it by accepting, on the sixteenth of April, 1649, a
seat, as representative for the county of Berks, in Oliver
Cromwell's spurious House of Commons. He died on the
twenty-third of January in the succeeding year.

342 PHILIP HERBERT, EARL OF PEMBROKE,

This strange and bad man, as might be expected, was the
constant object not only of the mixed hatred and contempt
of the more zealous Cavaliers, but of the keen satire and
ridicule which many of them were so capable of bestowing
on him. From a multitude of such of their lampoons as are
still extant, I venture to insert the following, not only for the
sake of some strokes which it exhibits of genuine humour,
but because the hints which it furnishes of his character tend
to justify much that has been related of him. It was printed
in 1650, and is reported to have been written by Samuel
Butler

" I, Philip, late Earle of Pembroke and Montgomery, now
Knight for the County of Berks, being, as I am told, very
weak in body, but of perfect memory (for I remember this
time five years I gave the casting voyce to dispatch old
Canterbury ; and this time two yeares I voted no addresse to
my master ; and this time twelvemonth saw him brought to
the block) yet, because death doth threaten and stare upon
me, who have still obeyed all those that threatened me, I
now make my last Will and Testament.

" Imprimis, for my soule : I confesse I have heard very
much of souls, but what they are, or whom they are for, God
knowes I know not. They tell me now of another world,
where I never was, nor doe I know one foot of the way
thither. While the King stood I was of his religion, made
my sonne weare a cassock and thought to make him a Bishop :
then came the Scots, and made me a presbiterian ; and since
Cromwell enter'd I have been an independent. These I
believe are the kingdoms' three Estates, and if any of these
can save a soule, I may claime one. Therefore if my
Executors doe find I have a soule, I give it him that gave
it me.

" Item, I give my body for I cannot keep it ; you see the
Chirurgion is tearing off my flesh : therefore bury me. I
have church-land enough. But do not lay me in the church

AND FIRST EARL OF MONTGOMERY. 343

porch ; for I was a Lord, and would not be bury'd where
Colonel Pride was borne.

" Item, my will is to have no monument ; for then I must
have epitaphs, and verses ; but all my life long I have had
too much of them.

" Item, I give my doggs, the best currs ever man layd legge
over, to be divided among the councell of state. Many a
faire day I have followed my doggs, and followed the states,
both night and day : went whither they sent me ; sat where
they bid me ; sometimes with Lords, sometimes with Com-
mons ; and now can neither goe nor sit. Yet, whatever
becomes of me, let my poor doggs want not their allowance,
nor come within the ordinance for one meale a week.

" Item, I give two of my best saddle horses to the Earle of
Denbigh, for I feare 'ere long his owne leggs will faile him :
but the tallest and strongest in all my stable I give to the
Academy, for a vaulting horse for ALL LOVERS OF VERTUE. All
my other horses I give to the Lord Fairfax, that when Crom-
well and the states take away his commission his Lordship
may have some Horse to command.

" Item, I give my hawkes to the Earle of Carnarvon. His
father was Master of the Hawkes to the King ; and he has
wit so like his father, that I begg'd his wardship, lest in time
he should doe so by me.

" I give all my deere to the Earle of Salisbury, who I know
will preserve them, because he denied the King a buck out of
one of his owne parks.

" Item, I give my chaplains to the Earle of Stamford, in
regard he never used to have any but his sonne the Lord
Gray, who, being thus both spiritual! and carnall, may beget
more monsters.

"Item, I give nothing to the Lord Say, which legacy I
giye him because I know he '11 bestow it on the poore.

" Item, to the two Countesses, my sister and my wife, I
now give leave to enjoy their estates. But my owne estate
I give to my eldest sonne, charging him on my blessing to

344 PHILIP HERBERT, EARL OF PEMBROKE,

follow the advice of Michael Oldworth ; for, though I have
had thirty thousand pounds p. 1 ann. I die not in debt above
four score thousand pounds.

" Item, because I threatened Sir Harry Mildmay, but did
not beat him, I give fifty pounds to the footman who cudgell'd
him.

" Item, my will is that the said Sir Harry shall not meddle
with my Jewells. I knew him when he served the Duke of
Buckingham, and, since, how he handled the crowne Jewells,
for both which reasons I now name him the knave of dia-
monds.

"Item, to Tom May, whose pate I broke heretofore at a
masque, I give five shillings. I intended him more, but all
that have read his History of the Parliament thinke five
shillings too much.

" Item, to the authour of the libell against ladyes, call'd
Newes from the New Exchange, I give threepence, for invent-
ing a more obscene way of scribling than the world yet knew ;
but, since he throwes what 's rotten and false on divers names
of unblemish'd honour, I leave his payment to the footman
that paid Sir Harry Mildmay's arreares ; to teach him the
difference 'twixt wit and dirt, and to know ladyes that are
noble and chast from downright roundheads.

" Item, I give back to the assembly of divines their classi-
call, provinciall, congregationall, nationall : which words I
have kept at my owne charge above seven years, but plainly
find they '1 never come to good.

" Item, as I restore other men's words, so I give to Lieu-
tenant Generall Cromwell one word of mine, because hitherto
he never kept his owne.

" Item, to all rich citizens of London ; to all presbyterians,
as well as cavaliers ; I give advice to looke to their throats ;
for, by order of the states, the garrison at Whitehall have all
got poyniards, and for new lights have bought dark lanthorns.

" Item, I give all my printed speeches to these persons
following, viz. that speech which I made in my owne defence

AND FIRST EARL OF MONTGOMERY. 345

when the seven lords were accused of high treason I give to
sergeant Wild, that hereafter he may know what is treason,
and what is not : and the speech I made ex tempore to the
Oxford scholars I give to the Earle of Manchester, speaker,
pro tempore, to the House of Peers before it's reformation,
and Chancellor, pro tempore, of Cambridge University since
it's reformation. But my speech at my election, which is my
speech without an oath, I give to those that take the engage-
ment, because no oath hath been able to hold them. All my
other speeches, of what colour soever, I give to the Academy,
to help Sir Balthaser's Art of well Speaking.
" Item, I give up the ghost."

This Earl's first Lady has been already mentioned. He had
issue by her James, and Henry, who died infants ; Charles, a
Knight of the Bath ; Philip, who succeeded to his father's
titles and great estates ; William, James, and John ; and
three daughters; Anne Sophia, married to Robert Dormer,
first Earl of Caernarvon ; Catherine, and Mary, who died
unmarried. His second Countess was Anne, only daughter
and heir of George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland, and
widow of Richard Sackville, third Earl of Dorset. By this
celebrated lady, a memoir of whom will be found hereafter in
the course of this work, he had no issue. His conduct to her
became intolerable some time after their marriage. She
separated herself from him, and survived him for many years.

1.0* DON :
BKADBUBT AND IVANS, PBINTBBS, WHITKFBIABS.

LODGE, EDMUND.

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LODGE, EDMUND.

Portraits of illustrious
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