PORTRAITS

ILLUSTRIOUS PERSONAGES.

W B L L i A Ni

SECO'N.D UUKK OF B
08, 1651,

PORTRAITS

ILLUSTRIOUS PERSONAGES

BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL MEMOIRS OP THEIR
LIVES AND ACTIONS.

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

CABINET EDITION.

IN EIGHT VOLUMES.-VOL. V.

LONDON :
WILLIAM SMITH, 113, FLEET STREET.

JUN7 J956

CONTENTS OF VOLUME V.

1. WILLIAM, SECOND DUKE OF HAMILTON . Mytens. 1651

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

2. JAMES STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY . . Vandyke. 1651

From the Collection of the Right Honourable tJie Earl
of Derby, at Knowsley.

3. FRANCIS, LORD COTTINGTON . . . Van Somer. 1652

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

4. RALPH, LORD HOPTON .... Vandyke. 1652

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

5. EDWARD SACKVILLE, FODRTH EARL OF DORSET.

Vandyke. 1652

From the Collection of his Grace the Duke of Dorset, at
Knowle.

0'. JOHN SELDEN . . . ... Mytens. 1654

From the Bodleian Collection,, Oxford.

CONTENTS.

7. JAMES STUART, DUKE OF RICHMOND . Vandyke. 1655
From the Collection of Sir John SMky Sidney, Bart.

at Penshurat,

8. ROBERT RICH, EARL OF WARWICK . Vandyke. 1658

From the Colkction of the Right HonowraUe the Earl of
Hardwicke, at Wimpole.

9. OLIVER CROMWELL Walker. 1658

From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl

Spencer, at Althorp.

10. DOROTHY PERCY, COUNTESS OF LEICESTER. Vandyke. 1659
From the Collection of the Right Hortourable the Earl

of Egremont, at Petworth.

11. WILLIAM SEYMOUR, MARQUIS OF HERTFORD. Vandyke. 1660
From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl

of Clarendon, at the Grove.

12. LUCY PERCY, COUNTESS OF CARLISLE . Vandyke. 1660
From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl

of Egremont, at Petworth.

13. ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, MARQUIS OF ARGYLL . 1661
From the Colkction of his Grace the Duke of Argyll, at

Inverary Castle.

14. ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA, DAUGHTER OF KING

JAMES THE FIRST . . . Honthorst. 1662
From the Collection of the Right Honourable the. Earl of
Craven, at Combe Abbey.

15. CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOUILLE, COUNTESS OF DERBY.

Vandyke. 1663

From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl of
Derby, at Knowsley.

CONTENTS.

16. SIR KENELM DIGBY .... Vandyke. 1665
From the Original in the Bodleian Gallery, Oxford.

17. MONTAGUE BERTIE, EARL OF LINDSEY . Vandyke 1666

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

18. EDWARD SOMERSET, SECOND MARQUIS OP WORCESTER

Vandyke. 1667

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

19. THOMAS WRIOTHESLEY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON. Lely. 1667

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

20. ALGERNON PERCY, EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND.

Vandyke. 1668

From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl of
Essex, at Cashiobury.

21. HENRIETTA MARIA, QUEEN OF CHARLES THE FIRST.

Vandyke. 1669

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

22. GEORGE MONK, DUKE OF ALBEMARLE . . Lely. 1670-1
From the Town Hall, Exeter.

23. EDWARD MONTAGU, EARL OF MANCHESTER . Lely. 1671
From the Collection of his Grace the Duke of Bedford,

at Woburn Abbey.

24. ANNE HYDE, DUCHESS OF YORK ... . Lely. 1671

Prom tlie Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl
of Clarendon, at the Grove.

CONTENTS.

25. EDWARD MONTAGU, EARL OF SANDWICH . Ldy. 1672

From the Collection of the Right Honourable the
Countess of Sandwich, at Hinchinbroke.

26. THOMAS LORD CLIFFORD, OF CHUDLEIGH . Ldy. 1673

From the Collection of the Right Honourable Lord
Clifford, at UgbrooTce.

27. EDWARD HYDE, EARL OF CLARENDON . Ldy. 1674

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

28. JOHN POWLETT, MARQUIS OF WINCHESTER. P. Oliver. 1674

From the Collection of the Most Noble the Marquis of
Winchester, at Amport House.

29. ANNE CLIFFORD, COUNTESS OF DORSET, PEMBROKE,

AND MONTGOMERY Mytens. 1675

From the Collection of his Grace the DuTce of Dorset, at
Knowle.

30. WILLIAM KERR, EARL OF LOTHIAN . . Jamieson. 1675

From the Collection of the Most Noble the Marquis of
Lothian, at Newbattle Abbey.

WILLIAM,

SECOND DUKE OF HAMILTON,

WAS the second of the two sons of James, second Marquis of
Hamilton, by Anne, daughter of James Conyngham, seventh
Earl of Glencairn, and was brother to James, the first Duke,
a sketch of whose life may be found in this work. He was
born on the fourteenth of December, 1616, ten years after
that nobleman, and, having made some stay in the University
of Glasgow, completed in a long residence on the continent
an education in which we are told that erudition was less
considered than that observation of men, and manners, and
systems, so necessary to all whose views are directed to the
higher orders of public employment. It is evident that he
was so designed by his family, and his success could have
been scarcely doubtful, for he was of the royal blood ; and,
while he was yet a child, his brother had gained the entire
affection of Charles the First ; in the mean time he was dis-
tinguished by the most promising talents. He returned from
his travels in his twenty-first year, and with such confidence
of immediate promotion, that on being shortly after refused
the appointment of Master of the Horse to the Queen, because
it had been promised to another, he prepared, with all the
anger of a man who had been really ill used, to retire to
France, and was dissuaded solely by an unsolicited promise
from the King, of instant preferment. Accordingly on the
thirty-first of March, 1639, he was created Baron Polmont,
and Macanshire, and Earl of Lanerick, (Lanark) and in the
following year was appointed Secretary of State for Scotland.
v. B

2 WILLIAM, SECOND DUKE OF HAMILTON.

These circumstances sufficiently prove not only the high
degree of favour which he suddenly acquired, but the resolute
and ardent temper which is said to have been the ruling fea-
ture in his character.

It is scarcely necessary to say that he was nearly unac-
quainted with the affairs of that country, then peculiarly
critical. To his brother therefore, a man not only well expe-
rienced in them, but of considerable ability, and so many
years older than himself, he naturally looked for direction.
Among the various misfortunes which at that period combined
to undermine the regal power in Scotland, perhaps the most
evident was Charles's partiality to the House of Hamilton.
The mother of these noblemen, a woman of powerful under-
standing and of masculine spirit and activity, whose father
was one of the fathers of the covenant, had implanted in the
mind of her heir, even from his earliest infancy, an enthusi-
astic attachment to the new fanaticism, and he communicated
the infection to his brother. They conceived between them
the utterly impracticable project of uniting to a Monarchy of
high pretensions a Calvinistic church. The Duke remained
stedfast in his error to the last moment of his life, but Lanerick
at length retracted ; not however till he had considerably
injured the royal cause, to which, notwithstanding, he was
most loyally devoted.

Thus for more than two years after his entrance into his
office he was alternately occupied in beseeching the King to
bend to the humiliating demands of the covenanters, and in
endeavouring to dissuade them from actual rebellion, and
failed in both. At length, in the spring of 1643, the Scottish
Privy Council determined on calling, without the King's neces-
sary warrant, a Parliament, under the denomination of a Con-
vention of the Estates. A large correspondence on this subject
between Charles, the Duke of Hamilton, and Lanerick, is
extant, and closes with a letter from the King to the Secre-
tary, concluding with this clear direction " If, notwithstand-
ing our refusal, and the endeavours of our well-affected

WILLIAM, SECOND DUKE OF HAMILTON. 3

subjects and servants to hinder it, there shall be a convention
of the Estates, then we wish that all those who are right
affected to us should be present at it : but to do nothing there
but only protest against their meeting and actions." On the
twenty-second of June, this convention, which in the end over-
threw the royal authority in Scotland, assembled. Lanerick,
at their first sitting, presented a letter from the King, excusing
them for meeting without his concurrence, and limiting their
deliberations to certain subjects ; and Hamilton, in a speech
of studied ambiguity, instead of simply protesting, as the King
had requested, obscurely threatened it. The assembly, how-
ever, confident in its strength, and pre-determined on its
course, insisted on his making an explicit declaration, when
Lanerick stood up, and said for his brother, as Lord Claren-
don reports, that " he hoped that noble Lord's affections to
his country were better known than that any man could
imagine he would protest against the Parliament of the king-
dom." They contented themselves with making a verbal
declaration that it was not in their opinion a free Convention,
the King's sanction being wanting. Those who had pledged
themselves to support in it the royal cause became discouraged,
and many of them retired to their respective countries ; Lane-
rick and Hamilton continued to sit in silence occasionally in
the Convention ; and when that body, shortly after, following
the example of their brethren of the English Parliament,
resolved to make war on the King with an army raised by
them in his name, Lanerick actually put the royal signet,
which in right of his office was in his custody, to the procla-
mation of the general levy.

The loyal nobility of Scotland were highly incensed by this
conduct, and Montrose, whose devotion to the royal cause was
equalled only by the courage with which he always defended
it, set out privately to accuse the brothers to the King ; but
they soon discovered his intention, followed him to Oxford,
where Charles then was, apparently in the hope of averting
the storm which threatened them ; and were immediately
B 2

4 WILLIAM, SECOND DUKE OF HAMILTON.

made prisoners. Lanerick, by the aid of a Mr. Cunningham,
a gentleman of the privy chamber, presently found means to
escape, and went to London, and soon after into Scotland,
where he again applied himself, still, however, under the
influence of that temporising and suspicious policy, which he
had imbibed from the lessons and the example of his brother,
to the King's service. Of the conduct of a partisan so cir-
cumstanced it is natural that little should have transpired.
The only fact of which we are clearly informed is, that he
was in 1645 actively engaged with the covenanters in endea-
vouring to resist the progress of Montrose's victorious arms ;
and it may be reasonably inferred that he had Charles's secret
consent to this, since that Prince almost immediately after
received him again into the office of Secretary, from which he
had been dismissed on his arrest at Oxford, and indeed into
the fullest confidence. In the spring of the following year he
was appointed, together with the Earls of Loudon and Lau-
derdale, by the rebel government sitting at Edinburgh under
the name of the Committee of Estate, a commissioner to treat
with the King, then in the hands of the Scottish army, as well
as with such commissioners as might arrive from the English
Parliament, and seemed to join heartily in the persecution
which they were deputed to inflict on that unhappy Prince.
Just at that period, the Duke, his brother, who had been for
nearly three years in apparent disgrace, and a prisoner in the
castle of Pendennis, in Cornwall, from whence he was libe-
rated merely by the fortune of war, arrived at Newcastle,
and presented himself to the King, who received him with a
countenance which implied a complete oblivion of all former
causes of offence. The secret understanding which un-
doubtedly subsisted between Charles and these brothers is
enveloped in a cloud of mystery, towards the dispelling of
which history has left us even without tolerable presump-
tions.

The close of this year, 1646, was distinguished by the
fruitless negociation at Newcastle, between the King and the

WILLIAM, SECOND DUKE OF HAMILTON. 5

Scottish Parliament. Lanerick, who was almost the sole
instrument of their intercourse, exhorted Charles without
intermission to submit to all the bitter conditions propounded
to him, but found his magnanimity immoveable. At length
the Parliament resolved to put him into the hands of the
English commissioners. When that detestable measure was
proposed to the House, Lanerick prefaced his negative voice
with these words : " As God shall have mercy upon my soul
at the great day, I would choose rather to have my head
struck off at the market-cross of Edinburgh than give my
consent to this vote.'* Charles for the most part of his suc-
ceeding captivity found means to correspond with him, and
held him to the last in unabated confidence. In December,
1647, he concluded with the King, in the Isle of Wight, in
concert with Loudon and Lauderdale, still acting under the
authority of the commission granted to them two years before,
that remarkable secret treaty which they had lately com-
menced with his Majesty at Hampton Court. Charles, to
whom at this period almost any change of circumstances
would have been desirable, now conceded all that he had
refused at Newcastle ; and the Scots, on their part, engaged
to raise a powerful army for the invasion of England, and to
do their utmost to re-establish his authority. The army
was levied accordingly, by authority of the Parliament ;
placed under the command of the Duke of Hamilton ; and
totally overthrown within few weeks after it left Scotland.
Lanerick, who in the mean time had been exerting himself
to the utmost in that country in promoting the views of
those who had joined in support of the stipulations of the
treaty, and who were therefore called " the Lords of Engage-
ment," was now deprived of his office of Secretary of State,
and proscribed, by the same Parliament, which had so lately
authorised those measures his activity and zeal in the execu-
tion of which were the only faults alleged against him.

He fled to Holland so nearly at the time when Hamilton
was beheaded in London, which was on the sixth of March,

6 WILLIAM, SECOND DUKE OF HAMILTON.

1649, that Lord Clarendon says, "he did not know till he
arrived there that he was Duke of Hamilton by the slaughter
of his elder brother." Charles the Second, who had taken
refuge in that country, and who had been deprived of his
royal father by a similar stroke only five weeks before, re-
ceived him with a grace and kindness heightened no doubt
by melancholy sympathy. The Duke, whose entire affection,
and indeed veneration, for his brother, had never allowed him
to reason on the dictates of one to whom in all matters he
submitted with delight, or to seek for motives in his own
breast, after some little time looked back with deep regret
to many things that he had done, and more that he had
omitted. He declared, as Lord Clarendon tells us, " that his
condition had been very hard ; for that having been always
bred up in the Church of England, for which he had a great
reverence, he was forced to comply with the covenant, which
he perfectly detested, and looked upon it as the ruin of his
nation, and would be as glad as any man to declare against it."
He added, that, " he had been driven into rebellion by the
calumnies and persecution of Montrose," (who was indeed
his brother's bitter enemy,) " which nothing else could have
done ; and for that he always asked God forgiveness from his
heart, and desired nothing more than to repair his fault by
losing his life for the King." Unhappily that expiation was
near at hand.

He presently acquired the young King's esteem. The
Order of the Garter, all that Charles then had to give, was
conferred on him soon after his arrival. He was of the num-
ber which attended that Prince in his voyage to Scotland in
June 1650 ; but was not at first permitted by the ruling party
there to approach the capital, and retired therefore to the Isle
of Arran, where he remained till the succeeding January,
when he was again suffered to wait on the King. Cromwell
was then in Scotland, at the head of the army which had
lately won the battle of Dunbar, and the Duke, now first a
soldier, raised a body of troops, and led them with distin-

WILLIAM, SECOND DUKE OF HAMILTON. * 7

guished gallantry in several enterprises. In the mean time
the Scots formed an army destined to march into England
under the command of the King, who appointed Hamilton
his Lieutenant-General. He entered on this great service
with melancholy forebodings; not the result of any supersti-
tious impressions, but of a just and enlarged review of all the
considerations which the enterprise involved. On the march
he earnestly recommended in more than one council that
the army should proceed directly to London, but his opinion
was overruled by the English. They arrived at length at
Worcester, and Cromwell, who had therefore left Scotland,
advanced to meet them with an overwhelming force. Hamil-
ton, who had passed the night preceding the battle in devout
meditation, the fruits of which have been published by Bishop
Burnet from the Duke's original manuscript, was in the
morning at his proper post, when, early in the action, seeing
his own regiment retreating, he flew alone to rally it ; and,
after performing prodigies of valour, received a shot which
shattered the bone of his leg. He survived eight days, and
expired on the llth of September, 1651, amidst the debates
of surgeons, who could not agree on the question of ampu-
tation.

Lord Clarendon, who has repeatedly eulogised his character,
tells us, that " he was in all respects to be preferred to his
brother. A much wiser, though, it may be, a less cunning
man ; for he did not affect dissimulation, which was the
other's masterpiece. He had unquestionable courage. He
was in truth a very accomplished person ; of an excellent
judgment, and clear and ready expressions ; and, though he
had been driven into some unwarrantable actions, he made it
very evident he had not been led by any inclinations of his
own, and passionately and heartily ran to all opportunities of
redeeming it ; and in the very article of his death he ex-
pressed a marvellous cheerfulness that he had the honour to
lose his life in the King's service, and thereby to wipe out the
memory of his former transgressions, which he always pro-

WILLIAM, SECOND DUKE OF HAMILTON.

fessed were odious to himself." Burnet tells us that " his
youth discovered, with an extraordinary capacity, so much
ingenuity that candour seemed in him not so much the effect
of virtue as nature, since from a child he could never upon
any temptation be made to lie." The Bishop adds, that " he
was of a middle stature ; his complexion black but very
agreeable ; and his whole mien was noble and sprightful."

William, second Duke of Hamilton, married, in 1638,
Elizabeth, eldest daughter and coheir of James Maxwell, Earl
of Dirleton in Scotland, and had by her one son, James, Lord
Polmont, who died an infant, and five daughters ; Anne,
wife of Robert Carnegy, third Earl of Southesk ; Elizabeth,
married first to James Conyngham, Lord Kilmaurs, eldest son
of William, ninth Earl of Glencairn ; secondly to Sir David
Cunningham, of Robertland ; Mary, married to Alexander
Livingstone, second Earl of Callender ; secondly, to Sir James
Livingstone, of Westquarter ; thirdly, to James Ogilvie, Earl
of Findlater ; Margaret, to William Blair, of Blair ; and
Diana, who died young.

Vandyke pJ

JAMES

EABX OF DERBY.
OB, 1651,

JAMES STANLEY,

EARL OF DERBY.

THE motto, "Sans Changer," used for so many centuries
by the elder line of the noble house of Stanley, seems to have
been adopted in a prophetic spirit. Invariably honourable,
just, bounteous, hospitable, valiant, and magnificent ; above
all, invariably loyal ; that family may perhaps safely chal-
lenge history and tradition to show one defective link in its
long chain of succession ; to point out a single stain on the
purity of its public conduct, or on its uniform exercise of the
mild and graceful duties of private life. Of the nobleman
whose eulogium will be attempted in the following pages (for
the simple story of his life will form his true eulogium) it is
not too much to say, that his family, the peerage, and his
country, are bound in policy, as well as by affection, to
cherish his memory, even with a reverential regard.

He was the first-born of the three sons of William Stanley,
sixth Earl of Derby, by Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward
Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford, and at length heir general
of that most ancient house. Of his youth, and early man-
hood, scarcely any particulars have been preserved. He has
left proofs, however, that his education was worthy of his
rank, and perhaps of his mind. The Court knew little of
him till it had become a military Court. He was one of the
many Knights of the Bath appointed at the coronation of
Charles the First, when he was a very young man, bearing
the title of Lord Strange, by which two years after he was
summoned to Parliament ; and these, with the exception of

10 JAMES STANLEY

those provincial authorities which seemed almost naturally to
belong to him, were the only public marks of favour that he
ever received from that Prince ; so that his devotion to the
Crown may be said to have flowed even from a finer source
than gratitude. He passed his time in splendid privacy ;
superintending the several princely establishments of his
ancient father, in Lancashire, and in the Isle of Man, where
the Earls of Derby then exercised a royal sway ; cultivating
the morals and manners of a numerous population attached
to him and to his ancestors by feelings which wanted but the
fact of actual parentage to make them really filial ; and em-
ploying his leisure in studies not less philosophic than polite.
The lamentable crisis of the grand rebellion drew him in an
instant from these peaceful engagements, and he was among
the first who joined the King, after the fury of the Parlia-
ment had driven his Majesty to York. He assumed the
character of a soldier within very few weeks after the death
of his father had invested him with the utmost extent of
those views of prosperity which nothing but his engaging in
the war could have frustrated.

An unfortunate change of resolution in Charles's Council
not only rendered Lord Derby's first endeavours in a great
measure abortive, but had an ill effect also on many of his
subsequent services. It had been determined that the royal
standard should be first hoisted at Warrington, and the Earl,
whose influence in that part of the island was unbounded,
had been sent back into Lancashire, immediately after his
arrival at York, with directions to collect the military force
of the county. He had performed that duty with surprising
celerity and exactness, and had actually mustered on the
three heaths of Preston, Ormskirk, and Bury, a force of sixty
thousand men, and was proceeding to take the same course
in Cheshire, and North Wales, where, as well as in Lanca-
shire, he was Lord Lieutenant, when he suddenly received
notice that the King had resolved to set up his standard
at Nottingham ; and, soon after, a special letter from his

EARL OF DERBY. 11

Majesty, directing him to hasten to the head quarters, with
such troops as he might be able to equip completely. In the
mean time great numbers of the Lancashire men, piqued at
the disappointment, returned to their homes, resolving to
stand neuter, while many others joined the rebels, and aided
them considerably in seizing on the town of Manchester.
The Earl, however severely mortified, speedily raised among
his friends and tenants three regiments of foot, and as many
troops of horse, which he clothed and armed at his own
expense, and waited on the King, who was then at Shrews-
bury, to receive his orders for the disposal of them. He was
commanded to return to them with the utmost speed, and to
endeavour to take Manchester by a bold and sudden attack ;
and having accordingly made all preparations, even to fixing
the hour for the assault, he received orders the night before
to join the King, without a moment's delay, with his force,
which was then most imprudently placed under the command
of others, while he was desired to repair again into Lanca-
shire, to make new efforts to raise men in a country dispirited,
offended, and now in no small degree disaffected. Lord
Clarendon, whose report of all these matters is given too
much at large to be admitted here, seems to treat the Earl's
concern in them with less than his usual candour.

Lancashire however was now nearly lost to the Crown.
The Earl, with much difficulty, collected a sufficient force to
take Preston and Lancaster by storm, and led it personally
in those enterprises with the greatest bravery, and was pre-
paring to attack Manchester, when this new levy was also
called away to the main army^ and he was once more left
without the means of using offensive measures. Nothing
now was left for him in his county but to fortify his mansion
of Latham, in which he was busily employed when he re-
ceived intelligence that the rebels had planned an attack on
the Isle of Man, and immediately sailed thither, leaving the
completion of his works at Latham, and its defence, to his
Countess. Of the romantic excellence of that lady's conduct

12 JAMES STANLEY,

in the execution of her charge I shall say nothing more in
this place, but will endeavour in another part of the work to
do that justice to her memory which has been hitherto in a
great measure neglected. Latham House, the siege of which
commenced in February, 1644, was defended first by the
Countess in person, and afterwards by one of the officers
whom she had originally placed in it under her command, for
more than two years, and was at last surrendered by a posi-
tive order from the King, having cost the enemy no less than
six thousand men, and being one of the last fortified places
in the kingdom that had held out for his Majesty. The
Earl, who had returned from Man during the siege, found
Prince Rupert unsuccessfully besieging the town of Bolton,
which was in the midst of his own territory, and which, with
the aid of some companies of his old provincial soldiers, who
at his request were placed under his command for that pecu-
liar service, he carried by a furious assault in the space of
half an hour, and was the first man who entered it. He now
returned to the Isle of Man, together with his Countess,
leaving his children in England, who were soon after basely
seized and imprisoned, by an order of the House of Com-
mons. Offers were repeatedly made to him by that body to
restore them, and to leave him in quiet possession of his
whole estate, if he would give up the island ; but he con-
stantly refused, even after all hope for the royal cause was
lost, saying, that " he would never redeem either by his dis-
loyalty." Affronted at length by solicitations which evinced
a doubt in those by whom they were used of his courage or
fidelity, he sent the following glorious reply to a proposal
made to him by the regicide Ireton, who was frequently the
organ of the party on such occasions, and from that moment
the rebels vowed the deepest vengeance against him :

" I received your letter with indignation, and with scorn I
return you this answer that I cannot but wonder whence
you should gather any hopes from me, that I should, like you,
prove treacherous to my Sovereign ; since you cannot be

EARL OF DERBY. 13

insensible of my former actings in his late Majesty's service,
from which principle of loyalty I am in no way departed. I
scorn your proffers : I disdain your favours : I abhor your
treasons : and am so far from delivering this island to your
advantage, that 1 will keep it, to the utmost of my power, to
your destruction. Take this final answer, and forbear any
further solicitations ; for, if you trouble me with any more
messages upon this occasion, I will burn the paper, and hang
the bearer. This is the immutable resolution, and shall be
the undoubted practice, of him who accounts it the chiefest
glory to be

His Majesties most loyal and obedient Servant,

DERBY."
Castle Town,
12th July, 1649.

He remained in the Isle of Man till the year 1651, when
the young King, having resolved to leave Scotland, at the
head of an army unhappily commanded rather by Presbyterian
ministers than by its generals, despatched an order to the
Earl to meet him in Lancashire, which he instantly obeyed,
and received there the King's command to endeavour once
more to raise troops in that county. Charles, who was then
repairing by forced marches to Shrewsbury, left with him a
body of about two hundred horse, consisting mostly of officers
and gentlemen, to enable him, should he prove unsuccessful
in his levy, to follow the army with a better chance of secu-
rity. Having employed trusty persons to publish the news
of his arrival, and to give notice of his views, he took up his
quarters, within two or three days after he had left the King,
in the town of Wigan, to await the appearance of his friends ;
where, on the very next morning, he was attacked by a large
body of militia, and regular troops, which Cromwell had
unexpectedly detached, under the command of Lilburn, to
harass the rear of the King's army on its march, and to pick
up such stragglers as might not keep pace with it. The most
heroic, but at length ineffectual, resistance was made for two

14 JAMES STANLEY,

hours by the Earl, and his small band, against a force of
three thousand horse and foot. It is recorded that he received
in this sanguinary skirmish, seven shot on his breast-plate,
thirteen cuts on his beaver, and five or six wounds on his
arms and shoulders, and that he had two horses killed under
him. He found means, however, to escape, almost alone,
through Shropshire and Staffordshire, to the King, at Wor-
cester, reserved for a harder fate.

In the evening of the third of September, the day on which
the fatal battle was fought close to that city, his wounds yet
bleeding, for only eight days had passed since his fierce en-
counter at Wigan, he secretly and safely conducted Charles,
by St. Martin's gate in Worcester, from the horrors and dan-
gers which surrounded him ; directed his Majesty to the since
celebrated retreats of White-ladies, and Boscobel, in each of
which himself had been within a few days before sheltered ;
and took leave of the King for ever. He now travelled, with
as much speed as his condition would allow, towards his own
country ; but had scarcely arrived within Cheshire when he
was attacked by a party commanded by a rebel Major of the
name of Edge, to whom he surrendered, under a promise of
quarter. The Parliament, however, sent down to Chester a
commission to nineteen persons of its military in that part of
the country, all of whom were notoriously his personal ene-
mies, to form themselves into what was called a High Court
of Justice, and " to try the Earl of Derby for his treason and
rebellion." He was of course condemned to die ; and these
mock judges indulged themselves in the vulgar barbarity of
sending him to suffer their sentence in his own town of Bol-
ton, where he had last appeared as a conqueror, and of sub-
jecting him on his way thither, and indeed to the moment of
his death, to brutal insult. A minute narrative of the cir-
cumstances of his final hours was penned, with touching
simplicity, by a Mr. Bagaley, one of his gentlemen, who
was allowed to attend him to the last, and the manuscript
has been carefully preserved in the family. A transcript of
the most part of it may be found in Collins's Peerage. It

EARL OF DERBY. Jo

displays one of the purest examples extant of the courage of a
soldier, the patience of a philosopher, and the piety of a Chris-
tian. He meant to have addressed himself at some length to
the people, but was interrupted. In the part which he
uttered are these passages : " As for my crime, as some are
pleased to call it, to come into this country with the King, I
hope it deserves a better name, for I did it in obedience to
his call whom I hold myself obliged to obey, according to the
protestation I took in Parliament in his father's time. I
confess I love monarchy, and I love my master, Charles, the
second of that name, whom I myself proclaimed in this
country to be King. The Lord bless and preserve him ; and
I wish so much happiness to this people after my death that
he may enjoy his right, and then they cannot want their
rights. I profess here, in the presence of God, I always
sought for peace, and I had no other reason, for I wanted
neither means nor honours, nor did I seek to enlarge either.
By the King's predecessors mine were raised to a high condi-
tion, it is well known to the country ; and it is as well known
that by his enemies I am condemned to suffer, by new and
unknown laws. The Lord send us our King again, and our
old laws again, and the Lord send us our religion again.
Truly to me it seems I die for God, the King, and the Laws ;
and this makes me not to be ashamed of iny life, nor afraid
of my death." At these words one of the persons by whom
he was guarded on the scaffold, misunderstanding him, igno-
rantly cried, " We have no King, and we will have no
Lords," and he was not permitted to say more; Bagaley's
narrative, however, gives the remainder of his intended
speech, from the notes which the Earl at that moment handed
to him. He was beheaded on Wednesday, the fifteenth of
October, 1651; and England has not produced a parallel
character since loyalty ceased to be an unmixed sentiment.

" The Earl of Derby," says Lord Clarendon, who, by the
way, seems never to have felt cordially towards him, " was
a man of unquestionable loyalty to the King, and gave clear
testimony of it, before he received any obligations from the

16 JAMES STANLEY.

Court, and when he thought himself disobliged by it. The
King in his first year sent him the order of the Garter, which,
in many respects, he had expected from the last ; and the
sense of that honour made him so readily comply with the
King's command in attending him, when he had no confidence
in the undertaking, nor any inclination to the Scots, who he
thought had too much guilt upon them in having depressed
the Crown, to be made instruments in repairing and re-
storing it. He was a man of great honour, and clear cou-
rage, and all his defects and -misfortunes arose from his
having lived so little a time among his equals, that he knew
not how to treat his inferiors, which was the source of all
the ill that befel him ; having thereby drawn such prejudice
against him from persons of inferior quality, who yet thought
themselves too good to be contemned, that they pursued him
to death."

He married Charlotte, daughter to. Claude de la Tremouille,
Duke of Thouars, and Peer of France, by whom he had
Charles, his successor, and two younger sons, Edward and
William, who died infants ; and four daughters ; Charlotte, who
died young ; Henrietta Maria, who was married to William
Wentworth, second Earl of Strafford ; Catherine, to Henry
Pierrepont, Marquis of Dorchester ; and Amelia Sophia, to
John Murray, Marquis of Athol. It remains only to be
added to this sketch that the Earl had very considerable
talents ; was inclined to literary composition, and was among
the best prose writers of his time. In the Desiderata Curiosa
may be found " The History of the Isle of Man, by James,
Earl of Derby, and Lord of Man, interspersed with large and
excellent Advices to his Son ;" and one of the Sloane MSS.
in the British Museum, is a sort of historical common-place
book, written by his hand. It contains chiefly extracts from
the popular libel called " Leicester's Common- wealth ;" from
the History of the Council of Trent ; and from Fuller's Holy
War. On the first page he has written " Ne turba operas
meas J. Derby, 1645 ;" and on the last, " Finis, Ja. 13,
1645, at Castle Rushin, in the Isle of Man J. Derby."

"Van S omer ;j.>"x: .

F IRA IN CD S,

LORD COTTINGTOK
1652,

FRANCIS, LORD COTTINGTON.

LORD CLARENDON informs us, and has of course been followed
by those who may have since written of Lord Cottington's
origin, that " he was bora a gentleman, both by father and
mother, his father having a pretty entire seat near Bruton, in
Somersetshire, worth about two hundred pounds a year,
which had descended from father to son for many hundred
years, and his mother being a Stafford, nearly allied to Sir
Edward Stafford, who was Vice -Chamberlain to Queen
Elizabeth, and had been Ambassador in France." This
statement is in part incorrect. It is true that his father,
Philip Cottington, of Godmanston, in Somersetshire, to whom
he was fourth son, was such a person as the noble historian
describes, but his mother was Jane, daughter of Thomas
Byfleet, of Bratton in the same county, a gentleman of ancient
family there, nor can I find any trace of her connection with
the once great House of Stafford.

He was bora in the year 1576, and, whether related or not
to Sir Edward Stafford, was certainly received into that
gentleman's household, when a very young man, in the office
of Master of the Horse. His education had been wholly ne-
glected. " He was illiterate," to use the words of a great
authority, which will be presently quoted more at large, " as
to the grammar of any language, or the principles of any
science ;" but he had an acute understanding, a cool head, a
cooler heart, and the most indefatigable industry. Thus in a
great measure qualified by nature for a statesman, Stafford
recommended him to Sir Robert Cecil, through whose influ-
ence he became Secretary to Sir Charles Cornwallis, in his

v. c

18 FRANCIS, LORD COTT1NGTON.

embassy to Spain ; accompanied him thither in that capacity
in 1605 ; and on Corawallis's return four years after, was
intrusted for a considerable time with the sole management
of the affairs of England at that court. In 1614 he was
appointed a clerk of the Privy Council, and in 1616, on the
recall of the ambassador Digby, afterwards Earl of Bristol,
was again dispatched to Madrid, to assume the functions of
that minister, which he continued to perform till the year
1621, when he obtained the office of secretary to Charles,
Prince of Wales.

It is probable that he owed that appointment, as well as
the title of Baronet, which was presently after conferred on
him, to his intimate knowledge of the manners and language
of Spain. The Prince and Buckingham were then secretly
concerting that impolitic journey to Madrid which forms so
important a feature in the history of that period, and had in
fact determined that Cottington, and one more, should be
their only confidential attendants. When they imparted
their design to James, who strongly opposed it, he sent for
Cottington, and told him, says Lord Clarendon, doubtless
from Cottington 's information, " that he had always been an
honest man, and therefore he was now to trust him in an
affair of the highest importance, which he was not on his
life to disclose to any man alive : then said to him, ' Cotting-
ton, here is Baby Charles and Stenny' (an appellation he
always used of and towards the Duke), ' who have a great
mind to go by post into Spain, to fetch home the Infanta, and
will have but two more in their company, and have chosen
you for one; what think you of the journey ?' He often
protested since that when he heard the King, he fell into such
a trembling that ,he could hardly speak ; but when the King
commanded him to answer him what he thought of the
journey, he replied that he could not think well of it, and
that he believed it would render all that had been done
towards the match fruitless ; for that Spain would no longer
think themselves obliged by those articles, but that, when

FRANCIS, LORD COTTINGTON. 19

they had the Prince in their hands, they would make new
overtures, which they believed more advantageous to them,
amongst which they must look for many that would concern
religion, and the exercise of it in England ; upon which the
King threw himself upon his bed, and said ' I told you this
before,' and fell into new passion and lamentation, that he
was undone, and should lose Baby Charles."

Buckingham, who was the main projector of the expedition,
loaded Cottington with the bitterest reproaches, even in the
King's presence, for uttering this candid opinion, while James
defended him with equal earnestness. He attended the
Prince to Madrid, and by his prudent councils there did his
utmost to prevent the evil consequences which he had fore-
seen, but the result fully justified his predictions. On his
return he boldly demonstrated to James the fair intentions of
Spain with respect to the treaty for the marriage, and the
extravagant conduct of Buckingham, by which it had been
thwarted. The anger of the favourite was excited to the last
degree, but remained inactive during the short remnant of
the King's life. On the accession, however, of Charles, when
Cottington appeared at court in order to his daily attendance,
he was told by one of the secretaries of state that " it was
the King's pleasure that he should come no more into
those rooms ;" and Buckingham, perhaps purposely, entering
at that moment, Cottington advanced firmly to him, and,
ascribing to his resentment the inhibition which he had just
received, demanded plainly whether it were possible for him
to restore himself to his Grace's good opinion. Buckingham,
with that sincerity which was among the best of his virtues,
answered no ; " that he was not only resolved never to trust
him, but that he was, and would be always, his declared
enemy, and would do always whatsoever should be in his
power to ruin and destroy him : and that of this he might be
most assured." After a time, however, the Duke so far
relaxed as to consult him on the war with Spain, which had
been produced by his own misconduct, but he remained
c2

20 FKANCIS, LORD COTTINGTON.

unemployed till after Buckingham's death, which presently
ensued.

On the eighteenth of April, 1629, he was appointed Chan-
cellor and under-Treasurer of the Exchequer, and in the
succeeding winter, such was the opinion of his clear percep-
tion of the true policy of his country with respect to Spain,
was detached from the urgent duties of those busy offices,
and once more sent to Madrid to negociate a peace. He
executed this commission with the greatest credit, and, re-
turning in the spring of 1631, was on the 10th of the follow-
ing July created Baron Cottington of Hanworth in Middlesex.
Charles, on his departure for Scotland in 1633, invested him
formally with an authority to exercise the functions of Lord
High Treasurer during his absence, and in the course of the
same year gave him the office, then so important to the royal
revenue, of Master of the Court of Wards, his vigilance and
exactness in which gave much offence to the nobility and
higher gentry. Many circumstances, however, in the cha-
racter of the times, as well as in his own character, now
concurred to render him generally unpopular. He began to.
be considered, as in fact he was, as a member of that selec-
tion from the Privy Council, which about that time began to
be invidiously called " the Cabinet," for indeed all the great
measures of the government flowed from the joint delibera-
tions of Laud, Strafford, and himself, and this, in the poisoned
imaginations of that day, placed him at the fountain-head of
all sorts of mischief. In addition to this disadvantage, he
was not only the superintendent of the royal revenue, but
the instrument of its expenditure. He was esteemed the
leader of the Spanish faction, then vulgarly held in great
disgust, and suspected at once to favour the cause of the
papists, and to be himself indifferent as to all modes of
religious faith. The disaffected great detested him for his
loyalty, which they rightly believed to be incorruptible, and
because he held certain profitable places of which they
earnestly wished to possess themselves.

FRANCIS, LORD COTTINGTON. 21

Thus he stood in the commencement of the year 1640,
when Charles added to the proofs of confidence which he had
already given him, the office of Constable of the Tower of
London, in which a guard of four hundred men had been
lately placed to provide against any sudden tumult which
might arise in the City. The King was presently obliged, in
deference to the jealousy of the House of Commons, to revoke
this appointment ; and Cottington soon after, in the honest
hope of conciliating some of the party by the only sacrifices
he could make to their rapacity, voluntarily resigned his
place of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and on the seventeenth
of May, 1641, his Mastership of the Wards, which last was
immediately bestowed on the Lord Say, who had bargained
to give in exchange for it all the loyalty of which he was
capable. Cottington now retired into private life, and so
remained till the King assembled his parliament at Oxford,
in the commencement of the year 1644, when he obeyed a
summons to join that illustrious body, and was soon after
commanded by Charles to take on himself the office, or
rather the name, of Lord High Treasurer. Whitelocke in-
forms us, that he, as well as other men of rank, assisted with
their manual labour in the defence of Oxford when besieged
by Fairfax, and signed the articles by which it was surren-
dered to that General in 1646. On the twenty-fourth of
September in that year the rebel parliament passed a vote
directing a sale of his estates, and the application of the pro-
duce to the service of Ireland, but they were afterwards
devoted, for the most part, to the maintenance of the state of
the infamous Bradshaw. He remained in England till all
possibility of his rendering any service to the royal cause had
ceased, and till his own person was in the most imminent
peril. In April, 1648, we find him at Rouen, in Normandy ;
and on the twenty-fourth of the following October he, with
a few others, were specially excepted for ever from pardon.

Charles the Second was at the Hague when he received
the news of his father's murder, and was about the same

22 FRANCIS, LORD COTTINGTON.

time joined there by Lord Cottington, who was sworn of his
Privy Council, and directed, or at least allowed, to retain his
empty title of High Treasurer. He was now grown old and
infirm, and unable to endure either the wanderings to which
he foresaw that his new master's little court would be sub-
jected, or the intrigues and jealousies which had even already
begun to infest it. He was conscious that he could render no
service to Charles but in Spain, and perhaps longed once more
to revisit it, for it seemed the land of his adoption. He con-
sulted Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon, with
whom for the most part he had kept house since their flight,
on the expediency of a formal mission to implore the friend-
ship of the King of Spain to their forlorn Sovereign, and
proposed that they should offer themselves to Charles for
that service, to which Hyde cordially assented, and the King,
on Cottington's representation to him of the policy of the
measure, nominated them his joint ambassadors to Madrid.
They arrived there about the middle of November, 1649,
having from their very entrance into Spain, seen abundant
cause to expect a cool reception, and the answer given to the
propositions which they delivered at their first audience left
them nearly hopeless. They were however treated with
respect, and, having determined that their ill success should
not be ascribed to any want of diligence on their parts, they
remained for fifteen months at Madrid. At length, on the
arrival of the news of Cromwell's military advantages in
Scotland, the King of Spain, who had been waiting for the
preponderance of one of the two great parties, required them
by a civil message in March, 1650, O.S. to depart, when
Cottington requested permission to establish his abode in that
country as a private man, and obtained it, with a proviso
that he should not reside at Madrid. He now, for the fourth
time, changed his profession of faith, and was publicly recon-
ciled to the Church of Rome by the Pope's Nuncio ; which
done, he retired to Valladolid, where a society of English
Jesuits established there, proud of such a proselyte, had pro-

FRANCIS, LORD COTTINGTON. 23

vided a habitation, and every other comfort, for him. He
died in that city in 1652, at the age of seventy-seven.

Lord Clarendon has left us the following exquisite notices
of this eminent person's character : " He was a very wise
man, by the great and long experience he had in business of
all kinds, and by his natural temper, which was not liable to
any transport of anger, or any other passion, but could bear
contradiction, and even reproach, without being moved, or
put out of his way, for he was very steady in pursuing what
he proposed to himself, and had a courage not to be frighted
with any opposition. It is true, he was illiterate as to the
grammar of any language, or the principles of any science,
but, by his perfect understanding the Spanish, which he
spoke as a Spaniard, the French, and Italian languages, and
having read very much in all, he could not be said to be
ignorant in any part of learning, divinity only excepted. He
had a very fine and extraordinary understanding in the nature
of beasts and birds, and, above all, in all kind of plantations,
and arts of husbandry. He raised by his own virtue and
industry a very fair estate, of which, though the revenue did
not exceed above four thousand pounds by the year, yet he
had four very good houses and three parks, the value whereof
was not reckoned into that computation. He lived very
nobly ; well served and attended in his house ; had a better
stable of horses, better provision for his sports, especially of
hawks, in which he took great delight, than most of his
quality ; and lived always with great splendour ; for, though
he loved money very well, and did not warily enough consider
the circumstances of getting it, he spent it well all ways but
in giving, which he did not affect. He was of an excellent
humour, and very easy to live with, and under a grave
countenance covered the most of mirth, and caused more,
than any man of the most pleasant disposition. He never
used any body ill, but used very many well, for whom he
had no regard. His greatest fault was that he could dis-
semble, and make men believe that he loved them very well

24 FRANCIS, LORD COTTINGTON.

when he cared not for them. He had not very tender affec-
tions, nor bowels apt to yearn at all objects which deserved
compassion. He was heartily weary of the world, and no
man was more willing to die, which is an argument that he
had peace of conscience. He left behind him a greater
esteem of his parts than love for his person."

Lord Cottington married Anne, daughter of Sir William
Meredith, of London, and widow of Sir Robert Brett, Kn ta .,
and had by her a son, Charles, and a daughter, Anne, both of
whom died, childless, in his life-time. Francis Cottington,
son of his brother, Maurice, became therefore heir to his pro-
perty, which, in spite of losses and confiscations, was still
very considerable, and his Barony became extinct.

LORD HOP TON
OB, 1652,

RALPH, LORD HOPTON.

WAS the heir-male of one of the most powerful families
among the gentry of the county of Somerset, where his
ancestors had been settled for more than four centuries.
He was the only son of Robert Hopton, of Witham, in that
county, by Jane, daughter and sole heir of Rowland Kemish,
or Kemeys, of a seat called the Vandrey, in Monmouthshire,
where he was born in the year 1598. He was distinguished,
when he had scarcely left his cradle, by a surprising aptness
for study, and for the attainment of languages, which David
Lloyd, who seems to have known him in private life, com-
memorates with his usual prolixity, and whimsical method
of expression ; and, with no further assistance than that of a
reputable country school, was sent at the usual age, with
an uncommon share of erudition and science, to Oxford,
where he was entered a gentleman-commoner of Lincoln
College, and had for his tutor the learned Robert Sanderson,
afterwards Bishop of Lincoln. With this disposition, how-
ever, to literature, to which is so generally united a love of
retirement and tranquillity, he possessed not only an ardent
and enterprising spirit, but a vigour and activity of mind and
body always ready to obey its impulses. He fell therefore
without hesitation into the fashion of the time, and left the
university to serve as a volunteer in the Low Countries, and
afterwards, with some regular command, in the war of the
Palatinate, at the termination of which by the fatal battle of
Prague, he had the honour of conducting the interesting
Queen of Bohemia sitting on horseback behind him, in her

26 RALPH, LORD HOPTON.

critical flight from that city. In these services, which seem
to have occupied nearly five years of his youth, he acquired
no small degree of that military skill which he afterwards so
nobly applied, as well as a high reputation for undaunted
courage, insomuch that he was admitted into the number of
Knights of the Bath who were created immediately before
the coronation of King Charles the First.

He was elected to serve in the Long Parliament as one of
the burgesses for the city of Wells, and like most of the
young men of that time, and indeed of all other times, was
at first inclined to the popular party. He was not only on
the committee which formed the bitter remonstrance of
November, 1641, but was the person appointed by the mal-
contents to read it to the King when it was presented. He
was, however, too wise and too virtuous to remain long in
this error, and soon after began to oppose, not only by his
vote, but by sound and bold argument, delivered with no
small degree of eloquence, the fearful resolutions of that
wretched assembly ; till finding all efforts there to stem the
torrent of mischief hopeless, he determined to retire within
the circle of his own personal influence, and to make the
best preparation that he could to strengthen and defend the
Crown in the sad crisis which was evidently approaching.
There he seized every opportunity favourable to that end,
and by his entreaties, his reasonings, and his example, so
wrought on the minds of the principal gentry of the west?
that when the King sent the Marquis of Hertford, whom he
had appointed his commander-in-chief, into that country, on
the commencement of the war in the summer of 1643, they
joined that nobleman at Wells without delay, with their
retainers and servants, and led by Hopton, at the head of
two troops of horse, which he had raised and armed at his
own charge, and by his experience rendered fit for imme-
diate service. From Wells the Marquis marched to Sher-
borne, in Dorsetshire, and having held that town for two
months in the face of an army 1 greatly superior, retreated

RALPH, LORD HOPTON. 27

towards Wales, detaching Hopton with his horse into Corn-
wall, to try the affections of that province. So little did the
committee appointed by the Parliament for the government
of the western counties apprehend from this small force,
that, in mere contempt, they caused it to be presented at
the Quarter Sessions in ordinary form of law, under the
denomination of "divers men unknown, who had lately
come armed into Cornwall contra pacem," &c. Hopton
readily joined in the conceit ; appeared voluntarily at the
Quarter Sessions ; produced the Marquis of Hertford's com-
mission appointing him Lieutenant-General of the Horse ;
and told the court that he was sent to assist them in the
defence of their liberties against illegal taxes and imposi-
tions ; whereupon, says Lord Clarendon, " the jury, which
consisted of gentlemen of good quality and fortunes in the
county, after a full and solemn debate, not only acquitted Sir
Ralph Hopton and the other gentlemen, his companions, of
any disturbance of the peace, but declared that it was a great
favour and justice of his Majesty to send down aid to them,
and that they thought it the duty of every good subject, as
well in loyalty to the King as in gratitude to those gentle-
men, to join them with any hazard of life and fortune." But
this was not all ; for these good Cornish-men retaliated by
indicting the Parliament commissioners for unlawfully as-
sembling, and committing various misdemeanors and riots at
Launceston, where they usually sat, and, the grand jury
having found the bill, the High Sheriff was authorised to
raise the posse comitatus and to apprehend them, which they
avoided by fortifying the town. This curious instance of the
regular execution of a legal process in a scene of war was at
the time in no great degree beneficial to the royal cause, for,
although within a few days Hopton 's small force was thus
joined by three thousand foot, well armed, at whose head he
drove the commissioners and their guard from Launceston,
the same authorities by which he had been so reinforced,
obstinately determining still to be guided only by strict law,

28 RALPH, LORD HOPTON.

rendered their aid useless by preventing him from pursuing
the rebels beyond the limits of the county. He marched
therefore to Saltash, and expelled a garrison of Scots which
they had placed there, but which was presently reinforced
and restored by Ruthen, a native of that country, who com-
manded the Parliament troops in the West, under the Earl
of Stamford. Ruthen now advanced with a superior force,
and a full expectation of easy victory, to Liskeard, where
Hopton had fixed his quarters. The two little armies met in
the middle of January, 1642, on Braddock Down, near that
town, when, soon after the first onset, the rebel troops, seized
with that panic which seldom fails to occur on one side or
the other to newly-raised forces, fled in the utmost disorder,
and Hopton, after a short contest and pursuit, in which his
humanity in avoiding bloodshed was distinguished, found
himself in possession of all their cannon, ammunition, and
colours, and between twelve and thirteen hundred prisoners,
and having once more driven them out of Saltash, whither
they had fled, remained in eifect master of the whole of
Cornwall.

This success however did little more in those parts for the
royal cause than to place Hopton's force on an equality of
strength with that of the rebels. He had marched after the
battle of Braddock Down into Devonshire, and had taken up
his quarters at Tavistock, when a proposition was made to
him by several gentlemen of weight in that county, either
enemies or neutrals, in the hope of averting the horrors of
war from that quarter of the kingdom. A treaty was accord-
ingly agreed to, and ratified by oaths with uncommon solem-
nity ; but arrangements of this nature were by no means suited
to the inclinations and intentions of the Parliament. The very
night before the expiration of the prescribed term, a strong
party of the rebel horse and foot unexpectedly appeared before
Launceston, to which the Cornish had removed not many
hours before, and on the next morning hostilities were re-
commenced. In the meantime the Earl of Stamford advanced

RALPH, LORD HOPTON. 29

against them at the head of nearly seven thousand well-ap-
pointed troops, with a competent train of artillery, in so full
a confidence of overwhelming a force which scarcely amounted
to half his number, that even after his arrival on the advan-
tageous eminence which he had chosen for his camp, he de-
tached twelve hundred of his horse on another enterprise.
The intelligence of this magnanimous error had no sooner
reached Hopton than he formed his resolution. On the
fifteenth of May he marched into the valley beneath Stam-
ford's army, within a mile of which he halted for the night,
during which he divided his infantry, not amounting to two
thousand five hundred, and stationed them on the four sides
of the hill. At five on the following morning they marched
simultaneously to the attack, and an irregular engagement
ensued, which continued till three in the day, when Hopton
was informed that his magazine was reduced to four barrels of
powder. He communicated the news secretly to the leaders of
the several bodies, and exhorted them to press on in an instant
and general assault with the pike and the sword, to which
without hesitation they agreed. The command was severally
given to march forward, and one soul seemed to animate the
whole of this little force. The enemy, as much unused to
such desperate courage as to so singular a method of attack,
everywhere gave way ; Chudleigh, their Major-General, in
gallantly striving to rally them, fell into the hands of the
royalists, whose victory was from that moment complete,
and the four parties met on the summit of the hill but to
possess themselves quietly of the rebels' cannon, and to
express their mutual congratulations. This action, one of
the most memorable in the course of the war, was called,
from the village near which it was fought, " the battle of
Stratton."

Almost immediately after this gallant affair Hopton marched
into Somersetshire, to meet the Marquis of Hertford, who,
with Prince Maurice, had arrived at Chard, with nearly two
thousand horse, and a thousand newly-levied infantry. On

30 RALPH, LORD HOPTON.

the junction of the Cornish army with these forces, his com-
mand nominally passed to the Marquis, who was General-in-
Chief, but the direction of all measures was prudently suffered
yet to remain in his hands. Taunton, Bridgewater, and
Dunstar Castle, surrendered to these combined bodies with-
out striking a blow ; and such was the reputation which
Hopton had deservedly acquired, that the Parliament, on
hearing that he was thus reinforced, instantly sent against
him their favourite general, Sir William Waller, at the head
of the most numerous and best-appointed army which on
either side had yet appeared in the field. The battle of
Lansdown succeeded, in which the royalists obtained a hardly-
earned victory. Here Hopton received a musket-shot through
the arm, and on the following morning, visiting the scene of
action, to provide for the wounded, and to restore order among
the troops, was cruelly mangled by the explosion of some
barrels of powder in a waggon near which he sat on horse-
back. He was removed, apparently in a dying state, amidst
bitter lamentations and outcries ; for, to use the words of
Lord Clarendon in speaking of this accident, " he was the
soldier's darling, and the soul of that army." Their hope
however was speedily revived, for not many days after it
occurred Hertford marched to Oxford with all the horse,
leaving the command of the infantry to him, who then, says
Clarendon again, " was supposed past danger of death, and
could hear and speak well enough, though he could not see
or stir."

This mischance however prevented him from personally
partaking in the succeeding triumph over Waller at Round-
way Down. In the mean time the Marquis of Hertford,
generously anxious to do him the honour which he had so
eminently merited, nominated him to the government of
Bristol, which it happened that Prince Rupert, who had
lately with distinguished gallantry wrested that town from
the rebels by assault, had privately asked of the King for
himself. This unlucky accident produced a jealousy and

RALPH, LORD HOPTON. 31

discord between the Prince and the Marquis which even
Charles, who made a journey to Bristol especially for that
purpose, found himself unable to compose ; and Hopton,
conscious of the prejudice which a continuance of their dis-
agreement could not but produce to the King's service, not
only relinquished his claim to the chief command, but even
solicited the station of Lieutenant-Governor under the Prince,
who, on his part, as readily consented to delegate the whole
of his authority implicitly to Hopton's discretion. Charles,
in whom a cool and just judgment of meritorious services
was united to all the impulses of kind and honourable feel-
ing, chose this moment to advance him to the dignity of the
peerage. On the fourth of September, 1643, he was created
Baron Hopton of Stratton, by a patent, dated at Oxford, in
which an epitome, of much larger extent than is generally
admitted into such instruments, is given of his eminent
services.

He remained at Bristol, slowly recovering his health, till
the winter. In the mean time his army, as it was deservedly
called, had yet further increased its reputation by new suc-
cesses in the west, under Prince Maurice, insomuch that the
Parliament had determined to leave no means untried -to sub-
due that important quarter. A powerful reinforcement was
ordered for Waller, and the king prepared to interrupt him
on his march thither by levying a new force from the garrison
of Bristol, and from the country adjacent to that town. This
service was committed to Hopton, who performed it with his
accustomed zeal and activity, and, having been in the mean
time joined by considerable bodies of troops from Devonshire
and from Ireland, presently collected a force of at least three
thousand foot, and fifteen hundred horse, with which, the
King having given him the chief command, he fixed his head-
quarters at Winchester. Waller, his progress having been
thus impeded, took possession of Farnham ; halted his troops
there ; and returned himself to London to solicit further aid ;
while Hopton, whose numbers daily increased, made an

32 RALPH, LORD HOPTON.

excursion into Sussex, and surprised Arundel Castle, from
whence, having been apprised of Waller's return strongly
recruited, he retraced his steps, but not in time to prevent his
adversary, who excelled in what in military language is called
beating up quarters, from seizing one of his best regiments at
Alton, an out-post of his army. It was the first check that
Hopton had sustained, and inspired him at once with a deep
regret, and a desire not less earnest, to bring Waller to a
general action. These feelings were within very few days
aggravated to the utmost by the event of a successful forced
march, through which that active rebel re-took the Castle of
Arundel. He speedily returned ; Hopton advanced to meet
him ; and on the twenty-ninth of March, 1644, they engaged
at Alresford, and the result, although it had many of the
characters of a drawn battle, was pregnant with misfortune
to the royal interest. " The King's horse," says Lord Claren-
don, " never behaved themselves so ill as that day ; for the
main body of them, after they had sustained one fierce charge,
wheeled about to an unreasonable distance, and left their
principal officers to shift for themselves." Hopton, after
great loss, relinquished the field to the enemy, carrying off
however his cannon and ammunition ; retreated to Reading ;
and soon after joined the King for a short time at Oxford.
Lord Clarendon speaks of him elsewhere in terms which seem
to be somewhat exemplified in some circumstances of his
conduct which have been just now recited. "The Lord
Hopton," he says, " was a man superior to any temptation,
and abhorred enough the licence and the levities with which
he saw too many corrupted. He had a good understanding,
a clear courage, an industry not to be tired, and a generosity
that was not to be exhausted, a virtue that none of the rest
had ; but in the debates concerning the war was longer in
resolving, and more apt to change his mind after he had re-
solved, than is agreeable to the office of a commander-in-
chief, which rendered him rather fit for the second than for
the supreme command of an army."

RALPH, LORD HOPTON. 33

He now inarched to strengthen his garrison of Bristol, and
to draw together such recruits as he might be able to raise
in South Wales, and wait for the King's order to join the
force commanded by his Majesty in person with as numerous
a body of troops as he could collect. He soon after received
the commission of General of the Ordnance, and was named
one of the Council of six for the affairs of the Prince of Wales,
whose person, the King now sending him to reside in Bristol,
was in a manner placed under the esp'ecial care of Hopton,
from whose purse, so deplorable at this juncture were the
King's necessities, the establishment of his Royal Highness
was chiefly supplied. His vigilance in the execution of this
great trust was as exemplary as the anxieties which sur-
rounded it were intolerable. The Prince had been lately
invested with the chief command of the army, and his little
court became presently a scene of intrigue, in which himself,
young as he was, sometimes took a part. Some officers, and
particularly the worthless Lord Goring who aspired to wrest
the management of him wholly from his Council, endeavoured
with unceasing assiduity to gain his favour. Their plans
were naturally cultivated with increased vigour on the fre-
quent occasions of Hopton's necessary absence with the army,
and he was the peculiar object of the hatred of some of them,
and the jealousy of all, especially when the King, immediately
after the fatal defeat at Naseby, appointed him to command
the forces, as Lieutenant-General under the Prince. Hopton
however was relieved by this commission, because it tended
to define with some accuracy the measure of his duties, and
to fix the degree of his responsibility. He withdrew himself
gradually from all concerns, except such as were immediately
connected with his military station, in the affairs of the
Prince, who had for some time quitted Bristol, and was
wandering uselessly in Devonshire and Cornwall with the
undisciplined and almost mutinous remnant of the western
army, the officers of which were not less disorderly than the
men. The appearance of a strong rebel force was daily

v. D

34 EALPH, LORD HOPTON.

expected, and the Prince and his Council, in terror for the
event, implored Hopton to assume the chief command. " It
was a heavy imposition I confess," says Lord Clarendon,
" upon the Lord Hopton, to the which nothing but the most
abstracted duty and obedience could have submitted, to take
charge of those whom only their friends feared, and their
enemies laughed at ; being only terrible in plunder, and
resolute in running away." And in this melancholy light
was it considered also by Hopton himself, for, as the noble
historian soon after tells us, when he accepted, as he did,
this unwelcome commission, he observed to the Prince,
" that it was a custom now, when men were not willing to
submit to what they were enjoined, to say that it was against
their honour ; that their honour would not suffer them to do
this or that : for his part, he could not obey his Highness at
this time without resolving to lose his honour, which he
knew he must ; but, since his Highness thought it necessary
to command him, he was ready to obey him with the loss of
his honour." ,

His judgment proved but too correct. He had barely
time to make a feeble attempt to relieve Exeter, then closely
besieged, when Fairfax, with ten thousand well-disciplined
and seasoned troops, overtook him at Torrington, where,
with a desperate gallantry, he faced about, and awaited the
attack which was to close his long and faithful services.
Abandoned, at the first onset of the enemy, by a great part
of his army ; his horse killed under him, and himself wounded
in the face by a pike ; he retired with a small party, by
Stratton, the scene of his former triumph, into Cornwall ;
and presently after went to the Isle of Scilly, where the
Prince of Wales had lately taken refuge. From thence he
shortly after passed over into Flanders, where having long
employed himself in unavailing efforts to serve the royal
cause, he settled at length in the city of Bruges, and, dying
there in the end of September, 1652, his body was carried to
Sluys, where it remained unburied till after the restoration of

RALPH, LORD HOPTON. 35

Charles the Second, when it was brought to England, and
interred at Witham, with those of his ancestors.

Lord Hopton married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Arthur
Capel, of Hadham, in Herts, aunt to Arthur, first Lord Capel,
and widow of Sir Justinian Lewen, by whom he had no
issue. His barony therefore, which had been granted to him
and his heirs male, with a like remainder to his uncle, Sir
Arthur Hopton, who died before him also childless, became
extinct, and his four sisters succeeded to his estates as his
coheirs. They were, Rachel, who married, first David
Kemish, or Kemeys, of Kevenmably, in Glamorganshire,
and, secondly, Thomas Morgan ; Mary, wife of Henry, son
and heir of Sir Thomas Mackworth, Bart. ; Catherine, mar-
ried to John Wyndham, ancestor, in the fifth degree, to

George, now Earl of Egremont ; and Margaret, to

Throckmorton.

o :

O) 8ACKVOLILIE,

FOURTH EABL OP DORSET.
OB, 1652,

EDWARD SACKVILLE,

FOURTH EARL OF DORSET,

OF his old Norman House, was the second surviving son of
Robert, the second Earl, by Mary, only daughter of Thomas
fourth Duke of Norfolk of the Howards, and was born in
London in 1590. He was entered of Christ Church in 1605,
and, having studied there for three years, left the University,
either to travel on the Continent, or to seek in one of the
Inns of Court that insight into the laws which at that time
was so frequently thought necessary to young men of his
rank a contested point, undeserving of further enquiry.
Lord Clarendon has left us so full a view of his earlier man-
hood, as well as of his character, that it will perhaps be
better to place it here than elsewhere in this Memoir.

" The Earl of Dorset," says the noble historian, contrasting
his qualities to those of the unworthy Philip Herbert, Earl
of Pembroke, " was to all intents, principles, and purposes,
another man. His person beautiful, and graceful, and vigor-
ous ; his wit pleasant, sparkling, and sublime ; and his other
parts of learning and language of that lustre that he could
not miscarry in the world. The vices he had were of the
age, which he was not stubborn enough to contemn or resist.
He was a younger brother, grandchild to the great-treasurer
Buckhurst, created at the King's first entrance Earl of Dorset,
who took care and delight in the education of his grandchild,
and left him a good support, for a younger brother, besides a
wife who was heir to a fair fortune. As his person and parts
were such as are before mentioned, so he gave them full scope

38 EDWARD SACKVILLE,

without restraint, and indulged to his appetite all the plea-
sures that season of his life (the fullest of jollity and riot of
any that preceded or succeeded) could tempt or suggest to
him. He entered into a fatal quarrel, upon a subject very
unwarrantable, with a young nobleman of Scotland, the Lord
Bruce, upon which they both transported themselves into
Flanders, and, attended only by two chirurgions, placed at a
distance, and under an obligation not to stir but upon the fall
of one of them, they fought under the walls of Antwerp,
where the Lord Bruce fell dead upon the place, and S r Ed-
ward Sackville (for so he was then called) being likewise
hurt, retired into the monastery which was at hand ; nor did
this miserable accident, which he always exceedingly la-
mented, make that thorough impression upon him but that
he indulged still too much to those importunate and insatiate
appetites, even of that individual person that had so lately
embarked him in that desperate enterprise, being too much
tinder" (not) " to be inflamed with those sparks. His elder
brother did not enjoy his grandfather's titles many years
before they descended, for want of heirs male, to the younger
brother ; but in those few years the elder, by an excess of
expense in all the ways to which money can be applied, so
entirely consumed almost the whole great fortune that de-
scended to him, that when he was forced to leave the title to
his younger brother, he left upon the matter nothing to him
to support it, which exposed him to many difficulties and
inconveniences ; yet his known great parts, and the very good
general reputation he had acquired, notwithstanding his
defects, (for as he was eminent in the House of Commons
whilst he sate there, so he shined in the House of Peers when
he came to move in that sphere) inclined King James to call
him to his Privy Council before his death, and if he had not
too much cherished his natural constitution and propensity,
and been too much grieved and wrung by an uneasy and
streight fortune, he would have been an excellent man of
business, for he had a very sharp discerning spirit, and was

FOURTH EARL OF DORSET. 39

a man of an obliging nature, much honour, and great genero-
sity ; and of most entire fidelity to the Crown."

The duel here mentioned was so remarkable a fact in his
private life, as well as in the history of such personal con-
tests, that though his own account of it has already more
than once appeared in print, the present memoir could not
but be considered imperfect were it to be omitted. Of the
cause of enmity we have no information beyond the hint
which we have just now seen, that it arose from amorous
jealousy. It had been of many months' standing. A letter
to Sir Ralph Winwood, of the ninth of January, 1612, says
"there is a quarrel fallen out betwixt Edward Sackville, son
to the late Earl of Dorset, and the Lord Bruce of Kinlos,
which was to be determined beyond sea. Sackville got over,
but the Lord Bruce staid at Dover." It passed however for
the time, but, on the sixth of the following May, we find in
another letter of Court news to Winwood " The old quarrel
was renewed at Canterbury by the Lord Bruce of Kinlos upon
Edward Sackville, at the Prince's being there. My Lord
bare away two or three good buffets on the face (for Sackville
had no weapon, having given his rapier instantly before to
the Palsgrave) and so they were parted, and made friends, by
the noblemen that were present. The Lord Bruce is since
gone into France ; I think to learn to fence." A third, from
Paris of the fifteenth of August, to Mr. Trumbull, Resident
at Brussels, concludes " the Lord Bruce is, within these few
days, departed secretly from hence into the Low Countries,
there to meet, and fight, as we understand, with Mr. Sack-
ville, with whom he had a quarrel in England : " and, within
a few days after that date, the fatal meeting at length took
place. To contract as far as may be such extended quota-
tions, I reluctantly omit four short but interesting letters
which passed between the parties immediately previous to
the tragedy, and will be presently alluded to ; observing only
that it must be inferred from one of them that they had once
been affectionate friends, and hasten to Saekville's narrative
of it, addressed to some person now unknown.

40 EDWARD SACKVILLE,

" WORTHY SIR,

" As I am not ignorant, so I ought to be sensible, of
the false aspersions some authorless tongues have laid upon
me in the reports of the unfortunate passage lately happened
between the Lord Bruce and myself, which, as they are
spread here, so may I justly fear they reign also where you
are. There are but two ways to resolve doubts of this nature ;
by oath, or by sword. The first is due to magistrates, and
communicable to friends ; the other to such as maliciously
slander, and impudently defend their assertions. Your love,
not my merit, assure me you hold me your friend, which
esteem I am much desirous to retain. Do me therefore the
right to understand the truth of that, and in my behalf inform
others, who either are, or may be, infected with sinister
rumours, much prejudicial to that fair opinion I desire to
hold amongst all worthy persons ; and, on the faith of a gen-
tleman, the relation I shall give is neither more nor less than
the bare truth.

" The inclosed contains the first citation, sent me from
Paris by a Scottish gentleman, who delivered it me in Derby-
shire, at my father-in-law's house. After it follows my then
answer, returned him by the same bearer. The next is my
accomplishment of my first promise, being a particular assigna-
tion of place and weapon, which I sent by a servant of mine,
by post from Eotterdam, as soon as I landed there. The
receipt of which, joined with an acknowledgment of my too
fair carriage to the deceased Lord, is testified by the last,
which periods the business till we met at Tergose, in Zeland,
it being the place allotted for rendezvous, where he, accom-
panied with one Mr. Crawford, an English gentleman, for his
second, a surgeon, and a man, arrived with all the speed he
could. And there having rendered himself, I addressed my
second, Sir John Heidon, to let him understand that now all
following should be done by consent, as concerning the terms
whereon we should fight, as also the place. To our seconds
we gave power for their appointments, who agreed we should
go to Antwerp ; from thence to Bergenopzoom, where in the

FOURTH EARL OF DORSET. 41

midway but a village divides the States' territories from the
Archduke's ; and there was the destined stage, to the end
that, having ended, he that could might presently exempt
himself from the justice of the country by retiring into the
dominion not offended. It was further concluded, that in
case any should fall, or slip, that then the combat should
cease, and he whose ill-fortune had so subjected him was to
acknowledge his life to have been in the other's hands ; but
in case one party's sword should break, because that only
could chance by hazard, it was agreed that the other should
take no advantage, but either then be made friends, or else,
upon even terms, go to it again. Thus these conclusions
being by each of them related to his party, was by us both
approved and assented to. Accordingly we re-embarked for
Antwerp, and by reason my Lord (as I conceive, because he
could not handsomely without danger of discovery) had not
paired the sword I sent him to Paris, bringing one of the
same length but twice as broad, my second excepted against
it, and advised me to match my own, and send him the
choice, which I obeyed, it being, you know, the challenger's
privilege to elect his weapon.

" At the delivery of the swords, which was performed by
Sir John Heidon, it pleased the Lord Bruce to choose my
own ; and then, past expectation, he told him that he found
himself so far behindhand as a little of my blood would not
serve his turn, and therefore he was now resolved to have me
alone, because he knew (for I will use his own words) that
so worthy a gentleman and friend could not endure to stand
by and see him do that which he must to satisfy himself and
his honour. Thereunto Sir John Heidon replied that such
intentions were bloody and butcherly, far unfitting so noble
a personage, who should desire to bleed for reputation, not
for life ; withall adding he thought himself injured, being
come thus far, now to be prohibited from executing those
honourable offices he came for. The Lord, for answer, only
reiterated his former resolution, the which, not for matter but

42 EDWARD SACKVILLE,

manner, so moved me, as though, to my remembrance, I had
not for a long while eaten more liberally than at dinner, and
therefore unfit for such an action (seeing the surgeons hold a
wound upon a full stomach much more dangerous than other-
wise) I requested my second to certify I would presently
decide the difference, and therefore he should presently meet
me on horseback, only waited on by our surgeons, they being
unarmed. Together we rode (but one before the other some
twelve score) about two English miles, and then passion,
having so weak an enemy to assail as my discretion, easily
became victor, and, using his power, made me obedient to
his command. I, being verily mad with anger the Lord
Bruce should thirst after my life with a kind of assuredness,
seeing I had come so far, and needlessly, to give him leave
to regain his lost reputation, I bad him alight, which with
willingness he quickly granted, and there, in a meadow,
ancle deep in water at least, bidding farewell to our doublets,
in our shirts began to charge each other, having afore com-
manded our surgeons to withdraw themselves a pretty dis-
tance from us, conjuring them besides, as they respected our
favour or their own safeties, not to stir, but to suffer us to
execute our pleasure, we being fully resolved (God forgive
us) to dispatch each other by what means we could.

" I made a thrust at my enemy, but was short, and in
drawing back my arm I received a great wound thereon,
which 1 interpreted as a reward for my short shooting, but,
in revenge, I pressed in to him, though I then missed him
also, and then I received a wound in my right pap, which
passed level through my body, and almost to my back. And
there we wrestled for the two greatest and dearest prizes we
could ever expect trial for, honour and life ; in which strug-
gling my hand, having but an ordinary glove on it, lost one
of his servants, though the meanest, which hung by a skin,
and to sight yet remaineth as before, and I am put in hope
one day to recover the use of it again. But at last, breath-
less, yet keeping our holds, there past on both sides proposi-

FOURTH EARL OF DORSET. 43

tions of keeping each other's sword ; but when amity was
dead confidence could not live, and who should quit first was
the question, which in neither part either would perform ;
and, re-striving again afresh, with a kick and a wrench
together, I freed my captived weapon, which incontinently
levying at his throat, being master still of his, I demanded if
he would ask his life, or yield his sword ?. both which, though
in that imminent danger, he bravely denied to do. Myself
being wounded, and feeling loss of blood, having three con-
duits running on me, began to make me faint ; and he
courageously persisting not to accord to either of my proposi-
tions, remembrance of his bloody desire, and feeling of my
present estate, I struck at his heart, but, with his avoiding,
missed my aim, yet passed through the body, and, drawing
back my sword, repassed it through again, through another
place ; when he cried l Oh ! I am slain :' seconding his
speech with all the force he had to cast me : but, being too
weak, after I had defended his assault, I easily became master
of him, laying him on his back, when, being upon him, I re-
demanded if he would request his life ? but it seemed he
prized it not at so dear a rate to be beholden for it, and
bravely replied he scorned it ; which answer of his was so
noble and worthy as I protest I could not find in my heart to
offer him any more violence, only keeping him down, till at
length his surgeon, afar off, cried out he would immediately
die if his wounds were not stopped, whereupon I asked if he
desired his surgeon should come ; which he accepted of ; and
so, being drawn away, I never offered to take his sword,
accounting it inhuman to rob a dead man, for so I held him
to be.

" This thus ended, I retired to my surgeon, in whose
arms after I had remained a while, for want of blood I lost my
sight, and withal, as I then thought, my life also ; but strong
water, and his diligence, quickly recovered me, when I
escaped a great danger ; for my Lord's surgeon, when nobody
dreamed of it, came full at me with my Lord's sword ; and

44 EDWARD SACKVILLE,

had not mine, with my sword, interposed himself, I should
have been slain by those base hands ; although my Lord
Bruce, weltering in his blood, and past all expectation of life,
conformable to all his former carriage, which was undoubtedly
noble, cried out, ' Rascal, hold thy hand.' So may I prosper
as I have dealt sincerely with you in this relation, which I
pray you, with the inclosed letter, deliver to my Lord Cham-
berlain : and so, &c.

"Eo. SACKVILLE."

It does not appear that any public proceeding was insti-
tuted against Sackville, or that he suffered any - diminution
of the favour of the pacific James, or that the family of the
deceased nobleman showed any disposition to avenge the
sanguinary loss of their kinsman. The amiable features of
" the age of chivalry " had nearly passed away, but the ferocity
of man yet preserved and cherished some of its worst usages ;
and the blame of this frightful homicide was rather due to
the manners of the time than to the individual fury of the
victor.

Sackville however had been bred in the cultivation and
practice of almost the whole of that beautiful, though irre-
gular, system. Among the rest, he had peculiarly studied
the history, the laws and regulations, of dignities, hereditary
and personal, in every part of Europe ; and such reputation
had he in this branch of chivalrous science that in the year
1625, on a question of precedency between the younger
sons of Earls, and Privy Counsellors, being Knights, which
was thought important enough to be argued in the King's
presence, he was chosen by the former class to be their
advocate, and it is said that James's decision in their favour
was obtained through his sound reasoning and eloquence
on a subject with which he was entirely acquainted. He
was indeed one of the most accomplished orators of his
time in the House of Commons, where he represented the
county of Sussex during the most part of James's reign, and

FOURTH EARL OF DORSET. 45

was held in yet higher respect for the independence and
purity of his principles than for those ornamental talents
which about that time began to find their value in that
assembly. Rushworth has preserved one of his speeches, on
the subject of supplies for the recovery of the Palatinate,
which furnishes striking proofs of both, and affords at least
one of the best examples of his day, as well in thought as in
expression. He had a command in the forces sent to that
unfortunate country in 1620, and fought in the decisive battle
of Prague, which occurred in the conclusion of that year ; in
the summer of the following was employed on a mission to
the Queen Regent of France ; and on his return was sworn
of the Privy Council.

In the spring of 1624, he succeeded to the Earldom, on the
death of his brother Richard without male issue, and to an
estate impoverished by his imprudence. The accession of
Charles immediately followed, when, on the fifteenth of May,
1625, he was chosen a Knight of the Garter, and, on the
establishment, immediately after, of her household, was ap-
pointed Lord Chamberlain to the Queen, the most important
office, considered either as to dignity or emolument, ever held
by him. He was however always employed in a multiplicity
of affairs scarcely worthy of his rank or talents, and yet too
important to disgrace either. Thus he was successively
joined with others of the Privy Council in commissions to
enquire into the causes of the decay of trade ; to control the
erection of buildings in the city and suburbs of London ; to
execute martial law on murderers and robbers in the county
of Sussex; to inquire into the state of the King's revenues ;
to take cognizance of accidents which might occur at sea
between the King's subjects and foreigners, to the interrup-
tion of peace ; to examine proceedings in the Court of Admi-
ralty regarding prizes ; to survey the arms in the Tower of
London ; to compound for knighthood ; to examine and pur-
chase Sir Robert Cotton's manuscripts ; to regulate the fisheries
on the English coast ; to superintend the repair of St. Paul's

46 EDWARD SACKVILLE, FOURTH EARL OF DORSET.

Cathedral ; to encourage the plantation of the colony of
Virginia ; with many others of no higher class in public
affairs, if we except a commission issued in January, 1627,
N.S., to him and others for the supervision of affairs in Ire-
land ; another, in the following month, to treat of an alliance
with the States General ; and a third, presently after, appoint-
ing him one of a standing council of war. For all these
services he seems to have received no further permanent
reward than grants of the offices of High Steward and Keeper
of the Honour of Grafton ; Constable of the Castle of Beau-
maris ; and Lord Lieutenant of the county of Middlesex.

This nobleman died on the seventeenth of July, 1652, and
was buried with his ancestors at Withiam, in Sussex. We
are told, incredibly enough, that on the murder of the King,
he made, and kept, a resolution never again to go out of his
house. If this be a fable, it proves at least the general repu-
tation at the time of his excessive attachment to his unhappy
master, or to the system of government which was overthrown
by his death, or to both. He married Mary, daughter and
heir of Sir George Curzon, of Croxhall, in Derbyshire, and
had issue by her two sons ; Richard, lineal ancestor to the
Dukes of Dorset ; and Edward ; and a daughter, Mary, who
died young.

W SELDEN*

OB, 1654,

JOHN SELDEN.

MR. SELDEN was certainly the most learned, and perhaps the
most honest Englishman of his time. He was actually a
patriot, for his continued efforts to serve his country, however
frequently he might have mistaken the means, seem never
for a moment to have incurred even a suspicion of selfishness.
Wealth, power, and dignities, had been laid at his feet, and
refused by him. Firm in his occasional resistance to that
royal prerogative, the limits of which no man could so well
define as himself; incapable of private resentment for public
causes; indifferent to popularity, and despising the hypo-
critical fanaticism by which it was then the fashion to court
it ; he stood almost alone, a perfect example of public integrity.
His patriotism extended to, and guided even his literary
studies. The final object of all his works was to improve
the history of the religion, the laws, the government, or the
liberties, of his country. In the prosecution of his profound
inquiries he disdained conjecture, and avoided argument.
Devoted by his nature to the love of truth, he could not rest
on his way till he had arrived at facts ; and influenced by the
habit of his profession, he considered those only as facts
which he could prove by the most rigid evidence. To qualify
himself to search for such proofs, even to the remotest sources
of intelligence, he had added to the most critical skill in
what are usually called the learned languages, an intimate
knowledge perhaps of all others which could boast a written
alphabet. Some sparks of vanity in the composition of his
mind would have placed his fame far beyond that of a few

48 JOHN SELDEN.

prodigies of learning who have been so frequently celebrated ;
but he sought not for notoriety, and did not affect either to
be absent, or slovenly, or morose, or melancholy. It is per-
haps therefore that he may be seldom recollected, while we
talk with much interest of the Florentine Magliabechi, and
of others who were very inferior to Selden.

This great man was the eldest son of Thomas Selden, of
Salvington, a small village on the Sussex coast, not far from
Arundel, who seems to have been of the highest order of
yeomanry, and who had probably increased his means by
having married Margaret, only daughter and heir of Thomas
Baker of Rustington, a neighbouring parish, descended from
an ancient knightly family of the county. Of these parents
he was born on the sixteenth of December, 1584. He was
sent, very young, to the free school of Chichester, and from
thence, at the age of fourteen, to Hart Hall, in Oxford, where
he astonished every one by the rapidity with which he
mastered all the usual difficulties of academical study. His
family, rather perhaps than his own inclination, had destined
him for the profession of the law, and he removed therefore
at the end of four years, to Clifford's Inn, and in May, 1604,
was admitted of the Inner Temple. Here he soon practised
extensively as a chamber counsel, but we scarcely hear of
him at the bar, and his absence from it has been attributed
to his consciousness of some deficiency of requisite talents,
but surely this is very extravagantly conjectured of one who
became soon after a frequent speaker in Parliament. May it
not be ascribed with much more probability to the aversion
which might reasonably be expected in such a man to the
sophisms and misrepresentations by which an advocate is
unhappily so frequently bound to sacrifice truth and justice
to the interests of his client ? In the intervals which could
be spared from the exercise of his profession, he employed
himself incessantly in searching into the origin and history
of all laws, in all their branches ; and, at the age of twenty-
two, completed a treatise in Latin on the civil government of

JOHN SELDEN. 49

Britain, before the coming of the Normans. This work, not-
withstanding many errors and omissions, was esteemed a
wonderful performance for so young a student, and the appro-
bation with which it was received encouraged him to pursue
the subject, and to enlarge on some detached parts of it, in
several tracts published mostly in the year 1610, under the
titles of " Jani Anglorum facies altera ;" " England's Epino-
mis ;" and an Essay on Single Combat. Nor was his pen
then solely confined to antiquities of law, for in 1612 he
printed " Notes and Illustrations on the first eighteen Songs
of Dray ton's Polyolbion," a poem for its historical and other
learning worthy of such a commentator.

His acquaintance was now sought by the most eminent
literary men of his time. Archbishop Usher knew him so
early as 1609, and they contracted an earnest friendship for
each other, which continued unimpaired during Sel den's life.
Camden, Spelman, and Sir Robert Cotton, became his familiar
companions. Ben Jonson lived in a strict intimacy with
him, and Selden caught from the learned poet rather perhaps
an inclination than a taste for English as well as Latin verse,
for the few compositions left by him contain nothing very
remarkable ; though Suckling, unwilling to lose an oppor-
tunity of showing respect to him, has given him a very
honourable seat in the "Session of Poets." Perhaps the
most favourable specimen of his muse is to be found in a
short compliment to the author, prefixed to the Pastorals of
William Browne, which I will insert for the sake of present-
ing this " great dictator of learning to the English nation,"
as he is called by a German writer, in a character so wide of
the course of his usual studies.

So much a stranger my severer muse
Is not to love-strains or a shepherd's reed,
But that she knows some rites of Phoebus' dues,
Of Pan, of Pallas, and her sister's meed.
Read, and commend, she durst these tuned essays
Of him that loves her; she hath ever found
V. E

50 JOHN SELDEN.

Her studies as one circle. Next she prays
His readers be with rose and myrtle crown'd :
No willow touch them ! as his bays are free
From wrong of bolts so may their chaplets be.

J. SELDEN, Juris C.

In 1614 he published his great work on Titles of Honour,
comprehending, without the smallest omission, the history of
all ranks in society which have acquired distinct denomina-
tions, and tracing them gradually to their original institutions
and functions. The vast display of learning, and the exqui-
site correctness, which distinguish this extraordinary book,
spread his reputation throughout the whole of Europe : but
he was even then employed in a work of higher erudition
his treatise on the Deities of the ancient Syrians, intended as
a commentary on all the passages of the Old Testament
relating to the idols of the heathens, and discussing therefore
not only the Syrian, but the Arabian, Egyptian, Persian,
African, and European idolatry. It appeared in 1617 ; and
in the following year he published his " History of Tythes,"
in which, without arguing against the divine right by which
the church assumes to hold them, he cited numerous autho-
rities of much weight which tended to invalidate it. The
clergy, with good reason, were greatly alarmed, and the King
not less offended. James, however, consented to hear his
apology personally, and he was introduced for that purpose by
Ben Jonson, as is said, and received more mildly than he
had expected. The King pointed out some objectionable
passages, particularly one from which it might have been
inferred that the twenty-fifth of December was not the true
birth-day of our Saviour, and desired Selden to sanction the
received opinion on that subject by a small treatise ; which,
finding nothing in the concession against his conscience, he
promised to write, and presented it accordingly to James on
Christmas-day, which fell shortly after. The storm seemed
thus to have blown over ; but, within a very few weeks, he
was cited before the High Commission Court, which, having

JOHN SEWDEN. 51

exacted from him a submission, though in no very humiliating
terms, prohibited the sale of his book ; the King, at the same
time, forbidding him, under pain of imprisonment, to reply
to any of the animadversions which might be written on it.

He was now to take a part in that mighty political scene
which was then opening. In 1621, James, having most
imprudently asserted in a speech to the Parliament that the
privileges of both Houses were originally grants from the
Crown, the Lords did Mr. Selden the honour to refer that
great question to his opinion, in delivering which he wholly
denied the position ; at the same time honestly defending the
fair prerogative, with more warmth than they either expected
or desired. He was consulted on the same occasion, though
with less form, by the Commons ; and the famous protest
made by them, immediately before the dissolution of that
Parliament, was attributed not only to his advice, but to his
pen. For these facts he was imprisoned, by an order of the
Council, of the sixteenth of June, which directed that no
" person should be suffered to speak with him ; nor should
word, message, or writing, be received by him ; and that a
gentleman of trust should be appointed to remain with
him," &c. He immediately addressed to Sir George Calvert,
one of the Secretaries of State, the following letter, which,
were it only for the cool firmness which it exhibits, certainly
deserves a place in this memoir.

Most honored S r ,

This most unlookt for imprisom* w ch I now suffer,
(but why, on my soule, I cannot guesse) falls in a time when
I have divers businesses of private men's in my hands, and
under my direction. The warrant of my commitm' is som-
what strict. My humble suite to y r Honor is that, through
yo r favor, I may have granted to me so much libertie here as
that I may have speech w tk my friends upon such kinde of
business, openly, and in the hearing of those gentlemen who
are trusted w th me : and I professe it, on the hope of my

52 JOHN SELDEN.

salvation, that there is not a seacret that hath, or can possibly
have, any reference to the publique touching w ch I desire
either to heare or tell any thing, from or to any p~son living,
so cleare is my brest, and I beseech yo r Honor let me be
dispatched in the making it appeare. Soe I humblie beseech
you alsoe that my papers, w eh are the labors of many houres,
and a greate parte of the furniture of my studie in my p~fes-
sion, among which there is nothing that was written for
seacret, may be safe. Let me obtain these suites now ; and
my lib "tie once had, w h I knowe I nev 1 deserved to loose, I
shall expresse me ever humblie at yo r Honor's service.

Jo. SELDEN.

Notwithstanding this apparent rigour he was liberated at
the end of five weeks, at the intercession of the Lord Keeper
Williams, a letter from whom to the Duke of Buckingham,
to that effect, is extant. During his confinement he prepared
for the press the historical work of Eadmer, a monk of Can-
terbury, and enriched it by numerous notes : and in the dedi-
cation of it to Williams, thanks that prelate for having pro-
cured his release.

In 1623 he was returned a Burgess for the town of Lan-
caster, and in the Parliaments which were called in the first
and second years of Charles the First was elected for Great
Bedwin, in Wiltshire. He had confined himself for four
years chiefly to his literary labours, but in the beginning of
this reign engaged again with great warmth in politics. He
was chosen of the committee for forming articles of impeach-
ment against the Duke of Buckingham, and appointed one of
the managers at his proposed trial. After the dissolution of
the Parliament in which those matters were agitated, he
appeared among the firm opposers of the loan which Charles
had unhappily been advised to levy on the authority of his
prerogative, and pleaded in the Court of King's Bench for
Hampden, who had been imprisoned for refusing to submit
to it. In the House of Commons he was a speaker on the

JOHN SELDEN. 53

popular side on all the great questions of that eventful period,
and his speeches were regarded as the dictates of an oracle.
He became so formidable to the government, that it was re-
solved to prevent his attendance in Parliament by secluding
his person, and, on the twenty-fourth of March, 1628, he
was committed to the Tower, on a charge of having uttered
seditious expressions, and attempted to excite contempt
against the State. After seven months' confinement, the
Judges proposed that he should be released, on giving secu-
rity for his good behaviour, but he stedfastly rejected the
offer. He was then removed to the prison of the King's
Bench, and soon after prosecuted in the Star-chamber, for
publishing a libel which had been written in the late reign
by Sir Robert Dudley, intituled "a Proposition for his
Majesty's service, to bridle the impertinence of Parliaments."
By the favour of the Earl of Portland, Lord Treasurer, he
was transferred to a nominal restraint in the Gatehouse,
Westminster, and went for nearly three months into the
country, at the end of which he was again committed to the
King's Bench prison, and remained there till May, 1631,
when he was admitted to bail, that he might be enabled to
appear in the Courts, on the matters of a great suit then
pending between the heirs of Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrews-
bury, and afterwards bailed, from term to term, till July,
1634, when he was finally discharged : having, for four years
together, incessantly solicited in vain for a writ of Habeas
Corpus. The literary fruits of this second seclusion were
his four treatises on ancient Jewish law" De successionibus
in Bona defuncti De successione in Pontificatum Hebrseo-
rum De Jure naturali et gentium," and " Uxor Hebraica,
give de nuptiis ac divortiis."

This rigorous, and indeed illegal, prosecution, neither soured
his temper, nor warped the impartiality of his judgment.
We find him, even before he was absolutely released, on a
Committee of members of the Inns of Court for the manage-
ment of the masque to be presented before their Majesties on

54 JOHN SELDEN.

Candlemas night, 1633 ; so rendering an agreeable compli-
ment to the King, while he opposed the fanatical Prynne,
though a great favourite of his party, who had written out-
rageously against all dramatic representations. Soon after
too he published, at Charles's special desire, his celebrated
treatise "Mare Clausum, seu de Dominio Maris," which he
had written some years before, in opposition to the " Mare
Liberum" of Grotius. The King, in Council, commanded
that copies of this book, the doctrines of which were so
important to the interests, as well as flattering to the preju-
dices, of the country, should be preserved always in the chests
of the Privy Council, the Court of Exchequer, and the Court
of Admiralty ; and the immediate concession of the Dutch to
pay an annual tribute to the Crown of England for their
fishery was ascribed in a great measure to the arguments of
Selden. The sternness however of his political opinions and
practice remained undiminished. In the Parliaments of 1640,
and 1641, in which he sat for the University of Oxford, he
was among the foremost of those who opposed the Court ;
joined with vehemence in the prosecution of the Earl of
Strafford ; and, perhaps inexcusably, (for who will subscribe
to the praise of that Roman virtue which can disdain the
ties of private gratitude ?) of Archbishop Laud, from whom
he had for many years experienced constant friendship and
favour. Certainly he was a bitter enemy to the Hierarchy,
and the votes which deprived the Bishops of their seats in
Parliament, and the clergy in general of all temporal jurisdic-
tion, had the earnest support both of his voice and his pen.

It was at this period, 1642, that the King, then at York,
tendered to him the custody of the Great Seal. Charles took
this step with the concurrence of those excellent men, Mr.
Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon, and Lord Falkland,
who admired Selden as much for his virtues as for his
wisdom and learning.

They entertained a hope that he had lately become some-
what disgusted at the increased violence of his party, for,

JOHN SELDEN. 55

though he had voted against the King's commission of array,
he had supported with much force and warmth of argument
the Royal Prerogative as to the Militia ; but he declined the
offer, by a letter to Lord Falkland, from the terms of which
it may be clearly inferred that he had determined never to
serve the King separately from the Parliament. Some
knowledge of this correspondence got abroad, and a rumour
arose that he had engaged with Edmund Waller, and others,
to deliver up London to the King; and Selden, forgetting for
a moment the grandeur of his own character, condescended
to deny the charge on his oath. He now engaged more deeply
with the Parliament party, and in 1643 was chosen one of
the lay members of the assembly of Presbyterian clergy, and
soon after subscribed to that wretched bond of rebellion be-
tween England and Scotland which bore the name of " the
solemn league and covenant." In the same year he was
appointed by the Parliament Keeper of the Records in the
Tower ; in 1645 one of the Commissioners of the Admiralty ;
and in 1646 the sum of five thousand pounds was voted to
him, as a compensation for his sufferings in the public service,
but it is said that he refused to receive it.

Amidst the horrors which shortly followed that period, the
endeavours of the honest of either party became wholly use-
less. Mr. Selden had taken his full share in paving the way
towards them, but he retired with a clear conscience. While
the great mass of his political compeers had been swayed by
ambition, vanity, resentment, or avarice, patriotism had been
the motive, and the law of the land the index, to his public
conduct. He returned with eagerness to his studies, and sat
down to commence a work of stupendous erudition which he
had long contemplated " De Synedris et Prefecturis veterum
Hebrseorum," of which he lived to finish but three books,
which were published singly, but at length appeared together
in 1679, " which last edition," says Wood, " had divers cor-
rections made, by reason of the many languages, twenty in
number, therein." He wrote also, shortly before his death,

56 JOHN SELDEN.

a biographical and critical preface to " Decern Scriptores
Anglicanee," and " Vindicise secundum integritatem existima-
tionis suse per convitium de scriptione Maris Clausi," in which
he detailed many circumstances of his own story. His works
which have not been already mentioned here were Notes on
Fortescue de laudibus legum Angliae, and on the Sums of Sir
Ralph Hengham, 1616 Marmora Arundeliana, &c. 1628
Discourse on the Judicature of the Peers and Commons,
1640 Answer to Sir Harbottle Grimston's Argument for
Bishops, 1641 Discourse on the Rights of the Subject, in a
conference between the two Houses, 1642 Privileges of the
Baronage in Parliament, 1642 Versio et Comment, ad
Eutychii Eccl. Alex. Origines, 1642 De Anno civili et ca-
lendario Judaico, 1644, and 1683 Dissertatio Historica ad
Fletam Discourse of the Office of Lord Chancellor De
Nummis and two treatises, of the Origin of Ecclesiastical
Jurisdiction of Testaments, and of Administration to the
Goods of Intestates : the five last named were not published
till long after his death.

He died on the thirtieth of November, 1654, of a gradual
decline, at the Friery House, in White Friers, which he
possessed as residuary legatee to Elizabeth (Talbot) Dowager
Countess of Kent, with whom, as well as with her Lord, he
maintained for many years the strictest friendship. He
derived from that lady other property, to a considerable
amount, and had gained much in the exercise of his profes-
sion, and having lived a bachelor, and with no disposition to
expense, except in the purchasing of books, he died very rich.
He had once (according to Burnet, in his life of Sir Matthew
Hale, who was one of Selden's executors,) bequeathed his
curious and extensive library to the University of Oxford,
but had in great part revoked the legacy, in anger, because a
bond for one thousand pounds had been required of him there,
as a security for the loan of a manuscript. He left it there-
fore in the disposal of his executors, forbidding them however
to sell it ; and they proposed to bestow it on the Inner

JOHN SELDEN. 57

Temple, where it actually remained for five years in some
chambers hired for the purpose ; but the Society having so
long neglected to build a room for its reception, the executors
finally placed it in the Bodleian Library, where it remains,
together with his collection of ancient sculptures, and other
antiquities. He was buried, by his own order, in the Temple
Church, Archbishop Usher preaching his funeral sermon.

The parliamentary character of Selden was not long since
given by an anonymous author, in a periodical paper, in the
following terms : the truth, the comprehensive conciseness,
and the manly beauty of expression of which, are equally
admirable. " Selden was a member of the Long Parliament,
and took an active and useful pail in many important dis-
cussions and transactions. He appears to have been regarded
somewhat in the light of a -valuable piece of national property,
like a museum, or great public library, resorted to, as a matter
of course, and a matter of right, in all the numerous cases in
which assistance was wanted from any part of the whole
compass of legal and historical learning. He appeared in the
national council not so much the representative of the con-
temporary inhabitants of a particular city, as of all the people
of all past ages ; concerning whom, and whose institutions,
he was deemed to know whatever was to be known, and to
be able to furnish whatever, within so vast a retrospect, was
of a nature to give light and authority in the decision of
questions arising in a doubtful and hazardous state of the
national affairs."

J] A MIES STOAIRT,

DUKE OE RICHMOND.
OB, 1655,

JAMES STUART,

DUKE OF RICHMOND.

THE Duke of Richmond was perhaps the only person of
that great and honourable class distinguished by the general
appellation " Royalists," who followed the fortunes of Charles
the First from mere personal affection, and who was held by
that Prince in the most unlimited tenderness of friendship.
They were of the same family, the same country, and the
same character. Both were distinguished by plain good sense ;
by a cool unvarying integrity ; an exact sense of honour ; a
reserve which was the result more of temper than of prudence ;
and by a perfect freedom from vice. " The higher he was,"
says Lloyd, " the less he desired to seem, affecting rather the
worth than the pomp of nobleness ; therefore his courtesy was
his nature, not his craft, and his affableness not a base and
servile popularity, or an ambitious insinuation, but the native
gentleness of his character, and his true value of himself."
With these dispositions, the Duke was rather a benefit than
an ornament to the court ; rather a pillar for the security of
the state than an engine to forward its operations.

He was the eldest son of Esme Stuart, Duke of Lenox (who
was first cousin, once removed, to King James the First), by
Catherine, daughter and sole heir of Sir Henry Darcy, of
Brimham, in the county of York, and was born on the sixth
of April, 1612. His father died in the prime of life, leaving
him an infant of the age of twelve years, with six brothers
and four sisters ; and James, who also died soon after, took
them under his special protection, with a degree of distinc-

60 JAMES STUART,

tion, which however their kindred to him seemed but justly
to challenge. From a family thus in a manner bequeathed
by the King to the kindness of his successor, Charles selected,
without neglecting the rest, the young Duke as his favourite
child, and a mutual interchange of sympathies, which were
all but in fact parental and filial, unfolded gradually into a
strict and noble friendship between them. The King took on
himself to superintend the completion of his education, and
sent him to travel through France, Italy, and Spain, where
the distinction of a Grandee of the first class was conferred on
him ; and, on his return, when scarcely twenty-one years of
age, he was called to the Privy Council, and married, by
Charles's recommendation, to the only child of the deceased
favourite, Buckingham, with whom he received a portion, in
those days esteemed very great, of twenty thousand pounds.
The offices of Lord Steward of the Royal Household, and
Warden of the Cinque Ports, were soon after bestowed on
him, together with the Order of the Garter.

Such was his state when the furious commencement of the
Long Parliament drew him into the vortex of politics. He
became presently an object of jealousy and disgust with the
leaders of the popular party in that ominous assembly. In
Scotland, where the seeds of discontent had been first sown,
he possessed a powerful influence, which he had already op-
posed, with skill as well as with resolution, to the plans of
those of his own rank there who strove-to promote division,
and had so rendered essential service to the royal cause ; but
he now declared himself openly in the House of Peers, where
he sat as a Baron, an utter enemy to all those concessions
which it had been proposed in Parliament to make to his in-
surgent countrymen, on whose success the fairest hopes of
mischief had been founded by the disaffected here. Thus,
while he incurred in England the resentment of one faction,
he was in Scotland held in universal distrust by another.
" He was a man of honour and fidelity," says Lord Clarendon,
(i in all places, and in no degree of confidence with his coun-

DUKE OF RICHMOND. 61

trymen, because he would not admit himself into their in-
trigues." He was soon assailed in the House of Commons ;
and Clarendon, who was then a member of that body, de-
scribes thus, in his History of the Rebellion, the motive and
method of the attack, which was made just after the death
of the Earl of Strafford, and the expedient which he himself
used to render it for the time fruitless.

" Their design," says he, " was to remove the Duke of
Richmond from the King ; both because they had a mind to
have his office of Warden of the Cinque Ports from him, that
it might be conferred on the Earl of Warwick, and as he was
almost the only man of great quality and consideration about
the King who did not in the least degree stoop or make court
to them, but crossed them boldly in the House, and all other
ways pursued his master's service, with his utmost vigour
and intentness of mind. They could not charge him with
any thing like a crime, and therefore only intended to brand
him, and make him odious, by which they presumed they
should at last make him willing to ransom himself by quitting
that office, for which there was some underhand treaty by
persons who were solicitous to prevent further inconveniences,
and, as they found any thing like to succeed in that, they
slackened or advanced their discourse of evil counsellors.
One day they were very warm upon the argument, and had
a purpose to have named him directly, which they had
hitherto forborne to do, when Mr. Hyde stood up, and said,
1 he did really believe that there yet remained some evil
counsellors, who did much harm about the King ; and that
it would be much better to name them than to amuse the
House so often with the general mention of them, as if we
were afraid to name them. He proposed that there might
be a day appointed, on which, upon due reflections upon
those who had been most notorious in doing mischief to the
public, we might most probably find out who they were who
trod still in the same paths, and name them accordingly ;
and that, for his part, if a day were appointed for that dis-

62 JAMES STUART,

covery, he would be ready to name one who, by all the marks
we could judge by, and by his former course of life, might
very easily be believed to be an evil counsellor.' They were
exceedingly apprehensive that he meant the Marquis of
Hamilton, who was very dear to them ; and thenceforward,
though they desisted not from prosecuting the Duke till at
last they had compelled him to quit the Cinque Ports to the
Earl of Warwick, they no more urged the discovery of evil
counsellors ; and all the familiar friends of Mr. Hyde were
importuned to move him not to endeavour to do any prejudice
to the Marquis of Hamilton."

The same historian furnishes us with another anecdote,
which, while it relates to the Duke, will serve to show how
little the privileges of Parliament were then understood, or
at least valued, by the members of both Houses, or how
ready the popular party was to sacrifice madly those privi-
leges to their hatred of the King and his friends. Upon the
proposal of some matter in the House of Lords which was
not agreeable to that party, many of them, in a tumultuous
manner which was not then usual in either House of Parlia-
ment, cried " adjourn, adjourn ;" on which the Duke of
Richmond, without addressing himself to the chair, was
overheard to say to some around him, that, if they would
adjourn, he wished it might be for six months. These words,
so uttered, were interpreted to be a regular motion, which,
had they been so, would have been but strictly parliamentary ;
and it was immediately determined that the House should
not rise, and that " the Duke should explain himself, and
answer the making such a motion as, being granted, would
be destructive to the commonwealth." The Duke said that
" he had made no motion, but used that expression to show
his dislike of the other motion, to adjourn ; and that when
he spoke, all men being on their feet, and out of their places,
he conceived that the House had been up." He was, how-
ever, required to withdraw, and, at the conclusion of a fierce
debate of many hours, it was resolved, by a small majority,

DUKE OF RICHMOND. 63

that he had committed no offence, against which vote several
Peers entered their protest. But the matter ended not there.
On the following day it was taken up in the House of Com-
mons with the greatest fury, and, after one of the longest
discussions ever known there, it was determined that they
should accuse the Duke of Richmond to the Lords as " one
of the malignant party, and an evil counsellor to his Majesty,
and should desire them to join in a request to the King that
he might be removed from any office or employment about
his Majesty's person." The Peers tamely and patiently re-
ceived the proposition, which was delivered with much
solemnity, and testified no further resentment at so mon-
strous a breach of their privileges than by silently forbearing
to take the matter into their further consideration.

On the eighth of August, 1641, the King conferred on him
the title of Duke of Richmond, which had been by James the
First revived in his uncle, Lodowick, Duke of Lenox, and
had become extinct by that nobleman's death without issue ;
and the next day he set out towards Scotland with Charles,
who had probably chosen that precise time to raise him to
the highest rank of the English Peerage as a compliment to
his country, which might, considering the character of that
people, be agreeably received there, even by the party which
he opposed. A few weeks after his return the war com-
menced, in the very outset of which he was one of the eleven
eminent persons whom the Parliament proscribed by name
in their instructions to the Earl of Essex, their general. He
placed three of his brothers, two of whom had then scarcely
attained to manhood, in the royal army, and they were all
engaged in the battle of Edgehill, the first action that
occurred, in which the eldest, who was called Lord Aubigny,
was killed, as were afterwards the Lord John Stuart, at the
battle of Alresford, and the Lord Bernard, (who, for his ad-
mirable gallantry, had been created Earl of Lichfield,) at
Chester. The Duke himself remained constantly about the
King's person, which was, in fact, his proper station in those
miserable times ; not so much for the office which he held in

64 JAMES STUART,

the royal household, as for that perfect affection and fidelity
which rendered his presence at once a consolation and a
security to his afflicted master.

In 1644 he was placed at the head of the council then ap-
pointed by the King for the government of the Prince of
Wales, and was in the following year named first commis-
sioner for the treaty of Uxbridge, in the course of which he
gave ample proofs that he was by no means deficient in the
best qualities of a statesman, as indeed he had before in the
negotiations at Oxford, and with the Scottish commissioners
in London. He persevered in his attendance on Charles, till
his Majesty, without communicating the design even to him,
fled from Oxford on the twenty-seventh of April, 1646, to
throw himself into the arms of the Scots ; and from thence-
forth the Duke saw him no more till he was a prisoner in
Carisbrook Castle, when, at the King's special desire, he was
permitted by the rebels to resume, for a short time, the per-
formance of his personal duties. The next request, on the
behalf of what remained of royalty in the land, which they
granted more reluctantly, was made by himself to be allowed
to lay in the grave the mangled remains of his beloved sove-
reign, to save whose life he had solemnly offered the vicarious
sacrifice of his own. That sad office performed, he retired
into utter privacy, and died, as has been said with great pro-
bability, of the gradual effects of grief, on the thirtieth of
March, 1655, leaving an only son, Esme, who succeeded to
his titles, and died in France, aged about ten years, in 1660 ;
and an only daughter, Mary, married to Richard Butler, Earl
of Arran, second son of James, Duke of Ormond.

Lord Clarendon tells us that " he was a man of very good
parts, and an excellent understanding, yet, which is no com-
mon infirmity, so diffident of himself that he was sometimes
led by men who judged much worse. He was of a great and
haughty spirit, and so punctual in point of honour that he
never swerved a tittle. He had so entire a resignation of
himself to the King that he abhorred all artifices to shelter
himself from the prejudice of those who, how powerful

DUKE OF RICHMOND. 65

soever, failed in their duty to his Majesty ; and therefore he
was pursued with all imaginable malice by them, as one that
would have no quarter upon so infamous terms as but look-
ing on while his master was ill used. As he had received
great bounties from the King, so he sacrificed all he had to
his service as soon as his occasions stood in need of it, and
lent his Majesty at one time twenty thousand pounds to-
gether ; and, as soon as the war begun, engaged his three
brothers, all gallant gentlemen, in the service, in which they
all lost their lives. Himself lived with unspotted fidelity
some years after the murder of his master ; and was suffered
to put him into his grave, and died without the comfort of
seeing the resurrection of the Crown."

Dr. Birch, in giving some account of the life of this noble-
man, has fallen, which was not usual with him, into many
gross errors. He states that the Duke succeeded to the duke-
dom of Richmond on the death of his father, who never had
that title ; and accommodates that mistake to another, by
fixing the date of his father's death, which happened in
1623, to 1640. He speaks too of the offices of Lord Cham-
berlain, and High Admiral, of Scotland, as having been con-
ferred on the subject of this memoir by King Charles the
First, when they were in fact hereditary, or to use the Scot-
tish term, heritable, in his family : they devolved on him
necessarily, therefore, with his title of Duke of Lenox. There
is a tradition that the Duke, when on his travels, was pre-
served from assassination by a favourite dog which lay in his
chamber, and aroused him from his sleep ; and it is added,
that his master from that time distinguished him by a collar
set with pearls. It is scarcely enough to say that the picture
which is here engraved seems strongly to allude to the cir-
cumstance in question ; for the age at which the Duke is
represented, the singularity of his dress, or rather undress,
the dog, and the pearled collar, combine to tell, hierogly-
phically, nearly the whole of the story. Nothing is wanting
but the assassin, who may be supposed to have fled,
v. F

r RffCiHL

EAEIi OF WARWICK.
OB, 1658,

ROBERT RICH,

SECOND EARL OF WARWICK,

OF his newly raised family, was the eldest son of Robert,
the first Earl, and great-grandson of Sir Richard Rich, who
rose from obscurity in the profession of the law, and became
Lord Chancellor, and a Baron, in the reign of Edward the
Sixth. His mother was Penelope, daughter of Walter
Devereux, Earl of Essex, a lady whose flagrant disgrace has
been already more than once unwillingly recorded in this
work.

He was born in May or June, in the year 1587, and pro-
bably consumed his youth and early manhood in those
alternations of indolence and useless activity so common
among the heirs-apparent of the nobility and gentry of his
time, and for many succeeding years. The death of his
father made way for his inheritance of the Earldom in 1618,
but we hear not of him, either in the Court or Parliament,
or in any kind of public employment, till the year 1625,
when, during the preparations for the ill-managed expedition
to Cadiz, he was appointed, on a rumour that the Spaniards
had projected an invasion on the coast of Essex, to command
the militia of that county, in which lay his estates, and to
watch over the security of Harwich, and the neighbouring
ports. A blank of several years now again occurred in his
history, during which he attached himself to the puritans,
and indulged, as they gradually became dangerous, a growing
ambition to be considered as their leader. He attained to
that honour, such as it was, and " was looked upon," as
F 2

68 ROBERT RICH,

Lord Clarendon informs us, " as their greatest patron, because
of much the greatest estate of all who favoured them, and so
was esteemed by them with great application and veneration,
though he was of a life very licentious, and unconformable
to their professed rigour, which they rather dispensed with
than they would withdraw from a House where they received
so eminent a protection, and such notable bounty."

This sort of influence, together with a cool head, and a
persevering disposition, recommended him powerfully to the
republican party, whose confidence he presently obtained,
and in whose measures he joined with a sudden alacrity, and
even violence, which induced unfounded suspicions that he
had engaged himself in some deep specific design against the
State. In 1640 therefore, soon after the dissolution of the
Parliament which met on the thirteenth of April, his house,
and even his pockets, were searched, by Sir William Becher,
a clerk of the Privy Council, under a warrant from the Secre-
tary of State, in expectation of finding treasonable papers.
This imprudent measure, especially as it proved fruitless,
naturally increased his rancour, and was taken up with great
warmth at the meeting of the Long Parliament, when Becher
was committed to the Fleet for a high breach of privilege.
He was among the most eager of the Peers in the prosecution
of Strafford and Laud, and when the King, in the hope per-
haps of abating the danger which threatened those great men,
as well as of calming the popular fury, shortly after admitted
eight of the noble malcontents at once into his Privy Council,
Warwick was of the number. His favour with the party
now increased daily. When the Parliament adjourned for
six weeks, on the ninth of September, 1641, each House ap-
pointing a small committee, in fact for the government of the
country during the recess, he was one of those who were
placed in that station by the Peers ; and, on the twenty-
eighth of the following March, the Commons, by a formal
message to the Upper House, required its concurrence in a
request to the Earl of Northumberland, who commanded the

SECOND EARL OF WARWICK.

Fleet, and was then unable, from long illness, to attend that
duty, that he would appoint Warwick his Vice Admiral for
the year's service, and also to the latter that he would under-
take it. The Lords had then grace enough to refuse, unless
the King's approbation should be previously obtained ; on
which the Commons made the motion singly to the Lord
High Admiral, who, unwilling to be drawn into a contest
with his Sovereign, by whom he had already been in-
formed, through the Secretary of State, that he had named
another officer, persuaded them to join with the Peers in a
message to his Majesty, demanding the appointment for
Warwick, which the King refusing, the two Houses pro-
ceeded to grant the commission, in contempt of the royal
authority and declared inclination, as well as of the constitu-
tion, to the integrity and purity of which they pretended such
devout attachment and veneration.

He entered on the command, but with some doubt of the
obedience of his captains. He assembled them therefore on
his arrival at the Fleet, and sounded them in a hypocritical
address, in which he endeavoured to persuade them of the
validity of his commission, on the ground that the Parlia-
ment was the only proper organ of communication between
the King and his subjects. Five were bold enough to demur,
and he employed their respective crews to force them to
compliance, when three submitted, and the other two were
brought prisoners to him by their own men. In the mean
time Charles dismissed the Earl of Northumberland, and
made a feeble effort to appoint a successor, while the Parlia-
ment triumphantly placed Warwick in the exalted post of
Lord High Admiral of England. " In consideration of his
great disbursements in the public service," a tenth of all
prizes was allotted to him, and, by a vote which speedily
followed, he was appointed Governor in chief of all the Eng-
lish plantations in America.

Steps were taken about this time to raise a new army, to
be placed independently under his command, and a commis-

70 ROBERT RICH,

sion to that effect was actually delivered to him, but the
rebels changed their purpose, and the troops already embodied
were added to Essex's army. This probably arose from a
resolution secretly taken by them to propose that well-known
regulation called " the self-denying Ordinance," which would
have deprived the Earl of his newly acquired command, as
it did, in April, 1645, of his office of Lord High Admiral.
On the tenth of that month he made his resignation by pre-
senting a written paper to the House of Peers, in which,
among other expressions of the same character, he told them
that " his highest ambition was to contribute his best endea-
vours for the service of the Parliament, and that he was
resolved to stand or fall with them in the upholding of God's
truth, and the public liberty, knowing well, by many years'
experience, that the welfare of the kingdom could not subsist
without God's blessing in the preservation of the Parlia-
ment." The office of High Admiral was now put into com-
mission, and, the self-denying ordinance having no pros-
pective influence, as its sole purpose was to exclude certain
persons from each House, he was appointed a commissioner :
and now the Parliament, or at least one of the Houses, pro-
posed to give him the most lasting and brilliant mark of
approbation within the scope of their usurped power ; for, in
the following December, it was "voted," for such is the
term used, that several of the most conspicuous among the
rebels should be exalted to titles of peerage, among whom
himself, and the Earls of Northumberland, Essex, and Pem-
broke, were to be created Dukes. Whitelock, the only
writer I believe who has recorded this resolution, makes no
subsequent mention of it, and so leaves us ignorant of the
impediments which prevented it from taking effect.

In April, 1647, he was included in a commission issued
by the Parliament with a view of persuading the army to
undertake the reduction of Ireland ; and, towards the end
of the succeeding month, in another, appointed to assist
Fairfax in an ineffectual attempt to disband the many regi-

SECOND EARL OF WARWICK. 71

ments which had mutinously rejected that service. Two
months however had scarcely passed when he fled, with
many other seceders from both Houses, to seek the protection
of that mutinous army, then encamped on Hounslow Heath,
against the tumultuous mob of London, which had suddenly
besieged the Parliament. From this secession may be traced
the gradual decay of the authority of that assembly, and the
more rapid exaltation of the military power which followed ;
nor is it extravagant to suppose that Warwick's conduct on
the occasion was dictated by a secret inclination to forward
both : for he had of late attached himself with earnestness to
Cromwell, with whom from this period he ever after lived in
the strictest intimacy and apparent confidence, and with
whose family, as we shall see presently, he soon after con-
nected his own.

When a part of the Fleet revolted to the Crown, and took
on board the Prince of Wales, and Duke of York, on the
coast of Holland, in May, 1648, he was by a vote of Parlia-
ment again appointed High Admiral, and sailed in pursuit of
those ships, which lay in the Downs. The Prince's advisers
determined to resist, and, while the parties were in sight of
each other, and preparing for action, the Prince wrote to him,
by Mr. Henry Seymour, inviting him to return to his alle-
giance ; and Warwick replied, but in respectful terms, by
beseeching his Highness " to put himself into the hands of
the Parliament ; and that the ships with him might return to
their obedience, upon which they should be pardoned for
their revolt." A second message from the Prince, to the
purpose of the former, produced a similar answer, and his
Royal Highness's ships immediately weighed anchor, and
sailed to the attack : when, a sudden change of wind having
prevented it, and driven them out to sea, it was determined
to wait for a more favourable opportunity, which never
offered, for the revolters presently after began to join
, and before the end of a month, the
im a vote of thanks for having recovered

72 ROBERT RICH,

them. In the mean time however his late intercourse with
the Prince had drawn some suspicion on him, or at least
tended to increase doubts which had been previously enter-
tained. Lord Clarendon indeed affirms that he was about
this time in secret intelligence with his brother, the Earl of
Holland, on a design in which that unworthy nobleman, after
repeated tergiversations, had engaged on the part of the
Crown, and for which he soon after lost his head ; nor is it
improbable that Warwick might have so acted with the con-
currence of his friend Cromwell, who it is well known was
just at that period undetermined whether to sacrifice to his
ambition the King or the Parliament, both equally and
completely in his power. Whitelock tells us that, in the
December following, the two Houses received " letters from
Warwick, and a declaration in vindication of himself, and
the scandal cast upon him by a false pamphlet, and lying
report that he resolved to join the Prince, in case the treaty
took not effect," meaning the treaty with the King, then in
progress, in the Isle of Wight.

It is at all events certain that on the twenty-first of
February, in the succeeding year, his commission of High
Admiral was revoked by the Parliament, in consequence of a
report from what was called the Council of State, and an act
passed to appoint commissioners for the direction of the
Fleet. Of the particulars of his conduct under the spurious
governments which followed the murder of the King no
memorials have been preserved. We know only that he was
one of the few noblemen who condescended to sit in the
Usurper's mock House of Lords, and that he had the credit,
or discredit, of being considered during the remainder of his
life as one of the chief advisers of that prodigy of good
fortune, talents, and wickedness. Lord Clarendon has left
us this summary of his character, and of part of his life
" The Earl of Warwick was of the King's Council, but was
not wondered at for leaving the King, whom he had never
well served, nor did he look upon himself as obliged by that

SECOND EARL OF WARWICK. 73

honour, which he knew was conferred upon him in the crowd
of those whom his Majesty had no esteem of, or ever pro-
posed to trust, so his business was to join with those to whom
he owed his promotion. He was a man of a pleasant and
companionable wit and conversation ; of an universal jollity;
and such a license in his words and in his actions that a man
of less virtue could not be found out ; so that one might rea-
sonably have believed that a man so qualified would not have
been able to have contributed much to the overthrow of a
nation and kingdom. But, with all these faults, he had great
authority and credit with that people who in the beginning
of the troubles did all the mischief: and by opening his
doors, and making his house the rendezvous of all the
silenced ministers, in the time when there was an authority
to silence them, and spending a good part of his estate, of
which he was ivery prodigal, upon them ; and by being
present with them at their devotions, and making himself
merry with them, and at them, which they dispensed with,
he became the head of that party, and got the style of a godly
man. When the King revoked the Earl of Northumberland's
commission of Admiral, he presently accepted the office from
the Parliament, and never quitted their service ; and when
Cromwell disbanded that Parliament he betook himself to
the protection of the Protector ; married his heir to his
daughter ; and lived in so entire a confidence and friendship
with him that when he died he had the honour to be exceed-
ingly lamented by him. He left his estate, which before was
subject to a vast debt, more improved and repaired than any
man who trafficked in that desperate commodity of rebellion."
The Earl of Warwick died on the eleventh of April, 1658,
and was buried at Felstead in Essex. He married twice,
first, to Frances, daughter and heir to Sir William Hatton,
alias Newport, by whom he had four sons, of whom Robert,
the eldest, succeeded to the titles and estates, and had an
only son, Robert, who married Frances, youngest daughter to
Oliver Cromwell, and died before his father ; Charles, the

74 ROBERT RICH, SECOND EARL OF WARWICK.

second, to whom they fell on the demise of his brother
Robert ; Henry, and Hatton, who died unmarried ; and also
three daughters ; Anne, married to Edward, Lord Mande-
ville, son and heir to Henry Montagu, first Earl of Man-
chester ; Lucy, to John, Lord Robartes, afterwards created
Earl of Radnor ; and Frances, to Nicholas Leke, second
Earl of Scarsdale. The Earl of Warwick's second lady was
Eleanor, daughter of Sir Edward Wortley, of Wortley, in
Yorkshire, and relict of Sir Henry Lee, of Quarendon, in
Bucks, Bart. It is stated too, but rather dubiously, by some
authorities, that he had a third wife, Susanna, daughter of
Sir Henry Row. He appears however to have left no issue
but by his first lady.

V1E

OB, 1658,

OLIVER CROMWELL.

IT may seem strange, and more especially in times of the
complexion of those in which we live, that the character of
this remarkable person should have been suffered to find its
own level in unbiassed judgment : that no flowery whig pen
has yet attempted to varnish it with eulogies : nay, that even
the fierceness of democracy has not furnished a single cham-
pion to bedaub it with coarse and plain-spoken praise : if
Cromwell went too far in the pursuit of his plans of reform
for the more delicate taste of the one, he certainly went quite
far enough to gratify amply the appetite of the other. The
cause of these omissions is twofold : first, the absence of any
one positive virtue in the man, as well as of any form of that
heroically splendid generosity, real or affected, which too
frequently serves to lessen the deformity of wickedness ; and,
secondly, the embarrassment into which such panegyrists
must have been thrown by contemplating the obsolete engine
which he chiefly employed in his great work ; for how could
they who seek to overthrow the state by decrying Christianity
itself, celebrate him who made a semblance of fanatical zeal
for that faith his stalking-horse for the accomplishment of
the same end ? But this is not all. Even they who may
be fairly supposed to have the largest and most general in-
terest in whitewashing his fame have shrunk hopeless from
the task. The anxiety, perhaps more amiable than prudent?
of a descendant has of late put forth a large cento of quota-
tions from abundance of writers, good and bad, well-known
and obscure, under the title of " Memoirs," &c. ; but they are

76 OLIVER CROMWELL.

urged merely in negative apology, and aim only at relieving
his memory somewhat of the burthen of certain heavy charges?
without making a single effort to adorn it by bringing forward
any redeeming merit. We shall seek in vain for any other
estimable qualities in Cromwell's character than judgment,
courage, and decision, and these he perverted to the worst
purposes.

He sprung from a very ancient and highly allied family of
the county of Huntingdon, of which his father, Robert Crom-
well, was a younger son, who relieved the scantiness of his
patrimony by engaging in the trade of a brewer. His mother
was a daughter of Sir Richard Stewart, a knight of the city
of Ely, who had been before married to William Lynne, of
Bassingbourne, Cambridgeshire, and of these persons he was
born in Huntingdon on the twenty-fifth of April, 1599. He
received his education in the free school of that town, and in
Sidney College, Cambridge, which he is said to have left with
small reputation for learning, and to have been soon after
sent to London, and placed to study the law in Lincoln's Inn, in
the books of which society however, as we are informed in the
" Memoirs" above referred to, his name is not to be found ;
yet the fact has been so universally stated that it almost
defies doubt, and we may strengthen those reports by adding
to them a tradition hitherto unpublished which still prevails
there, that he inhabited the chambers over the gateway into
Chancery-lane. Such traditions seldom err ; but not to dwell
on that question, he certainly became a resident in London
about the age of eighteen, and is recorded to have led there a
life altogether dissolute, for which he could not plead in
apology the usual warmth and vivacity of vjouth, for his
nature was morose and saturnine, and he was subject to those
reveries and fits of melancholy which usually occur to per-
sons of that temperament. His marriage, however, which
happened before he was fully of age, suddenly reclaimed him,
and he settled in his native town, from whence, after some
years, he removed to the Isle of Ely, and to the possession of

OLIVER CROMWELL. 77

a decent estate, which had been bequeathed to him by a
maternal uncle. This however, as well as his own little
patrimony, he in great measure dissipated, and sought to
repair the deficiency by engaging in agriculture in the neigh-
bourhood of St. Ives, as is said, with little success.

He had been bred in the profession of the established faith,
and practised it with apparent devotion till some years after
his marriage, when he embraced puritanism, and presently
became distinguished as a teacher of the first order ; nor is it
improbable, as a reputation of that sort is always somewhat
dearly purchased by persons of any property, that he might
have squandered his fortune as well as his time, in supporting
the temporal interests of the schism which he had thus
adopted. He received however some compensation by
obtaining a seat, through the influence of his new brethren, in
the short Parliament which met in 1628, and was chosen of
the committee for affairs of religion, in which he distinguished
himself by the bitterness and violence with which he de-
nounced every trace of Popery which had been suffered to
remain in the doctrine or discipline of our Church. After the
dissolution of that Parliament, he returned again to the
country, where for some years we have no intelligence of
him, till he placed himself at the head of a party there against
the Earl of Bedford's magnificent scheme of draining and
embanking, which he opposed and obstructed with all the
resolution and obstinacy which belonged to his character.
At length the well-known John Hampden, who was his first-
cousin, convinced that he possessed the sort of talents and
temper peculiarly necessary to the political support of himself
and his faction, drew him from his retirement, and he was
returned to the Long Parliament at its general election.

Hampden had judged rightly. Cromwell commenced his
career in that assembly with a uniformity of virulent opposi-
tion and calumny towards all the acts of the Court and the
ministry, as well as several of the ancient and established
public institutions a conduct which, however familiarized to

78 OLIVER CROMWELL.

us of later days, had till then been unknown in Parliament. The
novelty of this, joined to the unusuavooarseness and vehe-
mence with which he commonly addressed the House, and to
a show of simple frankness which looked like honesty, pre-
sently gained him the attention of all, and soon after the
friendship and attachment of many. A small picture of him
at that precise period, left to us by Sir Philip Warwick,
though chiefly relating to exterior, yet not without reference
to those facts, is too lively and glowing to be omitted in this
place. " The first time," says Sir Philip, "that I ever took
notice of him was in the very beginning of the Parliament
held in November, 1640, when I vainly imagined myself a
courtly young gentleman. I came one morning into the
House, well clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking whom
I knew not, very ordinarily apparelled, for it was a plain
cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by an ill country
tailor : his linen was plain and not very clean, and I re-
member a speck or two of blood upon his little band, which
was not much larger than his collar ; his hat was without a
hatband ; his stature was of a good size : his sword stuck
close to his side : his countenance swollen and reddish : his
voice sharp and untunable ; and his eloquence full of fervour,
for the subject-matter would not bear much of reason, it
being in behalf of a servant of Mr. Prynne's who had dis-
persed libels against the Queen, for her dancing and such
like innocent and courtly sports ; and he aggravated the im-
prisonment of this man by the Council Table unto that height,
that one would have believed the very government itself had
been in great danger by it. I sincerely profess it lessened
very much my reverence for that great Council, for he was
much hearkened unto."

The truth is (and here again he was a political prototype)
that his views at that time in assuming there the character of
a seditious demagogue extended no further than to the retrieval
of his desperate fortunes. He had neither distinct plan nor
inclination for the public benefit. When pressed by the

OLIVER CROMWELL. 79

honest Warwick, who soon after became acquainted with
him, and by some other members, to declare the objects of
his exertions, particularly with regard to the Church, which
he incessantly attacked, he answered, with less caution than
was usual with him, " I know what I would not have, though
I cannot tell what I would have." The success of his endea-
vours approached too^tardily for his impatient spirit, and he
became desperate. He formed at length the secret resolution
to rest it on a single cast the fate of that unhappily memor-
able remonstrance which was voted in the Commons, by a
very small majority, on th el fourteenth of November, 1641;
for as soon as the House had risen, he told Lord Falkland
that if the question had been otherwise decided, he would
the next day have sold the remnant of his estate, and quitted
the kingdom, never to return. The part which he had taken
in the great debate of that day fixed his importance in the
minds of the leading malcontents, and they now admitted
him into their most private councils. He began to feel his
own strength, and soon afterwards his superiority, and proved
both by some successful efforts against certain persons among
themselves whom he disliked.

The war broke forth in the following year, when he received
a captain's commission from the Earl of Essex; went to
Cambridge ; and in that neighbourhood raised a troop of
hoise, with which he persecuted the University ; and after-
terwards into Hertfordshire, where he seized the High Sheriff,
with the King's proclamation in his pocket, declaring Essex
and his army rebels, and brought him prisoner to London,
where he received the thanks of the House of Commons.
He marched presently into Suffolk, and surprised and cap-
tured the principal gentlemen of that and some adjacent
counties, at Lowestoffe, where they had met to consider of
the best means of serving the King's cause, besides possessing
himself of abundance of arms, ammunition, and money. His
force had now increased to one thousand horse, and he bore
the title of colonel. His discipline, his courage, his activity,

80 OLIVER CROMWELL.

his minute attention to every circumstance which the service
that he had now undertaken involved, astonished both armies.
The spendthrift country gentleman, the fanatical teacher, the
popular declaimer, had become a consummate soldier, as it
were by intuition.

Such was the commencement of his military life, the pro-
gress of which is so well known that it would be impertinent
to detail it here at any length. After distinguishing himself
in several exploits in Lincolnshire and its borders, he was
appointed Lieutenant-General of the Horse in that army, the
nominal command of which the Parliament had given to the
Earl of Manchester, while it invested Cromwell with all the
active authority. He led it, in the spring of 1644, in a march
of surprising rapidity, to meet the Scottish army which had
agreed to aid the rebellion, and joined it in besieging York,
the reduction of which was speedily followed by the battle of
Marston Moor, where the signal defeat of the King's forces
has been ascribed chiefly to his gallantry and skill. In the
second battle of Newbury, which occurred in the same year,
himself and his troops fought with uncommon desperation, and,
in a remarkable charge on the royal guards, had nearly seized the
King's person. While these events were passing, his friends
were not less busily employed in London. His successes,
his sagacity, and his intrigues, had combined to place him at
the head of a faction in Parliament, which, in contradistinc-
tion from the comparatively innocent Presbyterians, who had
unwittingly acted as its pioneers in the rebellion, called itself
"the Independents." The former party, many of whom
had engaged in the mischief of the time from honest, however
mistaken motives, observed, with well founded dread, its
growing importance, and attempted to nip it in the bud.
Manchester exhibited articles of accusation in the House of
Peers against Cromwell, who repelled the blow by levelling
a counter-charge at him in the Commons ; but neither was
in the end prosecuted, each party probably then doubting its
own strength. The independents however became daily

OLIVER CROMWELL. 81

more formidable, and shortly after effectually triumphed in
passing that measure, so fatal in its results to every prospect
of peace and order, which obtained the name of " the self-
denying Ordinance," because it prohibited the members of
the two Houses of Parliament from holding any offices, civil
or military. It is scarcely necessary to say that its aim was
directed chiefly to the latter. Essex, Manchester, Sir William
Waller, the Earl of Warwick, who was the Parliament
Admiral, and indeed all the commanders of any note under
the original scheme of the rebellion, were thus at a stroke
cashiered ; while Cromwell, and such of his peculiar confi-
dants as were members, after having received, for form's
sake, some occasional individual dispensations, were at length
specially excepted from the operation of the act. The army
was in this manner, to use the phrase of the time, new-
modelled ; Sir Thomas Fairfax was appointed Commander-
in-Chief ; and Cromwell, raised to the rank of his Lieutenant-
General, was in fact placed at its head.

The almost uninterrupted tide of success which now
attended his enterprises is scarcely to be paralleled in military
history. In twelve months' almost incessant fighting he met
with but two insignificant checks. The succeeding battle of
Naseby, so fatally decisive of the King's very hopes, the
critical hour for which was adopted by Fairfax at his
suggestion, crowned his fame. He availed himself with
equal prudence and gallantry of the many advantages which
that victory had thrown in his way, and at length returned
to the Parliament, where the two parties of which it was com-
posed, by the one of which he was now hated, and by the
other already distrusted, loaded him with adulation and
wealth ; himself, with equal sincerity, ascribing his endea-
vours wholly to his devotion towards them, and his successes
to the special favour of Providence to a righteous cause. The
unfortunate Charles now threw himself into the hands of the
Scots, who sold him to his rebel Parliament, and it was pre-
sently argued in that body that, as the war must be in some

82 OLIVER CROMWELL.

way concluded by that event, it would be advisable to relieve
the people by disbanding at least a part of the army, of which
they had now, with ample reason, become jealous. This
mdtion, so adverse to his views, Cromwell not only parried
with exquisite address, but contrived to turn it to his advan-
tage ; for, while he intrigued successfully to confine the
reduction to certain regiments whose affection to himself he
suspected, he conveyed insinuations to the rest of the army
of the ingratitude of the Parliament towards them, and of the
proof of his affection for them, which his successful inter-
ference in their favour had manifested. At this precise junc-
ture, while each party was acutely, and perhaps equally,
sensible of its critical position, the Parliament, which terror
had now inspired with a true desire to restore some sort of
order, meditating the mockery of treaties with their captive
King, and the independents little less agitated by their fears
for their interests, and even personal safety, than by their
abhorrence of monarchy under any modifications ; Cromwell
boldly turned the scale, and decided the fate of the kingdom
He seized the person of Charles ; and from that moment, the
Parliament, as well as the King, was in the power of the
army.

The subtilty of his conduct at this critical epoch was
equalled only by the treachery of his intentions. The
unhappy Prince was treated with profound reverence, and
actually submitted to be persuaded that Cromwell meant to
compose all differences, and to restore him on favourable con-
ditions to his throne. To complete this deception, the army
was made to send an address to the Parliament, declaring
their determination to make common cause with the King,
and their opinion that all endeavours to settle the nation
would be fruitless while he was debarred of his just rights ;
Cromwell, in the same hour, publicly professing that his
earnest attachment to the ascendancy and privileges of
Parliament had rendered him unpopular with the military.
His agents were now directed to sift the disposition of the

OLIVER CROMWELL. 83

populace of the city, which was found to incline to the army.
The Houses were besieged by crowds, and a number of young
ruffians, calling themselves apprentices, forced their way into
the Commons, which they actually compelled to pass certain
votes in their presence. In the mean time the army had set
up a sort of Parliament for the management of its own affairs,
composed of a committee of troopers, and another of officers,
formally elected by the several regiments, to whom they
gave the name of agitators ; and Cromwell, who had connived
at this, with the view of over-awing the King and the Parlia-
ment, affected to consider them as mutinous assemblies, and
to expect dreadful consequences from the alleged insubordi-
nation, which he insinuated that he durst not endeavour to
subdue by any summary measures. These persons presently
resolved, and publicly declared, that the army would not
submit to be disbanded, and dispatched a sturdy remonstrance
to the Parliament. Cromwell now proceeded to purge, as it
was called, the House of Commons ; eleven of its leading
presbyterian members, all original instigators of the rebellion,
were impeached by himself and those of his creatures who
had seats, and fled for their lives. The two Speakers sought
refuge with the army, which was then advancing slowly
towards London, and which, arriving there a few days after,
replaced them, and marched triumphantly through the city,
led. by Fairfax, who had sunk gradually into a passive instru-
ment in the hands of his Lieutenant-General.

The King, who had been for some time a prisoner at large,
now withdrew himself privately, with what view or hope has
never been clearly ascertained, from Hampton Court, and
was persuaded, treacherously, or most imprudently, by those
who attended him, to put himself into the power of the rebel
governor of the Isle of Wight. Here, in the midst of a
treaty, if it deserved to be so called, with the commissioners
from the Parliament, his person was again suddenly seized
in the dead of night by a party of soldiers, and closely
imprisoned. Five days after, Cromwell, to whom it was

84 OLIVER CEOMWELL.

still convenient to employ the name of a Parliament, sent
one of his favourite officers, at the head of a strong guard,
into the House of Commons, and made prisoners at once of
more than forty members who were unfit for his purposes,
and on the following day himself appeared in the House, and
received the thanks of those who remained for his great and
faithful services. They now proceeded without delay to
attaint the King of high treason, and on the Lords rejecting
their bill, resolved that their consent was unnecessary, and
so it passed in the name of the Commons of England only.
A few, selected from the many instances of detestable hypo-
crisy and affected fanaticism displayed by Cromwell on this
memorable occasion, must serve as specimens of that extra-
vagant inclination to falsehood and deception, which was
certainly the paramount feature of his nature, and is proved
to have marked the whole of his public conduct. When
this proceeding against ^he King was first proposed in the
House of Commons, he rose, with great apparent agitation,
and said that " if any man had moved this upon design, he
should think him the greatest traitor in the world ; but,
since Providence and necessity had cast them upon it, he
should pray to God to bless their councils, though he was not
on the sudden prepared to advise them." And in a subse-
quent debate, he told them that " while he was praying for
a blessing from God on his undertaking to restore the King
to his pristine majesty, his tongue clove to the roof of his
mouth, so that he could not speak another word ; which he
took as a return to his prayer, and so that God had rejected
him from being King." And when an officer in the service
of the States General was dispatched to him after the trial,
with blanks, testified by that government to be genuine, and
signed by Charles and by the Prince of Wales, and proposed
to him to insert any conditions on which the King's life might
be spared, he left the messenger, and returning after some
time, answered that he had been with the council of officers,
" seeking God," and that they had all resolved that the King

OLIVER CROMWELL. 85

must die. Burnet too, whose report may be fully trusted on
this occasion, assures us that Cromwell used every possible
argument to persuade the Scottish Commissioners (for they
who had so lately betrayed him to his blood-thirsty enemies
now sent to intercede for him) that the King ought to be put
to death ; and such was doubtless his fixed design when he
first made himself master of the royal person.

From the moment of the King's murder Cromwell may be
said to have reigned in England. The House of Commons,
however, such as he had left it, affected to form a govern-
ment ; voted the Peers useless and dangerous ; set up a
republican system, under the title of a commonwealth ; and
placed the executive power in the hands of certain persons,
who were called a Council of State. Cromwell for a while
temporised. He accepted, with all apparent deference, the
command of an army sent to enforce the submission of Ire-
land ; and on his return, after a short repose at Whitehall,
where he now took up his residence, marched to chastise the
Scots, who had received among them their new King. Here
he gained the battles of Dunbar and Fife, while his subordi-
nate commanders were uniformly successful in other parts of
the country ; and at length, by a series of the most masterly
military dispositions, forced the main Scotch army, with the
King at their head, into England ; drove them before him to
Worcester ; and compelled them to try the fate of that well-
known desperate action, the event of which seemed to have
extinguished all hope in the loyal party. His letter, commu-
nicating the news of this signal victoiy to the Parliament
which he was then meditating to annihilate, is still extant,
and the concluding lines seem worthy of insertion here, not
only as a further illustration of his detestable cant and hypo-
crisy, but as a sample of the style which he used, and the
sentiments which he affected on all occasions, public and
private.

" The dimensions of this mercy are above my thoughts.

80 OLIVER CROMWELL.

It is, for aught I know, a crowning mercy. Surely if it be
not, such a one we shall have, if this provoke those that are
concerned in it to thankfulness, and the Parliament to do the
will of him who hath done his will for it, and for the nation
whose good pleasure is to establish the nation, and change
of the government, by making the people so willing to the
defence thereof, and so signally to bless the endeavours of
your servants in this late great work. I am bold humbly to
beg that all thoughts may tend to the promoting his honour
who hath wrought so great salvation, and that the fatness
of these continued mercies may not occasion pride and wan-
tonness, as formerly the like hath done to a chosen people ;
but that the fear of the Lord, even for his mercies, may keep
an authority and a people so prospered, and blessed, and
witnessed, so humble and faithful, that justice and righteous-
ness, mercy and truth, may flow from you as a thankful
return to our glorious God. This shall be the prayer of
" Your most humble and obedient servant,

"O.CROMWELL.'*

It is ridiculously observable, that in the very moment that
he was cajoling these people about a " crowning mercy,"
which, if not yet arrived, was surely to come, he was full
fraught with the idea of placing the Crown of these kingdoms
on his own head. He had scarcely returned from Worcester,
when, as Whitelock informs us, at a meeting of certain
members of the Commons, and some principal officers of the
army, at the Speaker's house, summoned by Cromwell to
deliberate on some plan for the permanent settlement of the
nation, to be presented to the Parliament, Whitelock, who
knew his mind, asked whether it should be " by way of an
absolute republic, or with any mixture of monarchy?"
Cromwell took the hint, and replied, " My Lord Commis-
sioner Whitelock hath put us upon the right point: and
indeed it is my meaning that we should consider whether
a republic or a mixt monarchical government will be best to

OLIVER CROMWELL. 87

be settled ; and if anything monarchical, then in whom that
power should be placed?" Desborough and Whalley, two
of the regicides, declared for a strict republic ; and Sir
Thomas Widdrington, a presbyterian member of the Com-
mons, for a mixt monarchy, and unluckily added, to be
placed, on terms, in one of the late King's sons ; on which
Cromwell calmly observed " that will be a business of more
than ordinary difficulty ; but really I think, if it may be
done with safety, and preservation of our rights, both as
Englishmen and Christians, that a settlement with somewhat
of monarchical power in it would be very effectual." The
debate, in which Cromwell meant no more, for the time,
than to sound the inclination of the parties, lasted long, but,
as might be expected, ended in no determination.

The same author reports also a subsequent private conver-
sation between Cromwell and himself on the same subject, in
which the one seems to have disclosed his views without
reserve, and the other to have argued against them with equal
freedom, and the consequence of this contest was the disposal
of Whitelock soon after in a foreign embassy. Cromwell, in
the mean time, formed his resolution, and the mode of exe-
cuting it, with cool intrepidity. The Commons, sensible of
their own impotence, had submitted, at his dictation, to limit
their sitting to the end of two years. That date had nearly
expired ; and of all imaginable contingencies none could have
been more unfavourable to his hopes than a recurrence to the
suffrages of the people. He suddenly assembled therefore a
council of such of the ministers and military as he thought
fit to trust on so momentous an occasion ; bewailed that weak-
ness in the Parliament of which himself had been the author ;
represented the danger with which it threatened the nation ;
and, with many pious exclamations, meekly besought their
advice.

A great majority, which had come fully prepared, proposed
an immediate dissolution, and a message was sent to the Com-
mons, without delay, recommending to them to adopt that

88 OLIVER CROMWELL.

resolution by a vote of their own. They demurred ; when
Cromwell, putting himself instantly at the head of a party of
soldiers, entered the House, and, to use a phrase worthy of
the action, turned them out, with circumstances too well
known to all England to need repetition. Thus this das-
tardly remnant of an assembly which had for several years
deluged the land in blood, and perpetrated in effect the mur-
der of its lawful sovereign for having calmly ventured within
its proud walls to demand the persons of five of its members
who stood charged with high treason, submitted, without a
remonstrance, then or after, to be crushed in a moment by
the single act of an individual of its own body ; a monster of
its own creation.

He now summoned a Parliament, for so it was called, not
only invented but elected by himself; dispatched letters
missive to certain chosen persons, very insignificant either on
the score of talent or property, requiring them to meet and
deliberate, as representatives of their respective counties. By
this means he gained time to make his final arrangements, as
well as the advantage, such as it was, of obtaining a recogni-
tion of his authority by an assembly bearing the name of a
Parliament, which it amply gave by voting on the thirteenth
of December, 1653, five months after its birth, that its fur-
ther continuance " would not be for the good of the common-
wealth, and that it would be fit for them to resign their
powers to the Lord General," as they did without delay.
Cromwell and his military Council now resolved that the
government of the three kingdoms should be in a Lord Pro-
tector, for life ; a Council of State, which was so constituted
as to be wholly at his disposal ; and a triennial Parliament,
on a new and convenient model ; and he immediately assumed
the office of Lord Protector.

He was now to maintain himself on the pre-eminence to
which he had thus attained. He knew the English character,
and sought to accommodate his government to its habits and
its foibles, rather than to the actual interests of the country.

OLIVER CROMWELL. 8D

He knew that it preferred greatness, and what is called
national wealth, to the solid comfort to be derived from the
cultivation of internal advantages. He felt too his own
necessity to divert its attention from the contemplation of
recent events. He commenced therefore the execution of
his counterfeit reign with a defiance, declared or implied, to
nearly all the powers of Europe ; assailed the Dutch in a
furious and most successful maritime war ; and had no sooner
compelled them to a treaty, equally humiliating and expensive,
than he prepared to attack Spain, and answered the remon-
strances of the ambassador from Madrid, by demanding the
abolition of the Inquisition in all his Master's dominions,
and the unqualified admission of the English to a free trade in
the Spanish West Indies. These being of course refused, he
despatched a fleet and army thither, and the island of Jamaica
is a permanent fruit of that enterprise. At home little re-
mained to be done. The royalists were sunk in complete
despondency ; the mass of the people were dazzled by his
boldness and his success ; the religionists of all descriptions,
even of the lately persecuted Church of England, were un-
molested ; he now confined his pious cares to himself, except
in a single instance the dissolution in a moment, by one of
his colonels, of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland.
In the forty-two Chapters which compose the sacred record
of his new constitution, not a word is to be found of doc-
trine, discipline, worship, churches, synods, or ministers. It
mentions Christianity generally, and concedes a universal
toleration.

A competent idea of his opinion of his first Parliament may
be formed on two of his regulations which distinguished its
commencement the previous trial of elections by his own
Council of State ; and his imposition after it had met, in con-
sequence of its having ventured into some discussion on the
new government, of a qualifying test to be subscribed by each
individual member. It proved however somewhat uncom-
pliant, and he dissolved it, in an intemperate speech, after it

90 OLIVER CROMWELL.

had sat for five months. By this act he incurred, for the first
time, a certain portion of unpopularity with his own party,
which he extended to others by the cruel vengeance which
he took on several persons who had risen in the west in a
hopeless attempt for the royal cause. He fortified himself
against the effects of these disgusts by increased kindness
to the army and navy, and by new levies of troops to a formi-
dable amount, and thus entrenched, assumed an arbitrary
rule hitherto unknown in Europe. He gave the custody of
the Great Seal to two military officers ; imprisoned barristers
because they had pleaded for persons whom he disliked ; and
decided several causes at law by his own special authority.
When he thought fit in 1656 to summon his second Parlia-
ment, he previously issued " a commission for inspection of
Charters," of which his own solicitor was chairman, and thus
in great measure enabled himself to disfranchise, or new
model, those boroughs in which it was probable that his will
might be opposed. This device, however, not proving fully
sufficient, when the day of meeting arrived, a guard of soldiers
was found at the doors of the House, and an officer, who pre-
sented to those members whose names appeared in a list
which he held in his hand, tickets, certifying that they had
been "approved by his Highness's Council," and to those
who were not provided with such tickets no admission was
granted.

It is not strange that an assembly thus formed, should
have determined to beseech Cromwell to assume the title of
King. He answered doubtfully ; desired time " to seek
God," and that they would appoint a committee to confer
with him on a question so weighty, and the conference was
held accordingly. This impending disgrace, however, to the
nation was cut short by the jealousy of some of the principal
officers of the army, who unexpectedly petitioned the House
to discourage the idea ; and Cromwell, at a second meeting,
in which, as Ludlow informs us, he had resolved to signify
his acceptance of the title, was thus forced to refuse it, which

OLIVER CROMWELL. 91

he did, in a speech fraught with the grossest deception, and
most profound hypocrisy. He now, however, obtained all
but the name; for, in compliance with a second petition
from the House, he consented to accept a renewal of his
office of Protector ; to be invested with more than regal
powers ; and to erect a House of Peers of his own creation.
He was presently after solemnly inaugurated, with all the
ceremonies, one only excepted, of the coronation of our
Kings. The Commons having completed for him this great
work, now adjourned, and some signal naval successes against
the Spaniards served to maintain the spirits and good humour
of the astonished nation till the meeting of the newly con-
structed Parliament, which Cromwell opened with all the
accustomed royal forms. Not many days had passed, when
a strife arose between the two spurious Houses, so bitter and
disgraceful, that he flew to them in a rage beyond even his
power of dissembling, and pronounced their dissolution. He
is even said to have concluded the few furious sentences
which he addressed to them with the words, " by the living
God I must and do dissolve you."

From this period the bodily health, as well as the public
character, of Cromwell gradually declined. He became
timid and irresolute. Some plots were discovered against
his life, and he imagined others which had no existence. A
well known tract, recommending the assassination of tyrants,
and entitled " Killing no Murther," is said to have cut him
to the heart. His cruelty, according to the common unhappy
order of nature, increased with his fears. The last public
acts of his life were the erection of one more of those in-
famous tribunals which were nicknamed High Courts of
Justice, and the sacrifice, according to its sentence, of many
persons, most of them of great worth, who had engaged in a
design to restore the King, scarcely a single active step to-
wards the accomplishment of which seems to have been
taken. Cromwell died of a tertian ague on the third of
September, 1658.

02 OLIVER CROMWELL.

He married Elizabeth, a natural daughter of Sir James
Bourchier, of Felsted, in Essex, who for some years survived
him, and had by her three sons, and four daughters. Richard,
his insignificant successor in the office of Protector ; Henry,
to whom he gave the government of Ireland : and James,
who died an infant. Bridget, married first to Henry Ireton,
then to Charles Fleetwood, both eminent in the rebel army ;
Elizabeth, wife of John Claypoole, of Norborough, in the
county of Northampton ; Mary, married Thomas Belasyse,
Viscount Falconberg ; and Frances, wife, first, of Robert
Rich, grandson to Robert, Earl of Warwick ; secondly, of
Sir John Russel of Chippenham in Wilts. It has been
said that he had two other children. If so, they died in
their infancy.

IDOROTMV

COITNTTESS OE LEICESTER.
OB, 1659-

DOROTHY PERCY,

COUNTESS OF LEICESTER.

THIS lady was the eldest daughter of Henry Percy, ninth
Earl of Northumberland of his family, by Dorothy, daughter
of Walter, first Earl of Essex of the house of Devereux.
The scattered notices which remain of her are few, and
mostly of a private and domestic sort, but they afford ample
proof of the integrity of her heart, and the benignity of
her temper ; of excellent understanding, and the most refined
politeness. Mild, timid, and cautious, the misfortunes of
her family, on the sides both of her father and mother,
probably inspired her with a distaste to the objects usually
so eagerly sought by persons of her rank, and taught her to
seek security and peace in the bosom of her family ; while
the same cause, operating on an opposite character, made her
haughty and eccentric sister, the famous Lucy, Countess of
Carlisle, an intriguing courtier, and a busy politician.

She was married in 1618 to Robert Sidney, Earl of
Leicester, a nobleman of great worth and accomplishments,
with whom she lived for nearly half a century in the most
perfect connubial felicity. I have now before me one of her
letters to him, then ambassador at Paris, written eighteen
years after their marriage, which, after having treated in it,
at great length and with much acuteness and judgment, of
some matters of state at home, in which his interests were
concerned, she thus concludes: "Mr. Seladine comes in
with your letter, whom I am engaged to intertaine a litle :
besyeds, it is super time, or els I should bestow one sied of

94 DOROTHY PERCY,

this paper in making love to you ; and, since I maie with
modestie expres it, I will saie that if it be love to thinke on
you, sleeping and waking; to discourse of nothing with
pleasur but what conserns you ; to wische myself everie
hower with you ; and to praie for you with as much devotion
as for my owne sowle ; then sertainlie it maie be saied that I
am in love."

With her own family less harmony seems to have pre-
vailed. Some cause of disagreement, now unknown, appears
to have long subsisted between her brother, Algernon, Earl of
Northumberland, and her lord ; and Northumberland, whose
character united to great strictness of honour and morality,
their too frequent concomitant, an imperious and severe
temper, suffered his resentment to extend to his amiable
sister. Allusions to this misfortune appeared in a letter
addressed to him by Leicester, on the eighth of October,
1632, from Rensburgh, in Holstein, in which, among other
conciliatory efforts, expressed with equal warmth, is the
following passage : " I love you so much that I think I shall
not profane the word of God, the fountaine of truth, if I take
this saying out of it, and apply it to myself ; that l my love
is beyond the love of women;' and, in confidence that you
will believe this, or at least accept as much as you do be-
lieve, I present a request unto your Lordship that you will
make a visit to your sister, my dear wife, if she be at
Penshurst. That poore place hath not offended, that it
should be forbidden the honor to receive you. She hath not
offended, that she should be deprived of the consolation and
delight that your Lordship's company ever brings her. Let
me, that am the criminal, be punished with the trouble of
minde for not enjoying the pleasure of your conversation,
nor the glory of seeing you againe under my roofe. That
which I desyre is only in consideration of your sister, whose
disposition I know apt enough to be melancholick, especially
in that solitary place, where, though it be the best I have, I
must confess it was her ill fortune that placed her there ; in

COUNTESS OF LEICESTER. 95

recompense whereof my greatest study is to procure com-
forts for her, which she shall never want if my life can serve
her with any," &c.

Northumberland, however, remained long unappeased.
Even four years after, on the tenth of November, 1636, the
Countess closes a letter from Penshurst to her lord, at Paris,
on a variety of his private affairs, of which she appears to
have been a most careful and judicious superintendant, with
complaints of her brother's unkindness. " I have not yet
seene him," says she, " being full of the King's busines, as
he pretends ; neither have I perceived any inclination to
drawe me from the solitarines I sufer in this place ; for,
though I expressed a willingnes to goe to him, were I
acomodated for a journey, yet have I receaved no maner of
invitation, wich I take a little unkindlye ; but it shall not
much afflicte me, for, I thanke God, and you, my dearest
harte, that the obligations wich I have receaved from frends
has beene very small ; and I hope my necesities of their
favors will not be increased. But of this coldnes in my
brother I will take no notice, or verie litle ; and content
myself the best I can with this lonelie life, without envieng
their greatnes, their plentie, or their jolitie. The principall
trouble I sufer, next to the want of your companie, is the
apprehentions I have of your being crost in what you desire
to accomplishe ; but my best and most earnest praiers shall
be ofne presented for you ; and, with your owne, which I
beleeve are better then mine, I hope those blessings shall be
obtained wich will make us hapie."

In 1639, and in 1641, she visited her husband in Paris,
and in the latter of those years the Queen of France pre-
sented her with a diamond valued at six hundred pounds.
The war between the King and the Parliament now com-
menced, and Leicester, whose loyalty was well known,
became an object first of suspicion, and then of vengeance, to
the party which unhappily gained the ascendancy. His
estates were sequestrated ; in 1643 the Countess sued for the

96 DOROTHY PERCY,

restoration of them by a bold and dignified memorial, and
the sequestration was presently after removed. It can
scarcely be supposed that this concession was procured
merely by her persuasion. Her brother, Northumberland,
whose attachment to the royal cause was, at best, but luke-
warm, and who was now in some measure reconciled to Lei-
cester and his family ; and her eldest son, the Viscount Lisle,
a young man already distinguished by republican prejudices,
stood foremost among those nobles whose affections the
House of Commons was then most anxious to secure, and
there can be little doubt that it was through their influence
that Leicester was replaced in the possession of his patri-
mony, and permitted to live in tranquillity at home during
the whole of the rebellion and usurpation.

These favours were some years after succeeded by a mark
of confidence from the Parliament, which may be certainly
traced to the same source. In June, 1649, the two youngest
children of the unfortunate Charles were placed under her
care, and are said to have been treated by her, till August, in
the following year, when they were removed to other custody
in the Isle of Wight, with great tenderness and respect.
A single word indeed, in Lord Clarendon's account of the
circumstances at that time of those royal sufferers, tends to
convey a different impression. " The Princess Elizabeth,
and the Duke of Gloucester," says he, "were committed to
the Countess of Leicester, to whom such an allowance was
paid out of the treasury as might well defray their expenses
with that respect that was due to their birth, which was per-
formed towards them as long as the King their father lived ;
but as soon as the King was murdered, it was ordered that
the children should be removed into the country, that they
might not be the objects of respect, to draw the eyes and
application of the people towards them : the allowance was
retrenched, that their attendants and servants might be
lessened, and order was given that ' they should be treated
without any addition of titles, and that they should sit at

COUNTESS OF LEICESTER. 97

their meat as the children of the family did, and all at one
table ; ' whereupon they were removed to Penshurst, a house
of the Earl of Leicester's, in Kent, where they lived under
the tuition of the Countess, who observed the order of the
Parliament with obedience enough ; yet they were carefully
looked to, and treated with as much respect as the Lady pre-
tended she durst pay to them." Lord Clarendon, however,
as may be inferred from more than one passage in his history,
entertained unfavourable prejudices against Leicester and his
family; but the Princess, who died soon after her removal
from Penshurst, recorded her gratitude and kindness to the
Countess by bequeathing to her a jewel of considerable value.
It is worthy of observation that the Parliament, in its eager-
ness for popularity, condescended to question the validity of
this legacy. The Countess had obtained letters of adminis-
tration, and had gained possession of the jewel, when the
Attorney General was ordered to institute a suit against the
Earl, her husband, to claim it as the property of the State.
The question remained in litigation till the beginning of the
year 1659, when, as might be expected, it was decided in
favour of the Parliament : the jewel was wrested from the
Countess, and deposited in the Exchequer.

She died on the ninth of August, in the same year. A
letter on that occasion, written by her Lord to the Earl of
Northumberland, and savouring perhaps more of the finesse
of a courtier than the grief of a widower, has been preserved,
and claims place in this memoir.

MY LORD,

In the greatest sorrow that I have ever suffered
your Lordship hath given me the greatest consolation that I
could receive from any body in this world ; for having lost
that which I loved best your Lordship secureth me from that
which I loved next, that is your favour, to which having no
right nor claime by any worthynes in myself, but only by
that alliance of which my most dear wife was the mediation,

v. H

98 DOROTHY PERCY, COUNTESS OF LEICESTER.

I might justly feare the loss of that also if your Lordship's
charity towards me did not prevent it. And now I will pre-
sume to tell your Lordship, that though you have lost an
excellent sister, who by her affection and reverence towards
you highly deserved of you, yet such was her death that your
Lordship hath reason to rejoyce at her departure : and, if I
were Christian good enough to concive the happynes of the
other life, and that I could have loved her enough, it might
have bin to me a pleasure to see her dye as she dyed ; but
being unable to repare my own loss with the consideration of
her advantage, I must ever greeve for the one untill I may be
partaker of the other ; and, as I shall ever whilst I live pay
to her memory all affection and respects, so, for her sake that
loved you so dearly, and was so beloved of your Lordship,
and for the high estimation which I have allways had of your
Lordship, I beseech you to let me remaine in your favour,
and to be assured of my being

Your Lordship's faithfullest humble servant,

LEYCESTER.
Penshurst, 31 Aug. 1659.

The issue of her marriage was four sons, and eight
daughters. Philip, her first born child, succeeded to his
father's titles and estates; Robert, the second son, died
unmarried; Algernon, the third, suffered death for high
treason in 1683 ; and the fourth, Henry, was created Earl of
Romney. Her daughters were Elizabeth, who died young,
and unmarried ; Lucy, wife of Sir John Pelham, of Loughton,
in Sussex, Bart. ; Anne, wife of Joseph Cart, a clergyman ;
Mary, and Diana, who died in childhood ; Elizabeth, married
to Thomas Smith, Viscount Strangford, in Ireland ; Frances,
and Isabel, unmarried.

MAROUIS OF HERTFORD.
OB, 1660,

WILLIAM SEYMOUR,

FIRST MARQUIS OF HERTFORD.

FOR it has been thought fit here rather to designate that great
and good man by the title under which he adorns the page of
history, than by that of a higher dignity, which was conferred
on him after he had performed all his services, and when he
was on the very eve of receiving their eternal reward.

He was the second son, but at length heir, by Honora,
daughter of Sir Richard Rogers, of Bryanston, in Dorsetshire,
of Edward Lord Beauchamp, eldest son of Edward Seymour,
Earl Hertford, who was eldest son, by the second marriage,
of the Protector, Edward Duke of Somerset. He received
his education in Magdalen College, in Oxford, and had
formed even then a tender attachment, the consequences of
which embittered many years of his early manhood. The
witty and accomplished Arabella Stuart, daughter of Charles,
fifth Earl of Lenox, who was a lineal descendant from Henry
the Seventh, and uncle to James the First, had conceived an
affection for him, and privately encouraged his addresses.
Her residence at the Palace of Woodstock, which perhaps
first produced a familiarity between them, was highly favour-
able to their intercourse, which was long carried on in pro-
found secrecy, but it was at length discovered in 1609 that
they had entered into a formal contract of marriage. James,
not only affronted, but, from motives which will be stated
more at large in a sketch of the Lady's life, to be found else-
where in this work, alarmed, caused them to be called before
the Privy Council, and they were severely reprimanded ; but
H 2

100 WILLIAM SEYMOUR,

this proceeding produced the very consequence which James
desired to avoid ; for Arabella, sensible that her reputation
had been wounded by the inquiry, was in a manner forced
into a marriage with Mr. Seymour, which becoming publicly
known in the spring of the following year, she was committed
to a close, though private, custody, and he to the Tower of
London. Thus separated, they concerted means to escape,
which both effected on the same day, the third of June, 1611,
amidst circumstances which fell little short of the fictions of
chivalrous romance. The poor Lady however was unfortu-
nately taken on the sea, near Calais, and imprisoned for the
short remainder of her life ; but Mr. Seymour eluded his
pursuers, and arrived safely in Flanders, where he seems to
have resided till 1621, when he succeeded to the titles of
Earl of Hertford, and Baron Beauchamp, on the death of his
grandfather.

This misfortune, operating on a disposition already perhaps
too much addicted to retirement and reserve, induced him to
seclude himself from the society of all but a few very dear
friends. He resided for many years almost entirely in the
country, dividing his time between his studies, to which he
was passionately attached, and the repair of his estates, which
had been sadly mutilated after the downfall of his great
ancestor. His inclination, and his vote, when he attended
in Parliament, went for some years after the accession of
Charles the First with the popular party, but the eagerness
of its leaders for the blood of Strafford convinced him of the
true nature of their designs ; and from that period he not
only threw into the scale of the Crown the whole weight of
his affection, his popularity, and his replenished revenues,
but suddenly assumed, together with the character of a coun-
sellor and a commander, a degree of activity which had
before seemed foreign from his very nature. In 1640 the
King advanced him to the title of Marquis of Hertford, and
about the same time appointed him Governor to the Prince
of Wales ; an office conferred by Charles for the sake of

FIRST MARQUIS OF HERTFORD. 101

proving the fulness of his confidence in this nobleman, and
accepted by him merely in testimony of his profound duty
and obedience ; for, says Lord Clarendon, " It is very true he
wanted some of those qualities which might have been wished
to be in a person to be trusted in the education of a great and
hopeful Prince, and in forming his mind and manners, in so
tender an age. He was of an age not fit for much activity
and fatigue, and loved, and was even wedded so much to,
his ease, that he loved his book above all exercises ; and had
even contracted such a laziness of mind that he had no delight
in an open and liberal conversation, and cared not to discourse
and argue on those points which he understood very well,
only for the trouble of contending : and could never impose
upon himself the pain that was necessary to be undergone in
such a perpetual attendance. But then those lesser duties
might be otherwise provided for, and he could well support
the dignity of a Governor, and exact that diligence from
others which he could not exercise himself ; and his honour
was so. unblemished that none durst murmur against the
designation, and therefore his Majesty thought him very
worthy of the high trust, against which there was no other
exception but that he was not ambitious of it, nor in truth
willing to receive and undergo the charge, so contrary to his
natural constitution." The first act of his government was
a positive refusal to obey an order of the Parliament respecting
the Prince.

He subscribed at York, on the thirteenth of June, 1642,
the declaration made by the Peers of their opinion of the
King's motives in his dispute with the Parliament, and of his
sincere desire to avoid the impending war ; and was presently
after appointed, by commission under the Great Seal, Lieu-
tenant General of all the western parts of the kingdom, with
power to levy men, as he might think necessary, for his
Majesty's service ; and, quitting the King at Beverley, set
out immediately for those counties in which he possessed
great estates, and yet greater public esteem. He had magnified

102 WILLIAM SEYMOUR,

overmuch the influence which he expected to derive from
those sources, and instead of using that activity which
the occasion required, tacitly left the country to exercise an
option between the cause of the King, and that of the rebels.
In the meantime the enemy, under the Earl of Bedford, with
the vigilance commonly used by those who espouse the faulty
side of a question, had projected to surprise him at Wells,
where, with only four troops of cavalry, and about a hundred
foot, he had first taken up his quarters ; and, although they
failed in that design, forced him, even within a few days
after his arrival, to retreat, which he did with great gallantry,
and without loss, to Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, and from
thence into Cornwall, where leaving a small part of his force,
he transported himself, with the remainder, into Glamorgan-
shire, and then joined the King at Oxford. Shortly after,
however, upon some successes obtained by Prince Rupert in
Devonshire and Cornwall, he was again despatched into those
parts, and Prince Maurice appointed to serve under him.
He was now more diligent, and more successful, in his levies,
which, added to the few troops which marched with him
from Oxford, presently placed him at the head of a body of
sixteen or seventeen hundred horse, and about a thousand
foot. Thus recruited, he had no small share in the victories
gained over Sir William Waller at Landsdown, and at Round-
way ; but on the capture of Weymouth, unhappy differences
arose between him and the two Princes, the King's nephews,
on the question whether he, as commander in the west, or
Prince Rupert, as commander in chief of the King's army,
possessed the right to nominate a governor of that town.
The Marquis, at the King's earnest instance, consented
with a good grace to waive his claim, but this dispute seems
to have terminated his military services, for which, to say
the truth, he appears to have had few qualifications beyond
his personal courage, and his perfect fidelity to the; royal
cause. He retired with the King to Oxford ; was appointed
Groom of the Stole ; and soon after resigned his superin-

FIRST MARQUIS OF HERTFORD. 103

tendence of the Prince of Wales. On the twenty-fourth of
October, in the same year, 1643, he was elected Chancellor
of the University of Oxford.

He now became the constant counsellor, companion, and
friend, of the unhappy Charles, to whom he wholly devoted
himself. In all negotiations and treaties with the rebels,
public or private, he was the prime agent ; and such was
their reverence for his virtues and his honour, that they seem
to have allowed him to converse and correspond with them
with the utmost freedom, and even to have held his person
sacred, for he frequently put himself into their power. The
sums lavished by him, from his own purse, for the service
of the Crown, were prodigious, independently of the great
charge of his military levies. He is said to have brought at
one time to the King sixty thousand pounds, contributed by
himself and some of his friends ; and he supplied the neces-
sities of Charles the Second, during the fifteen years of his
exile, with nearly five thousand pounds annually. The
private nature of the innumerable services performed by him
between the period when he relinquished his military com-
mand and that of the King's death has in a great measure
excluded them from the notice of historians, from whom we
gain no further information of him previously to the Restora-
tion than that he was a commissioner for the King at the
treaties of Oxford, Oxbridge, and Newport, and that he was
one of the four faithful noblemen who were permitted to lay
the body of their murdered master in its grave.

He was of course dismissed by the usurpers from his office
of Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and restored by a
letter from King Charles the Second to that body, three
weeks before he returned to repossess his crown. The Mar-
quis met him at Dover on his landing, and the next day
received from his hands at Canterbury the Order of the
Garter, to which he had been elected in Jersey, on the thir-
teenth of January, 1649. He was immediately after restored
by an act of Parliament to the title of Duke of Somerset,

104 WILLIAM SEYMOUR,

which had been forfeited by the attainder of the Protector,
his great-grandfather ; and the King, when he passed the
bill, observed to both Houses that " as this was an act of an
extraordinary nature, so it was done for an extraordinary
person, who had merited as much of his royal father and
himself as any subject could do ; and therefore he hoped no
man would envy it, because he had done what a good master
should do to such a servant." The Marquis survived these
tributes of just gratitude scarcely five months : he died on
the twenty-fourth of October, 1660, and was buried at Great
Bedwin, in Wilts, having been twice married ; first, as has
been before observed, to the Lady Arabella Stuart, by whom
he had no issue ; and, secondly, to Frances, eldest daughter
of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and sister and coheir to
the second Earl Robert, the Parliament General. By the
latter Lady he had five sons, of whom William, Robert, and
Thomas, died young and unmarried ; and four daughters ;
Mary, married to Heneage Finch, Earl of Winchelsea ;
Frances, successively to Richard Viscount Molineux, Thomas
Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and Conyers, son and
heir to Conyers Lord Darcy ; Jane, wife to Charles Lord
Clifford, of Londesborough, son and heir to Richard Boyle,
Earl of Burlington ; and Arabella, who died unmarried. His
two sons who lived to maturity, were Henry Lord Beau-
champ, who died in 1656, leaving an only son, William,
successor to his grandfather ; and John, who on the death of
that William, his nephew, in 1671, unmarried, became fourth
Duke of Somerset.

Lord Clarendon, whose admirable censures must never be
omitted, says that " the Marquis of Hertford was a man of
great honour, interest and estate, and of an universal esteem
over the whole kingdom ; and, though he had received many
and continued disobligations from the Court, from the time of
the King's coming to the Crown as well as during the reign
of King James, in both which seasons more than ordinary
care had been taken to discountenance and lessen his interest,

FIRST MARQUIS OF HERTFORD. 105

yet he had carried himself with a notable steadiness from
the beginning of the Parliament in the support and defence
of the King's power and dignity, notwithstanding all his
allies, and those with whom he had the greatest familiarity
and friendship, were of the opposite party, and never con-
curred with them against the Earl of Strafford, whom he
was known not to love, nor in any other extravagancy : and
then he was not to be shaken in his affection to the govern-
ment of the Church, though it was enough known that he was
in no degree biassed to any great inclination to the person of
any Churchman ; and, with all this, that party carried them-
selves towards him with profound respect, not presuming to
venture their own credit in endeavouring to lessen his. He
was a man of very good parts, and conversant in books, both
in the Latin and Greek languages, and of a clear courage ;
yet he was so wholly given up to a country life, where he
lived in splendour, that he had an aversion, and even an
unaptness, for business."

Vandyke jinx.

LOGY PER Clf,

COUNTESS OF CARLISLE

OB, 1660,

LUCY PERCY,

COUNTESS OF CARLISLE.

THIS lady, equally remarkable for beauty, talents, and sin-
gularities, was the second and youngest daughter of Henry
Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland, by Dorothy, daughter
of Walter Devereux, first Earl of Essex of his name. She
was born in 1600, and had scarcely reached her fifth year,
when her father, whom undeserved ill-fortune seems to have
prevented from shining among the first great characters of
his time, was charged with being accessary, or at least privy,
to the Gunpowder Plot ; enormously fined ; and condemned
to imprisonment in the Tower of London for life, where he
indeed remained for nineteen years. An illustrious family
thus deprived of its protector perhaps wisely sought security
in seclusion, and it was probably amidst the mountains and
forests of her mighty ancestors that Lucy acquired the activity
and independence, the masculine and haughty sentiments
and prejudices, by which she was always distinguished. On
the sixth of November, 1617, she was married to James,
Lord Hay, afterwards created Viscount Doncaster, and Earl
of Carlisle, a young Scotsman, whom King James, with the
extravagancy which usually marked his partialities, had
loaded with favours. The legends of Asiatic magnificence,
and of Roman luxury, fall short of the accounts which have
been transmitted to us of the habits of this nobleman's life.
Having already imbibed much of the romantic in rural retire-
ment, such a union presented to her a new series of illusions
of a nature wholly opposite, and, together with the idolatry
lavished on her beauty by a splendid Court, contributed to

108 LUCY PERCY,

form a character at once admired, disliked, feared, little
understood by any, and perhaps least of all by herself.

This marriage, which had been made by the King, and
which he honoured by his presence, was highly offensive to
her father, but in the end procured his liberation. Wilson,
in his Life of James the First, tells us that the "younger
daughter, Lucy, a lady of incomparable beauty, solemnized
in the poems of the most exquisite wits of her time, married
the Lord Hayes, now made Viscount Doncaster, against her
father's will (who aimed at higher extractions) ; which the
old Earl's stubborn spirit not brooking, would never give her
any thing ; and Doncaster, whose affection was above money,
setting only a valuation upon his much-admired bride, strove
to make himself meritorious, and prevailed so with the King
for his father-in-law, that he got his release : but the old
Earl would hardly be drawn to take a release from his hand ;
so that when he had his liberty he restrained himself, and
with importunity was wrought upon, by such as knew the
distempers of his body might best qualify those of his mind,
to make a journey to the Bath, which was one special motive
to accept of his son-in-law's respects." The Earl's enlarge-
ment, however, did not take place for four years after his
daughter's marriage.

In the following reign she turned her attention to politics ;
despised the society of her own sex; studied systems of
government, intrigued in matters of state, actually obtained
considerable influence, and exercised it with adroitness and
security. Lord Clarendon, to whose very gravity the inter-
ference of a woman, and such a woman, must have been
sufficiently offensive, occasionally mentions her, and always
unfavourably. Speaking of Lord Holland's transactions with
the disaffected party, after his shameful abandonment of
the King at York in the autumn of 1641, and of the mis-
chievous intelligence with which they were treacherously
supplied by that nobleman, he concludes, " and he added
to all this whatever information he had received by the Lady

COUNTESS OF CARLISLE. 109

Carlisle of words or actions spoken or done by the Queen,
which might increase their jealousy or malice to her Majesty."
On the discovery probably of this, or some such correspond-
ence, she lost the Queen's favour ; for he tells us elsewhere,
in treating of the affairs of the Prince of Wales, after his
flight to Holland, that " the Countess of Carlisle, who was
now much trusted by the citizens, and had gotten again
confidence with the Queen," had engaged herself in a nego-
tiation between the Prince and the city, and had given his
Royal Highness her advice as to his conduct towards the
leading men there. Lord Clarendon however soon after
acknowledges that she had " pawned her necklace of pearls
for fifteen hundred pounds, which she totally disbursed in
supplying officers, and making other provisions for the ex-
pedition of the Earl of Holland ; " but takes care to add, in
the same sentence, that the Lord Percy, her brother, had
been a "very importunate solicitor to the Prince for the
repayment of that sum," and that " she had committed faults
enough towards the King and Queen."

All this, it is true, might have been reasonably expected
from any woman of a lively and busy cast of mind ; but that
she should have gained an influence over the wise, severe,
and haughty Strafford, would, if supported but by mean
evidence, be utterly incredible. Of this, which is more than
once alluded to by historical writers, we have a full proof in
a letter of the tenth of January, 1636, from her sister,
Dorothy Percy, Countess of Leicester, to her lord, which
may be found in the Sidney Papers. " I shall be in much
hope," writes the Countess, "that you will succeed the
Deputy of Ireland " (Strafford), " whom they saie will only
stay the accomplichement of what he has undertaken ; but I
fear that Lady Carlisle, who has more power with him than
any creatur, will do nothing for our good." This fact might
be corroborated too by several letters from Lady Carlisle
herself, two of which, one to the Earl of Leicester, the other
to his Countess, from the same collection, I will insert here ;
not however so much for that purpose, as to show her vehement

110 LUCY PERCY,

inclination to politics, and as specimens of her epistolary
style and method. The names are written in cipher in the
originals, and afterwards deciphered, I suppose by Collins,
the editor of the Papers ; and it may be observed that she
always mentions herself in the third person.

MY LORD,

A Sunday last the King cald Hamilton, and
Lord Deputy, and commanded them to be friends, saying
thaye wayr persons that he meant to trust with most of his
busnise, and therefore that thaye must agree. Hamilton
mayd great professions that he had never spoken to the dis-
advantage of Lord Deputy, and calld the King to witnes it,
which he did, though Lady Carlisle knowse he hase indea-
vourd all that's posible to keepe the Deputy from being
Lo. Treasorer. The Queene has mutche lamented this losse
of the Spaniards, which the French Ambassador takes very
ill. Sir Henry Vane has behaved himself verie well in
H. Percy's busnise, and hase spoken verie boldly to the
King ; but yet it cannot be overcome, for Hamilton dosse
hugly opose it, and his power is sartanely verie great ; but
the Queene is confident it will be donne, which I fear. Three
days agoe my brother Northumberland wase calld to the Junto,
and yesterdaye my Lord Hamilton, and the Deputye. There is
ane other littell Junto that is mutch apprehended hear, of which
there is but three; the Bishop, and Hamilton, and Deputye.
They have meet twise, and the world is full of guesses for
the ocation of it. My Lord, it is a great pain to me that you
have yet no more sartanty of my sister's health, and I fear
your Lordship gives me your greatest hopes. My best con-
solation is that you say she is cheerfull, for that is not her
humour of great indispositione, without the being with your
Lordship make that change. I beseetch you lett me again
hear from your Lordship the nexst weeke, for tell I am free
from thes feares I cane thinke of nothing ells, which I am
confident will make you love me, and believe me more
17 Oct. 1639. Your's, &c.

COUNTESS OF CARLISLE. Ill

DEAR SISTER,

I am glad that you wish a friendshippe between
my Lord of Leicester and Deputy, for I am confident it will
be ane essy worke, and, if Lady Carlisle be not much de-
ceaved, for the servis of Leicester, which above all things at
the present I thinke of. Northumberland is better with the
Deputy than he hase binne. Those two Lords have made a
littell expostulatione, and Northumberland more satisfyd by
mutche, and is now cald to all the greatest secrets of the
King, which are nowe only in the trust of Canterbury,
Deputy, and Hamilton. Conway will be General of the
Horse, and Counseler, which is absolutely the Deputy's act.

1 desier you not to take notis of it to any body. The Deputy
dosse absolutely govern Canterbury, and sartanly maye per-
swade him to anything ; and Lady Carlisle is verie confident
that she cane engage the Deputy as far as you please in any
betwixt Canterbury and E. of Leicester. I was desiered by
my Lord Deputy to send some of your servants to bye him

2 beds, one of crimsone velvet, and the other of watched
damaske ; the crimsone, with silke fringe, and the other with
gold and silver ; but I, that dayr saye anything to you, will
let you knowe that by giving this command to one of your
servants you will do him a huge favor. I did expect to have
found the prise of my particler in the trunke, but not finding
it, I beseetche you send it by the next, and let me know
whether I shall paye the mony to Jone Illoyts, or send it to
France. I have not binne well this weeke, and therfor
excuse my strang writing. If you have found anything for a
New year's Gift send me word by the next ; and let my
Lady Spencer knowe that my indispositione keept me from
writing to her. My Lord of Holland asks your pardon for
not writing, being at Theobalds with the King.

Your's, &c.
IS of December, 1639.

We will take leave here of her political speculations,

112 LUCY PERCY,

observing only, in addition, that they seem to have been built
on no fixed principles. Sir Philip Warwick, in his Memoirs,
accuses her, the friend, and alleged confidant, of Strafford, of
having given notice to Pym of the King's coming to the
House of Commons to demand the five members, in order
that they might have time to absent themselves. And St.
Evremond, in the spirit of true French politeness, founding a
compliment on her duplicity, tells us that " from the inmost
recesses of Whitehall, she had a great hand in animating the
faction at Westminster." It is said that Monk obtained his
first commission for military service in England through her
recommendation, at the commencement of the civil war.

If her talents, whatever they might have been, attracted
the notice and favour of one class of men, her beauty, not to
mention her vanity, in which she seems to have been by no
means deficient, commanded the positive worship of another.
"Solemnised indeed she was," to use again the words of
Arthur Wilson, " in the poems of the most exquisite wits of
the time." At the head of these was Waller, the bard of the
Sidneys, her relations, from the numerous eulogies dedicated
to her by whose muse I will select the most agreeable.

THE COUNTRY TO MY LADY OF CARLISLE.

Madam, of all the sacred Muse inspir'd,

Orpheus alone could with the Woods comply.

Their rude inhabitants his song admir'd,

And nature's self, in those that could not lye.

Your beauty next our solitude invades,

And \varms us, shining through the thickest shades.

Nor ought the tribute which the woud'ring court
Pays your fair eyes prevail with you to scorn
The answer, and consent to that report
Which, echo like, the country does return.
Mirrors are taught to flatter, hut our springs
Present th' impartial images of things.

COUNTESS OF CARLISLE. 113

A rural judge disposed of beauty's prize :
A simple shepherd was prcferr'd to Jove :
Down to the Mountains, from the partial skies,
Came Juno, Pallas, and the Queen of love,
To plead for that which was so justly given
To the bright Carlisle of the Court of heav'n.

Carlisle ! a name which all our woods are taught
Loud as their Amaryllis to resound.
Carlisle ! a name which on the bark is wrought
Of every tree that 's worthy of the wound.
From Phoebus' rage our shadows and our streams
May guard us better than from Carlisle's beams.

Voiture too, the Waller of France, in which country she
resided during her husband's embassy thither, has addressed
to her some highly complimentary verses. It is remarkable
that her poets have confined themselves almost wholly to the
celebration of her personal charms, seldom adverting to the
powers of her mind, and never to her virtues ; this however
furnishes scarcely a negative evidence against her moral
character. Such a person must have had abundance of ene-
mies, and yet we meet with no direct censure on her conduct
as a woman, except in the memoirs, already quoted, of Sir
Philip Warwick, who, it must be confessed, expresses him-
self of her pretty freely. He calls her " that busy states-
woman, the Countess of Carlisle, who had now changed her
gallant, from Strafford to Pym, and was become such a
she-saint that she frequented their sermons, and took notes,
&c." If Warwick intended to apply the word " gallant" in
its most usual sense, we shall have less cause to wonder
at the strictness of her intimacies, either with royalists
or rebels.

Nor were her panegyrics confined to verse. Sir Toby
Matthews, whose eccentricities have found their way into
all the memoirs of the reigns of James and Charles the
First, drew her character with an intenseness of labour, and

v. i

114 LUCY PERCY,

an extravagancy and obscurity of thought and expression,
which must discourage all hope, could any one be found
with such a hope, to discover a parallel. This singular pro-
duction lay dormant till 1660, the last year of Lady Carlisle's
life, when it appeared, occupying no less than ten octavo
pages, in a volume of Letters of eminent persons, collected
by Matthews, and edited by Dr. Donne, who prefixed to it a
dedication to the Countess, in which he seems to have striven
to tear the palm of absurdity from the brow of his author.
" But, Madam," concludes Donne (having uttered every
thing that common sense and moderate taste would have
rejected on the subject of epistolary correspondence, par-
ticularly of the dead with the living, and, above all, of Sir
Toby Matthews with his surviving friends in England, and
all for the sake of introducing a poor final conceit), " that
which would concern us more than all this is a hope that by
a letter from him we should hear that your Ladyship were to
favour us for many years to come with your presence here ;
whose absence would make such a chasm in our Galaxy, that
it would grieve us less to see all our saints ascend into the
heavens than that the earth should lose so much of her
splendour, beauty, and goodness." Among the most intel-
ligible passages of Matthews's long eulogium, the whole of
which, as Lord Orford justly observes, might fairly pass as
satire, are the following: " She is of too high a mind and
dignity not only to seek, but almost to wish, the friendship
of any creature Her nature values fortunate persons as
virtuous She has as much sense and gratitude for the actions
of friendship as so extreme a beauty will give her leave to
entertain She more willingly allows of the conversation of
men than of women ; yet when she is amongst her own sex,
her discourse is of fashions and dressings, which she hath
ever so perfect upon herself as she likewise teaches it by
seeing her She hath too great a heart to have naturally any
strong inclination to others She affects particular so much
that she dislikes general courtesies ; and you may fear to be

COUNTESS OF CARLISLE. 115

less valued by obliging her She believeth nothing to be
worthy her consideration but her own imaginations : those
gallant fancies keep her in satisfaction when she is alone ;
when she will find something worthy of her liking, since in
the world she cannot find anything worthy of her loving
She hath a grace and facility, and I might well say a felicity,
in her expressions, since they are certain and always in the
fewest words She is in disposition inclined to be cholerick,
which she suppresses, not perhaps in consideration of the
persons who occasion it, but upon a belief that it is unhand-
some towards herself She affects extremes, because she
cannot suffer any condition but of plenty and glory." The
reader doubtless will be satisfied with the extent of these
extracts.

The Countess of Carlisle died in November, 1660, having
survived her husband, by whom she had no children, for
twenty-four years. She was buried near her father, at Pet-
worth, in Sussex.

i2

C&m PIBIELL,
A^MiQITIS OF ARGYLL.
OB, 1661,

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL,

MARQUIS OP ARGYLL.

THIS nobleman, who was so deeply engaged in the Scottish
affairs of his time, and generally so mysteriously that to treat
of him at large would produce rather a series of conjectures
and arguments than of facts, was the eldest son of Archibald,
seventh Earl of Argyll, by Anne, fifth daughter of William
Douglas, first Earl of Morton of the line of Lochleven, and
was bora in the year 1598.

His entrance into public life commenced with a bitter dis-
agreement between his father and himself. The Earl had
taken a second wife, of the English Catholic family of Corn-
wallis, and, owing to her persuasions, and, perhaps yet more,
to a long residence in Spain, where he held a high military
command under Philip the Third, had embraced that faith.
The son, who bore the title of Lord Lorn, had been bred in
all the strictness of Calvinism. Such a discordance in reli-
gious profession was then, and in that country, certainly
destructive of all ties of affection, natural or habitual.
Charles the First, to whom the influence of the head of a
family so powerful in Scotland was at that time peculiarly
important, considering that the Earl had in a great measure
forfeited that influence to his son by the adoption of a doc-
trine and worship so detested there, spared no pains in endea-
vouring to gain Lord Lorn to his interest. He called the
young nobleman to his Privy Council in Scotland so early as
the year 1626, and soon after accepted from him a surrender
of the hereditary office, or rather the reversion of it, of

118 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL,

Justice General in Scotland, which was little more than a
dignified sinecure, and gave him in return the appointment
of Justiciary of the shire of Argyll, the Western Isles, and
all other his father's estates in Scotland, which in fact
invested him with all but sovereign sway in those parts : he
was about the same time constituted one of the extraordinary
Lords of Session ; but these favours were presently followed
by one far more considerable. The Earl, whose great
revenues were mostly in his own disposal, had resolved to
disinherit him, when the King interfered, and not only pre-
vented it, but, in right of one of the many penal laws against
Catholics, compelled Argyll to relinquish his estates to his
son, and to accept a rent- charge on them of sufficient amount
for the maintenance of his rank during his life.

When this arrangement was made both parties were in
London, and it seems to have been concluded in the King's
presence, for Lord Clarendon informs us that " the old man
declared he would submit to the King's pleasure, though he
believed he was hardly dealt with ; and then, with some bit-
terness, put his son in mind of his undutiful carriage towards
him, and charged him to carry in his mind how bountiful the
King had been to him, which yet, he told him, he was sure
he would forget ; and thereupon said to his Majesty, ' Sir, I
must know this young man better than you can do. You
have brought me low that you may raise him, which I doubt
you will live to repent, for he is a man of craft, subtlety, and
falsehood, and can love no man ; and if ever he finds it in his
power to do you mischief, he will be sure to.do it.' " Nor
was it long before this prophecy was fully verified.

Lorn returned into Scotland, full of professions of loyalty
and gratitude, but with discontent lurking at his heart. He
had asked the King for the office of High Chancellor of Scot-
land, which just at that time became vacant by the death of
George, Earl of Kinnoull, and was not only refused, but had
the additional vexation of seeing it bestowed on a prelate, the
historian Spotswood, which more than ever irritated him

MARQUIS OF ARGYLL. 119

against that order. He concealed however his resentment, as
well as the communications into which he presently entered
with the leaders of the more violent presbyterians, but suspi-
cions soon arose of his disaffection, and, on the first proposal
of the covenant, were confirmed. Still he affected a high
devotion to the King's interests ; joined in all the delibera-
tions of the Privy Council, and in the direction of the
measures of government. At length the rumour of his
double dealing becoming public, he wrote an apology at large
for his conduct, and transmitted it to the English ministers,
who replied that the King desired to receive it from his own
mouth. This however, as well as any apparent concern with
the covenant, which by this time had set Scotland in a flame,
he dexterously evaded ; and thus, maintaining with great
skill a show of strict impartiality, seemingly dictated by his
loyalty on the one hand, and his conscience on the other, he
steered his doubtful course till the end of the year 1638,
when, thinking his designs, whatever they were, sufficiently
ripe for such a disclosure, he at length publicly signed the
covenant, and committed an act of open resistance to the
Crown, by remaining and voting in that general assembly
which abolished Episcopacy in Scotland, after its dissolution
had been formally pronounced by the King's High Commis-
sioner. He was now Earl of Argyll, nor is it improbable
that the death of his father, which had very recently
occurred, might have furnished some motives to this sudden
alteration in his conduct.

Charles's impotent and unfortunate warlike expedition into
Scotland immediately followed, and in the pacification, as it
was called, which so speedily cut it short, Argyll was a
principal manager. The King, soon after his return,
despatched an order, or rather invitation, for his personal at-
tendance at the Court, with some others of the Scottish
nobility, which he disobeyed, pleading a prohibition by
which the government there, in its anxiety for his personal
safety, had forbade his absence ; nor could he indeed at that

120 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL,

time have been spared with convenience to his or their
designs, for he was then, with his vassals, in arms, success-
fully combating the Earl of Athol, and the clan of Ogilvie,
who had risen for the King in the north. Scotland had now
in fact tacitly renounced its allegiance, and was in a close
correspondence with the rebel Parliament of England, in
which no man was more deeply, however secretly, engaged
than Argyll. Charles, in the spring of 1640, made another
feeble and abortive effort to subdue it by an army, which
was followed by another disgraceful treaty, in the result of
which he submitted to all the demands of the covenanters,
and in the following year, tempted by some singular and
unknown motives, made a visit to that land which had so
lately involved him in such bitter humiliation. His first care
on his arrival was to open privately a negotiation with
Argyll, through the medium of the Marquis of Hamilton,
which had scarcely commenced when both those noblemen
fled secretly from Edinburgh to their country-seats, alleging
that they had discovered a design to take them off by
assassination. That a proposal to that effect had been
offered to the King we have undoubted evidence, while even
his worst enemies have always admitted that he rejected it
with disgust and horror, yet considerable mystery involves
the circumstance of their flight. It produced however no
results, beyond furnishing the leading rebels of England with
a pretext for alarming the people by affected apprehensions of
similar attacks on themselves ; and producing to the two fugi-
tive Lords on their return an advancement in their respective
dignities : Hamilton was created a Duke, and, on the six-
teenth of November, 1641, the title of Marquis was granted
to Argyll ; acts of grace performed by Charles probably with
no other view than to discredit any belief of his having
countenanced the alleged design against their personal safety.
These two great men, of equal weight in Scotland, of equal
talents, and of characters somewhat similar, were at that
time apparently on terms of friendship. Hamilton possessed

MARQUIS OF ARGYLL. 121

the entire confidence of the King, who had lately employed
him in endeavouring to fathom the real sentiments and inten-
tions, with respect to public affairs, of Argyll, whose dis-
covery of that commission, joined to a mutual jealousy of
each other's power, produced a bitter enmity between them.
Charles left Scotland in November, 1641, having, by innu-
merable bounties and concessions during his stay, in a manner
divested himself of the sovereignty of the country; and
Argyll lost no time in confirming the close connexion which
he had for some time held with the English Parliament, and
disposing Scotland, always saving his own superiority there,
to a submission to its will. In order to enable himself to
pursue this line of conduct with full effect, he procured from
his own Parliament, as it may be called, since it was wholly
under his control, the office of first Commissioner for Scottish
affairs to that of England. There he cultivated the strictest
intimacy with all the most determined enemies to the King
and to Monarchy; while at home, whether in Council, in
Parliament, in the field, or in the application of his own vast
private authority, he directed all his endeavours to the utter
ruin of the royal cause ; yet, such was the profound faculty
of this man at artifice and dissimulation, that he contrived
from time to time during the course of his open rebellion to
flatter the King's friends, and even Charles himself, with
faint hopes that he was secretly inclined to support it when
a favourable opportunity might offer itself.

In the spring of 1644, in his character of first commissioner,
he came to England with the army which, under the command
of Leslie, then invaded it, and on his return marched into
the north of Scotland, with a commission of commander in
chief, to oppose the Marquis of Huntley, who had risen there
with a considerable body of troops on the part of the Crown ;
and, having defeated them, attacked the Marquis of Montrose,
to whom he had an utter hatred, and who had lately beaten
the covenanters near Aberdeen, and dispersed his little army.
His military successes however were cut short by the arrival

122 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL,

in his own territory of the Marquis of Antrim, who claimed
a right to the inheritance of a large portion of it, with a body
of Irish, who, being joined by Montrose, and his scattered
forces, laid the country waste, with horrible spoil and devasta-
tion. The battle of Inverlochie followed, in which Argyll
was totally worsted, and fifteen hundred of the name of
Campbell perished. Their chief, who was equally deficient
in the skill and in the spirit of a soldier, beheld the havoc
from a boat in a neighbouring lake, not less galled by the
severe loss than by the fact that the victorious general was
Montrose. That gallant nobleman commanded also in the
battle of Kilsyth, yet more unfortunate to the covenanters,
which occurred shortly after, and in which Argyll was like-
wise present. Numerous actions of less importance, but not
less favourable in their events to the royal cause, were fought
about the same period. The military force of the Scottish
rebels was nearly destroyed ; and in February, 1646, Argyll
went to Ireland, to bring home a little army which had been
sent thither to the aid of the Protestants, on the breaking out
of the horrible insurrection of 1642.

On his return, he re-assumed the politician. It is about
this time that we find Lord Clarendon speaking shortly of
him in terms which tend to justify much which has been
here given of his character " The Marquis of Argyll," says
his Lordship, " was now come from Scotland, and sat " (in
Parliament) " with the commissioners of that kingdom, over
whom he had a great ascendant. He was, in matters of reli-
gion, and in relation to the church, purely Presbyterian ; and
in matters of state, and with reference to the war, perfectly
Independent. He abhorred all thoughts of peace, and that
the King should ever more have the government, towards
whose person, notwithstanding the infinite obligations he had
to him, he had always an inveterate malice. He had made
a fast friendship with Sir Hariy Vane, during his late being
in Scotland, and they both liked each other's principles in
government. From the time of his coming to the town the

MARQUIS OF ARGYLL. 123

Scottish commissioners were less vehement in obstructing
the ordinance " (self-denying), " or the new modelling the
army." These were in fact the two measures which led
most immediately to the subversion of what remained of the
British constitution.

And now, in an evil hour, the unhappy Charles fled for
protection to his Scottish subjects. It seems scarcely credible
that Argyll should have been among the first of those who
greeted him with protestations of fidelity ; still less, that the
King should have immediately intrusted him with a commis-
sion to obtain the opinion of two of his most faithful servants,
the Duke of Richmond, and the Marquis of Hertford, whom
he had left at Oxford, on a question of the utmost delicacy
and importance whether it would be advisable at that junc-
ture for the Scottish Parliament and army to declare explicitly
in his favour. That both these facts occurred we have how-
ever the best historical evidence ; as well as that Argyll per-
formed, or pretended to have performed, the duty required of
him, and delivered to the King a negative answer. He con-
trived to be absent from all deliberations on the subject of
the infamous surrender, which speedily followed, of the King's
person to the English rebels ; but it would be madness to
suppose that such a step could have been taken without the
consent of him who at the time might be said to govern
Scotland. He opposed with vehemence "the royal Engage-
ment," in compliance with which the Duke of Hamilton
undertook his unfortunate expedition into England ; and not
only protested in Parliament against the vote by which it
was ordained, but, shortly after the murder of the King, per-
sonally led to Edinburgh an immense tumultuary body of the
most furious covenanters, and with their aid expelled the
executive branch, which called itself " the Convention of
Estates," for having obeyed that vote, and so in a manner
dissolved the government.

This certainly was a fit preparation for his reception of
Cromwell, who so soon followed his example, on a somewhat

124 ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL,

larger scale. That General now marched with an army to
Edinburgh, where he was received by Argyll with a cordi-
ality not wholly affected. The covenant was renewed with
great solemnity ; the engagement proscribed, and its adhe-
rents summoned to appear before the Parliament, which was
then about to meet. Argyll however was unable, perhaps
unwilling, to go with that arch-rebel the whole length which
was meditated by the latter, for the Scots were, to a man,
now anxious that the King's life, which they had put in
jeopardy, should be spared. It was rumoured that he had
proposed that his Majesty should be perpetually imprisoned,
and that Cromwell when they were together had consented.
The great tragedy over, Scotland, as with one voice, demanded
the acknowledgment and proclamation of Charles the Second,
and Argyll, powerful as he was, durst not resist. The new
King arrived in Scotland, and was received by him with all
the arts and graces of a courtier, the practice of which no
man better understood, but watched and guarded as a pri-
soner. After Charles had left him to march into England,
his importance gradually decayed, and with it his spirit,
which had been always the creature of circumstances and not
of nature, but his shameless inconsistency and treachery be-
came aggravated. He placed the crown on the head of
Charles the Second with his own hands in 1651 ; assisted
in the ceremony of proclaiming Oliver Cromwell Protector in
1653 ; signed an engagement to support the usurper's govern-
ment ; condescended to sit in his mock House of Commons,
as representative of the county of Aberdeen ; and secretly
intrigued there for the King's restoration.

When that great event occurred, he wrote to Charles from
Scotland, desiring leave to pay his duty to him. It has been
obscurely hinted by Burnet that the King in his answer, deli-
vered verbally to the Lord Lorn, and communicated by him
in writing to his father, did not discourage his coming. Be
that as it might, he came, and was actually within the palace
of Whitehall when he was arrested, and committed to the

MARQUIS OF ARGYLL. 125

Tower, from whence, after a time, he was sent a prisoner to
Edinburgh, and put on his trial. It is strange, more especi-
ally considering the character of the time, and of the party
accused, that it should have been found difficult to convict a
man nearly the whole of whose life had been passed in the
commission of treason, but there is reason to think that he
would have been finally acquitted had not Monk, with scan-
dalous baseness, conveyed to the advocates for the Crown,
even during the trial, some letters written by Argyll to him-
self when they were colleagues in rebellion. The evidence
thus obtained was conclusive. He was condemned, in recol-
lection of the fate of the gallant Montrose, to be hanged, but
that indignity was afterwards spared ; and on the twenty-
seventh of May, 1661, he was beheaded, suffering death with
a calmness and resolution little expected in a man whose
natural timidity was as well known as his crimes.

The Marquis of Argyll married his cousin Margaret, second
daughter of William Douglas, second Earl of Morton, by
whom he had Archibald, to whom the Earldom of Argyll was
re-granted, and who was beheaded in 1685, and Neile ; and
three daughters ; Anne, who died a spinster ; Jean, married
to Robert Ker, first Marquis of Lothian ; and Mary, first to
George Sinclair, sixth Earl of Caithness, secondly, to John
Campbell, first Earl of Breadalbin.

ELISABETH,

QUEEN OF BOHEMIA,

DAUGHTER OF K. JAMES THE FIRST.

OB. 1662,

ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.

FEW persons have been more celebrated than this lady for
virtues, talents, strength of mind, sweetness of temper, and
gaiety of heart. These praises however have been bestowed
but in the way of general eulogy, and we can collect few par-
ticulars of her but from the dry details of public history,
which, with an exactness perhaps too fastidious, usually
rejects those characteristic anecdotes in which biography
delights. Other circumstances too have concurred to cloud
her story. She was withdrawn from her country at an age
too early to admit of much previous observation there,
beyond such as the amiable qualities of her childhood might
have excited, and placed among a people to whose phlegmatic
gravity, and formal manners, those of her maturity were
perhaps generally in a great measure indifferent. Above all
she became an exile, experienced comparative poverty, and
was neglected by her friends, and of the history of the unfor-
tunate much will be always lost.

She was the only daughter of James the Sixth of Scotland,
and Anne, his Queen ; and was born in that country on the
nineteenth of August, 1596. Her father, soon after his
arrival to take possession of the crown of England, gave the
charge of her education, with the name of preceptor, to John,
first Lord Harrington, a nobleman not less qualified for that
office by an acute judgment, and by the variety and elegance
of his acquirements, than by the strictness of his morals, and
the refined politeness of his manners. All that might have
been expected from such a pupil, under such a director, was

128 ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.

obtained, and when the customary etiquette of the Court at
length allowed her to appear publicly in it, she became at
once the object of general approbation, mixed with a tender-
ness of regard that almost deserved the name of love. Her
features were by no means faultless, but they abounded in
that fascinating expression which may be called the soul of
beauty, while the brilliancy of her understanding and accom-
plishments shone with a mild and inoffensive lustre through
a veil of the purest simplicity and candour. Several suitors
had aspired to her hand, the most remarkable of whom was
the afterwards celebrated Gustavus Adolphus, for whom his
parent and predecessor, Charles the Ninth of Sweden, de-
manded her in marriage by a formal embassy in 1609, and
was refused. Her father at length determined to accede to
the proposals of the Elector Palatine, Frederic the Fifth,
who was the most powerful of the protestant Princes of the
Empire, and owed his preference chiefly to James's warm
attachment to that faith. Frederic arrived in London at the
close of the year 1612, and, by a good fortune which rarely
attends such marriages, not only became ardently enamoured
of the Princess, but in an equal measure captivated her
affections.

They were married in the banquetting-house at Whitehall
on the fourteenth of February, 1613, N. S., with a splendour
which historians, however carelessly they may have passed
over the more important parts of Elizabeth's story, have not
failed to commemorate with diffuse minuteness. Suffice it to
say on this head, that the sum lavished on the celebration
amounted to considerably more than one hundred thousand
pounds, and that the jewels worn by the King and Queen,
and the Prince of Wales, as Sir John Finett informs us,
James himself declared " in conversation," were of the value
of nine hundred thousand. In the meantime the portion of
the bride was but forty thousand. The match was hailed by
the utmost popular applause, but met with less favour at
Court ; the King treated it with indifference, and the Queen

ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA. 129

openly held it in aversion. She was used to call her
daughter, in contempt, " Goodwife Palsgrave ; " and the
unfavourable opinion which Prince, afterwards King, Charles
had formed of the bridegroom may be inferred from the coarse
commencement of a short letter subsequently written by him
to the favourite Buckingham " Steenie, I send you herewith
letters to my sister and brother : I place them so because I
think the grey mare the better horse." These prejudices
however were confined to the royal family ; for Finett,
writing on the twenty-third of October, 1612, to Mr. Trum-
bull, the English Resident at Brussels, of Frederic's first
appearance at the Court, says, " He hath most happily
deceived good men's doubts and ill men's expectations ;
report of envy, malice, or weak judgment, having painted
him in so ill colours as the most here, and especially our
ladies and gentlewomen, who held themselves not a little
interested in the handsome choice of her Grace's husband,
prepared themselves to see that with sorrow which they
now apprehend with much gladness." He was in fact a
Prince by no means deficient in natural talents or accom-
plishments, but qualified neither by nature or art to direct
the councils of a state, or to defend it in the field.

They remained in London till the tenth of April, when
the King and Queen accompanied them to Rochester, and
took leave of them there ; and they embarked at Gravesend
for Flushing, and proceeded in great pomp to Heidelburgh,
the capital of the Palatinate. There for six years they
reigned, with equal prosperity and popularity, in the most
beautiful country, and perhaps over the happiest people of
Germany, when in a moment of blind and silly ambition they
sacrificed those incomparable advantages to the mere sound
of a regal title, and an ill-founded reputation of independent
sovereignty. The kingdom of Bohemia, originally elective,
had been brought by the genius and power of Charles the
Fifth under the dominion of Austria, and rendered hereditary.
Ferdinand, the fifth King of that House, was a zealous papist,
v. K

130 ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.

and Bohemia had been called the cradle of the reformation,
A powerful party opposed his election, for that form was still
used, with great firmness. At length they openly revolted ;
formed a provisional government; and, having offered the
crown to the Dukes of Savoy and Saxony, by whom it was
successively refused, were induced by their hopes from the
good will and strength of his father-in-law, to proffer it to
the Elector Palatine. Frederic returned a cool answer, and
demanded time to deliberate. James earnestly dissuaded
him from accepting it, and even forewarned him that in the
event of an unprosperous issue he was to expect no assistance
from England. The entreaties however of his own family,
in which his lovely consort is said to have earnestly joined,
at length prevailed, and she was crowned at Prague, on the
seventh of November, 1619, three days after the coronation of
her husband.

Ferdinand, who had lately become emperor, lost no time
in issuing his Ban, declaring Frederic a traitor and rebel
against the Empire, and deprived of his Electoral dignity and
estate, and prepared to invade not only Bohemia but also the
Palatinate. James, whom the English would have willingl^
supported in aiding his son-in-law with troops, kept his
word, and would interfere no further than by various nego-
tiations, which had no other effect than to render him the
scorn and ridicule of Europe. At length, on the ninth of
November, 1620, Frederic was discomfited, under the walls
of Prague, in one of the most decisive actions ever fought,
and fled on the night of that fatal day, with his Queen, then
great with child, to Breslau, one hundred and twenty miles
from the field of battle. A letter written by her to her
father, in the forlorn hour of her arrival there, remains in the
British Museum.

"Je ne veux importuner V. M. d'un trop longue lettre.
Le Baron de Dona ne faudra d'informer V. M. de malheur
qui nous est arrive, et nou& a contraint de quitter Prague, e.t

ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA. 131

venir en ce lieu icy, oii Dieu sait combien nous y demeure-
ronts. Je supplie done treshumblement V. M. d'avoir soing
du Roy et de moy en nous envoyant du secours, autrement
nous serons du tout ruinez. II n'y a que V. M. apres Dieu,
de qui nous attendons ayde. Je la remercie treshumblement
de la favorable declaration qu'il luy a pleu faire pour la con-
servation du Palatinat. Je la supplie treshumblement de
faire le mesme pour nous icy, et nous envoyer un bon secours
pour nous defendre contre nous ennemis, autrement je ne say
que nous deviendrons. Je la supplie done encore d'avoir
pitie de nous, et de n'abandoner le Roy a cest heur qu'il en
a si grand besoign ; pour moy, je suis resolve de ne le quitter,
car si il pent je periroy aussi avec luy ; mais, quoy qu'il
m'arrive, Je ne seray jamais autre que, Sire, de V. M. la
treshumble et tresobeissante fille et servante,

"Bresla, "ELIZABETH."

ce Novembre."

Nor was Frederic's attachment to her less constant or
ardent. " Croyez, mon cher cosur," says he in a letter of
later date, " que je me souhaite bien apres de vous. Je vous
ai deja mande ce que m'en retient ; plut a Dieu qu'eussions
un petit coin au monde pour y vivre contents emsemble ce
tout le bonheur que je me souhaite."

The affectionate tenderness of her nature was blended
with a magnanimity which misfortune could not impair, and
a dignified purity of morals, and sense of female honour,
which awed into due respect her numerous admirers : for
she was actually beloved by many, even to adoration. The
fierce and haughty Christian, Duke of Brunswick, her hus-
band's most warlike ally, constantly wore her glove on his
helmet ; the celebrated General, Count Thurn, was proud to
acknowledge the influence of her charms ; and Lord Craven,
who was a volunteer in Frederic's service, and of whom more
will presently be said, was devoted to her, and continued
her slave even to the end of her life. She was universally

K2

132 ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.

called in the army, "the Queen of Hearts," and the soldiers
were used to say that they fought as much for her as for the
justice of her husband's cause. The complete overthrow of
fortune which she had suffered, for Frederic was deprived by
the battle of Prague not only of his kingdom but of his
electorate, scarcely drew from her an expression of regret
and his affection for her inspired him with the same passive
heroism, for it did not belong to his nature. The anonymous
writer of a letter in the Landsdowne MSS. speaking of them
after some detail of the battle, says " Both of them, the
Queen especially, do make all comers to be witnesses of
their singular moderation, patience, devotion, and confidence
in God ; and this I would have you believe ; that the world
in many ages did hardly ever see such a pair of that rank ;
and surely this tribulation shall do them good."

They were presently driven from Breslau, and having
wandered for some time in Silesia, removed into Branden-
burgh, and at length settled in Holland, where they were
supported more by the beneficence of the House of Nassau,
and by the occasional contributions of several persons of rank
in England, particularly Archbishop Abbot, than from the
purse of her father. James contented himself by redoubling
his embassies, and by indulging in idle reveries of compassing
their restoration to the Palatinate through the interest with
the House of Austria which he expected to found on the
projected marriage of his son with the Infanta of Spain.
This weakness involved his daughter in the contempt which
was properly due only to himself. Her misfortunes became
in some measure the subject of vulgar satire. " She was
represented in a print at Antwerp," says Wilson, in his
Life of James, " as a poor Irish mantler, with her hair hang-
ing about her ears, and her child at her back, and the King,
her father, carrying the cradle after her." The accession of
her brother to the crown of England brought with it some
public promise of succour, and some actual exertion. Charles
declared to his first Parliament on its meeting, that it was

ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA. 133

his intention to make the recovery of the Palatinate the
primary object of his political consideration ; little however
was done till the King of Sweden, then at war with the Em-
peror, in 1632 proffered his best endeavours to that end, but
on such hard conditions that Charles, in anger, broke up the
treaty in which they had been proposed, and recalled his
ambassador from Stockholm. The unhappy Frederic, how-
ever, willing to cherish even the faintest hope, negotiated
separately with Gustavus, when death cut short the views of
both the parties : the heroic Swede fell at the battle of Lutzen
on the sixth of November, in that year, and Frederic died at
Mentz on the twenty-ninth of the same month, of an infec-
tious fever which he had contracted at Frankfort.

Elizabeth remained at the Hague, living in the utmost
privacy, her chief employment the education of her children,
and her only relaxations of which we hear, an extended cor-
respondence with men celebrated for powers of mind, and for
various literary and scientific attainments, occasionally re-
lieved by the amusements of hunting and shooting, in which
she much delighted. The management of her domestic
affairs, and indeed of all matters in which her interests or
her comforts were concerned, she committed to Lord Craven,
who had entered the military service of the states of Holland
that he might be near to her. The most perfect friendship
and confidence, and the most open and unreserved intimacy
subsisted between them, yet such was the public opinion, or
rather feeling, excited by that harmony of general correctness
which had always distinguished her, that not a breath of
slander ever fell on their connexion. It was at length
believed, and probably most justly, that they had been pri-
vately married. She professed the protestant persuasion
without ostentation, but practised it with unalterable firmness
of resolution. Her brother, Charles, at a moment when her
affairs were in a state of the deepest depression, dispatched
Sir Henry Vane to represent to her the prudence of sending
her eldest son to Vienna, to be bred a Catholic, in the view

134 ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.

of matching him to a Princess of the House of Austria, but
she answered that, rather than take a step at once so mean
and so wicked, she would put him to death with her own
hands. A bitter and reciprocal dislike subsisted between
Elizabeth and the eccentric Christina of Sweden. This is
said to have arisen out of a mutual jealousy on their respective
intimacies with eminent men of letters, but the following
epistle from Elizabeth to Sir Edward Nicholas will at least
shew that she had other causes of aversion. It is not perhaps
so much for the sake of elucidating that point, as to give a
specimen of the liveliness of her mind and style, that I here
insert it.

" Haghe, Dec. 3, 1654.
" Mr. Secretarie,

" I received your's at Berghen, whither I was come from
Antwerp and Bruxells: I find you have unriddled my riddle
verie right. I saw the Queene of Sweden at the play. She
is extravagant in her fashion and apparell, but she has a good
well-favoured face, and a milde countenance. One of the
players that knew me tolde her who I was, but she made no
shew of it. I went the next day to Bruxells, where I saw
the Arch-Due at Mass, and I saw his pictures and lodgins.
I lay at Sr. Harry de Vic's, who was very carefull and dili-
gent to do me all the service he coulde. I staid but Sunday
at Bruxells, and returned to Antwerp upon Monday, and
hearing from Duart how the Queene of Sweden had desired
to know when I came back thither, that she might meet with
me in an indifferent place, I made the more hast away the
next day, because I had no mind to speak with her, since I
heard how unhandsomlie she had spoken of the King, my
dear brother, and the King, my dear nephue, and indeed of
all our nation ; so I avoided it, and went away as soon as I
had dined ; yet she sent Donoy to me with a very civill
message, that she was sorie she could not use that civilitie to
me as she both should doe and desired, hoping that one day

ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA, 135

we might meet together with more freedome. I answered
her as civillie as I coulde, and now, when I went from
Berghen, I gave Sr. Will. Swann charge to make her a com-
plement from me.

" I came hither upon Tewsday from Berghen, where I was
extremelie well intertained by the Princess of Zollern, who
was with me, and was my guide all the jorney, and defrayed
me. Her daughter is now so prettie everie way that you
would like her yett better than ever you did if you saw her.
She is much growen, and is still of a verie sweet disposition,
and she doth become her. She has a great deal of witt, and
loves our nation extreamlie. It makes me think of your wish,
which I am not against, you know. By this post I have had
verie good news of the Duke of Gloucester's constantie in his
religion, and of my Lo. of Ormond's handsome carriage in
that business, so as the Queen saith she will press him no
further in it ; but I hope the King will not trust to it, but
get him away from thence, which will doe the King great
right. It is so colde as I can say no more, but am ever

" Your most affectionat friend."

She was unfortunate in her heir, Charles Lewis, to whom
the Lower Palatinate was restored in 1648, on condition of
his renouncing his title to the Upper. He appears to have
been mean, selfish, and unfeeling. He came to England at
the age of eighteen, and was received with kindness and
flattering distinctions, but in the beginning of the rebellion
left the King at York, and went to Holland ; returned in the
following year ; and, while his younger brothers, Rupert and
Maurice, were fighting bravely in the cause of their royal
uncle, went over to the Parliament, and actually conde-
scended to sit in what was called the assembly of divines at
Westminster. It has been supposed that this strange con-
duct was the result of a secret agreement between the King
and himself : a conjecture altogether incredible. He treated
his mother with unkindness, and even denied her trifling

136 ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.

pecuniary aids towards the maintenance of her little oecono-
mical household, when he had been for some years competent
to relieve her. She thus expostulates with him in a letter
published in Bromley's collection, which contains also
another, of the same tenor, written some years after :

" Son,

" I send this by the post to let you know that the States
have given me for my kitchen one thousand guilders a month
till I shall be able to go from hence, which God knows how
and when that will be for my debts ; wherefore I earnestly
entreat you to do so much for me as to augment that money
which you give me, and then I shall make a shift to live a
little something reasonable ; and you did always promise me
that as your country bettered you would increase my means
till you were able to give me my jointure. I do not ask you
much. If you would add but what you did hint, you would
do me a great kindness by it, and make me see you have still
an affection for me, and put me in a confidence of it. Since
you cannot yet pay me all that is my due, that will shew to
the world you desire it if you could. I pray do this for me.
You will much comfort me by it, who am in so ill a condi-
tion that it takes all my contentment from me. I am making
my house as little as I can, that I may subsist by the little
I have till I shall be able to come to you, which (since I
cannot do because of my debts, which I am not able to pay,
neither the new nor the old) if you do not as I desire you, I
am sure I shall not increase. As you love me, I do conjure
you to give me an answer, and by the time commonly, and
you will tie me to continue, as I am most truly,

""Yours, &c."
" Hague, i August, 1655."

She remained however under these forlorn circumstances
till the restoration of her nephew, Charles the Second, who
invited her to pass the remainder of her life in England, a

ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA. 137

proposal which she most readily accepted. She arrived in
London on the seventeenth of May, 1661, with Lord Craven,
and took up her residence in his house in Drury Lane, where
she remained till the following February, on the eighth of
which month, as we learn from Mr. Evelyn's Diary, she re-
moved to Leicester House, and died there on the thirteenth,
only five days after she had entered it. She was buried in
Westminster Abbey, in a vault made for the interment of her
brother, Henry, Prince of Wales.

The issue of the Queen of Bohemia was eight sons, and
five daughters. 1, Frederick Henry, who was drowned, or
rather frozen to death, in his fifteenth year, at Haerlem,
on the seventh of January, 1629, in the sight of his un-
fortunate father; 2, Charles Lewis, who has been lately
mentioned ; 3, Rupert ; 4, Maurice ; both of whom hold
places of some distinction in English history ; 5, Lewis, who
died an infant ; 6, Edward ; 7, Philip, who fell in battle
in Germany, at the age of twenty-three ; 8, Gustavus, who
also died in infancy. Her daughters were, 1, Elizabeth,
Abbess of Hervorden, in Westphalia, one of the wisest and
most learned women of the age in which she lived, to whom
Descartes dedicated his " Principia," and declared that she
was the only person he knew who perfectly comprehended
his works, and with whom William Penn frequently con-
ferred on the system of his new colony, and on the prin-
ciples and doctrine of his sect ; 2, Louisa Hollandina,
Abbess of Maubuisson, in France, highly celebrated for her
skill in the fine arts, especially painting, many proofs of
which are preserved, and highly esteemed, in the continental
cabinets ; 3, Henrietta Mary, married to Sigismond Ragotsky,
Prince of Transylvania ; 4, Charlotte, who died an infant ;
and, 5, Sophia, a Princess distinguished by every virtue, and
every accomplishment, who became the consort of Ernest,
Elector of Hanover, and carried the inheritance of the
Crown of these realms into his illustrious House ; in which
may it please the Almighty to the end of time to maintain it
in all happiness and glory !

*,ik-i,." : kj

-^M

CMARLO'B LA TB8EBQG>yO!LL!E<

COITJSTTESS OF DERBY.
OB, 1663,

CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOUILLE,

COUNTESS OF DERBY.

THE story of this illustrious lady, that is to say, almost the
whole of it which remains unburied in oblivion, is confined to
the journal of a siege. It exhibits however a character so
abounding in sagacity, prudence, loyalty, grandeur of spirit,
and active heroism, as to beguile us for a moment into a
feeling of regret that the social policy of all climates and ages
should have agreed to restrict the amiable sex to the power
of pleasing, and to repress those energies which in spite of its
regulations occasionally burst forth, and always with a degree
of splendour which is rarely found to adorn even the finest
of masculine sentiments or actions.

Charlotte de la Tremouille was the third daughter of
Claude, Duke of Thouars, Prince of Palmont, and a Peer of
France, by Charlotte Brabantina, daughter of William the
first Prince of Orange, and of his third wife, Charlotte of
Bourbon, of the Royal House of Montpensier. She was mar-
ried when very young to the excellent and highly accom-
plished James Stanley, seventh Earl of Derby, an outline of
whose life and character has already appeared in this work.
All the most propitious circumstances seemed to have com-
bined to bless their union : the purest mutual affection ; con-
genial talents and tempers ; a numerous and beloved progeny ;
the most exalted birth, with immense revenues ; and the
whole crowned by a just reputation for the practice of all
virtues. This marvellous picture of almost superhuman

140 CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOUILLE,

felicity was doomed to be torn in pieces, and scattered to the
winds, by the accursed demon of faction and rebellion.

The Earl, her husband, was among the first of the nobility
who hastened to surround King Charles the First after his
declaration of war in the year 1642. He presented himself
to his Sovereign at Shrewsbury at the head of three regiments
of infantry, and as many troops of horse, raised, clothed, and
armed, solely at his own charge. It was thought proper to
retain this force with the main army, and to despatch the
Earl back into Lancashire, his own country, that he might
exert his great influence there in encouraging the gentry to
further levies ; and having so done, with very extensive
effect, and performed some gallant actions with a small body
of new recruits, intelligence was received that the rebels had
formed a design to seize the Isle of Man, of which he was
hereditary Lord. He was now suddenly ordered thither, and
his Lady and family being then resident in his noble mansion
of Lathom, a building which required little to render it in
some degree defensible, he threw into it a few soldiers,
together with such arms, ammunition, and sustenance, as the
time would allow him to collect, and having committed it,
together with his children and the management of all his Eng-
lish concerns, to the charge of the Countess, hastily departed.

He had scarcely reached the Isle when the Countess re-
ceived certain intelligence that her house would shortly be
attacked. She lost no time therefore in strengthening her
little garrison, by increasing her provisions and military
stores, and admitting singly, or in small parties, such neigh-
bours of the middling and lower classes as might be depended
on. Mingling these with the servants of the family, she
formed the whole into six regiments, at the head of which
she placed as many gentlemen of the county, and gave the
command in chief to a Captain Farmer, a Scot, who had
served with reputation in the Low Country wars, and was
afterwards slain at Marston Moor ; and these arrangements
had been made with such caution and secresy that the rebels

COUNTESS OF DERBY. 141

had no expectation of resistance till they had arrived within
two miles of the house. On the twenty-eighth of February,
1644, they arrived, led by Fairfax himself, who sent a trum-
pet to require a conference with the Countess, to which she
agreed, and detained the messenger, says my authority, while
" to make the best show she could, she placed her inefficient
and unarmed men on the walls, and tops of the towers, and
marshalled all her soldiers in good order, with their respective
officers, from the main guard in the first court to the great
hall," in which she calmly awaited his visit. Their meeting
was ceremonious and courteous. Fairfax informed her that
he was commissioned to offer her an honourable and secure
removal, with her children, retinue, and property, arms and
ammunition excepted, to Knowsley Hall, another of the
family seats ; an engagement that she should reside there
without molestation ; and the moiety of the Earl's estate for
her support. She answered that " she was under a double
trust of faith to her husband, and allegiance to her Sove-
reign," and desired to have a month to consider her answer ;
and, this being denied, rejoined that " she hoped then he
would excuse her if she preserved her honour and obedience,
though perhaps to her own ruin."

Fairfax departed, and was for some days doubtful whether
to attack Lathom by storm or by siege, when he was deter-
mined by the artifice of one of the Earl's chaplains, a Mr.
Rutter, who, happening to have some conversation with a
rebel officer, his acquaintance, insinuated to him that the
military force of the garrison was abundant, but that it had
not fourteen days' provision. This false intelligence was
presently conveyed to Fairfax, who in consequence resolved
against a summary assault, and, at the end of a fortnight
accordingly, sent in military form to demand an immediate
surrender. The Countess replied that " she had not yet for-
gotten what she owed to the Church of England, to her
Prince, and to her Lord ; and that till she had lost her
honour or her life she would defend that place." The rebels

142 CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOUILLE,

presently began to form their trenches, when, on the twenty-
fourth of March, she ordered a sally of two hundred men,
who attacked them ; slew about sixty, and took some pri-
soners ; with the loss on her side only of two. The enemy
now doubled their guard and began to draw their lines at a
greater distance, but were so interrupted by sallies that four-
teen weeks had passed before they could complete them-
This however done, they gradually approached the moat by
which the house was surrounded, and at length mounted a
strong battery, and particularly a mortar of large calibre, a
shell thrown from which fell into an apartment in which the
Countess and her children were at dinner. They escaped
unhurt, and the heroine instantly ordered another sally, in
which they were again worsted, and all their guns spiked or
thrown into the moat, except that mortar, which was trium-
phantly dragged into the house. This remarkable exploit was
performed on the twenty-sixth of April, the very day fixed
on by the rebels for a general assault, in which it had been
determined to give no quarter. They were employed for
several days in repairing their works, during which they
were incessantly annoyed by the besieged, and had no sooner
accomplished it, when the garrison once more dispersed
them : again spiked their cannon ; and killed one hundred
of their soldiers, losing only three men and five or six
wounded. In most of all these affairs the Countess was per-
sonally present, and frequently in great danger. Her con-
duct united the most exemplary piety with the most deter-
mined courage. Every action was prefaced by devout prayer j
every success acknowledged by humble thanksgiving.

More than three months had now passed since the com-
mencement of the siege, in which the rebels confessed them-
selves to have lost two thousand men, when Fairfax, cha-
grined by its ill success, removed the officer who had hitherto
commanded before Lathom, and appointed a colonel Rigby,
whose principal recommendation was a private enmity to the
Earl of Derby. He had no sooner arrived than he mani-

COUNTESS OF DERBY. 143

fested this disposition by a new summons to surrender, con-
veyed in affronting terms, to which the Countess herself
replied" Trumpet, tell that insolent rebel, Rigby, that if
he presume to send another summons within this place, I
will have the messenger hanged up at the gates." The gar-
rison however was now reduced to the greatest distress.
Their ammunition and their corn were spent, and they had
killed for food nearly all their horses. The Earl now has-
tened from Man to solicit relief for them, which Prince Rupert,
who was then marching his army to York, was directed to
give, and Rigby, on receiving intelligence of this expected
succour, raised the siege on the twenty-seventh of May,
1644.

The Countess now accompanied her Lord in his return to
the Isle of Man. On the fatal decline of the royal cause,
his great estates were confiscated. He continued however to
hold that island for the King with a firmness which the rebel
Parliament, to its eternal disgrace, avenged by detaining his
children, who came to England to solicit relief from it, on
the faith of a pass from Fairfax, for eighteen months in the
harshest captivity. The incomparable pair remained on the
Island, protected and supported by its simple people, who
adored them, till the fruitless enterprise of Charles the
Second in 1651, when the Earl flew to his aid, and perished
in his cause. On the twelfth of October in that year, two
days before he was beheaded by the rebels, he wrote the
following exquisite letter to his Countess, inestimable in this
place, inasmuch as it lays before us the most important fea-
tures of her character, drawn by the dying hand of him who
knew her best.

" My dear Heart,

" I have heretofore sent you comfortable lines, but alas I
have now no word of comfort, saving to our last and best
refuge, which is Almighty God, to whose will we must
submit ; and when we consider how he hath disposed of

144 CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOUILLE,

these nations and the government thereof, we have no more
to do but to lay our hands upon our mouths, judging our-
selves, and ackowledging our sins, joined with others, to have
been the cause of these miseries, and to call on him with
tears for mercy.

" The governor of this place, Colonel Duckenfield, is gene-
ral of the forces which are now going against the Isle of Man ;
and, however you might do for the present, in time it would
be a grievous and troublesome thing to resist, especially
those that at this hour command the three nations ; where-
fore my advice, notwithstanding my great affection to that
place, is that you would make conditions for yourself, and
children, and servants, and people there, and such as came
over with me, to the end you may get to some place of rest,
where you may not be concerned in war, and, taking thought
of your poor children, you may in some sort provide for
them : then prepare yourself to come to your friends above,
in that blessed place where bliss is, and no mingling of
opinion.

({ I conjure you, my dearest Heart, by all those graces that
God hath given you, that you exercise your patience in this
great and strange trial. If harm come to you, then I am dead
indeed ; and until then I shall live in you, who are truly the
best part of myself. When there is no such as I in being,
then look upon yourself and my poor children ; then take
comfort, and God will bless you. I acknowledge the great
goodness of God to have given me such a wife as you so
great an honour to my family so excellent a companion to
me so pious so much of all that can be said of good I must
confess it impossible to say enough thereof. I ask God
pardon with all my soul that I have not been enough thank-
ful for so great a benefit ; and where I have done any thing
at any time that might justly offend you, with joined hands I
also ask your pardon. I have no more to say to you at this
time than my prayers for the Almighty's blessing to you, my
dear Mall, and Ned, and Billy Amen, sweet Jesus ! "

COUNTESS OF DERBY. 145

The unhappy Countess remained in Man, her little king-
dom in her better days, ruling it in indigence ; her health
broken down by grief, but her spirit still unsubdued. At
length a wretch of the name of Christian, whom the Earl had
cherished from his childhood, and to whom at his final
departure he had committed the care of his lady and their
offspring, as well as the command of the Infantry of the island,
betrayed it to the enemy. The Countess and her children
were for a time rigorously imprisoned, but at length suffered
to wander in obscurity, actually subsisting on the alms of
their impoverished friends. Thus they languished till the
Restoration, when the family estates returned of course into
the possession of their eldest son. She passed the short
remainder of her days at his seat at Knowsley Hall, in Lan-
cashire, and dying there on the twenty-first of March, 1663,
was buried at Ormskirk in that county.

/: ivk- ;

OB, 1665-

SIR KENELM DIGBY.

IT is a perilous task to attempt to portray the character of
a universal genius. Sir Kenelm Digby was a scholar, a
soldier, a courtier, a divine, a philosopher, an orator, and a
politician ; and not only his own country, but all Europe,
held him in the highest estimation in each of those charac-
ters. Exquisite parts, with a most happy temper, produced
in him their usual result, a perfect politeness. His very
vanity, and he abounded in it, was so well governed, that it
gave to all he said, or- wrote, or did, a peculiar zest, if I may
so express myself, which all relished, while no one could
perceive from whence it came. The depth and the quickness
of his understanding might have qualified him for the manage-
ment of the most important affairs, and he was ambitious of
public employment, but a certain eccentricity and unsteadi-
ness, perhaps inseparable from a mind of such variety, pro-
bably impeded his advancement. Those dispositions in him
became too the more exposed to censure because he lived in
a time when something like Roman virtue still appeared in
the public conduct of men, and a firmness of principle was
displayed by two great opposing parties, which, while it
shed an additional lustre on loyalty, lent an ornament even
to rebellion. With respect to his philosophy, it would be
difiicult to say whether his succeeding so immediately as he
did to the illustrious Bacon might be deemed more fortunate
or disadvantageous to him ; since, in profiting largely by the
discoveries of that sage, he lost, through the carelessness of
some, and the malignity of others, the credit of originality.
L 2

148 SIR KENELM DIGBY.

The truth however is, that Digby not only gave form and
birth to many of Bacon's mighty conceptions, but that those
who may have courage enough to turn for a while from more
fashionable systems, will find in his works many inventions
which had escaped the observation of his profound prede-
cessor.

The public circumstances of his time perhaps contributed
equally with the singularities of his nature to render his life as
various as his character. It may be said that their operation
commenced when he had scarcely left his cradle, for he was the
son and heir of that accomplished gentleman and frantic bigot,
Sir Everard Digby, who suffered death in 1606 for his concern
in the gunpowder treason. His mother was the daughter and
sole heir of William Mulsho, of Gothurst, in Buckingham-
shire, and her ample fortune, as well as the paternal estates,
had fortunately been so firmly settled on the issue of her
marriage, that the Court of Wards found itself obliged to
adjudge them to the heir male, in spite of a claim made by
the Crown under the attainder of the father. Kenelm, con-
cerning the precise date of whose birth there has been some
contest, appears to have been born on the eleventh of June,
1603. His mother, who was a zealous Roman Catholic,
submitted for obvious reasons, to his being bred at least
under Protestant forms, and it is said, that the early part
of his education was superintended by the celebrated Laud,
at that time Dean of Gloucester. In 1618 he was sent to
Oxford, and entered of Gloucester Hall, where the direction
of his studies was committed to the care of Mr. Thomas
Allen, a man of the highest reputation for ability and erudi-
tion, who accepted that charge, not in the ordinary character
of a college tutor, but from affection to the family of his
pupil, and for the gratification of cultivating a genius which
had already shewn abundant signs of pre-eminence. He
remained little more than two years at the University,
which having quitted with the most brilliant reputation, he
set out on the tour of France, Spain, and Italy; from whence

SIR KENELM DIGBY. 149

he returned in 1623, and on the 23rd of October in that year
received from King James, at the house of Lord Montague, at
Hinchinbroke, the honour of knighthood, so seldom bestowed
on one of his years.

On the accession of Charles the First, which occurred soon
after, Sir Kenelm Digby became one of the chief ornaments
of Whitehall. Charles, who did not love gaiety, highly
esteemed him however for his admirable talents ; but to the
Queen, who, before her misfortunes, had a very lively dispo-
sition, he rendered himself infinitely agreeable, and she seems
to have conceived a friendship for him which lasted through
life. He was a party in all the royal diversions, which indeed
he frequently planned and directed, and such were the vola-
tility of his spirits, and the careless elegance of his manners,
that it should have seemed that he had been bred from his
infancy in a court. He obtained the office of a Gentleman of
the Bedchamber, and was soon after, an odd mixture of em-
ployments, appointed a Commissioner of the Navy. In 1628
he was suddenly called from the study and the drawing-room
to assume the character of a naval commander, and was sent,
at the head of a squadron, to chastise the Venetians and
Algerines, who had of late infested the English trade in the
Mediterranean by their piracies. In this expedition he was
completely successful, for, having taken money of the Moorish
armed vessels, and liberated the English slaves who were in
them, he attacked the Venetian galleys, and totally routed
them. These actions, by which he acquired considerable
fame of a new character, were fought near Scanderoon, on
the 16th of June.

On his return he relapsed into the student ; purchased the
valuable collection of manuscripts and printed books of his
early friend Mr. Allen, of Gloucester Hall, the use of which
he allowed to that gentleman while he lived, and soon after
his decease, in 1632, nobly gave them to the Bodleian Library.
He now applied himself with much earnestness to the study
of religious controversy, with the view, as he confesses, to

150 SIR KENELM DIGBT.

strengthen an inclination which he had formed to abandon
the protestant persuasion. He wavered however for four
years, but in 1636 finally reconciled himself to the Church of
Rome, in spite of the arguments of Archbishop Laud, his
correspondence with whom on that subject, full of a charity
and moderation which did honour to the hearts of both parties,
is still extant. He was at that time in France, where he
long remained, employing himself in composing elaborate
arguments in defence of his lately adopted faith, which he
afterwards put forth, in two publications, under the titles of,
"A Conference with a Lady about the Choice of Religion ; "
and " Letters between Lord George Digby, and Sir Kenelm
Digby, Knt., concerning Religion ; " the one in 1638, the
other not till 1651. There was an air of candour in thus
publishing both sides of a controversy, which, whether it
arose from the humility of doubt, or the arrogance of superio-
rity, certainly gained him much credit. The Roman Catholics
triumphed, as well they might, on the accession of such a
person to their communion ; and the Queen, their great
patroness, received him, on his return to England, with much
. grace and confidence, and immediately employed him in the
management of an affair, his conduct in which, while it
increased her esteem for him, rendered him obnoxious to the
party which was then aspiring to that ascendancy in Parlia-
ment which, unhappily for the country, it soon after gained.
The King, with a very scanty purse, was preparing for a war
with the Scots, and had called on his subjects for such aid as
they might be willing to lend him. The wealthiest of the
protestant clergy and laity had contributed liberally, and the
Queen, anxious that those of her religion should imitate the
example, engaged Sir Kenelm, and Mr. Walter Montague, to
compose a kind of circular letter to excite them, which was
dispersed throughout the kingdom, and procured considerable
sums. The House of Commons resented this proceeding, and
in January, 1640, Sir Kenelm was called to the bar, and
questioned on it. He is said to have answered with simpli-

I

SIR KENELM DIGBT. 151

city and candour, and the Queen herself having sent an
explanatory message to the House, it seemed, for the time, to
be satisfied : but the offence was not forgotten, for in the
address which was sometime after presented, requiring the
King to remove the Roman Catholics from his presence and
his Court, Sir Kenelm Digby and Walter Montague were
particularly named.

His conduct, indeed, in that affair had subjected him to a
lasting suspicion. On the breaking out of the grand rebellion,
which soon followed, he was imprisoned, by order of the
Parliament, in Winchester House, from whence he was
released in the autumn of 1643, at the instance of the Queen
Dowager of France, on condition that he should transport
himself forthwith to France. On this occasion he subscribed
a declaration, more prudent than honest, in which he pro-
mised, " on the faith of a Christian, and the word of a gen-
tleman," neither directly nor indirectly to negotiate, promote,
consent unto, or conceal, any practice or design prejudicial to
the honour or safety of the Parliament. Before his depar-
ture, however, he was strictly examined before a committee,
as to an alleged correspondence between Archbishop Laud
and the Court of Rome, and particularly on the question whe-
ther a Cardinal's hat had been offered by the Pope to that
Prelate, which, with many other rumours equally absurd and
incredible, had been invented in the House to inflame the
minds of the people. His pen had not been unemployed during
his confinement: we have two pieces written by him in
Winchester House ; the one intituled " Observations on
Religio Medici, occasionally written by Sir K. D., Knt."
This small piece, printed in 1643, and addressed to his great
friend, Edward, Earl of Dorset, is said to have been written
in one night, an assertion which seems to be contradicted by
the word "occasionally" in the title. The other, though
hastily composed, is a little work of deep reflection ; " Obser-
vations on the Twenty-second Stanza, in the Ninth Canto of
the Second Book of Spenser's Fairy Queen," in a letter to Sir
Edward Stradling, published in 1644.

152 SIR KENELM DIGBY.

He was received in France even with rapture. The extent
of his natural talents and his learning, and the gay variety of
his conversation, captivated a people equally ingenious and
volatile. He passed a considerable part of his time in the
Court, where he was a great favourite with the Queen Dow-
ager, as well as in the most refined private societies of Paris ;
and then, as seems to have been his custom, suddenly with-
drew himself wholly to his studies. He now digested and
reduced to order the particulars of a philosophical system on
which he had long speculated, and which he published at
Paris in 1644, in two parts, under the titles of " a Treatise of
the Nature of Bodies," and " a Treatise declaring the Opera-
tions and Nature of Man's Soul, out of which the Immor-
tality of reasonable Souls is evinced." This, which may be
esteemed, in every point of consideration, as his greatest
work, exalted his reputation to the utmost, and the feeble
attacks made on it by Alexander Ross, and by some writers
on the continent, served but to increase the number of its
students, both at home and abroad. He wrote also, soon
after, in Latin, " Five Books of Peripatetic Institutions, with
a Theological Appendix concerning the Origin of the World,"
which were not printed till 1651.

The final subversion of Monarchy in England, called him
home. He had lost his eldest son in the faint struggle made
by the Earl of Holland on the part of the King, and had
otherwise partaken largely in the misfortunes of that sad
period. He was scarcely allowed time to manage a com-
position for his estate, which, however, as we shall see pre-
sently, was not the sole object of his journey, when the Par-
liament ordered him to withdraw, and forbade him to return,
without leave of the House, under pain of death. He fled
once more into France, where he joined the little Court of
Henrietta Maria, who had lately appointed him her Chan-
cellor, and by whom, not long after his arrival, he was sent
as her Envoy to Pope Innocent the Tenth. He is said to
have disgusted the pontiff by the unreasonable haughtiness

SIR KENELM BIGBY. 153

and freedom of his behaviour, a charge ill-suited to the general
character of his temper and breeding. "At first," says
Aubrey, in some curious notices of Sir Kenelm, from which I
shall have occasion to make larger extracts, " he was mightily
admired ; but after some time he grew high, and hectored at
his Holiness, and gave him the lie. The Pope said he was
mad." Wood, who gives nearly the same account, adds,
what may be feared was the true occasion of his quarrel with
the Pope, that, " having made a collection of money for the
afflicted Catholics in England, he was found to be no faithful
steward in that matter."

Cromwell, having crashed the Long Parliament, and as-
sumed the sovereign power, Sir Kenelm returned to England,
and to the great surprise and regret of all parties, seemed
presently to acquire some degree of intimacy, and even favour,
with the usurper. Time has unveiled the mystery of this
seemingly unnatural connection. The publication of the
Duke of Ormond's papers has proved that, even from the
hour of the death of Charles, Digby had meditated the resto-
ration of his own religion in England, by joining the Roman
Catholics and the King's murderers in one common cause.
Lord Byron, in a letter to the Marquis of Ormond, of the
first of March, 1649, from Caen, in Normandy, says, ; " Sir
Kenelm Digby, with some other Romanists, accompanied
with one Watson, an Independent, who hath brought them
passes from Fairfax, is gone for England, to join the interests
of all the English Papists with that bloody party that mur-
dered the King, in the opposition and extirpation of monar-
chial government ; or if that government be thought fit, yet
that it shall be by election, and not by succession, as formerly
provided : that a free exercise of the Romish religion be
granted, and of all other religions whatsoever, excepting that
which was established by law in the Church of England," &c.
And a letter in the same collection, from a Dr. Winstead, a
physician at Rouen, to Secretary Nicholas, of a date somewhat
earlier, after reciting a long conversation between himself

154 SIR KENELM DIGBY.

and Sir Kenelm, when the latter was about to embark, con-
cludes " The plot, as I am told, about which Sir Kenelm
Digby is employed as agent to treat with those horrid rebels,
the Independents of England, is for the subversion of succes-
sive hereditary monarchy there, and to make it elective, and
to establish Popery there, and to give toleration to all manner
of religions there, except that of the Church of England
according to the practice thereof." Here then we find the
cause of the severity of the Long Parliament towards Digby,
when he visited England for the alleged purpose of com-
pounding for his estates, as well as the motive to the grace
with which he was now received by Cromwell, to whom
doubtless he came to reiterate the same proposals, perhaps
somewhat modified with regard to hereditary succession.
That Cromwell should have sought to fortify his dominion
by gaining over the English Catholics, adds nothing to the
weight of crime and infamy which loads his memory ; but
for the treachery thus imputed to Digby, the most fervid
affection to his religious faith which we could ascribe to him
would furnish no extenuation ; and, however painful it may
be to believe the story, it is scarcely possible to doubt the
truth of it.

Having remained in England for a considerable time, he
went again to the continent in 1656, and travelled through
France and Germany, fixing his residence occasionally for
long intervals in different cities, and collecting and bestowing
treasure in every branch of science. Amidst these refined
pursuits, however, he found time to correspond with Secre-
tary Thurloe, with professions, on his part, of the firmest
attachment to the person and government of Cromwell ; after
whose death, and during the rapid dissolution of the system
which he had framed, Digby returned to Paris to await the
event. Immediately after the restoration, he came to Lon-
don, and though the King and his ministers were well
apprised of the intrigues which have lately been mentioned,
was received at Court, at least, with great complaisance. It

SIR KENELM DIGBY. 155

would have been surprising, indeed, had he been treated
with confidence.

In composing this memoir, I have purposely omitted many
small circumstances of Sir Kenelm's story, for the sake of
giving them in the dress in which they appear in a late very
choice publication of papers in the Bodleian and Ashmolean
libraries, which closes with a collection of biographical
memorandums, loosely strung together under the several
heads to which they belong, by the pen of the singular John
Aubrey. Those who read biography with a true taste and
feeling, well know how much the life and freshness of such
unstudied notices fade, in being reduced even to the best
form of regular narrative.

" Sir Kenelm Digby," says Aubrey, " was a great traveller,
and understood ten or twelve languages. He was not only
master of a good and graceful judicious style, but he also
wrote a delicate hand, both fast hand and Roman."

" He was such a goodly handsome person, and had so
graceful elocution, and noble address, that had he been dropt
out of the clouds in any part of the world he would have
made himself respected; but the Jesuits spake spitefully,
and said 'twas true, but then he must not stay there above
six weeks. He was well versed in all kinds of learning ; and
he had also this virtue ; that no man knew better how to
abound and to be abased, and either was indifferent to him :
no man became grandeur better ; sometimes again he would
live only with a lackey, and horse with a footcloth. He was
very generous and liberal to deserving persons."

" Much against his mother's, &c., consent, he married that
celebrated beauty, and courtesan, Mrs. Venetia Stanley,
whom Richard, Earl of Dorset, kept as his concubine, had
children by her, and settled on her an annuity of five hundred
pounds per annum, which, after Sir K. D. married, was un-
paid by the Earl. Sir Kenelm sued the Earl, after marriage,
and recovered it. He would say that a handsome lusty man,
that was discreet, might make a virtuous wife out of a brothel

156 SIR KENELM DIGBY.

house. This lady carried herself blamelessly, yet they say
he was jealous of her. She died in her bed suddenly ; some
suspected that she was poisoned. When her head was
opened there was found but little brain, which her husband
imputed to her drinking of viper wine ; but spiteful women
would say that it was a viper husband, who was jealous of
her. Once a year the Earl of Dorset invited her and Sir
Kenelm to dinner, where the Earl would behold her with
much passion, and only kiss her hand. After her death, to
avoid envy and scandal, he retired into Gresham College, at
London, where he diverted himself with his chemistry, and
the professor's good conversation. He wore there a long
mourning cloak ; a high cornered hat ; his beard unshorn ;
looked like an hermit ; as signs of sorrow for his beloved
wife, to whose memory he erected a sumptuous monument,
now quite destroyed by the great conflagration. He was a
person of extraordinary strength. I remember one at
Sherbourne, relating to the Earl of Bristol, protested to us
that as he, being a middling man, being set in a chair,
Sir Kenelme took him up, chair and all, with one arm.
He was of undaunted courage, yet not apt in the least
to give offence. His conversation was both ingenious and
innocent."

" There is in print, in French, and also in English, trans-
lated by Mr. James Howell, a speech that he made at a phi-
losophical assembly at Montpellier, 165.. of the sympathetique
powder. He made a speech at the beginning of the meeting
of the Royal Society, of the vegetation of plants. He was
born to three thousand pounds per annum. His ancient seat,
I think, is Gotehurst, Buckinghamshire. He had a fair estate
also in Rutlandshire. What by reason of the civil wars, and
his generous mind, he contracted great debts ; and, I know
not how, there being a great falling out between him and his
then only son, John, he settled his estate upon Cornwalleys,
a subtle solicitor, and also a member of the House of Com-
mons, who did put Mr. John Digby to much charge in law.

SIR KENELM DIGBY. 157

Sir John Hoskyns informs me that Sir Kenelm Digby did
translate Petronius Arbiter into English," &c. &c.

Sir Kenelm Digby survived the restoration about five years,
which he passed rather in the enjoyment than in the active
prosecution of science. He lived entirely in London, and
established in his house, in Covent Garden, those literary
assemblies to which he had been accustomed in France, and
which he seems first to have introduced in this country. He
had been for several years afflicted by the stone, and in the
autumn and winter of 1664 his attacks of that cruel disease
so frequently recurred as to reduce him to a state of extreme
weakness. He was preparing, however, for one more visit
to Paris, when a most violent paroxysm carried him off on
his birthday, the eleventh of June, in the following year.
He was buried in Christ-Church, within Newgate, where,
several years before his death, he had erected a superb
monument in memory of his wife. By the unbridled frailties
of that lady, the Earl of Dorset having been but one of many
favoured lovers, much of the noblest blood of England was
dishonoured, for she was the daughter of Sir Edward Stanley,
Knight of the Bath, grandson of the great Edward, Earl of
Derby, by Lucy, daughter and coheir of Thomas Percy, Earl
of Northumberland. Sir Kenelm left by her an only child,
John Digby, who certainly inherited, though under many
disadvantages and vexations, the most part of his father's
estates. In him the male line of his branch of the Digbies
became extinct, for he had by his wife, Margaret, daughter of
Sir Edward Longueville, of Wolverton, in Bucks, two
daughters only ; Margaret Maria, married to Sir John Con-
way, of Bodey, in Flintshire, and Charlotte Theophila, to
Richard Mostyn, of Penbeddw, in the same county.

In addition to the works which have already been men-
tioned, several small tracts have been published under the
name of Sir Kenelm Digby. A Discourse delivered before
the Royal Society on the Vegetation of Plants. Choice
Receipts in Physic and Chirurgery. Cordial and Distilled

158 SIR KENELM DIGBY.

Water and Spirits, Perfumes, and other curiosities. His
Closet opened, wherein is discovered several ways of making
Wines. Excellent Directions for Cookery. Choice Collection
of rare Chemical Secrets, &c. But there is reason to sus-
pect that all these, except the first, were the gleanings of his
laboratory, put together, and published after his death, by the
servant who assisted him in his philosophical experiments.

EAUL OF LINDSET.
OB, 1666,

MONTAGU BERTIE,

SECOND EARL OF LINDSET.

A WRITER too frequently quoted, who sometimes sacrificed
truth to what he esteemed brilliancy of thought and expres-
sion, has left us many particulars of this nobleman's charac-
ter, on the authenticity of which we may depend, because
they were published within two years after his death, while
the recollection of him was so warm in the hearts both of his
friends and enemies, that the subject may be said to have
been almost living to caution the author against misrepresen-
tation. Lloyd tells us that " his converse gave the world a
singular pattern of harmless and inoffensive mirth ; of a
nobleness, not made up of fine clothes and courtship ; a sweet-
ness and familiarity, that at once gained love and preserved
respect ; a grandeur and nobility safe in its own worth, not
needing to maintain itself by a jealous and morose distance ;
the confirmed goodness of his youth not only guarding his
mind from the temptation of vice, but securing his fame too
from the very suspicion of it, so outstripping in wisdom, tem-
perance and fortitude, not only what others did but even
what they wrote, being as good in reality as in pretence ; to
which he added this unusual glory that since there was but
a small partition between the Kings of Judah's beds and the
altar, through which they said David had a secret passage
(arguing the nearness there should be between religion and
honour) and that the Cross was an ornament to the Crown,
and much more to the Coronet, he satisfied not himself with
the bare exercise of virtue, but he sublimated it, and made it

160 MONTAGU BERTIE,

grace." Lloyd adds, in more words than it is convenient
here to use, that he was educated with great care, and that he
prosecuted his tour of the Continent with a contempt of the
inconveniences then incident to it, and a spirit of observation
and inquiry, uncommon in young men of his rank ; and that
" the result of these and other advantages, was a competent
skill in arts, especially philosophy, mathematics, physic, and
the two parts belonging to it, chirurgery and botanism."

He was born in the year 1608, the eldest son of that admi-
rable example of honour, loyalty, and courage, Robert Bertie,
Lord Willoughby of Eresby, who was in 1626 created Earl of
Lindsey, by Elizabeth, only child of Edward, first Lord Mon-
tagu of Boughton. Having served as a volunteer in two or
three campaigns in Flanders, which was then esteemed the
conclusion almost necessary of a nobleman's education, he
returned to the court, where his father was highly esteemed,
and was appointed a Gentleman of the Bed-chamber, and
soon after Captain of the King's Life Guard. In those capa-
cities he attended Charles on his journey into Scotland in
1639, and seems to have gained at that time not only the
favour but the cordial friendship of that Prince, from whose
person he was for several years after that period never, but
in one instance, for many days together absent. At the com-
mencement of the rebellion he was named one of the Com.
missioners of Array, and at the battle of Edgehill, in which
his father was General in Chief of the army, under the King,
who was present, was stationed, at the head of the guards,
next to the General's regiment. It is well known that the
fortune of that day, in which the King had at first the advan-
tage, was marred by the absence of the horse, which, under
the command of Prince Rupert, had engaged in an imprudent
pursuit. In the unfortunate interval before their return the
reserve of the rebels, under Sir William Balfour, made a
furious attack on the King's infantry, especially in the
quarter where the General stood, for he was on foot, and
he fell into their hands, after the most heroic resistance,

SECOND EARL OF LINDSEY. 101

severely, and as it proved, fatally wounded. Montagu, then
Lord Willoughby, under the impulse of a filial love which for
the time suspended all reflection, rushed, almost alone, amidst
the captors, and was overpowered by their numbers, while
desperately fighting his way towards his father, who on the
following day, the twenty-fourth of October, 1642, died in
his arms, leaving him Earl of Lindsey, and a prisoner in the
hands of the rebels.

Amidst the confusion, and multiplicity of cares, neces-
sarily following such an action, the King's almost first atten-
tion seems to have been directed to him. A trumpet was
despatched to the enemy, with proposals for his release, and
with the following letter to himself.

Lindsey,

You cannot be more sensible, as I believe, of
your father's loss than myself ; his death confirming the esti-
mation I had of him. As for yourself, the double suffering
you have had for my sake, both in your father's person and
your own, puts upon me the stricter obligation, not only to
restore you to your liberty, now unjustly detained from you,
but also to shew the world by my actions how really I am
Your assured and constant friend,

CHARLES R.
Aynho, 27 Oct. 1642.

The King however had reckoned too favourably of the
justice and generosity of those who were opposed to him.
They refused to accept any exchange for Lindsey ; and, from
their knowledge of his exalted fidelity, or of his military skill
or bravery, or perhaps from mere malice, detained him till
the eleventh of August, in the following year, when he
was liberated, it does not appear on what terms, and joining
the King at Oxford, became one of his prime counsellors for
the future conduct of the war.

He would however exercise no command beyond that of

v. M

162 MONTAGU BERTIE,

his old regiment, the Life Guard, at the head of which he
was actively and valiantly engaged at both the battles of New-
bury, at Cropredy Bridge, in several actions in Cornwall, and,
finally, in the battle of Naseby, where he was wounded. It
was there that his master's fate may be said to have been
unhappily decided ; and as Charles never after commanded
personally in the field, so Lindsey, who had almost always
fought as it were by his side, now retired from military
service. He continued in constant attendance on the King
till his Majesty fatally put himself into the hands of the
Scots, and then, with his approbation, surrendered, with the
Duke of Richmond, and others of Charles's best friends, to
the rebel army, and, after an imprisonment of some duration,
was released on his parole. He now constantly employed
himself in various efforts to promote some sort of accommo-
dation between the King and the Parliament, from which his
known honour and integrity extorted a respect rarely shewn
by that body to any of the royal party. At length, after
a separation of two years, he was permitted, at the particular
request of the King, then a prisoner in the Isle of Wight,
again to wait on him, and was appointed by him a commis-
sioner for the treaty of Newport, which, as it is needless to
inform the historical reader, was cut short by the abrupt
seizure of the King's person by Cromwell's emissaries, almost
in the hour when Lindsey, who had obtained some hint of the
design, was earnestly pressing him to avoid its consequences
by instant flight. Within two months from this precise
period, the bloody stroke which terminated the miseries
of this unhappy and blameless Prince had fallen on him.
Lindsey had been still allowed to pay his daily duty, and
the King, on the day before his death, in distributing to a
few eminent persons some books, to be kept by them as
tokens of his regard, gave him the now almost forgotten
romance " Cassandra." He was one of the four noblemen
who petitioned for, and obtained, permission to attend the
royal corpse to its unseemly interment.

SECOND EARL OF LINDSEY. 163

After the King's death he remained in England, still a pri-
soner on parole, suffering severely from time to time by arbi-
trary fines and sequestrations, and labouring incessantly for
the royal cause, but with such secresy and prudence as to
elude always the vigilance of the rebels, except in a single
instance, when in 1655, he was accused of high treason
against the spurious government, and suffered a short impri-
sonment in the Tower, on charges too obscure and doubtful
to warrant even the lawless crew which composed it in
bringing him to trial. At the restoration he was received but
with that moderate grace which Charles the Second, with
more policy than feeling, generally bestowed at that time on
his father's firmest friends. He was sworn of the Privy
Council, and on the first of April, 1661, elected a Knight of
the Garter ; a favour which it seems he owed to the inter-
cession of Lord Clarendon, to whom the King had sent
the Duke of York to offer it to himself. Clarendon modestly
declined it, but as he tells us in his memoirs of his own life,
" he desired his Highness to put the King in mind of the Earl
of Lindsey (with whom he was known to have no friendship ;
on the contrary, that there had been disgusts between them
in the last King's time) That his father had lost his life
with the Garter about his neck, when this gentleman, his son,
endeavouring to relieve him, was taken prisoner that he
had served the King to the end of the war with courage and
fidelity, being an excellent officer ; for all which the King his
father had admitted him a Gentleman of his Bedchamber,
which office he was now without ; and not to have the Garter
now, upon his Majesty's return, would in all men's eyes look
like a degradation, and an instance of his Majesty's dis-
esteem, especially if the Chancellor should supply the place,
who was not thought his friend. So the Earl of Lindsey
was created Knight of the Garter, and coming afterwards
to hear by what chance it was, he ever lived with great
civility towards the Chancellor to his death." He owed no
other favours to the Crown, for the office of Lord Great

M2

164 MONTAGU BERTIE, SECOND EARL OF LINDSEY.

Chamberlain, which he exercised at the coronation, devolved
on him by inheritance, and is at this day vested in his blood
under the same right.

Montagu, Earl of Lindsey, died at Campden House, in the
parish of Kensington, near London, on the twenty-fifth day
of July, 1666, and was buried at Edenham, in the county of
Lincoln. He was twice married ; first, to Martha, daughter
of Sir Willim Cockayne, of Rushton, in the county of North-
ampton (ancestor to the Viscounts Cullen of Ireland) and
widow of John Ramsey, Earl of Holderness. By this lady
he had five sons ; Robert, his successor, whose son and heir
was created Duke of Ancaster ; Peregrine ; Richard ; Vere ;
and Charles ; and three daughters ; Elizabeth, married to
Baptist Noel, Viscount Campden ; Bridget, to Sir Thomas
Osborne, afterwards created Duke of Leeds, &c. ; and Cathe-
rine, to Robert Dormer, of Dourton, in Bucks. His second
Countess was Bridget, daughter and heir of Edward, third son
of Sir William Wray, of Glentworth, in Lincolnshire, Bart,
(by Elizabeth, his wife, who was daughter and heir to
Francis Lord Norreys, and Earl of Berkshire) and had issue
by her ; James, who became Lord Norreys in right of his
maternal descent, and was afterwards created Earl of Abing-
don ; Henry ; and one daughter, Mary, married to Charles
Dormer, Earl of Caernarvon.

OF WORCESTER.
OB, 1667,

EDWARD SOMERSET,

SECOND MARQUIS OF WORCESTER.

THOUGH much has been written of this nobleman, it can
scarcely be doubted that the most important facts of his story
remain untold, and indeed undiscovered, nor do we know
where to seek them. He was a statesman, a philosopher,
and a mechanician, and in each of those stations a mystic.
He was a man of parts, or a madman, or both ; yet Charles
the First, who had a cool head, and could estimate characters
with a just and cautious judgment, thought him worthy, not
only of the most implicit confidence, but of a degree of favour
so splendid as to amount to a partition with himself of many
of the faculties of regality. If an affectionate regard to the
person of his Sovereign, perhaps even surpassed by the most
earnest devotion to the kingly office, merited such distinctions,
no man could have better deserved them. Certainly none
ever gave more ample proof of the sincerity of those disposi-
tions, for he sacrificed to them all that the world deems
estimable, except his honour.

He was the eldest of the nine sons of Henry, the first
Marquis, by Anne, the only child of John, Lord Russell, who
died in the life-time of his father, Francis, second Earl of
Bedford, to whom he was heir-apparent. The date of his
birth is not known, nor have the circumstances of his early
life been recorded. His earnest attachment, in common with
the whole of his family, to the ancient faith, kept him pro-
bably unconnected with a Court which regarded that profes-
sion at least with jealousy, while an ardent inclination to the

166 EDWARD SOMERSET,

severest scientific studies must have rendered retirement not
only delightful but even necessary to his nature and his habits.
He had gratified it too in extensive foreign travel, and had
gleaned, in a long absence, the most curious intelligence that
Europe could afford in every branch of the useful arts. It is
not strange then that we should be almost without intelligence
of him till the commencement of the grand rebellion, when
he joined the royal standard, with his father, who had been
lately created Marquis of Worcester, and was soon after
appointed to command an army raised by that great royalist
and himself in Wales. We find the Parliament, in their
petition presented to the King at Oxford in January 1643,
N. S. complaining " that he had made the Lord Herbert of
Ragland," (the title then used by this nobleman) " and other
Papists, commanders of great forces ; " and requiring " that
he may be restrained from coming within the verge of the
Court, and that he may not bear any office, or have any
employments concerning State or Commonwealth." Charles
answered this part of their petition by presently after
appointing the Lord Herbert his governor of South Wales.
" There were," says Lord Clarendon, " in the opinion of
many, great objections against committing that employment
to that noble Lord : first, he had no knowledge or experience
in the martial profession : then his religion, being of that sort
of Catholics the people rendered odious by accusing it to be
most jesuited, men apprehended would produce a greater
brand upon the King of favouring papists and popery than he
had yet been reproached with. This gave opportunity and
excuse to many persons of quality and great interest in those
counties, between whom and that Lord's family there has
been perpetual feuds and animosities, to lessen their zeal to
the King's cause out of jealousy to the other's religion and
those contestations had been lately improved, with some
sharpness, by the Lord Herbert's carriage towards the Lord
Marquis of Hertford, to whom the King had committed the
government of North Wales." The noble historian however

SECOND MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 167

confesses that he was one " whose person many men loved,
and very few hated ; that he was in truth of a civil and
obliging nature, and of a fair and gentle carriage towards all
men ; and a man of more than ordinary affection and reve-
rence to the person of the King, and one who he was sure
would neither deceive nor betray him."

With these recommendations and objections Lord Herbert
placed himself at the head of a body of fifteen hundred
infantry, and five hundred horse, and marched, in the middle
of February, 1643, towards Gloucester, which was then held
by the rebels, intending to besiege it, in concert with a part
of the royal army under Prince Maurice, which already block-
aded it on the other side. On his way, in passing through a
little disaffected village in the forest of Deane, called Cover,
Colonel Lawley, a brave and practised officer, whom he had
appointed his Lieutenant General, and to whom he looked
for correction of his own inexperience, was killed by a shot
from a window. Lord Herbert was at the moment with the
King at Oxford, but his brother, the Lord John Somerset, who
commanded the horse, continued the march through the
forest, and at length arrived, without further interruption, at
the Bishop of Gloucester's palace, called the Vineyard, within
half a mile of the town, where he took up his quarters, a
position which gave him the controul of the bridge over the
Severn. In the mean time Sir William Waller, with two
thousand of the rebel horse, made a rapid march, mostly in
the night, from Chichester, and, having caused a report to be
previously spread that he intended to attack Cirencester,
crossed the river in several flat-bottomed boats which he had
appointed to be ready six miles west of Gloucester, and pre-
sented himself, as it should seem altogether unexpectedly,
before the astonished Welchmen. These, though equal in
number to the rebels ; with advantage of position ; and
secured by intrenchments against any sudden attack ; were
seized by a panic ; and, instantly sending out to treat, sur-
rendered, without a shot fired or a sword drawn on either

168 EDWARD SOMERSET,

side, on the mere grant of quarter. " A submission," to use
again the words of Lord Clarendon, " so like a stratagem that
the enemy could hardly trust it." Waller sent thirteen
hundred infantry, and three troops of horse, prisoners into
Gloucester, the rest dispersed themselves, and were re-col-
lected by Lord Herbert, who, in spite of the discouragement,
immediately applied himself to the repair of his loss by new
levies. A tide however of ill success pursued him, and he
became at length wholly unpopular, as well among his
troops as in his country. In the succeeding summer he re-
signed his military command to Sir William Vavasour,
retaining only the title of the King's Lieutenant in South
Wales.

It may seem strange that, contrary to the custom in earlier
times of disgracing Generals because their measures had been
unfortunate, Charles should have chosen this very period to
advance Lord Herbert to a degree of trust and power, and
dignity, never at any other time bestowed on a subject. On
the first of April, 1644, the King executed the following
stupendous commission or warrant, which remains in the
office of the Signet, and, though already to be found in print,
must of necessity have a place in this memoir.

" Charles, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland,
France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. To our
right trusty, and right well-beloved Cousin, Edward Somerset,
alias Plantagenet, Lord Herbert, Baron Beaufort of Caldicote,
Grismond, Chepstow, Ragland, and Gower ; Earl of Glamor-
gan, Son and Heir apparent of our intirely beloved Cousin,
Henry, Earl and Marquis of Worcester, greeting. Having
had good and long experience of your prowess, prudence, and
fidelity, do make choice, and by these nominate and appoint
you, our right trusty and right well-beloved Cousin, Edward
Somerset, &c., to be our Generalissimo of three Armies,
English, Irish, and Foreign, and Admiral of a Fleet at Sea,
with power to recommend your Lieutenant-General for our
approbation, leaving all other officers to your own election

SECOND MARQtJIS OP WORCESTER. 169

and denomination, and accordingly to receive their commis-
sion from you ; willing and commanding them, and every of
them, you to obey, as their General, and you to receive
immediate orders from ourself only. And lest, through dis-
tance of place, we may be misinformed, we will and com-
mand you to reply unto us, if any of our orders should
thwart or hinder any of your designs for our service. And
there being necessary great sums of money to the carrying on
so chargeable an employment, which we have not to furnish
you withal, we do by these impower you to contract with
any of our loving subjects of England, Ireland, and dominion
of Wales, for wardships, customs, woods, or any our rights
and prerogatives ; we by these obliging ourselves, our heirs
and successors, to confirm and make good the same accord-
ingly. And for persons of generosity for whom titles of
honour are most desirable, we have entrusted you with
several patents under our great seal of England, from a Mar-
quis to a Baronet, which we give you full power and autho-
rity to date and dispose of without knowing our future plea-
sure ; so great is our trust and confidence in you as that
whatsoever you do contract for or promise we will make
good the same accordingly, from the date of this our Commis-
sion forwards, which, for the better satisfaction, We give you
leave to give them, or any of them, copies thereof, attested
under your hand, and seal of arms. And, for your own
encouragement, and in token of our gratitude, We give and
allow you henceforward such fees, titles, preeminences, and
privileges, as do and may belong unto your place and com-
mand above-mentioned ; with promise of our dear daughter,
Elizabeth, to your son, Plantagenet, in marriage, with three
hundred thousand pounds in dower, or portion, most part
whereof we acknowledge spent and disbursed by your father
and you in our service ; and the title of Duke of Somerset, to
you and your heirs male for ever ; and from henceforward to
give the Garter to your arms, and at your pleasure to put on
the George, and blue ribband. And, for your greater honour,

170 EDWARD SOMERSET,

and in testimony of our reality, We have with our own hand
affixed our Great Seal of England unto these our Commission
and Letters, making them patent. Witness Ourself, at Ox-
ford, the first day of April, in the twentieth year of our
Reign, and in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred
and forty- four."

What were the King's motives to these most extravagant
concessions is a question which might seem to set all con-
jecture at defiance. The sacrifices of Herbert and his family
had been noble and unbounded, but it is a duty in a Sove-
reign to limit his bounty, and indeed it is difficult to con-
ceive the degree of merit which could have called for such
excessive rewards ; neither was it Charles's foible to be over
prodigal of his favours. If they were meant to purchase
future services, what were they ? and what could have
been expected from Herbert ? His talents, of whatsoever
order they might have been, were certainly not of a character
to replace fallen Crowns, or to reconcile outrageously con-
tending parties ; his splendid patrimony was already nearly
exhausted; and with it had fled his local influence. Cir-
cumstances of great singularity however occurred shortly
after the date of the warrant, which seem to offer a solution
of these difficulties. Charles's situation was at that moment
truly desperate. Every where unsuccessful in the field ; his
friends dispirited : their pecuniary resources dissipated ; a
Scottish army added to the number of his enemies ; and
the whole system of government menaced, not less than his
Crown, by a new-born and nameless party, equally bold,
cunning, and malignant, which was hourly increasing ; no
reasonable hope remained for him but in some effort of a
desperate nature, hitherto wholly untried. His Catholic
subjects were exceedingly numerous, loyally disposed, and
great wealth was divided among them, but, from circum-
stances of which it is needless to remind the historical reader,
they were unconnectedly scattered over the face of the three
kingdoms, and had remained inactive, but not indifferent,

SECOND MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 171

spectators of the vast contest. If we examine the state of
the King's affairs at that unhappy epoch, we shall find that
the only vigorous and comprehensive expedient which could
afford him even a chance of redeeming them from utter ruin,
was to incorporate those dispersed parties, and bring them
collectively into action. To accomplish this great end it
was necessary to employ the agency of a servant of the
purest fidelity to his person as well as to his crown ; of the
firmest resolution ; of high rank, and of gracious and con-
ciliating manners and temper ; and above all, of an invincible
zeal and constancy in the Romish faith. The due perform-
ance of such a service required a delegation of the most
extensive powers ; the imminent peril to be incurred by
him who should undertake it challenged the most brilliant
rewards. Herbert was perhaps the only man about the
King in whom were combined all the qualifications which it
demanded.

Assuming then, what really appears more than probable,
' but on which we have not here room for further argument,
that Charles at that period meditated the employment of a
great Catholic army against his rebellious subjects, let us
resume our notices of Herbert, now called Earl of Glamor-
gan, at the point of time in which they will seem to justify
such a conjecture, as well as to connect him with the enter-
prise in question.

A rebellion without disloyalty, if an expression seemingly
so paradoxical may be allowed, had for nearly three years
raged in Ireland. It was in fact a horribly ferocious crusade
against the protestants. It maybe said that the government
of the island was at the time divided between the King's
Lieutenant and the Pope's Nuncio, who held a sort of Court
at Kilkenny, and mixed with an absolute spritual authority
no small degree of independence in temporal affairs. To
that Prelate, and the Catholic chieftains by whom he was
surrounded, Lord Herbert was sent by the King, in the
summer of 1645, on a special mission, the objects of which

172 EDWARD SOMERSET,

have never been completely divulged. It appears that the
Lord Lieutenant, the Marquis of Ormond, was not entirely
ignorant of them, but the extreme caution used by him
throughout the whole affair, leaves us in doubt whether he
was apprised of their full extent. Herbert's first visit was
of course to that nobleman, who further accredited him to
the leaders of the Catholics. A letter from Ormond, of the
eleventh of August, to one of them, Lord Muskery, which
seems to have had scarcely any other purpose, concludes
thus " What I have to say is this ; that I know no sub-
ject in England upon whose favour and authority with his
Majesty, and real and innate nobility, you can better rely
than upon his Lordship's." Herbert now proceeded to con-
clude a treaty of peace with the Council of Kilkenny, by
which they agreed to furnish an army of ten thousand men,
to serve Charles in England, and he granted, in the King's
name, the most complete toleration to the Catholic worship
throughout Ireland. While the levy was in progress, and
Herbert preparing to take the command, that singular person
George Lord Digby, who held the now almost nominal office
of a Secretary of State to Charles, arrived in Dublin, as it
were in a private character, for he was a fugitive from recent
military defeat, and, on the twenty-sixth of December,
accused Herbert at the Council Table of having counterfeited
the King's order authorising the treaty, and demanded that
he should be arrested on suspicion of high treason. Ormond
and the Council acquiesced, and Herbert was committed
to the Castle of Dublin. The King wrote to Ormond, de-
claring his approbation of these steps ; as did Secretary
Nicholas on the following day, loading Herbert with blame,
and ascribing his conduct to the fury of his zeal, and to
weakness of intellect. Nay, so highly did Charles seem to
resent it, that we find in the Secretary's letter this bitter
passage " The King has commanded me to advertise your
Lordship that the patent for making the said Lord Herbert
of Ragland Earl of Glamorgan is not passed the Great Seal

SECOND MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 173

here, so as he is no Peer of this kingdom, notwithstanding he
styles himself, and hath treated with the rebels in Ireland,
by the name of the Earl of Glamorgan, which is as vainly
taken upon him as his pretended warrant, if any such there
be, was surreptitiously gotten :" Herbert, however, had been
liberated, at the earnest intreaty of the Catholics, before the
arrival of these letters, upon his own recognizance of twenty
thousand pounds, and those of the Earls of Clanricarde and
Kildare, of ten thousand each, for his appearance on thirty
days' notice.

These criminal charges, and demonstrations of anger, were
wholly groundless and affected, yet, such was Herbert's pro-
found devotion to his master, that he endured them, and the
scorn and obloquy which followed them, with a patience
truly magnanimous. They had arisen from a mere accident.
Immediately after the conclusion of the treaty, the Catholic
Archbishop of Tuam was killed by a random shot from the
garrison of Sligo, and a copy of the articles was found in his
pocket. They were presently despatched to London, to
the rebel parliament, where they became eminently useful in
justifying the unceasing outcry of that body against the
King's inclination to favour popery. Charles had no other
means of counteracting the mischiefs consequent on this pre-
mature discovery, than by a direct disclaimer on his own
part, corroborated by the subsequent steps to which we have
just now referred. He wrote accordingly to the Parliament,
on the twenty-ninth of January 1646, N. S. in terms little
differing from those which he had despatched to Ormond and
the Irish Council, and designated Herbert's treaty as " highly
derogatory from his Majesty's honour and royal dignity, and
most prejudicial unto the protestant religion and church
there in Ireland." Doubtless all this was done with Herbert's
privity and concurrence. Charles was, in the meantime, in
regular correspondence with him, always addressing him as
Earl of Glamorgan. Herbert refused to relinquish the com-
mand of the troops raised in conformity to the treaty ;

174 EDWARD SOMERSET,

persevered in a constant communication with the heads of the
Catholics assembled at Kilkenny; and on the tenth of March
availed himself of one of the great faculties with which the
extraordinary warrant of the first of April, 1644, had in-
vested him, by offering to the Nuncio to confer the dignity of
the Peerage on six of them, and to create one Earl, two
Viscounts, and three Barons. The views, however, which
his great spirit had, in spite of all disadvantages, still
cherished, at length sunk under the chilling influence of his
master's denial, artificial as it was, of his authority. The
Catholics disbanded the troops which they had raised under
it, and negotiated a new treaty with Ormond : Charles
indeed, the centre of his hopes and his affections, was
presently after stripped of all power, and became a sort of
captive in the hands of the Scots. The following letter from
the unhappy Prince, immediately after he fell into that
thraldom, is a document of peculiar value to this Memoir,
inasmuch as it tends powerfully to support the conjecture
lately proposed, which might otherwise seem to some persons
to savour of extravagance, by proving that he considered his
Catholic subjects as his forlorn hope, while it demonstrates
the perfect confidence and esteem in which he held the noble-
man of whom we are treating :

" Glamorgan,

" I am not so strictly guarded but that, if you
send to me a prudent and secret person, I can receive a letter,
and you may signify to me your mind, I having always loved
your person and conversation, which I ardently wish for at
present more than ever, if it could be had without prejudice
to you, whose safety is as dear to me as my own. If you can
raise a large sum of money by pawning my kingdoms, I am
content you should do it ; and if I recover them, I will fully
repay that money. And tell the Nuncio that if I can come
into his and your hands, which ought to be extremely wished
for by you both, as well for the sake of England as Ireland

i

SECOND MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 175

(since all the rest, as I see, despise me), I will do it : and, if
I do not say this from my heart, or if in any future time I
fail you in this, may God never restore me to my kingdoms
in this world, nor give me eternal happiness in the next, to
which I hope this tribulation will conduct me at last, after I
have satisfied my obligations to my friends, to none of whom
am I so much obliged as to yourself, whose merits towards
me exceed all expressions that can be used by your constant
friend,

" From Newcastle, July 20, 1646. CHARLES R."

The memory of the ill-fated Charles has been rudely
attacked, and pusillanimously defended, in idle disquisitions
on the question of his right to use the services of his Catholic
subjects of Ireland against his English rebels. Dr. Birch,
with more candour than is usually to be met with in a Whig
controversialist, has laboriously ransacked every source of
authority and argument, and produced a large volume to
establish the negative. Mr. Carte, in the true spirit of Tory
complaisance to what are now called liberal principles, evades
the assertion of any direct affirmative, and rests his defence
on the supposition that Herbert fabricated his commissions,
and that the King was sincere in his expressions of disappro-
bation. So confined a view of the question was scarcely
worthy of the trouble of these demonstrations of boldness by
the one, and cowardice by the other. If they had looked a
little further, they would have met with coincident probabi-
lities, amounting collectively almost to certainty, that it was
Charles's intention to make a grand and final effort for the
redemption of his regal authority by the aid of the whole
mass of his Catholic subjects a measure unprohibited by any
law or regulation, divine or human, religious, moral, or
political.

That such was the King's intention there can be scarcely a
reasonable doubt, for can it be supposed that Herbert was
invested with the vast and unprecedented authority, conferred

176 EDWARD SOMERSET,

by the singular instrument of the first of April, 1644, merely
to qualify him to treat for a peace with a body comparatively
at that time so insignificant as the Irish rebels, and to raise so
moderate a force as ten thousand men ? No rthe great plan
was to be first opened in Ireland ; for there, and there only,
were Catholics to be found congregated, and already in arms.
But this is/ no place for further argument on the point in ques-
tion, which indeed has perhaps already been too largely
discussed here. The censure which, seemingly in a too
cautious policy, the dispirited Charles had affected to cast on
Lord Herbert, blasted all his succeeding efforts. He left
Ireland with George Leybourn, a Catholic priest, and chaplain
to Henrietta Maria, who had been sent thither in the preced-
ing year by the Prince of Wales, as his general agent to all
parties, and arrived in Paris in March 1648, N.S., having
succeeded to the dignities of his aged and persecuted father
in the preceding December.

He remained in France till the Restoration, taking no part,
as it should seem, either in the political plans, or the little
intrigues of the exiled Court. On his return with the King
in 1660, one of the first objects of parliamentary attention
was the remarkable warrant, or, as we shall presently find it
called, Patent, which we have had occasion so frequently to
mention. On the eighteenth of August, 1660, the House of
Lords appointed a Committee "to consider of a Patent
granted to the Marquis of Worcester, which is a prejudice to
other Peers." The. Marquis, on the twenty-third, informed
the House that " the Patent was made to him upon condi-
tions on his part to be performed, which he hath not per-
formed, and is willing therefore to submit it to be surrendered,
or otherwise disposed, as the King should appoint ; " and it
was accordingly delivered up to the King on the third of
September following, and thus this remarkable instrument
became involved in greater mystery than before, for the con-
ditions were never disclosed. The Marquis devoted the
long leisure which his absence in France had afforded to the

SECOND MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 177

study of experimental philosophy and mechanics, to which he
had always been passionately attached ; and in 1663, pub-
lished in London a syllabus of the results of his labours, with
this title " A Century of the Names and Scantlings of such
Inventions as at present I can call to mind to have tried and
perfected, which, (my former notes being lost) I have, at the
instance of a powerful friend, endeavoured now to set these
down in such a way as may sufficiently instruct me to put
any of them in practice." It is a mere catalogue of enigmas ;
with this difference, that if we had them before us at length,
we could not but find most of them absolutely incapable of
solution. As a proof of this, as well as a specimen of the
whole, take the very first article of the " Century "

" Several sorts of seals, some showing by screws, others by
gages, fastening or unfastening all the marks at once ; others
by additional points, and imaginary places, proportionable to
ordinary escocheons and seals at arms, each way palpably
and punctually setting down (yet private from all but the
owner, and by his assent) the day of the month, the day of
the week, the month of the year, the year of our Lord, the
names of the witnesses, and the individual place where any
thing was sealed, though in ten thousand several places, toge-
ther with the very number of lines contained in a contract,
whereby falsification may be discovered and manifestly
proved, being upon good grounds suspected. Upon any of
these seals a man may keep accompts of receipts and dis-
bursements from one farthing to an hundred millions, punc-
tually showing each pound, shilling, penny, or farthing. By
these seals, likewise, any letter, though written but in Eng-
lish, may be understood in eight several languages, and in
English itself, to clean contrary and different sense, unknown
to any but the correspondent, and riot to be read or under-
stood by him neither, if opened before it arrive unto him, so
that neither threats, nor hope of reward, can make him reveal
the secret, the letter having been intercepted, and first
opened by the enemy ; and ten thousand persons may use

V. N

178 EDWARD SOMERSET, SECOND MARQUIS OF WORCESTER.

these seals to all and every of the purposes aforesaid, and yet
keep their secrets from any but whom they please."

Those who may wish to know more of this strange little
book, which certainly savours much of a disordered imagina-
tion, may find it rather largely treated of in Mr. Parke's
edition of Lord Orford's Royal and Noble Authors. To
return to the really worthy projector of the prodigies enu-
merated in it, who, with the too common fate of the zealous
servants of the late King, seems to have been wholly neglected
after the Restoration, it only remains to be added that he
died on the third of April, 1667, and was buried at Ragland,
in Monmouthshire, having been twice married; first, to
Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Dormer (son and heir to
Robert, first Lord Dormer, in whose lifetime he died) by
whom he had an only son, Henry, who in 1682 was created
Duke of Beaufort ; and two daughters ; Anne, who became
the first wife of Henry Frederic, third Earl of Arundel of the
Howards ; and Elizabeth, married to William Herbert, first
Marquis of Powys. The Marquis of Worcester's second lady
was Margaret, daughter to Henry Obrien, Earl of Thomond,
who had by him a daughter, Mary, who died an infant.

EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON.
OB, 1667,

THOMAS WRIOTHESLEY,

FOURTH EARL OP SOUTHAMPTON.

IT has been, I believe, remarked in some other part of this
work that the lives of persons of constant and exalted virtue
furnish subjects unfavourable to the pen of the biographer ;
and the observation is largely justified by the memorials, or
rather deficiency of memorials, which have been preserved of
this nobleman, probably one of the greatest, and certainly
one of the best, men of his time. The details of his private,
and indeed of his public life, are meagre and uninteresting ;
but two eminent writers, of minds, and tempers, and prin-
ciples, different almost to contrariety ; the one a loyalist, of
severe justice and truth, tempered by cordial kindness ; the
other a factious partisan, and censorious, even to malignity ;
have so nearly agreed in the views which they have left
us of his character, that no room is left for doubt of its
excellence.

He was the second, but only surviving, son of Henry, the
third Earl, the friend of Essex and patron of Shakspeare, by
Elizabeth, daughter of John Vernon, of Hodnet, in Shrop-
shire. His education commenced at Eton school, and was
completed at Magdalen College, in Oxford, which he left
with the fame of considerable erudition and general learning,
and went to the Continent, and long sojourned in France,
where he probably married his first Lady, and afterwards in
the Low Countries, taking no part however, as it should
seem, in the military affairs which then distracted that
unhappy land. Soon after his return, he became disgusted

N2

180 THOMAS WRIOTHESLEY,

at some of the high measures of the government, with the
additional motive of having received some personal offence
from it, and had a particular prejudice against the Earl of
Strafford. The leaders therefore of the discontented party
in Parliament applied themselves to him with the utmost
eagerness and courtesy, and spared no pains to obtain his
countenance and support ; but he presently discerned the
disloyalty which lurked at the root of their designs, and
abandoned, or rather in a great measure forbore to take any
concern in, their councils or transactions. We scarcely hear
of him therefore in public affairs till the year 1641, when he,
and another peer, the Lord Robartes, refused their assent to
the protestation against plots and conspiracies proposed by
Mr. Pym, which was, on the third of May in that year,
signed by every other member present at the time in each of
the two Houses. This first demonstration of principles, from
which he never after in the smallest degree swerved, was
furiously resented by the Commons, who presently voted
that " what person soever who should not take the protesta-
tion was unfit to bear office in the Church or Common-
wealth." He was soon after sworn of the Privy Council,
and appointed a Lord of the King's Bedchamber ; attended
Charles on his final departure from London in the autumn ;
and became from that time the King's chief secret adviser in
all important matters relating to either ; while he published,
without hesitation, his firm attachment to the Crown, by
making himself a party in almost all negotiations with the
Parliament.

The warmth of this unalterable disposition in him was
however tempered by a happy mixture of prudence. Thus,
though with great difficulty, he prevailed on Charles, soon
after he set up his standard at Nottingham, to make an offer
of peace to the Parliament. So averse was he to this step,
that Southampton, who slept in his chamber on the night
that it was decided on, declared that the King had passed it
sleepless, and in agony ; and he is reported to have burst into

FOURTH EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 181

tears when he consented to the measure, The Earl was
himself the messenger, accompanied by two members of the
House of Commons, and the insolence of the rebels on this
occasion is well known. On his entering the House of Peers,
he was not allowed to take his seat, and having been in a
manner turned out, they sent a gentleman usher after him
to require his message, to whom he replied, that he had
been commanded by the King to deliver it himself, and must
do so, unless prohibited by a positive order from the House,
which they instantly voted. He sent it accordingly by their
officer, who presently after returned with their direction
" that he should, at his peril, immediately depart the town,
and that they would take care that their answer should be
sent to him." Such was the first of the long series of indig-
nities which Charles was doomed to receive at the hands of
his infatuated Parliament.

The management of the fruitless treaty with the rebel
commissioners at Oxford in 1643 was committed chiefly to
Southampton. Whitelock tells us that he stood by the King
daily during the progress of it, whispering to him and advis-
ing him ; in the succeeding year he was appointed one of the
Council for the Prince of Wales ; and was soon after sent,
with the Duke of Richmond, to London, to settle with the
two Houses of Parliament, and the Deputies from Scotland,
the preliminaries for the treaty of Uxbridge, which speedily
followed, and for which also he was appointed a commis-
sioner, and was peculiarly distinguished by his discretion
and activity in that character. When Charles fled from
Hampton Court in November 1647, in the fatally vain hope
of quitting England, he took a short refuge in Southampton's
house in Tichfield, in Hampshire ; and when soon after he
returned to the same palace, in bondage in the hands of the
army, one of his first requests was that he might be allowed
to have the attendance of that nobleman. Southampton was
perhaps the very last of the faithful servants who were torn
from his person, and was certainly one of the four who were

182 THOMAS WRIOTHESLEY,

permitted to pay the last solemn duties, in darkness and
privacy, to the royal remains.

He was permitted, such is the respect which exemplary
goodness may extort even from the worst of mankind, to
remain in England in peace and safety, and contrived to
maintain with impunity a useful correspondence with the
young King, whom he supplied from time to time with great
sums. On the Restoration, he was received with every
mark of kindness and gratitude by the King, who, on his
way to London, invested him at Canterbury with the Order
of the Garter, into which he had been, several years before,
elected, and shortly after appointed him Lord High Trea-
surer. Of his conduct in the immediate affairs of that office
we shall presently have some report from an acute contem-
porary of his, and it seems to have been his desire to confine
to them, as much as possible, his whole ministerial attention,
for he had a spirit which could not condescend to mix in the
contemptible intrigues and factions which disgraced most of
the statesmen and courtiers of that reign. He was of the
Committee appointed by the King for the negociation of the
treaty of marriage to Catherine of Braganza, after which we
scarcely hear of him till 1663, when he opposed to his
utmost, both in the Council and in Parliament, the bill for
liberty of conscience, as it was called, by which Charles pro-
posed to allow, in fact to sell for money, a universal tolera-
tion. The King was highly offended, but the Treasurer was
not removed ; nor could all the efforts of a party, not less
crafty than powerful, which then surrounded the throne, and
which immediately seized the opportunity, and rose against
him, prevail on Charles to dismiss him, and so he held the
office for the brief remainder of his life.

His dear and most intimate friend, Lord Clarendon, has
left us the following character of him" The Earl of South-
ampton was indeed a great man in all respects, and brought
very much reputation to the King's cause. He was of a
nature much inclined to melancholy, and, being born a

FOURTH EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 183

younger brother, and his father and elder brother dying upon
the point together whilst he was but a boy, he was at first
much troubled to be called t my Lord,' and with the noise of
attendance, so much he then delighted to be alone. He had
a great spirit. He never had any conversation in the Court,
nor obligation to it; on the contrary, he had undergone
some hardship from it, which made it believed that he would
have been ready to have taken all occasions of being severe
towards it. He was a man of great sharpness of judgment, a
very quick apprehension, and that readiness of expression
upon any sudden debate, that no man delivered himself more
advantageously and weightily, and more efficaciously with
the hearers ; so that no man gave them more trouble in his
opposition, or drew so many to concurrence with him in
opinion. He had no relation to, or dependence upon, the
Court, or purpose to have any, but wholly pursued the public
interest. It was long before he could be prevailed with to
be a counsellor, and longer before he would be admitted
to be of the Bedchamber, and refused both honours the
rather, because after he had refused a protestation which
both Houses had ordered to be taken by all their members,
they had likewise voted that no man should be capable of
any preferment in Church or State who refused to take the
same, and he would shew how much he contemned those
votes. He went with the King to York ; was most solicitous
for the offer of peace at Nottingham ; and was with him at
Edge Hill ; and came and staid with him at Oxford to the
end of the war, taking all opportunities to advance all
motions towards peace ; and as no man was more punctual
in performing his own duty, so no man had more melancholy
apprehensions of the issue of the war."

Bishop Burnet, who hated monarchy and royalists, says,

the Earl of Southampton was a man of great virtue, and of

very good parts. He had a lively apprehension and a good

judgment. He had merited much by his constant adhering

to the King's (Charles the Second's) interest during the war,

184 THOMAS WRIOTHESLEY,

and by the large supplies he had sent him every year during
his exile, for he had a great estate, and only three daughters
to inherit it. He was Lord Treasurer, but he soon grew
weary of business, for he was subject to the stone, which
returned often and violently upon him, and he retained the
principles of liberty, and did not go into the violent measures
of the Court. When he saw the King's temper, and his way
of managing, or rather of spoiling business, he grew very
uneasy, and kept himself more out of the way than was con-
sistent with that high post. The King stood in some awe of
him, and saw how popular he would grow if put out of his
service, and therefore he chose rather to bear with his ill
humour and contradiction than to dismiss him. He was an
incorrupt man, and during seven years' management of the
treasury, made but an ordinary fortune out of it. Before the
Restoration the Lord Treasurer had but a small salary, with
an allowance for a table ; but he gave, or rather sold, all the
subaltern places, and made great profits out of the estate of
the Crown ; but now, that estate being gone, and the Earl of
Southampton disdaining to sell places, the matter was settled
so that the Lord Treasurer was to have eight thousand
pounds a year, and the King was to name all the subaltern
officers. It continued to be so all his time ; but, since that
time, the Lord Treasurer has both the eight thousand pounds,
and a main hand in the disposing of those places."

This nobleman was thrice married; first to Rachel, daughter
of Daniel de Massey, Lord of Rouvigny, in France, by whom
he had two sons, Charles and Henry, who died young ; and
three daughters ; Elizabeth, married to Edward Noel, eldest
son to Baptist, Viscount Campden ; Rachel, first to Francis,
son and heir to Richard, Earl of Carbery in Ireland, secondly,
to William, third son, but at length heir-apparent to William,
first Duke of Bedford, of that family ; and Magdalen, who
died an infant. His second Countess was Elizabeth, daughter
and co-heir to Francis Booth, Lord Dunsmore, afterwards
created Earl of Chichester, who brought him four daughters ;

FOURTH EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 185

three of whom, Audrey, Penelope, and another Penelope, his
youngest child, died young and unmarried, and Elizabeth, the
third, was first married to Jocelyn Percy, Earl of Northum-
berland, and secondly to Ralph, son and heir to Edward
Lord Montagu of Boughton. The Earl of Southampton was
married, thirdly, to Frances, daughter to William Seymour,
second Duke of Somerset of his family, and widow of
Richard, Viscount Molyneux in Ireland. He died at South-
ampton House, in Bloomsbury Square, on the sixteenth of
May, 1667, of a violent attack of the cruel malady mentioned
by Burnet, and was buried at Tichfield.

'

Vaadjlte pz.

EABX OP

OB- 1668,

ALGERNON PERCY,

EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND.

THIS nobleman was the third son, but at length heir and
successor, to Henry, the ninth Earl of his family, (not less
remarkable for talents, science, and loftiness of spirit, than
for his seemingly undeserved, and tedious imprisonment and
persecution, on account of the gunpowder plot,) by Dorothy,
daughter of Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, and widow of
Sir Thomas Perrot. He was born in, or about, the year 1602,
and completed at Christ Church, in Oxford, under the tuition
of Robert Hughes, (an eminent scholar, but better known for
his skill in geography and mathematics,) an education, the
rudiments of which he had probably received at home from
the same master, whom the Earl, his father, had drawn from
obscurity at an early age, and patronised through life. In
1616, he was one of the many youthful Knights of the Bath
then appointed to grace the ceremony of investing Charles
with the Principality of Wales ; on the accession of that
Prince to the throne, he was called by writ to the House of
Peers, by the title of Baron Percy ; and in 1632, succeeded
to the dignities and estates of his ancestors.

The King, moved not only by a personal esteem for him,
but by a conscientious desire to compensate, as far as might
be, for the injuries which the old Earl had received from the
crown, distinguished him by the highest graces. " I courted
him," said Charles, on a remarkable occasion, in the hearing
of Lord Clarendon, " as my mistress, and conversed with him
as my friend, without the least interruption, or intermission

188 ALGERNON PERCY,

of any possible favour and kindness." He was called to the
Privy Council summoned on the commencement of the reign,
and chosen one of the noblemen who accompanied the King
to his coronation in Scotland. On the thirteenth of May,
1635, he was installed a Knight of the Garter, and in the
succeeding year was appointed to command the largest fleet
that the crown had put to sea since the death of Queen
Elizabeth, and, having performed with much credit the ser-
vices required of him, in the expedition against the Dutch
fishery for which it was equipped, applied himself after his
return, under the authority of some sort of commission which
seems to have been not quite of a public nature, to the
management of civil affairs relating to the navy, and the
reformation of abuses in that department. These were pre-
paratory studies, probably agreed on between the King and
himself, to qualify him for the great office of Lord High
Admiral of England, to which he was raised on the thirtieth
of March, 1637 ; but the fatal turn of public matters soon
after that period called him to a post little less dignified, and
then more important, for in 1639 he was appointed Com-
mander in chief of the army then raised to march against the
Scottish covenanters. He was at that time held in the
utmost estimation by his master, not only as a private friend,
but as a minister. Lord Clarendon informs us, and I quote
the entire passage chiefly because it so clearly points out the
origin, at least in our country, of two political designations
so frequently rung in English ears, that "the bulk and
burthen of state affairs, whereby the envy attended them
likewise, lay principally on the Archbishop of Canterbury,
the Earl of Strafford, and the Lord Cottington ; the Earl of
Northumberland, for ornament ; the Lord Bishop of London,
by his place, being Lord High Treasurer of England ; and the
two Secretaries, Sir Henry Vane, and Sir Francis Windebank,
for service, and communication of intelligence. These were
reproachfully called the Juncto, and enviously, at court, the
Cabinet Council."

EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 189

We find here a note of disdain attached to his name, which
however delicately expressed, cannot escape observation.
The truth is that the Earl of Northumberland, to say no
worse of him, possessed neither a heart nor a mind fit to
encounter the great trials which were at hand. Even now,
in their dawn, and immediately after he had received the
highest mark of confidence, as well as the most distinguished
appointment, which his Sovereign could bestow, we find in a
letter from him to his brother-in-law, the Earl of Leicester,
of the seventh of May, 1640, published in the Sidney papers,
these lukewarm expressions "Notwithstanding this dissolu-
tion " (of the parliament, in the spring of that year) " the
King intends vigorously to pursue his former designs, and to
levy the same army of thirty thousand foot, and three thou-
sand horse. About three weeks hence they are to be drawn
together ; but as yet I cannot learn by what means we are to
get one shilling towards defraying this great expense. What
will the world judge of us abroad, to see us enter into such
an action as this, not knowing how to maintain it for one
month 1 It grieves my soul to be involved in these counsels,
and the sense I have of the miseries that are like to ensue is
held by some a disaffection in me, but I regard not what
these persons say," &c. Immediately after this period, the
Earl was seized by a violent and lasting illness, which gave
him an opportunity to resign into the King's hands the com-
mission which he seems to have been so little disposed to
execute.

But an incident which shortly followed seems to have dis-
covered the true bent of his inclination. Henry Percy, his
younger brother, and a firm royalist, being about to pass into
France on the King's service, just at the time that an address
had been proposed in the House of Commons to request his
Majesty not to permit any of his servants to go out of the
kingdom, had been attacked and wounded by the country
people on the coast of Sussex, from whom he escaped with
difficulty, and retired to a place of concealment, whence he

190 ALGERNON PERCY,

despatched to the Earl, his brother, a letter, which, as the
event proved, must have imparted matter of great secrecy.
This letter, through some monstrous perversion of morals or
of intellect, the Earl laid before the Commons, who had pre-
viously voted an impeachment of high treason against Henry,
for conspiring to raise troops to overawe the Parliament; and
he, during the agitation of the matter, found means to quit
the country.

Lord Clarendon, in strangely endeavouring to frame an
excuse for the Earl's conduct on this remarkable occasion,
increases our sense of his culpability. " The truth is," says
Clarendon, " that after his brother's being accused of high
treason, and then, upon his hurt in Sussex, coming directly
to Northumberland House to shelter himself, the Earl, being
in great trouble how to send him away beyond the seas after
his wound was cured, advised with a confident friend, then
in power, whose affection to him he doubted not, and who,
innocently enough, brought Mr. Pym into the council, who
overwitted them both, by frankly consenting that Mr. Percy
should escape into France, which was all the care the Earl
had ; but then obliged him first to draw such a letter from
him as might by the party be applied as an evidence of the
reality of the plot, after he was escaped ; and in this manner
the letter was procured; which made a lasting quarrel
between the two brothers, and made the Earl more at the
disposal of those persons, whom he had trusted so far, than
he had been before." " This," observes the noble historian,
"was the first instance of his defection from the King's
service, and it produced the worst effects ; for, as he then
had the most esteemed and unblemished reputation, both in
the court and country, of any of his rank in the kingdom, so
they who knew him well knew that the greatness of that
reputation was but an effect of the singular grace and favour
shown to him by his Majesty ; and therefore many who
observed him purchase this opportunity of dis-serving the
King at the price of his brother's honour, and of his own

EAKL OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 191

gratitude, concluded that he had some nota,ble temptation of
conscience, and that the court was much worse than it
seemed to be."

From that period he gave himself wholly over to the
popular party, and became, perhaps with better intentions
than those of many who did less evil, one of its most for-
midable engines ; for his concessions were more mischievous
than their activity, and his high rank, immense estates, and
universal good character, placed his motives above suspicion.
In 1641, the lowest rabble of London had been incited to
present a petition to the House of Commons, the main prayer
of which was, in effect, that the names of those Peers who
usually voted for the favourite measures might be accurately
disclosed to them ; and the main object, to intimidate the
rest by apprehensions of their vengeance. That petition,
marvellous to relate, was read, at a conference between the
two Houses ; immediately after which the Commons sent Mr.
Holies with a message to the Peers, requiring their assistance
to deprive the King of the militia ; to which that gentleman
added, in reference to the petition, that if the request of the
House of Commons should be rejected, he desired that those
Lords who were willing to concur would find some means to
make themselves known, in order that those might be known
who were unwilling ; and in order, said Mr. Holies, " that
we may make it known to those who sent us." In the
debate, doubtless full of warmth, which followed, the Earl of
Northumberland condescended to say that " whosoever
refused in that particular to join with the House of Commons
were, in his opinion, enemies to the commonwealth." When
that House, very soon after, on its own sole authority,
commanded him, in his capacity of Lord High Admiral, to
equip the royal navy, he obeyed implicitly; and when it
directed him to appoint the Earl of Warwick Admiral of the
Fleet, for the service of the year 1 642, he did so, in disobe-
dience to the King's express pleasure. In the same weak-
ness of mind, for let us hope that the whole of his conduct

192 ALGERNON PERCY,

may be ascribed to that cause, when Charles, in the summer
of that year, demanded his commission, with very little hope
of success, he quietly resigned it, answering those of the Par-
liament who earnestly pressed him to retain it, that "it
would ill become him, who had received that charge from
the King, with such circumstances of trust and favour, to
continue the possession of it against his Majesty's express
pleasure, there being a clause in his grant that it should be
only during such time as his Majesty should think fit to use
his service." He retired accordingly, and the fleet, as might
have been reasonably expected, presently after abandoned its
allegiance.

The arrival of that miserable epoch which changed the
resistance of the House of Commons into positive rebellion,
produced no alteration in his conduct. A single instance
only of his deviation from a regular passive obedience to the
prevailing party can be discovered ; he appears to have been
privy to what was called Waller's plot, in 1643 ; but his
name was so useful to the rebels that they forbore to insti-
tute any process against him. They continued to employ
him, but without confidence, and he still accepted their
commissions, though he had lost all affection to their cause ;
for he had by this time a clear prospect of those dangers
against which the history of popular revolutions, not less
vainly, by a strange fatality, than frequently, warns men of
his degree. Little, however^ was now left for him to per-
form, or rather to endure. He was placed at the head of the
commissioners appointed to negotiate with Charles in the
several treaties of Oxford, Uxbridge, and Newport ; and in
April, 1645, the royal children were committed by the Com-
mons to his custody, and he retained that charge till the
murder of their father. Immediately after that sad event,
which he had used his best arguments, the only means of
which he had not stripped himself, to prevent, he retired to
his seat at Petworth, in Sussex, where he remained in privacy
till 1660, when, on the arrival of Monk from Scotland, he

EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 193

received that officer with open arms, and, at the head of what
was called the moderate Presbyterian party, concerted with
him the means of the Restoration. He accepted no public
employment under Charles the Second, except those of
Lord Lieutenant of the counties of Sussex and Northum-
berland.

Lord Clarendon tells us that this nobleman " was in all
his deportment a very great man, and that which looked like
formality was a punctuality in preserving his dignity from
the invasion and intrusion of bold men, which no man of
that age so well preserved himself from. Though his notions
were not large or deep, yet his temper and reservedness in
discourse, and his reservedness in speaking, got him the
reputation of an able and a wise man, which he made evident
in the excellent government of his family, where no man was
more absolutely obeyed ; and no man had ever fewer idle
words to answer for ; and in debates of importance he always
expressed himself very pertinently. If he had thought the
King as much above him as he thought himself above other
considerable men, he would have been a good subject ; but
the extreme undervaluing those, and not enough valuing the
King, made him liable to the impressions which they who
approached him by those addresses of reverence and esteem
that usually insinuate themselves into such natures made in
him : so that after he was first prevailed upon not to do that
which in honour and gratitude he was obliged to, which is a
pestilent corruption, he was with the more facility led to
concur in what, in duty and fidelity, he ought not to have
done, and so he concurred in all the counsels which produced
the rebellion, and stayed with them to support it."

Algernon, Earl of Northumberland, died on the thirteenth
of October, 1668, and was buried at Pet worth. He had been
twice married ; first to Anne, daughter of William Cecil,
Earl of Salisbury ; and, secondly, to Elizabeth, daughter of
Theophilus Howard, Earl of Suffolk. By the former Lady

194 ALGERNON PERCY, EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND.

he had five daughters ; Catherine, Lucy, and Dorothy, who
died young ; Anne, married to Philip, Lord Stanhope, after
her death Earl of Chesterfield ; and Elizabeth, to Arthur,
Lord Capel, afterwards created Earl of Essex ; by the latter,
an only son, Josceline, who succeeded him, and one daughter,
Elizabeth, who died an infant.

I

M'tEIM ^0 ETTA

OF CHAEiES THE FIRST.
OB, 1669,

QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA,

WIFE TO KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

IT has been the inveterate fashion of history to ascribe to
the influence of this Lady most of the errors of the reign of
her unfortunate consort. Royalist and republican writers
have joined in this censure with equal readiness ; the one
with a view of shifting from the conduct of the King on her
defenceless memory the blame of all evil counsels which she
might by possibility have suggested, the other to discredit his
character by the imputation of a weak and servile compliance
with the capricious will of a woman whom he loved. Amidst
a cloud of prejudice, and error: often wilful, each has been to a
certain degree just. Almost all however but her beauty has
been in some measure misrepresented, and that indeed, till
now, has never received full justice from the graver.

Henrietta Maria was the sixth and youngest child of Henry
the Fourth of France, by Mary, daughter of Francis de
Medicis, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and was born on the
twenty-fifth of November, 1609, exactly six months before
the murder of her incomparable father. She had scarcely
passed the years of childhood when her kinsman, Charles de
Bourbon, Count of Soissons, and second Prince of the blood
of France, openly pretended to her hand, and for three years
together pressed his suit with a pertinacity to which the
opinion of the French Council of Regency, and even a formal
prohibition in the name of the minor Monarch, her brother,
Louis the Thirteenth, were vainly opposed. The embarrass-
ment produced by the Count's passion, which seems however
o2

19G QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA,

to have met with little encouragement from herself, had pre-
vented the eligible addresses of some foreign Princes, when
at length Charles, passing through Paris in 1623 on his fruit-
less matrimonial journey to Spain, had an opportunity, him-
self wholly unobserved, of seeing her at a ball in the Louvre ;
was struck by her charms ; and, on the dissolution of the
treaty for the Infanta, determined to solicit his father's per-
mission to his demanding her in marriage. James, though
the measure was contrary to much of his habitual policy, was
induced, chiefly by the splendour of the alliance, to consent ;
France, with stronger motives, readily accepted the proposal ;
and it was presently negotiated at Paris by the Earls of Car-
lisle and Holland ; in a memoir of the latter of which noble-
men, which has already appeared in this work, some remark-
able particulars relative to the treaty may be found. The
ceremony of the espousals was performed by the Cardinal de
la Rochefoucault (not de Richelieu, as many writers have it)
at Notre Dame, on the eleventh of May, 1625 ; and on the
twenty-second of the next month the young Queen for
James died before the completion of the marriage landed at
Dover.

We have abundant relations of the delicate and refined
greetings which occurred on the first meeting of Charles and
his lovely bride. A small and superficial narrative, printed
in London in 1671, two years after her death, and the only
piece of biography hitherto dedicated to her memory, informs
us, prettily enough, that " Charles received her at Dover on
the top of the stairs, she striving, on her knees, to kiss his
hands, and he prevented her with civilities on her lips : that,
being retired, she wept, and he kissed off her tears, professing
he would do so till she had done, and persuading her that
she was not fallen into the hands of strangers, as she appre-
hended, tremblingly, but into the wise disposal of God, who
would have her leave her kindred, and cleave to her spouse ;
he professing to be no longer master of himself than whilst he
was servant to her." Soon after, they fell into more com-

WIFE TO KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 197

posed conversation, and, says the writer of a private letter,
Charles took her up in his arms, kissed her, and, talking with
her, cast down his eyes towards her feet, she, seeming taller
than report was, reaching to his shoulders ; which she soon
perceiving, discovered and showed him her shoes, saying to
this effect, " Sir, I stand upon mine own feet. I have no
help by art. Thus high I am, and am rather higher than
lower." But to proceed to matters more serious

Henrietta Maria was a zealous, not to say bigoted, disciple
of the church of Rome, and her family had obtained terms
from James on that score, to which it is surprising that a
Prince who affected to be the chief patron of the reformers
should have consented. She came, says father Daniel, " avec
toutes les precautions prises pour la liberte, et la surete de sa
religion ; " but many of these extended far beyond the pro-
visions necessary to secure to her the freedom of religious
worship ; for example, it was even stipulated by the treaty
that the education of her children till they reached the age of
thirteen should be solely under her controul. The French
clergy who formed part of her suite on her arrival were
intoxicated by these concessions. They were in number
twenty-eight, with a Bishop at their head, and they came
full fraught with hopes and expedients for the restoration of
the ancient faith. In this view they lost no time in practis-
ing its ceremonies with the utmost publicity, and frequently
made her a personal partaker in them ; as a most surprising
instance of which, they persuaded her to walk through the
streets in procession, in a rainy day, from Somerset-house,
her residence, to Tyburn, to offer up her prayers for the souls
of Catholics who had been executed there ; among whom it
must be recollected were Percy, and his associates, who had
lately suffered for conspiring to destroy at a blow the King
and the two Houses of Parliament. Her female attendants,
with less ground of excuse, behaved with yet more insolence ;
claimed places of honour which were not due to them, and in
resentment for the denial of them, set the Queen, to use

198 QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA,

Charles's own words, " in such a humour of distaste against
him, as from that hour no man could say that she ever used
him two days together with so much respect as he deserved
of her." New occasions of disgust and discord now occurred
every hour. She positively rejected the establishment which
the King had formed for her household, on the plan of that of
his late mother ; and, upon his refusing to admit her French
attendants to the superintendence of her jointure, she told
him to " take his lands to himself, for if she had no power to
put whom she would into those places, she would have
neither lands nor house of his, but bade him give her what he
thought fit in pension." These extravagances, though but
the hasty ebullitions of a sanguine temper in a girl of sixteen
in the hands of bad advisers, required instant correction, and
they were met by Charles with coolness and discretion. He
dispatched the Lord Carleton to Paris to complain of them,
and his instructions to that nobleman, dated at Wansted, on
the twelfth of July, 1626, furnished the authority for what
has been here reported.

Charles ascribed this waywardness chiefly to the influence
of the Queen's French attendants, and his anger against them
increased in an equal measure with his averseness to attribute
it to the temper of his lovely bride. He had long meditated
to send them home. So early as the twentieth of November,
in the preceding year, he proposes it in a letter to Bucking-
ham, in which he speaks of "the maliciousness of the
Monsieurs, by making and fomenting discontentments in his
wife," and concludes by saying, " I am resolute : it must be
done, and that shortly." He delayed it however till the
summer, when, on the first of July, he communicated his
determination to them in person, and refused to hear their
apologies ; and, on the seventh of August, in a moment evi-
dently of the highest irritation, wrote thus to Buckingham

" Steenie,

" I have received your letter by Die Greame this

WIFE TO KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 199

is my answer. I command you to send all the French away
to-morrow out of the town : if you can, by fair meanes, but
stick not long in disputing otherways, force them away
lyke so many wylde beastes, until you have shipped them,
and so the devil go with them. Let me heare no more
answer but of the performance of my command.

" Your faithfull, constant, loving frend,
" Oaking, " CHARLES R."

the 7 th of August, 1626."

That the arrogance and impertinence of these persons had
exceeded all due bounds of decency there can be little doubt,
but the true cause of the Queen's misbehaviour was wholly
unknown to Charles, and in a great measure to herself, and
was of a character so singular, and indeed so romantic, that,
were it not disclosed to us under an undubitable authority, it
would be absolutely incredible. The Duke of Buckingham,
who had been to Paris to escort her to England, was mad
enough, during his short visit to the French court, to strive
to win the affections of Anne of Austria, Louis the Thir-
teenth's Queen, a lady less remarkable for her prudence than
for her beauty. When the day arrived for Henrietta Maria's
departure, he tore himself from Paris with the utmost diffi-
culty, and, such was his infatuation, that he left her at Bou-
logne, pretending that he had that moment received an im-
portant commission from his master to the Queen Regent,
and hurried back for the sake of one brief interview with
Anne, whom he found in bed, and almost alone, and towards
whom he behaved with a frantic temerity and extravagance
which is curiously described in the conclusion of the fourth
volume of De Retz's Memoirs. These circumstances were pre-
sently conveyed to Louis, and, had he ventured on such another
visit, " provision," says Lord Clarendon, " was made for his
reception ; and, if he had pursued his attempt, he had been
without doubt assassinated, of which he had only so much
notice as served him to decline the danger ; but he swore in the

200 QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA,

instant that he would see and speak with her, in spite of the
strength and power of France : and, from the time that the
Queen arrived in England, he took all the ways he could to
undervalue and exasperate that Court and Nation ; and
omitted no opportunity to incense the King against France ;
and, which was worse than all this, took great pains to lessen
the King's affection towards his young Queen, being exceed-
ingly jealous lest her interest might be of force enough to
cross his other designs ; and, in this stratagem, he had
brought himself to a habit of neglect, and even of rudeness,
towards the Queen, so that, upon expostulations with her on a
trivial occasion, he told her she should repent it ; and her
Majesty answering with some quickness, he replied insolently
to her that there had been Queens in England who had lost
their heads." There can be little doubt that the misconduct
of her French servants had been indirectly prompted by
Buckingham, and formed a part of his wild and ungenerous
plan for the gratification of his hatred to their nation, at the
expense of the public and private peace of his too beneficent
master.

Buckingham lived long enough to carry his vengeance to
the utmost by forcing Charles into a war with France, in the
midst of which he was taken off by assassination. From the
hour of that event, the most perfect cordiality ensued between
the King and Queen, founded on a singular agreement, or
rather on an harmonious discord, of minds and tempers which
had been hitherto restrained by untoward circumstances from
their natural action. Charles, the main features of whose
character were compliance and confidence, now, freed from
doubts and jealousies, became, for the first time since his
marriage, the ardent and submissive lover ; while his fair
consort, who with an equal measure of tenderness mingled a
disposition to rule and to persevere, rose as suddenly from an
artificial state of almost childish insignificance to participate
In the government of an empire. Clarendon, to whose
justness and severity of judgment such a contingency could

WIFE TO KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 201

not but have been highly offensive, thus describes, perhaps
with some grains of prejudice, the relative situations of these
eminent persons at that time, and indeed ever after

" The King's affection to the Queen was of a very extraor-
dinary alloy a composition of conscience, and love, and
generosity, and gratitude, and all those noble affections which
raise the passion to the greatest height ; insomuch as he saw
with her eyes, and determined by her judgment, and did not
only pay her this adoration, but desired that all men should
know that he was swayed by her, which was not good for
either of them. The Queen was a lady of great beauty, ex-
cellent wit and humour, and made him a just return of noblest
affections, so that they were the true idea of conjugal affec-
tion in the age in which they lived. When she was admitted
to the knowledge and participation of the most secret affairs
(from which she had been carefully restrained by the Duke of
Buckingham, whilst he lived) she took delight in the examining
and discussing them, and from thence in making judgment of
them, in which her passions were always strong. She had
felt so much pain in knowing nothing, and meddling with
nothing, during the time of that great favourite, that now she
took pleasure in nothing but knowing all things, and dis-
posing all things, and thought it but just that she should
dispose of all favours and preferments as he had done, at
least that nothing of that kind might be done without her
privity, not considering that the universal prejudice that
great man had undergone was not with reference to his person
but his power, and that the same power would be equally
obnoxious to murmur and complaint if it resided in any other
person than the King himself ; and she so far concurred with
the King's inclination, that she did not more desire to
be possessed of this unlimited power, than that all the world
should take notice that she was the entire mistress of it ;
which, in truth (what other unhappy circumstances soever
concurred in the mischief), was the foundation upon which
the first, and the utmost prejudices to the King and his

202 QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA,

government, were raised and prosecuted ; and it was her
Majesty's and the kingdom's misfortune that she had not any
person about her who had either ability or affection to inform
and advise her of the temper of the kingdom, or humour of
the people, or who thought either worth the caring for."

Burnet, another contemporary, but more removed from the
sphere of action than Clarendon ; more prejudiced, and less
faithful in relation, thus characterises her " The Queen was
a woman of great vivacity in conversation, and loved all her
life long to be in intrigues of all sorts, but was not so secret
in them as such times and such affairs required. She was
bad at contrivance, and much worse in the execution ; but
by the liveliness of her discourse she made always a great
impression on the King ; and to her little practises, as well
as to the King's own temper, the sequel of all his misfortunes
was owing." It is to pictures like these to general repre-
sentations that we must of necessity in a great measure
trust in cases the very nature of which forbids the possibility
of obtaining historical proofs of particular facts.

The Queen's exertions of her newly acquired influence, met
with frequent contradictions. The carriage of the Lord
Treasurer Weston towards her, as has been already observed
in a sketch of his life in this work, was marked by a constant
alternation of petulant insults and degrading apologies.
Having provoked her to anger, his first care, on retiring from
her presence, was to discover what she had afterwards said
of him in her passion : receiving the news with increased
alarm, he appealed sometimes to the King's authority, and
sometimes to her compassion ; and in making his peace,
generally betrayed those from whom he had gained the intel-
ligence. Her interference in affairs was not more vexatious now
to Weston's irritability than afterwards to Stafford's wisdom,
and she regarded that great man with fear, and therefore with
some degree of aversion. Burnet plainly points her out as
the final cause of his death. He says that Lord Holies, who
was brother-in-law to the Earl, and a man deeply engaged

WIFE TO KING CHARLES THE FIRST, 203

with the popular party in Parliament, had suggested to
Charles, after he had passed the bill of attainder, a plan for
saving him, which was this ; that Strafford should prefer
a petition to the King for a short respite, and that Charles, in
person, should the next day lay it before the two Houses, as
for their advice ; Holies promising, says Burnet, " to make
interest among his numerous friends to get them to consent
to it, and he had prepared a great many by assuring them
that if they would save Lord Strafford, he would become
wholly theirs, in consequence of his first principles ; and
that he might do them much more service by being preserved,
than he could do if made an example upon such new and
doubtful points ; and in this he had wrought on so many
that he believed, if the King's party had struck into it, he
had saved Strafford." But the Bishop adds that it was whis-
pered to the Queen that a part of Holles's engagement to his
friends was that Strafford should accuse her, and that there-
fore she not only persuaded the King, instead of moving the
Parliament personally on the matter, to send a message to
the House of Lords, written with his own hand, by the Prince
of Wales, but add to it, at the conclusion, those dastardly
and fatal words, " if he must die, it were charity to reprieve
him till Saturday."

A moment's reflection on the signal grandeur of Stafford's
character will invalidate the whole of this most improbable
tale, for if that part of it which relates to him be untrue, and
it is incredible that he should have been a party in such a
negotiation, no reason remains for believing the vile accusation
against the Queen. Amidst the abundance of libels which
were about this time poured forth against her, it is remark-
able that none are to be found which charge her with a
vindictive spirit. She was assailed and threatened by the
most brutal and unmanly attacks, which for a short time she
disregarded with becoming firmness. She calmly dispatched
letters missive, by Sir Kenelm Digby, Walter Montagu, and
others, to solicit loans from the Catholics of England and

204 QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA,

Wales for the relief of Charles's necessities ; and it has been
said that the King was prompted chiefly by her persuasion to
the bold and unhappy measure of demanding the impeached
members in the House of Commons. Echard, an historian
generally of credit, ridiculously tells us that she said furi-
ously to Charles, " Allez, poltron pull the rogues out by the
ears, or never see me more," and completes the absurdity of
his story by quoting his authority. " It appears," says he,
"from a private account given by Sir William Coke, of
Norfolk, from Mr. Anchitel Grey, brother to the Lord
Grey of Groby, that the King, going in the morning into the
Queen's apartment, finding the Countess of Carlisle with
her, retired with her into her closet, where she used those
words, which the Countess overheard, and discovered them to
Mr. Pym."

This bold spirit, however, was soon daunted for the time.
The public disorders increased, and she became suddenly
terrified by apprehensions for her personal safety. Sir Philip
Warwick says, "the Queen was ever more forward than
stout." Be that as it might, these painful impressions
became presently so strong as to induce her earnestly to
solicit Charles's permission to retire into France. She
obtained it just at the period when the bill for depriving the
Bishops of their votes had passed the two Houses, and was
waiting for the King's assent, which he stedfastly refused ;
when it w r as whispered to her by Sir John Colepeper, a loyal
servant, but a friend to that measure, that if Charles persisted
in his denial the Parliament would prohibit her journey ;
on which she implored the King, with such pathetic impor-
tunities, that he finally gave way, and thus that great wound
was inflicted on the hierarchy by her fears. The King now
accompanied her to Dover, where, on the twenty-third of
February, 1642, O.S., she embarked, with her daughter, the
Princess of Orange, for Holland.

There were, however, other motives for her visit to the
Continent. It was now evident that the contest between the

WIFE TO KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 205

King and the Parliament must be decided by the sword, and he
possessed scarcely the means to equip a single regiment. The
Queen, who had, before her departure, sent most of her plate
to the mint, carried the remainder secretly with her to
Holland, together with her own jewels, and many of great
value belonging to the Crown, which she there pawned or
sold, and laid out the produce in large purchases of arms and
ammunition, in spite of the discouragement of the States,
who were notoriously adverse to the King's cause. At
length, her spirits recruited by safety, and invigorated by
reflection on the greatness of the occasion, she sailed to his
assistance, the war now fully raging, with a small convoy,
furnished by her son-in-law, the Prince of Orange, and dis-
embarked at Burlington, in Yorkshire, where she was met
by the Earl of Newcastle, with a sufficient guard. Of the
dangers and difficulties which attended her landing, a narra-
tive, written by herself, is extant, a few passages from which
perhaps may not be unacceptable " The next night after
we came to Burlington, four of the Parliament's ships
arrived, without being perceived by us, and about five of the
clock in the morning, begun to ply us so fast with their
ordnance that they made us all rise out of our beds and
leave the village. One of the ships did me the favour to
flank upon the house where I lay, and before I was out of
my bed the cannon bullets whistled so loud about me, that
all the company pressed me earnestly to go out of the house,
their cannon having totally beaten down all the neighbour
houses, and two cannon bullets falling from the top to the
bottom of the house where I was ; so that, cloathed as well
as in haste I could be, I went on foot some little distance
out of the town, under the shelter of a ditch, like that of
Newmarket, whither before I could get, the cannon bullets
fell thick about us, and a servant was killed within seventy
paces of me. We in the end gained the ditch, and stayed
there two hours, whilst their cannon played all the while on
us. The bullets flew, for the most part, over our heads ;

206 QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA,

some few only, grazing on the ditch, covered us with earth,
&c., till the ebbing of the tide, and the threats of the Holland
Admiral, put an end to that danger."

We discern in this letter a transient spark of the mighty
spirit of her father, nor was it instantly extinguished, for
now, having been escorted to York by a body of Horse, com-
manded by the Earl of Montrose and Lord Ogilvie, she
presently raised a powerful force, and marched towards the
King, with thirty troops of Horse and Dragoons, and three
thousand infantry, at whose head she rode as their com-
mander. She met him at Edge Hill, and accompanied him
to Oxford, where she remained, with little intermission, till the
spring of 1644, when the rebel Commons having impeached
her of high treason, and the royal army suffering some sad
reverses of fortune, she fell again under the influence of
terror, and, quitting Oxford on the seventeenth of April,
then great with child, took leave at Abingdon, for ever in
this world, of her royal husband ; and travelling towards the
western coast, arrived at Exeter, where she was delivered of
a daughter, and from thence, in little more than a fortnight,
to Pendennis, in Cornwall, where she embarked for France,
and on the fifteenth of July arrived at Brest. She had
exacted two promises from Charles at their parting ; the one
that he would receive no person who had at any time injured
him into his favour or trust without her consent ; the other,
that he would not make peace with the rebels but through
her interposition and mediation, that the kingdom might
know the share that she had in procuring it ; and his reli-
gious observance of those engagements is thought, perhaps
erroneously, to have produced ill consequences. The truth
is, that she would have sacrificed all for conquest. Her
exertions therefore in her exile, while hope remained, were
unremitted. From France, where the death of Louis, and of
Cardinal Richelieu, had placed her mother once more in the
station of Regent, and in absolute power, it is not strange
that she should have obtained extensive supplies; but she

WIFE TO KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 207

presently established English agents in most of the Courts
of Europe, and raised, and conveyed to England and Ireland,
from time to time, immense sums. Her negotiations were
J chiefly managed by herself, and with a caution, and regu-
larity, and dispatch, which prove her to have possessed
talents for which she has hitherto had little credit. It is
almost needless to say that these were vain labours. The
time approached when she was to be debarred from all duties
but such as might strictly and immediately apply to the
person of her King and husband, and when it arrived, she
wrote, through the French minister in London, to those who
ruled there, imploring them to grant her " a pass to come
over to him ; offering to use all her credit with him to induce
him to give them satisfaction ; and, if they would not allow her
to perform those offices on public grounds, that she might at
least be permitted to see him, and to be near him in his
uttermost extremity." She received no answer.

After the murder of Charles, and a considerable time
passed in privacy in the convent at St. Cloud, the Queen
again appeared at the French Court. The Palais Royal, and
the Castle of St. Germain, were allotted to her for her resi-
dences, and an allowance, suitable to her rank, for the support
of her family. That, however, and other of her comforts,
were gradually curtailed as Cromwell's government gained
strength, and France, under the guidance of Cardinal Maza-
rin, adopted towards it a complaisant policy. She became at
length subjected to serious pecuniary inconveniences, and it
has been repeated by several writers, on the doubtful autho-
rity of De Retz's Memoirs, that she petitioned the Usurper
for a pension, which he refused ; but that she should have
condescended to this is nearly incredible. In the mean time
her life was embittered by the indifference with which the
young King, her son, treated that advice which perhaps she
was ever too ready to give ; and by the resistance offered by
him and his counsellors to her constant endeavours to instil
into her children the principles of her religious faith. Her

208 QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA.

chief consolation seems now to have been derived from the
society, and the services, of Henry Jermyn, Earl of St.
Albans, who had been for many years her favourite servant,
and now managed all her affairs, as well domestic as political.
It has been surmised, and perhaps truly, that she was pri-
vately married to that nobleman, but the rumour rests solely
on the authority of a very vague passage in the memoirs of
Sir John Reresby. The Queen returned to England on the
second of November, 1660, and quitted it again for France on
the twenty-fifth of the following January : came once more on
the twenty-eight of July, 1662, and left it finally on the
twenty-ninth of June, 1665. In these visits we find nothing
respecting her worthy of notice, except the highly charac-
teristic circumstances of her conduct on the discovery of the
marriage of the Duke of York to the daughter of Lord
Clarendon, which are related by that nobleman, at too great
length to permit the insertion of them here, in " the Con-
tinuation " of his Life.

Queen Henrietta Maria died at the castle of Colombe, four
leagues from Paris, on the tenth of August, 1669, N.S., and
was buried with her ancestors in the royal abbey of St. Denis.

(G

[ WKQP3 K,

OF A1BEMAJILE
OB, 1671-

GEORGE MONK,

DUKE OF ALBEMARLE.

As we are told that we may cover a multitude of our own
sins by our charity, so, in another sense, may it be said that
we frequently cover those of others by our gratitude. It is
difficult even to discern the faults of one from whom we have
received great favour ; painful to dwell on the contemplation
of them ; and scarcely possible to proclaim them. If these
amiable feelings flourish in the common familiar intercourse
of mankind, in spite of the innumerable disgusts with which
the selfish passions torment small and closely connected
societies, how much more forcibly must they operate in those
rare cases where the benefactor and the objects of his bounty
are, in all other respects, wholly independent of each other ;
in which obligations are the more keenly felt because we
can never be reproached with them ; and debts readily owned,
because they can never be claimed : in which we receive
favour without having taken the trouble to deserve it ; and
run eagerly to acknowledge it, chiefly because no acknowledg-
ment is expected. Such a benefactor was Monk, and he
invested the character with the dazzling glory of a nation's
saviour : but it was from those dispositions in mankind to
which I have endeavoured to allude, that he purchased for
his memory not only the praise, but the forbearance of history.

He descended from a Devonshire family of good antiquity,
and royal blood ran in his veins ; for his great-grandfather,
Thomas Monk, of Potheridge, in that county, married, for
his first wife, Frances, daughter and co-heir of Arthur

210 GEORGE MONK,

Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle, and he sprung from that match.
His father, Sir Thomas Monk, of Potheridge, the heir to a
decayed estate, married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George
Smith, of Madworth, also in the same county. He was born
on the sixth of December, 1608, and was their second son ;
was only two years old when his father died, and received
such education as he had under the protection of his mater-
nal grandfather. It was probably not more than sufficient
to qualify him for the life of a gentleman soldier, in which
he was placed in his seventeenth year, when he joined the
unsuccessful expedition against Spain, under Cecil, Viscount
Wimbledon, in the character of a volunteer, and in the fol-
lowing year obtained a pair of colours in the regiment com-
manded by Sir John Burroughs, in which he served in the
equally unfortunate, but less discreditable, affair of the Isle
of Rhe. He remained long without promotion, fighting in
the Low Countries under the Earl of Oxford, and afterwards
Lord Goring, by whom he was at length appointed to a com-
pany ; but he had studied his profession with the most in-
defatigable attention, and was not less distinguished by his
courage, and with those recommendations returned in 1638
to his country, in that unhappy moment which made it,
after a century and half of repose, a field of speculation to
military adventurers. On the breaking out of the Scottish
rebellion, he obtained, through the interest of his distant
kinsman, the Earl of Leicester, and his son, Lord Lisle, the
commission of lieutenant-colonel of Lord Newport's regi-
ment, and served with considerable reputation in both the
King's expeditions to that country.

Scotland had scarcely assumed a deceitful appearance of
tranquillity when the Irish rebellion burst forth. Leicester,
a man of lukewarm loyalty, who had been appointed to suc-
ceed Strafford in the office of Lord Lieutenant, now sent Monk
to Ireland, with the command of his own regiment, and the
rank of colonel. He behaved so well in that station, that the
Lords Justices, for it does not appear that Leicester ever

DUKE OF ALBEMABLE. 211

went to Ireland, nominated him Governor of Dublin ; but the
Long Parliament, having just at that period succeeded in
establishing a paramount authority there, the charge was
given to another, and he received orders from the Marquis of
Ormonde, who commanded the King's army, to return with
it to England. He did so, but with much unwillingness, for
he was in fact devoted to the Parliament. Ludlow expressly
tells us that " he made some scruple to quit the Irish ser-
vice, and engage in that against the Parliament in England,
and was for that reason secured on board a ship while the
forces were embarking, lest he should have obstructed their
going over ; and we find that, on his landing at Bristol, he
was met by orders both from Ireland and from Oxford, where
the King then was, depriving him of his regiment, and direct-
ing Lord Hawley, the Governor, to restrain his person. That
nobleman, however, permitted him to go on his parole to
Oxford, where he excused himself so plausibly to Lord
Digby, the Secretary of State, that the King was induced
again to accept his offers of service, and gave him the com-
mission of major-general in a corps called the Irish brigade,
then besieging Namptwich, in Cheshire, under the command
of Lord Byron.

He arrived at that place almost in the moment that Fairfax
had brought up a strong body of the rebel forces to its relief,
and was taken prisoner, with his brigade, by that officer, and
sent to Hull, and soon after to the Tower of London, where
he was chiefly supported by the King's bounty till November,
1646, when his friend, the Lord Lisle, having been appointed
Deputy of Ireland by the Parliament, negotiated for his
release. Monk now openly abandoned the royal cause, sub-
scribed to the covenant, and accompanied Lisle to that
country, where they found the King's friends, headed by the
Marquis of Ormonde, so formidable, that, after a considerable
time passed in ineffectual endeavours to raise a sufficient
opposition, they returned home. He was, however, presently
despatched thither again, invested with the chief command
p 2

212 GEORGE MONK,

of the rebel force in the north, with which he prosecuted for
several months that sort of sanguinary chastisement which
too frequently occurs in contests between disciplined troops
and rude insurgents. Whether this was terminated by the
superior strength in that part of Ireland of the royalists, or
whether he betrayed to them the cause of his new employers,
is somewhat uncertain, but that he concluded a treaty with
the Irish chieftain, Owen Roe O'Neil, and was censured for
that step by the rebel Parliament at home, are undoubted
historical facts. On the tenth of August, 1649, the Commons
voted that " they did disapprove of what Major-General
Monk had done, in concluding a peace with the grand and
bloody rebel, Owen Roe O'Neil, and did abhor the having
anything to do with him therein : yet are easily persuaded
that the making the same by the said Major-General was in
his judgment for the most advantage of the English interest
in that nation, and that he shall not be questioned for the
same in time to come." Ludlow, the most cautious, as well
as the most honest, writer for the rebel cause, more unequivo-
cally says, " he met with a cold reception from the Parlia-
ment, upon suggestion that he had corresponded with the
Irish rebels." Be this as it might, it is certain that he
remained now for a considerable time unemployed, a fact
which the good humour of history has generally attributed to
the anger excited in him by a suspicion of his integrity.

Cromwell, however, who was now approaching to the
zenith of his power, drew Monk from his retirement. A
remarkable similarity of character had produced in them, as
far as their nature would permit, a mutual regard and confi-
dence. The military skill, and even the bravery of the one,
and they shone equally in both, were marked by the same
reserve and moroseness which distinguished the other. Both
were great masters of the arts of dissimulation, but Monk
was free from that affectation of pious enthusiasm which his
leader displayed with so much effect, and indeed it was not
necessary to his purposes. In 1650 Cromwell, having been

DUKE OF ALBEMARLE. 213

appointed to command the forces sent against the Scots, who
had proclaimed Charles the Second, gave him a regiment
of foot, and the commission of lieutenant-general of the
artillery, and they marched together into Scotland. The
victory, if the rout of a panic-struck army may be so called,
of the English at Dunbar, was ascribed not less to his pre-
vious advice, than to his bravery and good judgment in the
field ; and his activity in dispersing the numerous bands of
irregular troops which still appeared in arms after that deci-
sive battle, crushed, for the time, all hopes for the royal cause
in that country. On Cromwell's return he was appointed
commander-in-chief in Scotland, and prosecuted the war
with signal success, but with a sanguinary fury which sullied
the lustre of his exploits ; and we have a frightful instance
of this disposition in his conduct at Dundee, where he put
Lumsdaine, the Governor, and eight hundred men, to the
sword. An ill state of health obliged him soon afterwards
to visit his own country, from whence, after a short stay, he
departed again for Scotland, with the appointment of a com-
missioner for the union of that kingdom with the new
English commonwealth, and gained much credit with his
party by his address in the accomplishment of that affair.

Monk's services were now transferred to the sea. Soon
after the commencement of the Dutch war he was joined to
Blake and Deane in the command of the fleet, and shared
with them the glory of the victories of the second of June,
and the thirty-first of July, 1653. He had gained some
nautical experience in the outset of his military life, and his
utter fearlessness atoned for what was doubtless deficient in
him of that skill so abundantly supplied by his two comrades,
One of the first acts, however, of the sole government of
Cromwell, who in the following December had thrown off
the mask, and assumed the title of Protector, was to make
peace with the United Provinces, and Monk, who then lay with
the fleet on their coasts, remonstrated with warmth to the
Parliament against that measure. Cromwell was displeased,

214 GEORGE MONK,

and is said to have entertained doubts of his fidelity ; and
Monk, who had perhaps been too imperfectly apprised of
the true posture of politics at home to enable him, according
to his custom, to regulate his conduct to their complexion,
returned, and, in a single closet audience, satisfied the Pro-
tector of his perfect devotion. The Scots, anxious to lighten
the load of treachery which hung so heavily on their fame,
soon after appeared again in arms for the Crown, and he was
sent in April, 1654, to reduce them, with an army of which
he was appointed commander-in-chief. He was again suc-
cessful, and the war, if it deserved that name, was terminated
by him in less than four months.

He remained there, singly, for nearly a year, ruling, how-
ever mildly, by the authority of the sword, when Cromwell
appointed seven persons to govern that country, under the
denomination of his Council of State for Scotland, and Monk,
who was named among them, seems immediately to have
assumed, with the tacit consent of his colleagues, the direc-
tion of all affairs there. He exercised his power, which was
nearly absolute, with remarkable discretion and mildness,
and was so affable, which seemed to those who best knew
him not well to accord with his nature, towards the leaders
of all parties, that Cromwell became jealous of his popu-
larity, and secretly employed various artifices to abate it.
Monk's obedience, however, was invariable : he executed
with the utmost punctuality all orders that were sent to him :
imparted from time to time the minor plots of the loyalists
which came to his knowledge : and disclosed to Oliver, with
an ostentatious promptitude, a letter, in terms too general to
attract suspicion to himself, which he had received from
Charles, then at Cologne. Meanwhile he foresaw the downfall
of the new and unnatural system by which his country was
now ruled, and had probably already determined on taking
that part which it fell however to his lot to perform some-
what sooner than he expected. His long absence from the
seat of government, for he remained in Scotland for five years,

DUKE OF ALBEMARLE. 215

had peculiarly aided him in his endeavours to bring it gradu-
ally to maturity. Cromwell during that period watched him
with the keenest suspicion, but the caution and vigilance of
the General eluded the possibility of specific accusation.
This conflict of cunning seems at last to have assumed the
air of a sportive trial of skill between two adepts. Cromwell,
shortly before his death, wrote a long letter of business to
Monk, with the following postscript : " There be that tell
me that there is a certain sly fellow in Scotland called George
Monk, who is said to lie in wait there to introduce Charles
Stuart. I pray you use your diligence to apprehend him,
and send him up to me."

Oliver, however, on his death-bed particularly recom-
mended Monk to his son as a counsellor, of which Richard,
on his accession to the usurped sovereignty, immediately
apprised him. He answered by an address, full of profes-
sions of fidelity, in which he was joined by his officers ; and
by private letters, in which he advised the new Protector to
call a Parliament ; to encourage a learned, pious, and mode-
rate ministry in the church ; to permit no councils to be held
by military men ; and to endeavour to make himself master
of the army ; and he lost no time in proclaiming Richard in
Scotland. The poor man endeavoured to follow his directions
on all those points, and by so doing completely unhinged the
loose remains of an ill-constructed government, which the
courage and the talents of Oliver had with difficulty held
together. The army, enraged at its attempts to curb their
power, and aided by the whole body of the fanatical clergy,
forced him to dissolve his new Parliament within five months
after it had been elected ; and the remains of that which had
been last dismissed by Oliver took their places in the House
of Commons, in contempt of his authority, and on the mere
invitation of the military. Their first acts were to abrogate
the office of Protector, and to ordain what they called a Com-
monwealth, and Monk readily joined in their measures, and
subscribed with his officers the engagement required by them

216 GEORGE MONK,

against the placing of any single person at the head of the
government, but particularly Charles Stuart. This wretched
counterfeit of a Parliament was presently after obliged to
yield also to the army, which elected a new body of admi-
nistration, under the title of a Committee of Safety, the last
phantom of expiring rebellion.

While these matters were passing, Monk remained in
Scotland, apparently occupied merely in his government of
that country, and in his military command there. When he
interfered in affairs at home, it was with great wisdom,
gravity, and temper, and with a show of the most perfect
disinterestedness, and he never offered his advice unasked.
This conduct, in a time when almost all other public cha-
racters were deservedly despised for their folly, or hated for
their dishonesty, had gained him a mighty popularity. The
nation gradually accustomed itself to look to him for relief,
with a daily increasing confidence, and to trust at length
implicitly to his judgment, and his good intentions, for the
means. This disposition in the people was much increased
by the treachery of an abortive attempt made by the Com-
mittee of Safety to seize his person at his residence at
Dalkeith, and to send him to London in a frigate, which lay
for that purpose in Leith Roads, and the discovery of that
plot accelerated the opening of the great scene which he had
long meditated. In the meantime he carried on a constant
correspondence with the Parliament, which continued to sit,
though with scarcely any shadow of authority, and had the
address to persuade that body that it was his sincere inten-
tion to aid it to his utmost in the establishment of a republic.
From his brother, Nicholas Monk, a clergyman, and his
brother-in-law Clarges, who were the instruments of that
intercourse, though both were royalists, and more in his
confidence than any other men, he concealed his design with
equal caution. The Committee of Safety at length sent
several regiments against him under Lambert and Fleetwood,
and this military motion, which he affected to consider as

DTJKE OF ALBEMARLE. 217

an act of rebellion against the Parliament, furnished him
with a pretext to march to London with his army, profes-
sedly for the defence of that body.

He was received with all respect, and with great demon-
strations of joy, and the palace of Whitehall was assigned
for his residence. On the sixth of February, 1659, he was
introduced with extraordinary ceremonies to the Parliament,
where, modestly standing behind a crimson velvet chair which
had been placed for him, he amused them with a short
speech, thanking God for having made him the instrument
of restoring them, acknowledging fully their authority, and
warning them equally against the machinations of cavaliers
and fanatics. Just at this period, the corporation of London,
whether in private concert with Monk, or merely in its
inveterate inclination to lend its wisdom to the concerns of
the State, protested vehemently against the authority of the
House, on the ground of the exclusion of the existing mem-
bers of the Long Parliament. A vote was hastily passed,
directing the general to arrest, by military force, the most
active of those citizens. He remonstrated against the seve-
rity of the measure ; received a more peremptory order ;
and, instead of obeying it, marched his troops, which were
entirely devoted to him, into the city, and joined it in its
defiance of the House. A great number of that body, as
well as the whole of the secluded members, having now
discovered the vast extent of his influence, flocked around
him at his call. He once more formed, by his own authority,
a governing power, which, without wasting time in consi-
dering what denomination it should assume, passed some
resolutions, the most important of which were for the
abrogation of the engagement made in the preceding
December, "to be true to the Commonwealth of England,
without a King, or a House of Lords ; " and for the calling
a new Parliament, to meet on the twenty-fifth of April,
1660. It became now clear to all discerning men, that his
intention was to restore a kingly authority. The old leaders

218 GEORGE MONK,

among the regicides, to avoid its falling into the hands of
Charles, whose vengeance they dreaded, determined to offer
it to Monk, whom they mortally hated, and used the
strongest arguments that they could devise to persuade him,
but he positively refused. He still, however, studiously
concealed his sentiments, nor was it till within a few days
before the meeting of the Parliament that he suffered them
to be imparted to Charles himself, by Sir John Granville,
the first person of the many whom the King had from time
to time deputed to him that he had admitted to the slightest
communication. The Restoration immediately followed.

Monk received his rewards with the same appearance of
modesty and simplicity which had always distinguished him.
Charles, immediately upon his landing, invested him with the
Order of the Garter, and, within a few days, called him to the
Privy Council, and appointed him Master of the Horse, and
Commander-in-chief of the Forces. He was soon after made
first Commissioner of the Treasury, and created Baron Monk,
Earl of Torrington, and Duke of Albemarle. To these
honours were added the grant of an estate of inheritance
of the annual value of seven thousand pounds, and other
pecuniary gifts to a great amount. When he took his seat
with the Peers, the Commons, a compliment never before
practised, waited on him in a body to the door of that House :
indeed the benefit which he had conferred on his country was
far beyond the reach of any compensation which dignities
and wealth could convey. He was afterwards appointed
Lord Lieutenant of the counties of Devonshire and Middlesex,
and of the borough of South wark, and in 1664, the manage-
ment of the Admiralty was committed to his charge. In the
following year he was joined to Prince Rupert in the com-
mand of the fleet, and in the spring of 1666 sailed once more
against the Dutch, and engaged them in a most severe action,
the result of which, though all concur in their testimony to
the bravery of the English and their leader, has been very
differently reported by party writers. This, if we except his

DUKE OF ALBEMARLE. 219

being again placed at the head of the Treasury, on the death
of the Earl of Southampton, in May, 1667, was his last
public employment. The prodigious activity and fatigue of
his life had produced a premature decay in a body naturally
of great strength. He became dropsical and asthmatic about
that period, and, after many amendments and relapses, died
at the Cockpit, which had been given to him by the King
for his residence, on the third of January, 1670-1 ; and was
buried with prodigious pomp, at the public charge, in West-
minster Abbey.

The narrow limits of a work like this prohibit the possi-
bility of attempting to give any detail of a character in which
the principal features were invariable caution and reserve, or
to estimate the conduct of one, every public act of whose
life, till he had attained to the summit of his grandeur, seemed
calculated to excite the most opposite passions and prejudices
in the minds of conflicting factions. The consideration of
Monk's mysterious singularities seems to have confused not
only the general judgment, but even the political prejudices,
of the two great historical writers of his time, for we might
have fairly presumed that he had been long enough a rebel
to incur the enmity of Lord Clarendon, and to ensure the
good graces of Burnet : and yet Clarendon is his best apolo-
gist, and the Bishop the bitterest of his traducers. The
former tells us that " when the war broke out in England
between the King and the Parliament, Monk fell under some
discountenance, upon a suspicion of an inclination to the
Parliament ; " but that it proceeded " from his want of bit-
terness in his discourses against them, rather than from any
inclination towards them ; " that, when he soon after openly
turned his back on the crown, and accepted from the rebels
a command in their army in Ireland, he did it " because he
had pleased himself with an opinion that he did not therein
serve against the King : " that the warmth afterwards of his
fidelity to Cromwell, notwithstanding, was such that " those
of his western friends who thought best of him " (meaning of

220 GEORGE MONK,

his inclination to loyalty) " thought it to no purpose to make
any attempt upon him whilst Cromwell lived : " and yet,
that, "as soon as he was dead, Monk was generally looked
upon as a man more inclined to the King than any other in
great authority, if he might discover it without too much
loss or hazard." But the most astonishing of all the noble
writer's assertions respecting him is, that " his professions
were so sincere, he being throughout his life never suspected
of dissimulation, that all men thought him worthy of trust."
It may be observed here, but with no view of charging the
virtuous Clarendon with an interested partiality, that for
many years following the Restoration, a constant friendship
and agreement, as well in political as in private life, sub-
sisted between Monk and himself, though Monk in the end
joined the Chancellor's enemies.

Burnet loses no opportunity of defaming him. If we are
to give credit to that writer, we must believe that Monk, to
use the Bishop's own words, had a very small share in
accomplishing the Restoration without bloodshed, though he
obtained both the praise and the reward: that the only
service he did in the prosecution of that great affair was in
seizing the proper moment for proposing it to the Parlia-
ment : that, if he had died soon after, he might have been
more justly admired, because less known, and seen only in
one advantageous light; but that he lived long enough to
make it known how false a judgment men are apt to put upon
outward appearance : that he and his wife were ravenous,
and asked and sold all that was within their reach, nothing
being denied to them, till he became so useless, that little
personal regard could be paid to him : that on the prosecution
of the Earl of Argyle, he had sent to Scotland, with an inex-
cusable baseness, certain private letters which Argyle had
written to him during the rebellion, to be used as evidence
on that nobleman's trial : that he was the chief adviser of
the sale of Dunkirk, and of Charles's unpopular match with
the Infanta of Portugal. Burnet's censures are perhaps just ;

DUKE OF ALBEMARLE. 221

for, if we strip the character of Monk of the different var-
nishes which have been applied to it, the truth seems to be,
that he was little more than a great and fortunate military
adventurer, who seldom suffered scruples of conscience to
stand in the way of his successes.

Monk possessed, in a decent degree, the talent of literary
composition. " This man, " says Lord Orford, " was an
author ; a light in which he is by no means known, and yet
in which he did not want merit. After his death, was pub-
lished by authority, a treatise in his own profession, which he
composed while a prisoner in the Tower, called ' Observa-
tions upon Military and Political Affairs, written by the
most honourable George, Duke of Albemarle,' " &c. It con-
sists of thirty chapters, and was placed by him in the hands
of his friend and patron the Viscount Lisle, by whose direc-
tion it was published in 1671 ; several of his letters and
speeches have also been printed. He married a person who
had lived with him some years in a less reputable way,
Ann Clarges, a milliner, the daughter of a blacksmith in
Drury-lane, and had by her an only child. " Her brother,
T. Clarges," says Aubrey, in his Sketches of the Lives of
Eminent Men, lately published, " came a ship-board to
General Monk, and told him his sister was brought to bed.
1 Of what ? ' said he ' Of a son.' ' Why then,' said he, ' she
is my wife.' " She was a woman of masculine character and
furious temper, and of considerable powers of mind, and it
has been said that Monk had so good an opinion of her
understanding, that he often consulted her in great emergen-
cies. She survived her husband but for a few days. Their
son, Christopher, who was sixteen years old at the time of
his father's death, in whose bedchamber he had been mar-
ried two days before that event, to Elizabeth, daughter of
Lord Ogle, inherited, together with the honours, a real estate
of the clear annual rent of fifteen thousand pounds, and sixty
thousand pounds in money. He died, however, in 1688,

222

GEORGE MONK, DUKE OF ALBEMARLE.

in the flower of his age, without issue ; the titles became
extinct ; and the most part of his great fortune, after a
tedious suit between his kinsman, John Granville, Earl of
Bath, and the Earl, afterwards first Duke, of Montagu, who
had married his widow, was decreed, by the Lord Keeper
Somers, to the Earl of Bath.

SirP.Ieljji.

EAEi OP MARCHES T1-:
05, 1671,

EDWARD MONTAGU,

SECOND EARL OF MANCHESTER.

A PASSAGE in Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion
exhibits so many particulars of the early life of this nobleman,
and of his entrance on the part which he took in the affairs
of that unhappy time, that it will perhaps be better to place
it here, as a useful introduction to the sketch which will
follow, than to reserve it (as has been a sort of custom in
the composition of these Memoirs, with respect to quotations
from the noble historian) to illustrate preceding statements,
and to decorate the termination.

" The Lord Mandevile, eldest son of the Lord Privy Seal,
was a person of great civility, and very well bred, and had
been early in the Court, under the favour of the Duke of
Buckingham, a lady of whose family he had married. He had
attended upon the Prince when he was in Spain, and had
been called to the House of Peers in the lifetime of his
father, by the name of the Lord Kimbolton, which was a
very extraordinary favour. Upon the death of the Duke of
Buckingham, his wife being likewise dead, he married the
daughter of the Earl of Warwick, a man in no grace at Court,
and looked upon as the greatest patron of the puritans, be-
cause of much the greatest estate of all who favoured them,
and so was esteemed by them with great application and
veneration, though he was of a life very licentious, and un-
conformable to their professed rigour, which they rather
dispensed with than they would withdraw from a house
where they received so eminent a protection, and such

224 EDWARD MONTAGU,

notable bounty. Upon this latter marriage, the Lord Man-
devile totally estranged himself from the Court, and upon all
occasions appeared enough to dislike what was done there,
and engaged himself wholly in the conversation of those
who were most notoriously of that party, whereof there was a
kind of fraternity of many persons of good condition, who
chose to live together in one family, at a gentleman's house
of a fair fortune, near the place where the Lord Mandevile
lived, whither others of that class likewise resorted, and
maintained a joint and mutual correspondence and conversa-
tion together, with much familiarity and friendship ; that
Lord, to support, and the better to improve that popularity,
living at a much higher rate than the narrow exhibition
allowed to him by his wary father could justify, making up
the rest by contracting a great debt, which lay heavy upon
him ; by which generous way of living, and by his natural
civility, good manners, and good nature, which flowed to-
wards all men, he was universally acceptable and beloved,
and no man more in the confidence of the discontented and
factious party than he, and none to whom the whole mass
of their designs, as well what remained in chaos as what was
formed, was more entirely communicated, and no man more
consulted with."

This nobleman, who was born in the year 1602, and whom
we find frequently designated, as he is in the above extract,
by the title of Lord Mandevile, and, yet more frequently,
though not quite correctly, by that of Lord Kimbolton, was
the eldest son of an eminent lawyer and statesman, Henry
Montagu (who was created a Baron and Viscount by James,
and Earl of Manchester by Charles the First) by his first
lady, Catherine, daughter to Sir William Spencer, of Yarnton,
in Oxfordshire. His education is said to have been much
neglected, yet he studied, or was supposed to study, in the
university of Cambridge, where we find that he remained till
he had taken the degree of Master of Arts, and afterwards,
as we have already seen, attended Charles on his remarkable

SECOND EARL OF MANCHESTER. 225

visit to Madrid, and was one of the numerous Knights of the
Bath created on the occasion of his presently succeeding
Coronation. He was returned to serve in the first Parliament
called by that Prince, for the county of Huntingdon, which
he represented also in the three which successively followed,
when he was summoned to the House of Peers by his father's
title of Baron Montagu of Kimbolton. Here he was led by
the influence of a family connection to join the discontented
party, at a period when it was no discredit to belong to it,
but seems to have used little activity in its service till it
began to lose that character. We first hear of him in any
public capacity in 1640, at the treaty with the Scottish rebels
at Ripon, for which he was one of the fifteen commissioners,
all of whom the King was obliged by the necessity of the
time to select from that faction. In the same ineffectual
view of conciliation he was very soon after summoned, with
several other Peers of the same class, in a body, to the Privy
Council. These steps however seemed but to increase his
adverse zeal, which was peculiarly manifested in the prosecu-
tion of Strafford, though it has since appeared that he con-
descended at that very time to listen complacently to a
proposal made by the King that he should succeed his father
in the office of Lord Privy Seal.

But an unhappy circumstance which immediately followed
cut off probably all hope of reclaiming him. He was one of
the party of six, and the only one of the Upper House, who
were, on the fourth of January, 164, rashly impeached of
high treason. As his conduct on that occasion was in no
way distinguished from that of the five members of the
Commons, little need be said of it than that he fled with them
into the City, and a few days after joined them in their
triumphant return to Parliament ; but it created much sur-
prise on all hands that he should have been singled out from
his compeers, among whom were so many whose guilt was of
a dye far deeper ; for, says a great historian of the time, after

226 EDWARD MONTAGU,

expressing that opinion, " the Lord Kimbolton was a civil
and well-natured man, and had rather kept ill company than
drank deep of that infection and poison that had wrought
upon many others." Whatever might have been the motive
for this proceeding individually against him, the effect of it,
joined to that of the incessant recurrence to it, as an act of
the most horrible injustice, in the various remonstrances and
petitions of the Parliament with which the King was now
daily beset, was to drive him into open rebellion. One of
the first acts of preparation for war was to appoint him, and
the five impeached members of the Commons, severally to
the command of Regiments, which they most readily accepted.

His first appearance in this new capacity was in the battle
of Edge Hill, where, as his name is not mentioned in any
relation of the action, it may be concluded that his regiment
was not engaged. On the fourteenth day after it was fought,
his father died, and he became Earl of Manchester. This
event perhaps necessarily withdrew him for a time from the
army, but he was not without other engagements which war-
ranted his absence, for about the middle of the following
January, we find him, with others of both Houses, attending,
by order of the Parliament, a common hall of the citizens of
London, assembled to receive the King's answer to a petition
couched in terms somewhat more decent than were at that
time usual, which had been presented to him by the corpora-
tion some days before at Oxford. On this occasion he made
a speech, which has been preserved, little remarkable but
for the anxiety which it betrays to prevent any good effect
from the correspondence thus opened between his Majesty
and the City.

We hear of him no more in the field till the autumn of
1643, when the Parliament, thrown into some consternation
by a short tide of success which had flowed in on the military
affairs of the Royalists, as well as by a refractory spirit which
had of late appeared in their General, the Earl of Essex, passed

SECOND EARL OF MANCHESTER. 227

an ordinance for the levy of a great army, to be commanded
by the Earl of Manchester, and at the same time invested
him with the charge of what were called the associated coun-
ties, which were Hertford, Essex, Cambridge, Huntingdon,
Norfolk, Suffolk, and Lincoln. This disposition excited some
surprise in the army, and more in the country. It seemed
like a preference of zeal and good temper to military experi-
ence, but the event justified their choice, the true ground of
which however had been to set up a rival to Essex. Man-
chester spared neither activity nor money in raising troops :
Oliver Cromwell was appointed to command his horse ; and
the army was ordered to march northwards. This route
however was presently altered to the direction towards Nor-
folk, where the Earl had no sooner arrived, than he reduced
the town of Lynn, and then, marching into Lincolnshire,
engaged at Horncastle the army under the Earl of Newcastle
with the most signal success, and afterwards took the town of
Lincoln by storm. He now proceeded to join in the siege of
York, which soon after surrendered, and had a principal
share in the battle of Marston Moor, so fatal to the royal
cause ; after which, returning westward, and seizing on his
way several smaller garrisons in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire,
he arrived in the neighbourhood of the army under the com-
mand of the King in person, in time to be present at the
second battle of Newbury, in which he was engaged with
his whole force, and with alternate good and ill fortune.

As to the degree of credit due to the sagacious and intrepid
Cromwell on the score of these important successes, we will
not inquire ; thus much however is certain, that immediately
after the battle of Newbury he manifested the greatest pos-
sible discontent, and that a similar disposition, almost simul-
taneously, and doubtless prompted by him, broke out in the
governing power at Westminster. Cromwell, after indulging
for a short time in indistinct murmurs, determined to make
the Earl the subject of a specific criminal charge, and this
Q2

228 EDWARD MONTAGU,

was the first feature developed of the vast plan in the fruition
of which that extraordinary person became master of the
three kingdoms. Take it in the words of Lord Clarendon,
always authentic, and in this instance concise. Those who
may be desirous of a more full statement on this singular
subject, mostly extracted from the reports of republican
writers, will find it in a work which rarely deals in matters
of any curiosity, Collins 's Peerage.

" Cromwell," says Lord Clarendon, " accused the Earl of
Manchester of having betrayed the Parliament out of coward-
ice, for that he might, at the King's last being at Newbury,
when he drew off his cannon, very easily have defeated his
whole army if he would have permitted it to have been en-
gaged. That he went to him, and showed him evidently how
it might be done, and desired him that he would give him
leave, with his own brigade of Horse, to charge the King's
army in their retreat ; and the Earl, with the rest of his
army, might look on, and do as he should think fit ; but that
the Earl had, notwithstanding all importunity used by him
and other officers, positively and obstinately refused to permit
him, giving no other reason but that, he said if they did en-
gage, and overthrow the King's army, the King would always
have another army to keep up the war ; but if that army
which he commanded should be overthrown before the other,
under the Earl of Essex, should be reinforced, there would
be an end of their pretences, and they should be all rebels
and traitors, and forfeited and executed by the law."

The Earl justified himself at great length, and, seemingly
consoled by the tacit forbearance of the Parliament to enter
into any examination of the charge, bore the cruel insult that
he had received with great philosophy. He was deprived of his
command in 1645 by "the self-denying ordinance," and after-
wards accepted the office of Speaker of the small remnant of
the House of Lords, which he abandoned in the summer of
1647 ; put himself under the protection of the army which

SECOND EARL OF MANCHESTER. 229

Cromwell had encamped on Hounslow Heath, to be in readi-
ness to possess him of the government ; and submitted to be
led back, and replaced in the chair, by his hand. We hear
no more of him during the usurpation, except that he was
base enough to sit among the Peers of Cromwell's new con-
trivance. History surely cannot furnish a parallel instance
of nearly perfect dereliction of all that we ought to esteem
noble and generous. A single degradation yet remained. He
seized on it, and descended to the utmost when the Re-
storation approached he was among the first who presented
themselves to the councils which were held to accomplish it.
He was a man too powerful to be rejected, and indeed ren-
dered on that great occasion important services, which were
most amply rewarded. Charles the Second called him to the
Privy Council, appointed him Lord High Chamberlain, and
gave him the Order of the Garter ; he was restored to the
office of Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, which he
had before held for a while during the rebellion, and, on the
meeting of Parliament, he was constituted first Commissioner
of the Great Seal, and Speaker of the House of Peers, in which
character he addressed a congratulatory oration to the King
on his arrival at Whitehall.

Edward, Earl of Manchester, died on the fifth of May,
1671. He had been no less than five times married ; first
to Susannah, daughter of John Hill, of Honiley, in Warwick-
shire, who died shortly after without issue ; secondly, to
Anne, daughter of Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, by whom
he had Robert, who succeeded to his titles and estates, and
two daughters ; Frances, married to Henry, son and heir of
Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln ; and Anne, to her kins-
man, Robert Rich, first Earl of Warwick and Holland ; his
third lady was Essex, daughter of Sir Thomas Cheek, of
Pyrgo, in Essex, and relict of Sir Robert Bevil, who brought
him six sons ; Edward ; Henry ; Charles ; Thomas ; Sydney ;
and George ; and two daughters ; Essex, wife to Henry
Ingram, Viscount Irwin ; and Lucy. He married, fourthly?

230 EDWARD MONTAGU, SECOND EARL OF MANCHESTER.

Eleanor, daughter of Sir Richard Wortley, of Wortley, in
Yorkshire, Bart., and widow of Sir Henry Lee, of Quaren-
don, in Bucks, Bart. ; and, fifthly, Margaret, daughter of
Francis, fourth Earl of Bedford, of the Russels, and widow
of James Hay, first Earl of Carlisle, of his family. He had
no issue by either of his two last Countesses.

m

E

DUCHESS OP YORK.
OB, 1671-

ANNE HYDE,

DUCHESS OF YORK.

THIS lady, whom an accident of passion placed so near to a
throne, and who gave birth to two sovereigns, whose reigns
form perhaps the most brilliant, at least the most remarkable
epoch in our history, was the eldest of the two daughters of
that wise and virtuous Chancellor, Edward Hyde, afterwards
Earl of Clarendon, by Frances, daughter, and at length heir
of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, Knight and Baronet, a Master of
the Requests in the reign of Charles the First. The circum-
stances relating to her marriage with the Duke of York,
afterwards our James the Second, form nearly tbe whole of
her story ; for though she possessed a proud spirit, and a
powerful understanding, she seems neither to have aspired
to any open influence on state affairs, nor to have mixed in
the political intrigues which so eminently distinguished her
time. So too in her private life we meet but with pass-
ing rumours of the usual errors of a w^oman of much beauty,
and strong passions, raised suddenly to unexpected ele-
vation of those domestic extravagances, which, by destroy-
ing the peace, and distracting the interests, of illustrious
families, render their memoirs delightful to posterity.

James himself speaks thus of her, and of their marriage, in
the very curious memoirs of his own life, preserved in the
Scotch College at Paris, numerous extracts from which may
be found in Macpherson's fine Collection of Original Papers.
Those memoirs, in which he always mentions himself in the

232 ANNE HYDE,

third person, place the character of that unfortunate and
imprudent Prince in a more advantageous light than popular
prejudice had before allowed to fall on it, and there can be
little doubt of their truth and sincerity. " When his sister,
the Princess Royal," says he, " came to Paris, to see the
Queen Mother, the Duke of York fell in love with Mrs.
Anne Hyde, one of her maids of honour. Beside her per-
son, she had all the qualities proper to inflame a heart less
apt to take fire than his ; which she managed so well as to
bring his passion to such a height, as between the time he
first saw her, and the winter before the King's restoration,
he resolved to marry none but her, and promised her to do
it ; and though at first, when the Duke asked the King, his
brother, for his leave, he refused, and dissuaded him from it,
yet at last he opposed it no more, and the Duke married her
privately ; owned it some time after ; and was ever after a
true friend to the Chancellor." He says, in another place,
that " her want of birth was made up by endowments, and
her carriage afterwards became her dignity."

Lord Clarendon in his own life, naturally enough enlarges
widely on a subject so important and so dear to him. He
tells us that James disclosed the fact of his private marriage
to the King, immediately after the restoration ; informed
him that the Duchess was with child ; and besought his
brother to suffer him to marry her publicly. Charles, whose
indolent good temper nothing could ruffle, listened patiently,
and even kindly, to the .news, and sent the Marquis of
Ormond, and the Earl of Southampton, two of the Chancel-
lor's dearest friends, to break the matter to him ; for he
declares, and his veracity has never been doubted, that he
had not the smallest suspicion of it. The temper in which
he received it will best appear from his own words " He
broke out into immoderate passion against his daughter, and
said, with all imaginable earnestness, that as soon as he
came home he would turn her out of his house as a strumpet,
to shift for herself, and would never see her again." And, on

DUCHESS OF YORK. 233

their assuring him that she was married to the Duke, he fell
into yet greater passion, and exclaimed that " he had rather
his daughter should be the Duke's whore than his wife :
that, in the former case, no one could blame him for the
resolution he had taken, for he was not obliged to keep a
whore for the greatest Prince alive, and the indignity to him-
self he would submit to the good pleasure of God ; but, if
there were any reason to suspect the other, he was ready to
give a positive judgment, in which he hoped the King would
concur with him that the King should immediately cause
the woman to be cast into a dungeon, under so strict a guard
that no person living should be admitted to come to her ;
and then that an act of parliament should be immediately
passed for the cutting off her head ; to which he would not
only give his consent, but would very willingly be the first
man that should propose it : and whoever knew the man,"
concludes the Chancellor, .still speaking of himself, " will
believe that he said all this very heartily." Bishop Burnet,
who detested James, and whose word should always be taken
with caution, where his passions were concerned, says, rather
obscurely, that " she, being with child, called on the Duke
to own the marriage, and managed the matter with so much
address, that in conclusion he married her, and that he
thought to have shaken her from claiming it by great pro-
mises, and as great threatenings, but she was a woman of
great spirit, and would have it known that she was so, let
him use her afterwards as he pleased."

Charles, who certainly had a great affection for his brother,
and perhaps little less for the Chancellor, so far from testify-
ing any displeasure, amiably placed himself as a mediator
among the parties ; but new difficulties presently arose, which
even his power could not compose. The Queen Mother,
enraged to the utmost, wrote to him from Paris, to inform
him that she should instantly set out for England, to do all
she could to prevent such a dishonour to the crown. She came,
and James, whose conduct in his trying situation seems, in

234 ANNE HYDE,

spite of the report of Burnet, to have hitherto been equally
firm and honourable, was weak enough to deny his marriage
to his mother. In the mean time a party in the Duke's
family, headed by Berkeley, Earl of Falmouth, a man whose
heroic exit afterwards somewhat atoned for a vile life, availed
themselves of these dissensions, in the hope of working the
downfall of the Chancellor. Their envy and malice had
been raised to the highest pitch, by new favours lately con-
ferred on him by the King ; for Charles, eager to testify his
determination to protect his old and faithful servant, had
created him a Baron, and added to that dignity a grant of
twenty thousand pounds, in the midst of the confusion occa-
sioned at court by the disclosure of the marriage. They
contrived to convey indirectly to James the most injurious
reports of the Duchess's conduct previously to her union with
him ; and he, having easily discovered the authors, resolved
to examine them personally. The detail of his intercourse
with them, and its consequences, is to be met with only in
the Memoires de Grammont, and is given with an ease and
vivacity which will render any apology unnecessary, either
for quoting the very words of the original, or for the length
of the extract.

" Au milieu de ces differentes agitations il s'ouvrit a Milord
Falmouth, et le consulta sur le parti qu'il devoit prendre. II
ne pouvoit mieux s'addresser pour ses interets, ni plus mal
pour Mademoiselle Hyde. Falmouth lui soutint d'abord, non
seulement qu'il n'etoit pas marie, mais qu'il etoit impossible
qu'il y eut jamais songe : qu'un mariage etoit nul pour lui
sans le consentement du Roi, quand meme le parti se fut
trouve d'ailleurs sortable ; mais que c'etoit une mocquerie de
mettre en jeu la fille d'un petit avocat, que la faveur du Roi
venoit de faire Pair du royaume sans noblesse, et Chancelier
sans capacite : qu'a 1'e'gard de ses scrupules il n'avoit qu'a
vouloir bien ecouter des gens qui Pinstruiroient a fond de la
conduite que Mademoiselle Hyde avoit tenue avant qu'il la
connut, et que, pourvu qu'il ne leur dit point que la chose

DUCHESS OF YORK. 235

iut dejafaite, il auroitbien tot de quoi le determiner. Le Due
d' York y consent! t, et Milord Falmouth, ayant assemble son
conseil et sestemoins, les mena dans le cabinet de son Altesse,
apres les avoir instruits de ce qu'on leur vouloit. Ces mes-
sieurs etoient le Comte d'Arran, Germain, Talbot, et Killi-
grew, tous gens d'honneur,mais quipre'feroientinfinimentcelui
du Due d' York a celui de Mademoiselle Hyde, et qui de plus
etoient re voltes, avec toute la cour, centre 1'insolente autorite
du premier ministre.

" Le Due leur ayant dit, apres une espece de preambule,
que quoiqu'ils n'ignorassent pas sa tendresse pour Mademoi-
selle Hyde ils pouvoient ignorer a quels engagemens cette
tendresse 1'avoit porte : qu'il se croyoit oblige de tenir toutes
les paroles qu'il avoit pu lui donner ; mais que comme 1'inno-
cence des personnes de son age etoit exposee d' ordinaire aux
medisances d'une cour, et que de certains bruits, faux ou
veritables, s'etoient repandus au sujet de sa conduite, il les
prioit comme amis, et leur ordonnoit par tout ce qu'ils lui
devoient, de lui dire sincerement ce qu'ils en savoient, d'autant
qu'il etoit resolu de regler sur leurs temoignages les desseins
qu'il avoit pour elle. On se fit un peu tirer 1'oreille d'abord,
et Ton fit semblant de n'oser prononcer sur une matiere si
^erieuse et si delicate ; mais le Due d'York ayant reitere ses
^stances chacun se mit a deduire par le menu ce qu'il savoit,
et peut-etre ce qu'il ne savoit pas, de la pauvre Hyde. On y
joignit toutes les circonstances qu'il falloit pour appuyer les
temoignages. Par exemple, le Comte d'Arran, qui parla le
premier, de'posa que dans la galerie de Honslaerdyk, ou la
Comtesse d'Ossory, sa belle soaur, et Germain, jouoient un
jour aux quilles, Mademoiselle Hyde avoit fait semblant de
se trouver mal, et s'etoit retiree dans une chambre au bout de
la galerie ; que lui, deposant, 1'avoit suivie, et que lui ayant
coupe son lacet, pour donner plus de vraisemblance aux
vapeurs, il avoit fait de son mieux pour la secourir, ou pour
la desennuyer. Talbot dit qu'elle lui avoit donne un rendez
vous dans le cabinet du Chancelier, tandis qu'il etoit au

236 ANNE HYDE,

Conseil, a telles enseignes que n'ayant pas tant d'attention
aux choses qui etoient sur la table ; qu'a celles qui les occu-
poient alors, ils avoient fait repandre toute 1'encre d'une
bouteille sur une depeche de quatre pages ; et que le singe du
Roi, qu'on accusoit de ce desordre, en avoit ete long terns en
disgrace."

" Germain indiqua plusieurs endroits ou il avoit eu des
audiences longues et favorables : cependant tous ces chefs
d'accusation ne vouloient que sur quelques tendres privautes,
ou tout au plus, sur ce qu'on appelle les menus plaisirs d'un
commerce ; mais Killigrew, voulant rencherir sur ces foibles
depositions, dit tout net qu'il avoit eu 1'honneur de ses bonnes
graces. II avoit 1'esprit vif et badin, et savoit donner un tour
agre'able a ses recits par des figures gracieuses et sensibles.
II assura qu'il avoit trouve ITieure du berger dans un certain
cabinet construit au-dessus de 1'eau a toute autre fin que
d'etre favorable aux empressemens amoreux ; qu'il avoit eu
pour temoins de son bonheur trois ou quatre cygnes, qui
pouvoient bien avoir ete temoins du bonheur de bien d'autres
dans se meme cabinet, vu qu'elle y alloit souvent, et qu'elle
s'y plaisoit fort.

" Le Due d'York trouva cette derniere accusation outree,
persuade qu'il avoit par devers lui des preuves suffisantes du
contraire. II remercia messieurs les temoins a bonne fortune
de leur franchise ; leur imposa silence a 1'avenir sur ce qu'ils
venoient de lui declarer ; et passa dans 1'appartement du Roi.
Des qu'il fut dans son cabinet Milord Falmouth, qui 1'avoit
saivi, conta ce qui venoit de se passer au Comte d'Ossory,
qu'il trouva chez le Roy. Ils se douterent bien de ce qui
faisoit la conversation des deux freres, car elle fut longue.
Le Due d'York en sortant parut tellement emu qu'ils ne
douterent point que tout n'allat mal pour la pauvre Hyde.
Milord Falmouth commencoit a s'attendrir de sa grace, et se
repentoit un peu de la part qu'il y avoit eue, lorsque le Due
d'York lui dit de se trouver, avec le Comte d'Ossory, chez le
Chancelier dans une heure."

DUCHESS OF YORK. 237

" Us furent un pen surpris qu'il eut la durete d'annoncer
lui-meme cette accablante nouvelle. Us trouverent a 1'heure
marquee son Altesse dans la chambre de Mademoiselle Hyde.
Ses yeux paroissoient mouilles de quelques larmes, qu'elle
s'effo^oit de retenir. Le Chancelier, appuye centre la
muraille, leur parut bouifi de quelque chose. Us ne douterent
point que ce fut de rage et de desespoir. Le Due d'York
leur dit, de cet air content et serein dont on annonce les
bonnes nouvelles ' Comme vous etes les deux hommes de la
cour que j'estime du plus, je veux que vous ayez les premiers
1'honneur de saluer la Duchesse d'York la voila.'

" La surprise ne servoit de rien, et I'etonnement n'etoient
pas de saison dans cette conjoncture. Us en etoient pourtant
si remplis que pour s'en cacher ils se jeterent promptement a
genoux, pour baiser la main, qu'elle leur tendit avec autant
de grandeur et de majeste que si de sa vie elle n'eut fait autre
chose."

Lord Clarendon informs us that Falmouth afterwards con-
fessed fully to James the falsehood of all the charges which
had been thus made by himself and his conspirators, and
received the Duke's pardon. From that ill-judged lenity
perhaps, as well as from the slander itself, other gallantries
were, subsequently ascribed to the Duchess. Grammont, an
elegant profligate, living in the most profligate court in Europe,
speaks largely of a supposed intrigue with Sidney, a younger
son of Robert, Earl of Leicester, and a gentleman of the
Duke's bedchamber, and tells us that she went to York in
1664, that she might receive his addresses with the more
convenience and privacy ; and Burnet adds, that the Duke
discovered the amour, and dismissed Sidney with such pre-
cipitation and anger that the whole became entirely public ;
but a passage in Sir John Reresby's Memoirs tends greatly to
invalidate these reports, and indeed expressly contradicts one
of them. " His Royal Highness the Duke, and his Duchess/'
says Reresby, whose candour is invariable, " came down to
York in August, where it was observed that Mr. Sidney, the

238 ANNE HYDE,

handsomest youth of his time, and of the Duke's bedchamber,
was greatly in love with the Duchess ; and indeed he might
be well excused, for the Duchess, daughter to Chancellor
Hyde, was a very handsome personage, and a woman of fine
wit. The Duchess, on her part, seemed kind to him, but
very innocently ; but he had the misfortune to be banished
the court afterwards, for another reason, as was reported."
Burnet, however, who seems to have delighted in drawing false
conclusions from false premises, makes use of this rumour to
introduce a long paragraph of disgusting scandal against
James, whose debaucheries, he tells us, shortened the lives of
the Duchess, and of most of her children, and poisoned the
constitutions of the two who survived infancy ; and, not con-
tented with this, affects to trace the venom to its very source,
by minutely relating the circumstances of a filthy tale, which
may be found in his memoirs of the year 1665. He tells us,
also, with equal improbability, that the Duchess, through the
discovery of her amour with Sidney, lost the influence which
she had over her husband, and that, in the hope of regaining
it by flattering his religious prejudices, she determined to
embrace the Roman Catholic profession ; and this brings us
to one of the most important points of her story.

She had been bred a Protestant, with much strictness, and
had always the reputation of a perfect sincerity in that per-
suasion ; but it was observed for many months before her
death that she had not, as usual, received the Sacrament, and
that she frequently apologised in conversation for many of
those doctrines of the Romish Church which are the most
strenuously opposed by the Church of England. At length,
on the 20th of August, 1670, she signed, and, as it should
seem, in a great measure published, a paper declaring her
reconciliation to the ancient religion, in terms so frank and
simple, and with so little force or subtlety of argument, as to
render it evident that they had been dictated by her own
private prejudices, and secretly composed by her own pen.
She begins, to use nearly her own words, by calling God to

DUCHESS OF YORK. 239

witness that no person, man or woman, directly nor indirectly,
had ever said any thing to her since she came into England,
or used the least endeavour to make her change her religion ;
but that it was a blessing she owed wholly to Almighty God,
and to her earnest and constant prayers that she might before
she died be in the true religion. That she had entertained
no scruples till the preceding November, when, chancing to
peruse Dr. Heylin's History of the Reformation, which had been
much recommended to her, she found it to contain what seemed
to her to be the most horrible sacrileges imaginable, and could
find no reason why we left that Church, but three most
abominable ones. First, that Henry the Eighth renounced
the Pope's authority because he would not give him leave to
part with his wife, and marry another in her lifetime ;
secondly, because Edward the Sixth was a child, and go-
verned by his uncle, who made his estate out of Church
lands ; and, thirdly, because Elizabeth, who was no lawful
heiress to the Crown, could have no way to keep it but by
renouncing a church that would never suffer so unlawful a
thing to be done by one of her children. " I confess," says
she, " I cannot think the Holy Ghost to be in such councils."
After some wretched reasoning on transubstantiation, the in-
fallibility of the church, confession, and praying for the dead,
she concludes thus : " I am not able, nor if I were, would
I enter into disputes with any body. I only, in short, say
this for the changing of my religion, which I take God to
witness I never would have done if I had thought it possible
to save my soul otherwise. I think I need not say it is any
interest in this world that leads me to it. It will be plain
enough to every body that I must lose all the friends and
credit I have here by it ; and I have very well weighed which I
could best part with, my share in this world, or the next. I
thank God I have found no difficulty in the choice.'*

It has been the fashion of the writers of that time to assert
that this lady's abandonment of the Protestant religion was
-the work of incessant persuasions and threats. It would be

240 ANNE HYDE,

absurd to suppose that the approbation, nay the endeavours,
of a husband so bigotted as James had been wholly wanting ;
but there can be little doubt that the change arose chiefly
from her own conscientious inclination. Her father, who
had been for some time disgraced, and was then living in
exile, regretted this dereliction perhaps more keenly than any
of his own misfortunes, and wrote on it to her, and to the
Duke, the most earnest expostulations, which however did
not arrive till after her death.

The Duchess's constitution had been long declining. She
is said to have been very indolent, and a great eater, but
there is reason to believe that her end was hastened by
domestic anxiety. James was a notoriously unfaithful, and
probably negligent, husband ; and the reputation of
patience with which she seemed to endure those afflictions
was in fact due to the stifled anger of a proud spirit, any
active exertion of which might have been worse than useless.
Bishop Kennett tells us, that " after a growing corpulency
she fell into a long indisposition, and died." Burnet says,
that " a long decay of health came at last to a quicker crisis
than had been apprehended, and that she fell on a sudden
into the pains of death." He adds, that Blandford, Bishop
of Worcester, was sent for, to perform the usual offices of the
church on such occasions, but that " the Queen being present,
he went no further than to say that he hoped she continued
in the truth : upon which she asked ' What is truth V and,
her agony increasing, she repeated the word truth, truth,
many times, and in a few minutes after, died, very little
beloved or lamented, for her haughtiness had raised her many
enemies. In another part of his uncharitable memoirs he
gives her a high character, still however, with that qualifi-
cation which it really seems to have required. " The Duchess
of York," says he, " was a very extraordinary woman. She
had great knowledge, and a lively sense of things. She soon
understood what belonged to a Princess, and took state on
her rather too much. She writ well, and had begun the

DUCHESS OF YORK. 241

Duke's life, of which she shewed me a volume, which was all
taken from his own journal. She was generous and friendly,
but too severe an enemy."

She died at St. James's Palace, between three and four in
the afternoon, on the thirty-first of March, 1671, in the thirty-
fourth year of her age, and was buried, as had been all those
of her children who died before herein the vault of Mary
Queen of Scots, in Henry the Seventh's Chapel. Of her
numerous progeny by the unhappy James none reached ma-
turity except the Queens, Mary the Second, and Anne, her
successor. The rest were : Charles, who was born on the
twenty-second of October, 1660, and died at Whitehall, on
the fifth of May in the following year, while a patent was
preparing, to create him Duke and Earl of Cambridge ; James,
born on the twelfth of July, 1663, who was created Baron of
Dauntsey, in Wilts, and Duke and Earl of Cambridge, and
invested with the order of the Garter, but died on the twen-
tieth of June, 1666 ; Charles, born on the fourth of July, in
that year, and created Duke of Kendal, who died on the
twenty-second of the following May ; Edgar, born September
the fourteenth, 1667, and also created Duke of Cambridge,
but died on the eighth of June, 1671 ; Henrietta, born on the
thirteenth of January, 1668, and died November the fifteenth,
1669 ; and Catherine, born February the ninth, 1670, who
died on the fifth of December, 1671. Burnet, in whom it
might have been becoming enough to ascribe the hard and
untimely fate of James's line to an interposition of Providence
for the protection of the Church of England, has in his inve-
terate malice to that Prince, thought fit to place it to another
account, to which I have before alluded.

v.

SirP.Lelyp

EARL OP SANDWICH
OB, 1672,

EDWARD MONTAGU,

FIRST EARL OF SANDWICH.

THE annals of England present few brighter objects to our
view than the character of this eminent person. In thirty
years' service, as a soldier, a sailor, and a statesman, such
were his uprightness and his prudence, that not the slightest
suspicion ever fell reasonably on his public conduct ; and
such the generosity of his mind, and the sweetness of his
temper, that he seems to have lived not only without an
enemy, but unassailed, except perhaps in a single instance,
even by envy. The transcendent purity of his principles
enabled him to devote the one half of his life to the rebel
government, and the other to the King's, without incurring
the reproach of either party. Under the influence of others,
and scarcely emerged from boyhood, he engaged with the
former, and, joining neither in its intrigues or its hypocrisy,
served it with the simplest fidelity : when the spurious
sceptre fell from the hand of Richard Cromwell, he proffered
his allegiance to Charles, under no temptation or bargain on
the one hand, with no sacrifice of principle or betrayal of
trust on the other, and was distinguished by the honest zeal
which he uniformly displayed in the service of the Crown.

He was the only son of Sir Sidney Montagu, sixth and
youngest brother of Edward, first Lord Montagu, of Bough-
ton, by Paulina, third daughter of John Pepys, of Cottenham,
in the county of Cambridge, and was born on the twenty-
seventh of July, 1625. His father had passed his life in the
household service of James and Charles the First; was

244 EDWARD MONTAGU,

earnestly attached to their J family and to monarchy; and
although he had in the beginning of the discontents moder-
ately espoused the popular party in the House of Commons,
had been expelled the Long Parliament for refusing to take
the absurd oath by which a great majority of its members
bound themselves, on the appointment of the Earl of Essex
to the command of the rebel army, to " live and die with
him." It may be reasonable to presume that the son had
received strong impressions of loyalty from such a parent,
and so probably he had, when they were presently obliterated
by his marriage, at the age of seventeen, to Jemima, daughter
of John, Lord Crewe, a nobleman deeply infected by the
political schism of the time. Their union took place on the
seventh of November, 1642, and the death of his father, not
many months after, left him wholly under the influence of
this new connexion, and completed his estrangement from
the royal party.

The young proselyte was not long unemployed. He
received, in August, 1643, a commission from the Parliament
to raise a regiment of a thousand men in Cambridgeshire and
the Isle of Ely, and to take the command of it with the title
of colonel. It is probable that he owed this early distinction
to Cromwell, who was his neighbour in the country, and with
whom it is certain that he then, or soon after, formed a per-
sonal friendship, warm at least on his part, to which his
lasting attachment to the rebel cause seems to have been
solely owing. His levies were speedily made, and we find
him at the head of his corps, with the troops which stormed
Lincoln, on the sixth of May, 1644 ; in the battle of Marston
Moor on the second of the succeeding July ; and, in the same
month, with the army which then besieged York, where he
was appointed one of the Commissioners to receive the capi-
tulation of that city. In the following summer he com-
manded his regiment at the battle of Naseby, and, a few
weeks after, at the siege of Bridgewater; and conducted
himself in these several services with so much prudence, as

FIRST EAEL OF SANDWICH. 245

well as bravery, that he was intrusted, in the beginning of
September 1645, to lead a brigade of four regiments at the
important siege of Bristol, on the surrender of which, in the
course of that month, he was despatched by Fairfax and
Cromwell to communicate the news to the Parliament.

He had succeeded to his father in the representation of
the county of Huntingdon in the House of Commons, and
some of his biographers have extolled the public spirit which
they say induced him to absent himself from that assembly
after it fell under the dominion of the army, in June 1647.
He did so, but probably from the mere carelessness of youth,
and, it may be presumed, with the approbation of Cromwell,
to whom his adherence continued firm. He was besides too
young for any but the military purposes of his crafty friend,
and the war had now ceased. We lose sight of him there-
fore for more than five years following that period, when the
usurper, on assuming the sovereignty, under the title of Pro-
tector, nominated him of the supreme council of fifteen,
ordained by the instrument of government provided on that
occasion, and shortly after appointed him a Commissioner of
the Treasury, and joined him to Desborough, another soldier,
for the execution of the office of High Admiral. He now
applied himself incessantly to the theory of naval tactics,
and with such success that, in the spring of 1656, Cromwell
associated him with the gallant Blake, in the command of a
fleet, destined to serve in the Mediterranean against the
Spaniards, in which expedition, however, little was done
beyond the capture of some plate ships in the road of Cadiz.
Blake died during this service, and in July, 1657, Montagu
was appointed Admiral of the Fleet in the Downs, equipped,
as Lord Clarendon tells us, " under the pretence of mediating
in the Sound between the Kings of Sweden and Denmark,
but in truth to hinder the Dutch from assisting the Dane
against the Swede, with whom Oliver was engaged in an
inseparable alliance." On this occasion Cromwell secretly
designed to use his diplomatic as well as his warlike services.

246 EDWARD MONTAGU,

The political talents'manifested by him in the Council had
'not escaped the acuteness of the usurper, to whom too he had
of late peculiarly endeared himself hy the singular earnest-
ness with which he had argued, not only publicly, but in his
private intercourse with Cromwell, for the proposal made to
him by his Parliament to assume the title of King. It is
said that Montagu was always, to use the strong expression
which Lord Clarendon applies to him, even " in love with
monarchy ;" but in this instance, it must be confessed that,
with the common infirmity of ardent lovers, he was blind to
the imperfections of the individual object of his affection.

He was with his Fleet, in the Baltic, when Cromwell died.
Richard renewed his appointment, and wrote to him, direct-
ing him " in all cases, but more particularly in such as might
concern the honour of the Flag, rather to use his own discre-
tion than to consider himself bound by the tenor of his
orders." On Richard's dismissal, however, from the govern-
ment, which presently followed, and the assumption of it
by his mongrel Parliament, he found a strange reverse. He
was already far engaged in a negotiation with the Northern
powers, when that assembly issued a new commission, by
which they joined with him three of their confidential
friends, with the style of plenipotentiaries. Dissensions pre-
sently arose among them. One of the party was Algernon
Sidney, a cynic in morals, manners, and politics, with whom
no man could long agree. To add to his vexation, the Parlia-
ment at the same time gave the command of his regiment of
horse to another. At this period, Edward Montagu, his
cousin, heir to the Lord Montagu of Boughton, a zealous
partisan for the excluded Charles, and one of the companions
of his flight, disclosed to him the plans which were then
ripening in England for the restoration of that Prince. He
adopted them without hesitation, and, after a brief communi-
cation, by a trusty messenger, with the King, suddenly set
sail for England, leaving his brother plenipotentiaries at
Copenhagen. When he arrived, however, on the coast, he

FIRST EARL OF SANDWICH. 247

had the mortification to find that the military insurrection,
on which the royalists had built thei hopes, had wholly
failed, and that the leader, Sir George Booth, was a prisoner
in the Tower. Montagu, however, boldly presented himself
to the Parliament amidst much clamour ; alleged that he had
been compelled to return by shortness of provisions ; and
produced a minute of the concurrence of his flag officers to
that effect. He then resigned his command, and the Parlia-
ment, abundantly occupied with other causes, which began
to threaten its very existence, agreed to defer any further
examination of his matter till the coming of the other three
commissioners. He was suffered, therefore, says Lord Cla-
rendon, "to go quietly into the country, and remained
neglected and forgotten, till they could be more at leisure
(for it was then about the time they grew jealous of Lam-
bert), till those revolutions were over which were produced
by Lambert's invasion upon the Parliament, and General
Monck's march into England ; and till near the time that the
name and title of that Parliament was wholly abolished and
extinguished ; and then the secluded members, being restored,
called him to resume the command of the fleet."

Monck, as a compliment to that General, was joined with
him in this command, which was not confined, as might be
inferred from the terms used by Clarendon, to the fleet
which he had left in the Baltic, but extended to the entire
navy. It was in fact what would have been termed, in
times of regular government, a commission for executing the
office of Lord High Admiral of England. Montagu, to prove
the sincerity of his professions, sent privately to request, and
it is needless to say obtained, the King's ratification of the
appointment; and Lawson, a celebrated seaman, but an
anabaptist republican, to whom the authority of that station
had been intrusted, and who had filled the fleet with persons
of his own persuasion, consented, without a murmur, to serve
under him. The Restoration, to be complete, now waited
only for forms, to which Montagu's impatience could not

248 EDWARD MONTAGU,

submit. He set sail to the coast of Holland without orders
from the Parliament, to the great offence of many members
of that body, leaving only two or three of the smaller ships,
to convey those who were appointed to wait on the King
with a regular invitation. On his arrival, he surrendered his
command to the Duke of York, who was appointed High
Admiral; and a few days after, received Charles on board
his own ship, and on the twenty-sixth of May, 1660, landed
him triumphantly at Dover. The King, while on his road to
London, sent Sir Edward Walker to the Downs, to invest
him with the ensigns of the Garter, and on the twelfth of the
following July, advanced him to the Peerage, by the titles of
Baron Montagu of St. Neots, Viscount Hinchinbroke, and
Earl of Sandwich. Nearly at the same time, he was sworn
of the Privy Council, and appointed Admiral of the Narrow
Seas, Vice-Admiral of England, and Master of the King's
Wardrobe.

In June. 1631, he sailed on an expedition against the
piratical states of Barbary, and made a gallant but unsuc-
cessful attack on Algiers, from whence he retired, leaving
Lawson, with a force sufficient to block up that port, and
visited Tangier, a city on the same coast, which it will be
recollected formed the main part of the marriage portion of
Catherine of Braganza, and of which he now took formal
possession in the name of his master. Having placed an
English garrison there, under the command of the Earl of
Peterborough, he proceeded to Lisbon, where, having officiated
as proxy for Charles in the ceremony of espousing that Lady,
she embarked on board his ship, and on the fourteenth of
May, 1662, he presented her at Portsmouth to the King, her
husband. Two years of peace succeeded, when, in 1664, on
the resolution for a war with the Dutch, the commencement
of which was so long deferred, he took the command of a
fleet of observation, which was no otherwise employed till the
month of March, in the following year, when the war being
declared, he was appointed to lead the blue squadron, under

FIRST EARL OF SANDWICH. 249

the Duke of York, who now personally acted as High Admiral.
The opening of the campaign was eminently successful.
Nearly two hundred rich merchantmen fell into the hands of
the English, and, on the third of June, a general engagement
occurred, in which eighteen of the finest ships of war in the
Dutch service were captured, and fourteen destroyed, in one
of which was blown up Opdam, the commander of their
fleet. In this action Sandwich practised, perhaps for the first
time, the bold expedient, a repetition of which in our day
has justly acquired so much credit, of breaking the enemy's
line, which accelerated a victory that his skill and bravery
had before rendered inevitable.

The fleet now returned to England to refit, and, the Duke
having relinquished the command to Sandwich, he sailed
from Torbay in the beginning of July for the Texel, where
finding that it would be long before the enemy's fleet could
again put to sea, he steered northward, with the double view
of intercepting a squadron under the celebrated De Ruyter,
on its return from Newfoundland, and of falling in with the
Turkey and East India fleets, which were said to have
anchored for a while at Bergen. Neither of these enter-
prises succeeded : De Ruyter passed the English, under cover
of a fog, with the loss only of eight ships of war, and arrived
safely in Holland ; and the usual vigour of the Earl is said to
have been restrained at Bergen by his doubts on the actual
state of a negotiation which he knew to be in progress
between Charles and the King of Denmark. He captured
however a great number of rich merchant ships, and received
on his return abundant proofs that this partial miscarriage
had not impaired his reputation in the opinion either of the
King or the people : yet in that moment the keenest vexation
that he had ever suffered was closely impending. On his
voyage homeward, his flag officers had besought him to dis-
tribute among them some part of the merchandise which had
been taken, to which he consented, all parties seeming to
have forgotten, as probably they really had, the admiralty

250 EDWARD MONTAGU,

rule, that bulk, as it is called, of any captured ship shall
not be broken till it be brought into port, and adjudged to
be lawful prize. Sandwich had, however, the precaution to
apply for the King's approbation, which he obtained, but he
had put the measure into execution before it arrived, having
given to each officer goods estimated at one thousand pounds,
and taken for himself to the value of two thousand.

This act of folly, for it deseryed no worse name, was no
sooner known, than the most furious outcry was raised against
him by all who could pretend to take an interest in the affair-
Monck, who was at the head of the Admiralty, and had long
regarded him with jealousy, sent unnecessary orders to all
the ports to seize the property, and omitted no other indignity
which his official authority enabled him to practise : Sir
William Coventry, who was the Duke's peculiar confidant,
used all endeavours to ruin him in the opinion of that Prince,
who was already, perhaps with some justice, offended that
his Vice- Admiral should have presumed to dispense bounties
which it belonged to himself only to bestow : the King was
displeased that he should have ventured to act on the royal
approbation before he had received it, and the more, because
he was angry with himself for having granted it : and all the
officers of the navy, with the exception of those whom he had
intended to gratify, together with the whole body of seamen,
complained loudly that a plan had been laid to defraud them
of a part of their prize-money. At length a rumour was
raised of an impeachment in Parliament, and the authors of
it, Monck and Coventry, persuaded the King that nothing
could prevent such a proceeding but the removal of Sandwich
from his command, which was indeed their sole object. The
King, on the other hand, whose resentments were never
lasting, was anxious to protect him, and disposed of him
accordingly without disgrace, appointing him Ambassador
Extraordinary to the Court of Madrid, a mission always
highly honourable, and just at this time requiring extraor-
dinary talents, and undoubted fidelity. I have been the

FIRST EARL OF SANDWICH. 251

more particular in the foregoing relation, because all the Earl's
biographers, with that absurd and servile tenderness which is
in the end almost always more injurious than the plain truth
to the memory of the eminent dead, have thought fit to leave
it wholly untold. It is to be found, given most circum-
stantially, in Lord Clarendon's Life of himself.

Sandwich arrived at Madrid on the twenty-eighth of May,
1666, and was received with distinctions more cordial and
magnificent than were then usually allowed to foreign minis-
ters by that cold and ceremonious Court. His conduct in all
circumstances proved how highly he merited them. The
objects of his mission were to negociate a treaty of commerce
with England, and to mediate a peace between Spain and
Portugal ; a proposal involving points of great difficulty,
inevitable in an effort to reconcile a parent state to the inde-
pendence of a revolted province. They yielded however to
his sagacity. Never was embassy more uniformly successful :
and he returned, after an absence of two years, which his
friends, his enemies, and himself, had considered but as an
honourable exile, to renewed royal favour, and increased
popularity; with the reputation of a profound statesman
ingrafted on that of a brave and prudent commander.
Neither this deviation into the character of a public minister,
nor the flattering applause which he had acquired in it, could
betray his generous mind into any engagement in political
party at home. He accepted, soon after his return, the office
of President of the Council of Trade and Plantations, and
seems to have confined himself to the performance of the
duties which it demanded. He is said to have opposed
strenuously in Council the sale of Dunkirk; and to have
argued there, with equal warmth, in favour of a strict
alliance with Spain, as a counterpoise to the power of Louis
the Fourteenth, and we find scarcely any other instances of
his interference in state affairs.

At length, fatally for himself, he was restored to the naval
service, and in the spring of 1672, on the renewal of the

252 EDWARD MONTAGU,

Dutch war, again appointed Vice-Admiral of the fleet under
the Duke of York. They sailed to meet the enemy in the
Channel, whom on the nineteenth of May they descried some
leagues off the coast of Suffolk. A thick fog however pre-
vented them from approaching each other for many days,
during which the English lay at anchor in Southwold bay,
better known as Solebay. On the twenty-eighth, while they
were gaily preparing for the celebration of the following day,
the anniversary of the Restoration, they were surprised by
the Dutch, so suddenly as barely to allow them time to weigh
anchor, and to form a very imperfect line. As the battle began
and was fought in confusion, not less confused, and even
contradictory, are the accounts of it which have been deli-
vered to us. Thus much only is certain that the Dutch
Admiral, Van Ghent, commenced it by attacking the blue
squadron, commanded by Sandwich, whose ship gave the first
broadside that was fired : that the Earl, after having per-
formed prodigies of valour, disabled many of the enemy's
ships, and lost three-fourths of his men, was suddenly
surrounded by fire-ships ; that his Vice-Admiral, Jordaine,
with his division, basely and disobediently left him at this
fearful juncture, to flatter the Duke, who was just then some-
what pressed, by a show of anxiety to succour him ; that
Sandwich, having sunk three of the fire-ships, was grappled
by a fourth, which set his ship in flames ; and that, having
stedfastly refused to enter the long-boat, in which many of
the survivors were saved, he remained almost alone, and
perished.

His body was found several days after, floating on the sea,
into which it was evident that he had plunged to avoid the
greater corporal misery, as marks of burning were strongly
visible on his face and breast. He is said to have received
an affront from the High Admiral immediately previous to
the action, and to have gone into it therefore with a determi-
nation to die. Among others, two eminent historians, however
discordant as to another particular which they respectively

FIRST EARL OF SANDWICH. 253

relate, agree in making that report, as well as in ascribing
his fatal resolution to the same motive. Burnet tells us
that " the Admiral of the blue squadron was burned by a
fire-ship, after a long engagement with a Dutch ship much
inferior to him in strength," and adds "in it the Earl of
Sandwich perished, with many about him, who would not
leave him, as he would not leave his ship, by a piece of
obstinate courage to which he was provoked by an indecent
reflection the Duke made on an advice he had offered of
drawing nearer the shore, and avoiding an engagement, as if
in that he took more care of himself than of the King's
honour." Bishop Kennet says, tl the day before there was
great jollity and feasting in the English fleet, in the midst of
which, my Lord of Sandwich was observed to say that, as
the wind stood, the fleet rode in danger of being surprised
by the Dutch, and therefore thought it advisable to weigh
anchor, and get out to sea. The Duke of York, Lord High
Admiral, slighted the advice, and retorted upon the Earl that
he spoke this out of fear, which reflection his Lordship is
thought to have so far resented as the next day, out of
indignation, to have sacrificed his life, which he might have
otherwise preserved."

His remains were deposited, with the honours of a public
funeral, in Henry the Seventh's chapel, in the same vault
with those of his competitor Monck. His character, which
has been here but slightly touched on, is given at great
length, and with uncommon minuteness, in a manuscript in
the French language, which is preserved in the Harleian
collection, and exhibits a glowing picture of the perfection of
humanity. It is too extensive to be admitted in this place,
being in fact a small volume, but the brief description of his
person, with which it commences, ought not to be omitted,
and it is to be regretted that in a work of this nature such
notices cannot be more frequently introduced. "Edouard,
Comte de Sanduich," says the manuscript, "est bien fait, de
sa personne ; 1'air doux, heureux, engageant ; le visage assez

254 EDWARD MONTAGU, FIRST EARL OF SANDWICH.

plein ; les traits agreables ; la couleur vermeille, tirant sur
le clair brim ; les yeux mediocrement grands, brans, vifs,
penetrans, pleins de feu ; la teste belle, et les cheveux
naturellement boucles, et d'un chatain brun ; la taille
plutost grande que petite ; assez d 'embonpoint, mais qui ne
conTensa de 1'incommoder qu'apres son retour de 1'ambassade
d'Espagne."

This Nobleman had by his lady, already spoken of, six
sons ; Edward, his successor ; Sidney ; Oliver ; John ; Charles ;
and James : and four daughters ; Jemima, married to Sir
Philip Carteret ; Paulina, who died unmarried ; Anne, wife
to Sir Richard Edgecumbe, of Mount Edgecumbe, in Devon ;
and Catherine, married to Nicholas Bacon, of Shrubland
Hall in Suffolk.

IL<0>[R[D> C L IF IF <0> ff& IB,
OF CHUDLEIGH.
OB, 1673,

THOMAS, FIRST LORD CLIFFORD

OP CHUDLEIGH.

THERE is no period of English history in which we find it
more difficult to estimate correctly the characters of statesmen
than the reign of Charles the Second. From a court in
whose careless and licentious manners nature stood confessed
to open view in unblushing nakedness, we pass to a cabinet
in which the motives to an uncertain policy were shrouded
in the darkest obscurity. The last remains of that generous
simplicity which shed somewhat of grace and dignity even
on the faults of monarchy had perished on the scaffold with
the late King, and his successor had been called, suddenly
and unexpectedly, to rule by new experiments of government
a people at once elated by the discovery of that strength
which had enabled them to break the charm of allegiance,
stung with disappointment at the failure of their visionary
hopes of independence, and secretly prepared to meet with
defiance the resentment which they anticipated, because they
felt that they had so justly merited it. To correct these
different dispositions, Charles had recourse alternately to
fraud and force, to haughty menaces, and mean condescensions.
The characters, therefore, of his ministers were necessarily
as various as the features of his system, if it deserved to be
so called : some were chosen for their boldness, some for
their powers of deception, others for mere pliability of
temper, and a few were actually recommended by the total
asbence of all moral principle, Clifford, not to mention his

256 THOMAS, FIRST LORD CLIFFORD

talents, which were veiy powerful, was elevated and ruined
by his courage.

Of the splendour and antiquity of his family it is needless
to speak. He descended from a junior line which branched
off in the fourteenth century from that which afterwards
produced the Earls of Cumberland, and was the eldest of the
three sons of Hugh Clifford, of Ugbrook, in Devonshire, a
gentleman who had been intrusted with the command of
a regiment of foot for the King in the beginning of the
rebellion, by Mary, daughter of Sir George Chudleigh, of
Ashton, in the same county, Baronet. He was born on the
first of August, 1630, and completed his education at Exeter
College, in Oxford, where he became a gentleman commoner
on the twenty-fifth of May, 1647, and was " accounted,"
says Wood, " by his contemporaries there, a young man of a
very unsettled head, or of a roving shattered brain." The
fervid and sanguine disposition which drew on him this
censure from dull and plodding judgments, enabled him to
reap the fruits of study without labour, and he left the
University in a state of proficiency which astonished those
who had uttered it. He travelled for some time on the
continent, and on his return, was entered of the Middle
Temple, and studied the law with an assiduity which leaves
little room to doubt that he then intended to adopt it as a
profession. The ancient affection, however, of his native
county to his name and family, opened new prospects to him.
The borough of Totnes elected him to serve in the Parliament
by which Charles the Second was restored, and rechose him
for the first which was called by that Prince. He was now
in his proper sphere of action. The freedom of debate was
suited to his natural impatience of control, and his ambition
was soothed by splendid visions of preferment. He possessed
all the requisites to establish parliamentary reputation, and
exercised them with a freedom and boldness at that time
seldom practised. He commenced his career by opposing the
measures of government ; grew distinguished and formidable ;

OP CHUDLEIGH. 257

made terms with the King's ministers ; and became a most
steady advocate for the royal prerogatives. This character
on the political theatre was then a novelty.

His affection to monarchy, however, was sincere. The
very name of Clifford was an emblem of loyalty, and he had
been bred from his cradle in the strictest habits of implicit
obedience to the throne. He now privately engaged himself,
in concert with some other members of the House of Com-
mons, to use his most strenuous endeavours to augment, by
all practicable means, the authority and revenue of the
Crown ; and it has been said, that Lord Clarendon's opposi-
tion to those measures was the principal cause of that great
man's fall. Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington, and Secretary
of State, was his first eminent political friend and patron ;
and his strict intimacy with that minister, together with a
strong rumour that he had been secretly reconciled to the
church of Rome about the time of the Restoration, introduced
him to the favour, and shortly after to the confidence, of the
Duke of York. In compliment to that Prince, and perhaps
to relieve and solace a spirit of peculiar ardency, he attended
the Duke in the great sea-fight with the Dutch, of the third
of June, 1665, and became so interested in the tremendous
novelties which he that day witnessed, that he chose to
remain with the fleet after the command had devolved, in the
Duke's absence, on the Earl of Sandwich, with whom he
sailed, in the beginning of the following August, on the
expedition to Bergen, in Norway. Nor was this all, for in
the following year he accompanied Prince Rupert and the
Duke of Albemarle in that signal battle with the ships of
the States General, which continued without intermission for
the first four days of June, and in another engagement
with the same fleet on the twenty-fifth of July. In these
several actions he fought with a bravery so remarkable, that
it was afterwards thought fit to record it in the Gazette which
notified his admission into the Council, in which we are told
that the honour was conferred on him " for the singular zeal

v. s

258 THOMAS, FIRST LORD CLIFFORD

wherein he had on all occasions merited in his Majesty's
service, and more eminently in the honourable dangers in the
late war against the Dutch and French, where he had been
all along a constant actor, and had made it his choice to take
his share in the warmest part of those services."

In the mean time he had not been employed in any osten-
sible office, except that of Envoy to the King of Denmark
and Sweden for the conclusion of certain treaties, and this he
executed very satisfactorily in the intermediate space between
his two naval campaigns. On the twenty-sixth of October,
1666, he was appointed Comptroller of the Household, and
on the fifth of the following December, sworn of the Privy
Council ;'on the thirteenth of June, 1668, the office of Trea-
surer of the Household was conferred on him : and presently
after, the Treasury being put into Commission on the death
of the Earl of Southampton, he was named one of the Lords
Commissioners. He became now, perhaps, the King's most
confidential adviser ; and this was presently after in a manner
publicly acknowledged by his reception into that Cabinet
Council, which, from the initial letters of the names of the
five who composed it, obtained the denomination of " the
Cabal." The designs and the conduct of that remarkable
body are now so well known, that it would be impertinent
to enlarge on them here. In all their plans for the establish-
ment of absolute monarchy, and the restoration of the
Romish religion, Clifford joined them with a genuine and
disinterested sincerity, which wanted only a better cause to
render it public virtue. His zeal indeed, in the prosecution
of those views, rose to a pitch of enthusiasm which blinded
him to all other political objects but such as tended immedi-
ately to favour or to thwart the accomplishment of them,
and on such objects he bestowed no consideration but of the
simplest and shortest means by which they might be for-
warded or removed. The House of Commons was of course
odious to him, and he justified the purchased subserviency of
Charles to Louis the Fourteenth, by saying, that "if the

OF CHUDLEIGH. 259

King must be in a dependence, it was better to pay it to a
great and generous Prince than to five hundred of his own
insolent subjects." The features of his system were very
clearly drawn in a pamphlet which was published, and read
with much interest, soon after his death : " This Lord's
notion," says the anonymous writer, " was, that the King,
if he would be firm to himself, might settle what religion he
pleased, and carry the government to what height he would :
for, if men were assured in the liberty of their consciences,
and undisturbed in their properties ; able and upright judges
made, in Westminster Hall, to judge the causes of meum and
tuum ; and if, on the other hand, the fort of Tilbury was
finished, to bridle the city ; the fort of Plymouth, to secure
the west ; and arms for twenty thousand men in each of
these, and in Hull for the northern parts ; with some addi-
tion, which might be easily and undiscernedly made, to the
force now on foot, there were none who had either will,
opportunity, or power, to resist."

Charles, who thirsted for absolute monarchy chiefly for the
sake of personal ease, and James, always ready to sacrifice all
other considerations to his inveterate affection to the ancient
religion, determined to ensure his future services by giving
him the strongest proofs of their favour and gratitude. On
the twentieth of April, 1672, he was created Baron Clifford,
of Chudleigh, in the county of Devon, to which honour was
added, as his patrimony was moderate, a grant of consider-
able estates, chiefly in Somersetshire ; and, on the twenty-
eighth of the following November, was appointed Lord High
Treasurer. An almost incredible tale however is extant, of
the immediate motive by which Charles was induced to
place him in that great post. In the preceding year the
King, who had now become the voluntary vassal of Louis,
resolved to gratify that Prince by breaking the league, known
by the title of the Triple Alliance, which had been formed
against France in the year 1667, between England, Sweden,
and the United Provinces, arid to make war on the latter of
s 2

200 THOMAS, FIRST LORD CLIFFORD

those powers. His coffers were exhausted ; the Parliament
not then sitting ; and no reasonable hope to be entertained
from assembling it, of obtaining a grant of money for the
prosecution of a measure so unpopular. In this dilemma,
Charles is said to have declared, that he would give the staff
of High Treasurer to any one of his ministers who could
contrive a feasible plan to raise fifteen hundred thousand
pounds, without an application to Parliament. " The next
day," as the story goes, "Lord Ashley," (afterwards the
notorious Earl of Shaftesbury) " told Clifford that there was
a way to do this, but that it was dangerous, and might, in its
consequences, inflame both Parliament and people. Clifford,
impatient to know the secret, plied the Lord Ashley with
visits, and having drunk him to a proper height, led him
insensibly to the subject of the King's indigence. Lord
Ashley, warm and unguarded, dropt the important secret of
shutting up the Exchequer. Clifford took the hint ; left the
Lord Ashley as soon as he could ; went the same night to
Whitehall ; and, attending till the King rose, demanded the
white staff. The King renewed his promise if the money
could be found, and then Clifford disclosed the secret, and
was accordingly made Lord Treasurer." The whole of this
seems to be fabulous. The wretched and iniquitous project
of shutting up, as it was called, the Exchequer, by which the
bankers, who had supplied Charles's necessities with money
borrowed of others on the security of the revenues, were
disabled from fulfilling their engagements, was devised and
recommended by Ashley alone.

Lord Clifford held his high appointment for little more
than six months. About the time that he obtained it,
Charles, at his suggestion, published a declaration for univer-
sal liberty of conscience and worship, and for the suspension
of the penal laws against dissenters of all descriptions. It
was presently perceived that this measure was contrived for
the encouragement and benefit of the Roman Catholics ; the
House of Commons took it up with great warmth ; voted it

OF CIIUDLEIGH. 261

to be illegal ; and not only endeavoured, by two several
addresses, to persuade the King to revoke it, but broke out
into open hostility against the Papists, and brought in a bill
for a new test, peculiarly framed to disqualify them for all
public employments. The Peers received it with more
moderation, but Clifford defended it in that house with a
haughtiness and violence of expression which provoked the
utmost resentment and disgust. It was on that occasion
that he applied the often quoted phrase, " monstrum horren-
dum ingens," to the vote of the Commons, and reproached
that branch of the legislature in terms of anger and contempt,
never, perhaps, before or since applied to it by a speaker in
the upper house. The Lords, however, sanctioned the King's
declaration by their vote, but the majority was small, and no
less than thirty signed a protest against it. The Chancellor,
Shaftesbury, spoke and voted against it, and the King, to
whom Clifford had not only previously submitted the plan of
his speech, but by whom some additions had been made to it,
intimidated by the resentment which it had produced, and
the artifices of the Treasurer's enemies, determined to
abandon at once his measure, and his minister. Burnet's
statement of the matter at this precise period is very curious,
and, as he mentions the name of the person who reported it
to him from Lord Clifford's mouth, may have a better title to
credit than many others of that Bishop's anecdotes. I will
give it in his own words.

" In the afternoon of the day in which thQ, matter had
been argued in the House of Lords, the Earls of Shaftesbury
and Arlington got all those members of the House of Com-
mons on whom they had any influence, (and who had money
from the King, and were his spies, but had leave to vote with
the party against the Court, for procuring them the more
credit) to go privately to him, and to tell him that, upon
Lord Clifford's speech, the House was in such fury that
probably they would have gone to some high votes and im-
peachments, but the Lord Shaftesbury, speaking on the other

262 THOMAS, FIRST LORD CLIFFORD

side, restrained them; they believed he spoke the King's
sense, as the other did the Duke's : this calmed them. So
they made the King apprehend that the Lord Chancellor's
speech, with which he had been much offended, was really a
great service done him; and they persuaded him farther,
that he might now save himself, and obtain an indemnity for
his ministers, if he would part with his declaration, and pass
the bill. This was so dexterously managed by Lord Arling-
ton, who got a great number of the members to go one after
'another to the King, who, by concert, spoke all the same
language, that before night the King was quite changed, and
said to his brother, that Lord Clifford had undone himself,
and had spoiled their business by his mad speech ; and that,
though Lord Shaftesbury had spoke like a rogue, yet that had
stopped a fury which the indiscretion of the other had
kindled to such a degree that he could serve him no longer.
He gave him leave to let him know all this. The Duke was
struck with this, and imputed it wholly to Lord Arlington's
management. In the evening he told Lord Clifford what the
King had said. The Lord Clifford, who was naturally a
vehement man, went, upon that, to the King, who scarce
knew how to look him in the face. Lord Clifford said he
knew how many enemies he must needs make to himself by
his speech in the House of Lords, but he hoped that in it he
had both served and pleased the King, and was therefore the
less concerned in every thing else ; but he was surprised to
find by the Duke, that the King was now of another mind.
The King was in some confusion. He owned that all he had
said was right in itself : but he said that he, who sat so long
in the House of Commons, should have considered better what
they could bear, and what the necessity of his affairs required.
Lord Clifford, in his first heat, was inclined to have laid
down his white staff, and to have expostulated roundly with
the King, but a cooler thought stopped him. He reckoned
he must now retire, and therefore he had a mind to take
some care of his family in the way of doing it: so he

OF CHUDLEIGH. 263

restrained himself, and said he was very sorry that his best
meant services were so ill understood. "

The King now revoked his declaration, and assented to the
bill for the test ; and Lord Clifford resigned an office which,
indeed, he could not have retained but by a total sacrifice,
not only of his honour, but of those religious principles which
he had with such perfect sincerity cherished. He went to
the Duke of Buckingham, who had assisted largely in obtain-
ing it for him, and offered in return to lend his aid in
forwarding the pretensions of any friend of the Duke's to the
vacant post. The appointment of Sir Thomas Osborn, after-
wards Duke of Leeds, was the result of that visit. Clifford
retired, overwhelmed with chagrin, to the country. Some
remarkable particulars of his latter days have very lately
appeared in a publication of the diary of his intimate friend,
John Evelyn, who tells us that his resignation " grieved him
to the heart, and at last broke it." Mr. Evelyn adds, that
when he took leave of this nobleman, on his quitting London
for ever, Lord Clifford " wrung him by the hand," and said,
" God-b'ye I shall never see thee more do not expect it
I will never see this place, this city or court, again;" and
couples with these speeches, which evidently refer rather to
future life than death, a very idle rumour of the day, that he
perished soon after by his own hand. I mention this merely
for the sake of denying it. Such a fact, relating to such a
man, could not have slept till now, undisturbed by the
officiousness of friends, or the malice of enemies. He died,
as we are informed by Prince, in his " Worthies of Devon,"
of a fit of the stone, at his house of Ugbrook, in that county,
in September, 1673 ; and his friend, Mr. Evelyn, from whom
alone we have any view of his private character, makes some
atonement for the blemish so carelessly cast on his memory
by recording that he was " a valiant uncorrupt gentleman ;
ambitious ; not covetous ; generous ; passionate ; and a most
sincere constant friend."

Lord Clifford married Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of

264 THOMAS, FIRST LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH.

William Martin, of Lindridge, in Devonshire, by whom he
had fifteen children. Of his sons, two, each of the name of
Thomas, died infants, and a third Thomas, his heir-appa-
rent, who had reached maturity, died unmarried; George,
the fourth son, inherited the title and estates, and was
succeeded by his brother Hugh, ancestor to the present Lord :
Simon and Charles, were the sixth and seventh sons. Of
the daughters, Elizabeth died an infant ; a second Elizabeth,
was married to Henry, only son of Sir Thomas Carew, of
Haccombe, in Devonshire, Bart. ; Mary to Sir Simon Leech,
of Cadleigh, in the County of Derby, Knight of the Bath ;
Amy, to John Courtenay, of Molland, in Devon ; Catherine,
Anne, Rhoda and Isabel, died unmarried.

SirELely piruc..

E E)W^ffS 02) MY B> E,

EARL OF CLARENDON.

OB, 1674,

EDWARD HYDE,

EARL OF CLARENDON.

FORTUNATELY for the interests of history, and not less for-
tunately for the honour of his memory, we possess the life of
this truly great and good man from his own incomparable
pen. Strange to say, to no other hand could it have been
safely intrusted : he only, victim as he was to the fury of
faction, and to the ingratitude of an unprincipled master,
would have delivered it to us with impartiality. Gifted with
a penetration into the characters of men and things so acute
as to invest him with a sort of prescience of events which
were to arise from their influence, and abiding therefore the
consequences to himself of those events with a philosophic
patience ; with a magnanimity which spurned the petulant
suggestions of vulgar resentment, and disdained the support
of party ; and, above all, with a love and reverence for truth
which rendered him incapable of misrepresentation ; he has
recorded all the great scenes in which he acted with the
moderation and candour of an indifferent and disinterested
spectator. From that pure source therefore has the follow-
ing humble and superficial memoir been almost wholly drawn.

Lord Clarendon, the third son of Henry Hyde, whose
father was a cadet of the very ancient family of Hyde, of
Norbury, in the county of Chester, by Mary, daughter and
coheir of Edward Langford, of Trowbridge in Wiltshire, was
born on the eighteenth of February, 1608-9. He was bred
to the profession of the law, in which it may be said that he
had a weighty family interest, for two of his uncles, Laurence

266 EDWARD HYDE,

and Nicholas, had attained to great eminence in it, especially
the latter, who was at length raised to the station of Lord
Chief Justice of the King's Bench. He was educated at home
till the age of thirteen, when he went to Magdalen College,
in Oxford, and having studied there with little industry, as
he himself informs us, for scarcely more than two years, was
then entered of the Middle Temple, and called to the bar
with as much expedition as the rules of the profession allow.
He presently acquired extensive practice, but, having made
two advantageous marriages, his first wife having lived only
six months after their union, and becoming, by the death of
his elder brothers heir apparent to his father, he might pro-
bably have retired into private life, but for an accident which
introduced him to Archbishop Laud, whose favour and con-
fidence he immediately gained. The increased respect which
he derived in the courts from such a connection, the honest
ambition which it perhaps excited, and the affection which
he conceived for Laud, whom he believed, to use his own
words, " to be a man of the most exemplary virtue and piety,
of any of that age," induced him to remain in London, and
to prosecute his labours with increased earnestness. His
professional skill and learning were now held in the highest
estimation, and the various powers of his capacious mind,
adorned by the exact honour and integrity of his moral life,
rendered him the centre of a circle of the best and wisest
men of the time, who were the constant companions of his
leisure hours.

This was his state at the commencement of the Parliament
which met on the third of April, 1640, and in which he was
elected to serve for the borough of Wotton Basset. The
enlarged view which he was now enabled to take of the state
of parties, added to the deliberate opinion which he had pre-
viously formed of the critical state of the country, determined
him to relinquish his gown, and to devote himself wholly to
the public service. He commenced his political career with
an impartiality equal to the strength of his judgment, and an

EARL OF CLARENDON. 267

aversion to the abuses which had crept into the monarchy as
fixed as his affection to the monarchy itself. Thus he earn-
estly proposed the abolition of the Earl Marshal's Court, in
the very opening of this short Parliament ; and in that which
succeeded, to which he was returned for Saltash, in Cornwall,
reiterated and accomplished the measure. He became pre-
sently one of the most active members of the Commons, not
in an ostentatious display of eloquence, in which however he
was equal to any, but in the useful business of the House ;
and was chairman of most of the committees to which affairs
of the highest importance were referred, especially of those
which sat on the complaints against the Courts of York, and
of the Marches of Wales ; the conduct of the Judges, parti-
cularly in the case of ship money, and, above all, on the great
question of suppressing episcopacy. The agitation of the
latter measure, which he held in the utmost abhorrence, un-
veiled the views of the persons with whom he had thus far
acted, and his own. They aimed at the overthrow of the
Monarchy and Hierarchy ; he at a judicious and temperate
removal of their exuberances ; to which having most con-
scientiously lent his powerful aid to the utmost, he abandoned
a party with whom he could no longer act usefully without
deceit, and hypocrisy, and threw the weight of his wisdom
and integrity into the scale of the Crown, at the very period
when it had least power to reward his fidelity.

In addition to those powerful recommendations, his exact
knowledge of the views and temper of the House of Commons
rendered his advice at that period of the highest importance
to the King, who now committed to him the management of
his affairs in that assembly, jointly with the Lord Falkland,
his dear friend, who had also recently seceded from the
republicans, and Sir John Colepeper. The burthen of this
employment, as well as the honour of Charles's confidence,
fell chiefly on Mr. Hyde. To him was mostly left the
secret correspondence with the King, who, early in the year
1642, soon after this arrangement had been made, went to

208 EDWARD HYDE,

York, and all the answers to the incessant petitions and
remonstrances of the Parliament flowed from his luxuriant
pen. In the course of the summer he joined the King at
York, as well to avoid a threatened impeachment as in
obedience to his Majesty's command, and was soon after
specially excepted, by a vote of both Houses, from any
general amnesty which might ensue in the event of an
accommodation between the King and the Parliament.
Charles's favour towards him kept pace with the malignity
of the rebels. He had twice declined the office of Secretary
of State, to the duties of which he thought himself incom-
petent, and had till this period served in no public capacity ;
but in the beginning of the year 1643 he was prevailed on to
accept the appointment of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and
was at the same time knighted and sworn of the Privy
Council. He sat in the Parliament assembled by the King
at Oxford in the following January, and was the next winter
a commissioner for the treaty of Uxbridge, in which Charles's
hopes were chiefly founded on his endeavours, especially in
all that related to the church.

The abortive result of that negotiation, and the increasing
difficulties and dangers which surrounded the King, produced
now a resolution to detach the Prince of Wales from his
Majesty's person, lest they might fall together into the hands
of the rebels. It was determined that he should retire into
the west of England, and on the fourth of March, 1644,
Hyde, who had shortly before been named one of the six
who were to compose his council, took leave for the last
time of the King ; attended his Royal Highness to Bristol ;
and from thence, flying before Fairfax, into Cornwall, and
finally to the isles of Scilly and Jersey. The Queen now
accomplished a design which she had long cherished, and
which he had earnestly opposed, to prevail that the Prince
should reside with her in France, and Hyde, with others of
the Council not less disgusted than himself by that step,
declining to accompany him thither, remained in Jersey.

EARL OF CLARENDON. 269

Here he passed between two and three years in a sweet
retirement, to the loss of which he ever after looked back
with a mixture of satisfaction and regret. " He always
took pleasure," to use the words of his own memoirs, written
twenty-five years after, "in relating with what great tran-
quillity of spirit, though deprived of the joy he took in his
wife and children, he spent his time here amongst his books,
which he got from Paris, and his papers, between which he
seldom spent less than ten hours in the day ; and it can
hardly be believed how much he read and writ there ; inso-
much as he did usually compute that during his whole stay
in Jersey he writ daily little less than one sheet of large
paper with his own hand." This passage, and therefore I
have quoted it, is not without its value in the literary history
of our country, for what can be insignificant that furnishes
even the slightest anecdote relative to the composition of
that glorious work which will preserve Lord Clarendon's
fame when even his wisdom and purity as a minister shall
be scarcely recollected 1 The fruit of the studies to which
he alludes was the History of the Grand Rebellion, which
was planned, and for the most part written, during his
residence in the island of Jersey.

The peace of his retirement however was frequently inter-
rupted. The Queen, who could not but dislike him because
he had in many instances opposed her influence in public
affairs, sought, though ineffectually, to sow discord between
his Royal master and himself, and his pen was still occasion-
ally employed in answering the furious votes and declarations
of the Parliament. At length in the spring of 1648 he received
the command both of the King and Queen to join the Prince
at Paris, and in following his Royal Highness by sea to
Holland, whither he had suddenly removed, was captured by
some frigates off Ostend, and afterwards so detained by bad
weather, that he arrived not at the Hague till the end of
August. Here, disgusted by the intrigues and animosities of
the Prince's little Court, which for some time he strove in

270 EDWARD HYDE,

vain to compose, and at length paralysed by the news of the
King's murder, he gladly accepted the empty commission of
Ambassador extraordinary to Madrid, jointly with the Lord
Cottington, and, taking Paris in his way thither, became
somewhat reconciled to the Queen, who then resided at St.
Germain's. His mission, the object of which it is almost
needless to say was to solicit the support of Spain to Charles's
forlorn throne, proved fruitless, and after remaining there
for several months, he was dismissed by an order from the
Court, on the arrival of the news of Cromwell's successes in
Scotland, Charles's unfortunate visit to which country had
been undertaken against his opinion. He now, in July, 1651,
established his residence at Antwerp, where he had fixed his
family on his departure for Madrid.

The King, on arriving at Paris after his escape from
Worcester, committed his shattered affairs almost wholly to
the management of Sir Edward Hyde, and never was the
favour of the most powerful and wealthy Prince resented
with keener envy and jealousy. His policy too, which was
to wait patiently for a favourable change of opinion in
England, was opposed by the whole Court, except by his
fast friend the Marquis of Ormond ; and the Queen, who
had again become his implacable enemy, gladly aided the
projects of his enemies. The Papists, the Presbyterians,
and the old loyalists of the Church of England, united
against him, and prepared petitions for his removal, which
the firm expressions of the King, who had been apprised of
the design, prevented their presenting. At length in 1653,
a Mr. Robert Long, who served the King under the title of
Secretary of State, accused him in form to the Council of
corresponding with Cromwell, and receiving a pension from
him : a charge which ended in the confusion of the informant,
and the appointment of Hyde to his office. New intrigues
against him of less importance succeeded, and in fact formed
the whole history of the banished Court for some years while
it followed the wanderings of the King in Germany and

EAEL OF CLARENDON. 271

Flanders, till Charles, as it seems, crushed the hopes of
these petty factions by delivering to Sir Edward the Great
Seal, with the title of Lord Chancellor, on the death of the
Lord Keeper, Sir Edward Herbert, one of the most bitter
of his enemies. This mark of the King's complete favour
and confidence was bestowed on him at Bruges, in the
Christmas week of the year 1657.

Cromwell died in the succeeding autumn, and the first
glimpses of the restoration dawned amid the confusion which
followed. Of the numerous circumstances of the Chancellor's
extensive concern in the accomplishment of that great event
it would be impossible here to treat. He had ever advised
Charles to reject all proposals to replace him on the throne
which might be grounded on alterations and novelties in the
government either of the Church or State, the maintenance of
which in their fullest integrity was the first principle in all
his negotiations with the various parties by the agreement of
which the happy change was at length wrought ; and he had
now the satisfaction to witness the re-erection of those vener-
able fabrics in all their former strength and splendour. In
the mean time he left untouched those salutary corrections to
which himself in the opening of his political life had so
largely contributed, and suffered the High Commission Court,
the Earl Marshal's Court, and the Star Chamber, those
mighty engines of kingly and ministerial power, to remain in
the dust to which the late excesses had levelled them ;
neither did he endeavour to repeal the acts for triennial
Parliaments ; for the prohibition of tonnage, poundage, ship-
money, or other abuses which had crept unwarrantably into
the royal prerogative. In the same spirit of wisdom, modera-
tion, and justice, he had the courage to institute, and forward
to his utmost, the bill of indemnity, and the bill for unifor-
mity of worship ; certain to provoke the enmity of the
royalists by the one, and of the presbyterians by the other,
and of each he had in the end abundance of bitter experience.
Among the first marks of royal favour and gratitude

272 EDWARD HYDE,

dispensed after the King's arrival were those bestowed on the
Chancellor, by whom they had been so highly merited. He
was presented with grants, but to no immoderate value, of
Crown lands. Other valuable gifts were also assigned to
him, and among them a sum of twenty thousand pounds,
which he received from the King's own hand, and another of
twenty-five thousand, charged on the forfeited estates in
Ireland, of which last however no more than six thousand
were ever paid. He held for some time, together with the
Great Seal, the offices of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and
Secretary of State, and was afterwards elected Chancellor of
the University of Oxford, and appointed Lord Lieutenant of
that County. The King's entire confidence, as well as the
whole weight of administration, rested on him ; and in addi-
tion to this burthen, Charles, who knew not how to deny,
and durst not promise unless he could perform, left it to him
to satisfy, or rather to dissatisfy, the multitude of claims
urged on the score of suffering loyalty. He became pre-
sently therefore an object not only of envy but of disgust ;
and the marriage of his daughter to the Duke of York, which
is treated of at large in another part of this work, and which
became publicly known soon after the restoration, would
probably have been the first signal of a storm against him,
had not the King, almost in the instant, damped for the time
the hopes of his enemies by new testimonies of esteem. In
November, 1660, he was created Baron Hyde of Hindon in
Wilts, and, in the following April, Viscount of Cornbury, a
manor in Oxfordshire lately granted to him, and Earl of
Clarendon. To these dignities the King earnestly wished to
have added the order of the Garter, which the Chancellor,
perhaps not less careless of the distinction than anxious to
avoid the jealousy that his acceptance of it might provoke,
positively declined.

It was not long, however, before a faction was regularly
arrayed against him. Sir Henry Bennet, afterwards Earl of
Arlington, and Mr. William Coventry, a younger son of the

EARL OF CLARENDON. 273

late Lord Keeper, who might without injustice be styled
political adventurers, had insinuated themselves into the
King's favour by proposing new projects for the management
of the House of Commons, and undertaking to carry them
into execution. The Chancellor, who disliked artifice, and
abhorred corruption, discouraged their proceedings, and those
persons, of whom the one excelled in dissimulation, and the
other in boldness, contrived, without uttering a single expres-
sion of resentment or disrespect, to weaken the King's affec-
tion towards him. They were joined by the Duchess of
Cleveland, the favourite mistress, who could scarcely be
expected to entertain any regard for a man of the Chancellor's
character ; and others, who had waited only for leaders
under whom to make the attack, readily lent their aid.
Among them was George Digby, Earl of Bristol, a furious
and eccentric person, to whose fidelity Charles, in his late
tedious season of necessity, had owed some obligations, and
with whom Clarendon had lived in intimacy and confidence.
Bristol, before the plans of the party were matured, on some
sudden pique, accused the Chancellor in a vague and unpre-
pared manner to the House of Peers of high treason, and
delivered in a list of articles charging him chiefly with
having procured undue favour to the papists, to whose per-
suasion it is singular that Bristol himself should have been
lately reconciled, and with having negotiated the late sale of
Dunkirk to the French, with which in fact the Chancellor
seems to have had no concern but as an individual member
of the Council in which that measure was resolved on, indeed
rather against his judgment. This blow, for the time, was
ineffectual. The Peers treated it with contempt, and the
King with apparent anger. He overwhelmed the Chancellor
with professions of esteem and confidence, while his mind
secretly teemed with a disgust not infused by the late impo-
tent proceeding, but by the incessant private efforts of Bennet,
Coventry, and their associates, and Clarendon's sagacity dis-
covered daily proofs of the decline of his interest, perhaps

V. T

274 EDWARD HYDE,

before it was suspected even by his enemies. Thus he stood
at the close of the year 1663.

But the approach, slow as it was, of their victory soon
became evident to the whole Court, and they employed
all means, even the most despicable, to accelerate it. When
Charles returned from his new counsellors, full fraught with
graver prejudices, the Duke of Buckingham, at the head of a
party of buffoons, entertained him in the private apartments
with ridicule and mimicry of the Chancellor. They com-
monly called him the King's schoolmaster, and, "if the
King," says Lord Clarendon himself, "said he would go such
a journey, or do such a trivial thing to-morrow, somebody
would lay a wager that he would not do it ; and when he
asked ' why,' it was answered that the Chancellor would not
let him," &c. Nay, it was usual for Buckingham to parade
about the room, imitating his gait and demeanour, and carry-
ing a pair of bellows for the Great Seal, Colonel Titus
walking before him, with a fire-shovel on his shoulder, as
the mace. In the mean time his inflexible integrity for-
warded the views of his enemies. The acute and unprin-
cipled Lord Ashley, better known afterwards as Earl of
Shaftesbury, threw himself into their ranks in revenge for
the Chancellor's having refused to put the Seal to an uncon-
stitutional patent devised solely for the emolument of that
nobleman, and the King burst at length into plain expres-
sions of anger on his honest opposition to the bill for liberty
of conscience contrived in 1664 between the papists and the
presbyterians.

The effect of these evils was greatly enhanced by the
natural cast of the Chancellor's temper. The gravity and
independence of his spirit, contrasted as it now was to
unceasing gaiety and flattery, became intolerable to Charles.
He tells us himself too, speaking of an earlier part of his life,
that "he was in his nature inclined to pride and passion,
and to a humour between wrangling and disputing, very
troublesome," and it is clear that the King, when these

EARL OF CLARfcNDON. 275

ebullitions prevailed, was often personally treated with very
little ceremony. Charles, explaining the causes of his disgust
in a letter to the Duke of Ormond, Clarendon's firm friend,
charges him with " a certain peevishness of temper ;" and
the Chancellor himself, in a curious expostulatory original
addressed to the King, remaining in the Harleian collection,
writes " I do upon my knees begg your pardon for any bold
or sawcy expressions I have ever used to you," and tacitly
denies all other causes of offence. To counterbalance this
solitary ground of reasonable umbrage, Clarendon had nothing
to plead but consummate wisdom, and the purest integrity,
qualities now held in little estimation in Charles's Court or
Council.

The King, though his affections had become at length
totally alienated, was long before he could prevail on
himself to dismiss this great minister. The small faction
however which had poisoned his mind had exerted itself
not less successfully in the Parliament ; and the country,
always ready to be misled, caught the infection. Clarendon,
without a fault or error, became gradually the most unpo-
pular man in the Kingdom. A vulgar outcry ascribed to
him all the qualities most disgraceful to a statesman, and
all the mishaps that had occurred since the Restoration,
insomuch that the King, had he again received him into
favour, could scarcely have retained him in office. Of this
public prejudice, the result of his own folly and ingratitude,
Charles now meanly availed himself to cloak the shame of
discharging such a servant. He visited the Chancellor;
loaded him with acknowledgments of his wise and faithful
services ; lamented the aversion which the House of Com-
mons had conceived against him, and his own inability to
protect him against the frightful consequences of it ; and
besought him, as his only means of safety, to resign the Seal.
Clarendon refused with a dignified respect, and assigned his
reasons ; and on the thirtieth of August, 1667, four days after,
surrendered it in obedience to the King's express command.

T2

276 EDWARD HYDE,

He now believed, to use his own words, " that the storm
had been over, for he had not the least apprehension of the
displeasure of the Parliament, or of any thing they could
say or do against him," but he was presently painfully
undeceived. The King, to ingratiate himself with the
House of Commons, openly censured him, and, to save
himself future trouble, employed secret emissaries to per-
suade him to quit the Kingdom. The Chancellor, with a
courage inspired by conscious innocence, stoutly refused.
It was at length determined that he should be accused of
high treason, and a charge was prepared by a committee
of the Commons, consisting of seventeen articles, the most
material of which were notoriously false, and the rest wholly
frivolous, in which, after long debate, the House determined
that nothing treasonable could be found ; yet it was resolved
that he should be impeached of that crime, which was
immediately done at the Lords' bar by Mr., afterwards
Sir Edward Seymour, with a demand that he should be
sequestered from that House, and his person secured. The
Peers refused to receive the accusation unless some parti-
cular charge were exhibited against him, and the Commons,
conscious of the weakness of their case, insisted on their
right to impeach generally. A long and sharp contest on
this question arose between the two Houses, which was at
length terminated by the King, who, fearing, as it should
seem, that amidst this confusion the Chancellor might escape
unhurt, specially commanded him to withdraw himself into
a foreign country.

As he had resolved not to quit England but by the order
of his master, so on receiving that order he instantly obeyed
it. On the twenty-ninth of November, 1667, this illustrious
exile embarked in a miserable boat, in the middle of the
night, at Erith, and, after remaining at sea amidst the
inconveniences and dangers of the worst weather for three
days and nights, landed at Calais. He left behind him a
representation at large to the House of Peers of his conduct

EARL OF CLARENDON. 277

since the Restoration, composed with all the simplicity and
modest courage of conscious innocence and truth ; such
however was the rage of the prevailing party that it was
presently publicly burned, by order of both Houses. They
strove to proceed against him for high treason by attainder,
but this was prevented by the influence of the King, who,
by way of compromise, agreed to a bill of banishment, which
was passed in great haste. In the mean time, Buckingham
and Arlington, with the most disgraceful malice, pressed
the Court of France to forbid his residence in that country,
where he passed a considerable time under the continual
inspection of an officer sent specially from Paris to remove
him as soon as he might recover from a long fit of illness,
in the midst of which he was attacked at an inn at Evreux
by a brutal mob of English sailors, who believed that he had
ruined their country, and narrowly escaped with life, after
suffering severe personal injuries. At this period a change
in French politics produced a permission that he might
remain in that country, and he settled shortly after at
Montpelier, where he arrived in July, 1668, and remained
nearly for three years.

His first leisure in this retirement was dedicated to the
composition of a vindication at large of his ministry, in
which he answered severally the charges which had been
preferred against him by the House of Commons. This
remarkable apology, which was soon after published, he
transmitted to his son, Laurence, afterwards Earl of
Rochester, who took a speedy opportunity to offer to that
House in express terms a challenge, which never was
accepted, to prove any one of the allegations. Here closed
Clarendon's political life, and here commenced the better
and happier days which he consecrated to. posterity. " In
all this retirement," to use his own words, "he was very
seldom vacant, and then only when he was under some
sharp visitation of the gout, from reading excellent books,
or writing some animadversions and exercitations of his

278 EDWARD HYDE,

own. He learned the Italian and French languages, in which
he read many of the choicest books. Now he finished the
work which his heart was most set upon, ' the History of
the late Civil Wars, and Transactions to the Time of the
King's Return in the Year 1660.' He finished his ' Reflec-
tions and Devotions upon the Psalms of David,' which
he dedicated to his children. IJe wrote and finished his
' Answer to Mr. Hobbes his Leviathan.' He wrote a good
volume of ' Essays, divine, moral, and political,' to which
he was always adding. He prepared ' a Discourse historical
of the Pretence and Practice of the successive Popes, from
the Beginning of the Jurisdiction they assume.' He entered
upon the forming e a Method for the better disposing the
History of England, that it may be more profitably and
exactly communicated than it hath yet been.' "

In addition to the works thus enumerated, we have like-
wise the following pieces from his pen : An Answer to the
Declaration of the House of Commons in 1648 that they
would make no more Addresses to the King The Difference
and Disparity between the Estates and Conditions of George
Duke of Buckingham and Robert Earl of Essex, printed in
the Reliquiae- Wottonianae Animadversions on Mr. Cressy's
book called ' Fanaticism fanatically imputed to the Catholic
Church, by Dr. Stillingfleet, and the Imputation refuted and
retorted ' A History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in
Ireland A Collection of the Orders heretofore used in
Chancery A Collection of Tracts published from his original
manuscripts in 1727 ; several of his letters, printed in the
Life of Dr. Barwick ; and many of his speeches in- Parliament
after the Restoration, which appeared separately. It is
scarcely necessary to add to this list the supplement to his
sublime History, of the Grand Rebellion, which bears the
title of his Life, and from which the contents of these sheets
have been derived.

Lord Clarendon removed in 1671 to Moulines, and from
thence to Rouen, where he died on the ninth of December,

EARL OF CLARENDON. 279

1674. He was, as has been already stated, twice married ;
first, to Anne, daughter of Sir George Ayliffe of Wiltshire,
who died childless ; secondly to Frances, daughter, and at
length heir, to Sir Thomas Aylesbury, Bart., a Master of
Requests, by whom he had four sons ; Henry, his successor ;
Laurence, created Earl of Rochester ; Edward, and James,
who died unmarried ; and two daughters ; Anne, married to
James Duke of York ; and Frances, to Sir Thomas Keighley,
of Hartingfordbury in Herts, Knight of the Bath.

P. Oliver pi.

Jl<0> [HI IN

MAHQUIS OF WINCHESTER.
OB, 1674,

JOHN POWLETT,

FIFTH MARQUIS OF WINCHESTER.

THIS nobleman, whose services and sufferings in the cause
of King Charles the First justly gained for him the title of
"the great Loyalist," was the third son of William, the
fourth Marquis, by Lucy, second daughter of Thomas Cecil,
second Earl of Exeter of his family. He was born in the
year 1597, and received a part of his education in Exeter
College, Oxford. His two elder brothers having previously
died without issue, he succeeded in 1628 to his family
honours, and to the possession of a noble estate, which his
father's magnificent hospitality had burthened with an
immense debt, to remove which he passed many years in a
dignified seclusion, and had barely attained his object when
the miserable circumstances of the times compelled Charles
to take up arms against his Parliament.

That great and melancholy event drew him instantly from
his retirement. He flew to the King ; placed in his hands
such of the fruits of his honourable frugality as were imme-
diately within his reach ; and promised the rest to the service
of the royal interest. The pledge was but too soon redeemed.
It occurred to the King's military advisers that Basing House
in Hampshire, the Marquis's chief seat, might be fortified and
garrisoned to much advantage, as it commanded the main
road from the western counties to London. It had already,
like most of the great houses of that time, many of the

282 JOHN POWLETT,

requisites of a place of defence, " standing," says the anony-
mous author of some Memoirs of Cromwell, entitled the
Perfect Politician, " on a rising ground, encompassed with a
brick rampart, and that lined with earth ; a deep dry ditch
environing all." As [a domestic mansion, its situation, its
vast extent of building, the magnificence and convenience of
its apartments, and, above all, the splendour of its furniture
and decorations, had justly rendered it the chief ornament
and pride of that part of England. On every window, or, as
some say, which is more likely, on every pane, the Marquis
had written with a diamond " Aimez Loyaute ; " and the
sentiment was engraven too on his heart ; for he obeyed the
call of his Sovereign's necessity without a moment's hesita-
tion ; exchanged at once the delicate enjoyments in which he
had always lived for the hardships of a soldier's life ; con-
verted his palace into a fortification, his family into a garrison,
and himself into a military governor.

The journal of the siege of Basing House forms one of the
most remarkable warlike features of the grand rebellion. It
commenced in August, 1643, when the whole force with
which the Marquis had to defend it, in addition to his own
inexperienced people, amounted only to one hundred mus-
keteers, sent to him from Oxford. In this state of compara-
tive weakness, it resisted for more than three months the
continued attack of a conjunction of the Parliament troops of
Hampshire and Sussex, under the command of five Colonels
of distinguished reputation. It was considered of such
importance to the royal cause that the Privy Council specially
addressed to the King their request that he would, for the
sole purpose of relieving it, change the route by which he had
then determined to march into the West, but other circum-
stances rendered this impracticable. In the mean time the
Marquis, and his Lady, whom he had sent for safety to
Oxford, pressed earnestly for reinforcements from the troops
who defended that city, but his request was of necessity
denied, for the royal government was then seated there, with

FIFTH MARQUIS OF WINCHESTER. 283

a military protection not more than adequate to so important
a charge. At length he wrote to the Council that, " for want
of provisions he could not defend himself above ten days,
and must then submit to the worst conditions that the rebels
were like to grant to his person, and to his religion," for he
was a steadfast Roman Catholic. The many eminent persons
of that persuasion who were then in Oxford had before pro-
posed to form themselves and their servants into a body suffi-
ciently numerous for the enterprise, but the utter impro-
bability of their being able to return through a country over
which the enemy's troops were every where scattered, pro-
duced at that time a rejection of the gallant offer. Chiefly,
however, at the pressing instances of the Marchioness, the
Council was persuaded again to entertain the question, when
Colonel, afterwards Sir Henry, Gage, that great ornament to
the royal service and to his eminent family, volunteered to
take the command of the gallant band ; " which offer," says
Lord Clarendon, " having been made with great cheerfulness
by a person of whose prudence as well as courage they had a
full confidence, they all resolved to do the utmost that was in
their power to make it effectual," The difficulties, the
dangers, and the exquisite military skill, which combined to
give an almost romantic character to this excursion, are pre-
cisely detailed by the noble historian, and form a relation so
interesting, that I could wish it were consistent with the
design and the scope of this work here to repeat it ; but it
must suffice to say that the enterprise proved completely
successful, and that the party returned to Oxford almost
without loss.

The Marquis, thus recruited, continued to sustain the siege
with the most determined perseverance and bravery, when it
was suddenly discovered (such was the unnatural party viru-
lence of which the history of those sad days afford but too
many instances) that the Lord Edward Powlett, his youngest
brother, then serving under him in his house, had engaged to
betray it to the rebels. Sir Richard Grenville, whom they

284 JOHN POWLETT,

had sent from London to take possession of it, treacherous in
his turn to his employers, quitted his road at Staines, and
went directly to Oxford, where he communicated the design
to the King, who apprised the Marquis of all the circum-
stances attending it. Lord Edward was instantly seized,
confessed the whole, and impeached the rest of the conspira-
tors ; and the Marquis having interceded with his Majesty to
spare his life, turned him out of the garrison.

Soon after this event another relief of provisions was thrown
into it by Gage, with the same gallantry and dexterity as the
former. The attack was continually pressed with the utmost
vigour, and the Marquis equally distinguished himself by his
bravery in almost daily sallies, and by the good judgment of
his measures of defence within the walls. He exposed his
person to danger with the courage and coolness of an old
soldier. On the third of July, 1644, a musket ball passed
through his clothes, and on the twenty-second he was wounded
by another. We learn these circumstances from a journal of
the siege, then printed at Oxford ; which minutely records
every day's work from the commencement to the fourteenth
of November in that year. That little tract preserves also
two short letters from the Marquis, highly characteristic of
the noble zeal that inspired him. On the eleventh of the
same July, Morley, one of the rebel Colonels, who then com-
manded the besiegers in the absence of Colonel Norton, a
man of a large estate in Hamsphire, having, in stern but
civil terms, summoned the garrison to surrender, the Marquis
replied,

"Sm,

"It is a crooked demand, and shall receive its answer
suitable. I keep the house in the right of my Sovereign, and
will do it, in despite of your forces. Your letter I will
preserve in testimony of your rebellion.

" WINCHESTER."

FIFTH MARQUIS OF WINCHESTER. 285

And to another summons, from Norton himself, on the
second of the following September, " in the name of the
Parliament of England," he answers

"SiR,

" Whereas you demand the house and garrison of Basing
by a pretended authority of Parliament, I make this answer ;
that without the King there can be no Parliament. By his
Majesty's commission I keep this place, and, without his
absolute command, shall not deliver it to any pretenders
whatsoever. '

" Yours, to serve you,

" WINCHESTER."

Norton having gradually lost more than half his men under
the walls, abandoned the attack, and was succeeded by a
stronger force, under the command of a Colonel Harvey,
which had no better fortune. At length Sir William Waller,
whom his party affected to call " the Conqueror," advanced
against it, at the head of seven thousand horse and foot.
These, too, says the author of " The Perfect Politician,"
above quoted, " did little more than heighten the courage of
the besieged, who made frequent desperate sallies on them,
till at length, thus outbraving all assailants for years, the
place began to be esteemed impregnable." A mighty interest
had now arisen for this little band of heroes, and their illus-
trious chief. Amidst the various objects of the war, none
seemed so powerfully to excite the anxiety of Charles as the
siege of Basing House. It was a natural feeling, which arose
from veneration and gratitude, and therefore the loyalists
throughout the kingdom participated in it as with a common
assent. The rebels themselves regarded this nobleman with
a respectful admiration, and blushed, behind the mask of
pretended patriotism, while they looked around in vain
among their numerous partisans for a volunteer who fought
neither for glory nor for spoil ; who had everything to lose,

286 JOHN POWLETT,

and nothing to gain ; who had turned suddenly round, from
the tedious and painful redemption of his patrimony, to ruin
it in the cause of his Sovereign ; whose motives, and whose
conduct, seemed to have in them something more than human,
merely because they flowed pure and unmixed from the finest
principles of humanity.

A sad reverse however was approaching. The fatal battle
of Naseby soon after broke the spirits of the loyalists, and
the King's strong places surrendered in rapid succession.
Cromwell, flushed with success, marched from Winchester,
which had fallen with little resistance, upon Basing, where,
according to its accustomed port, his summons was proudly
rejected. But he was then irresistible. Bold, skilful, fortu-
nate, and secretly inspired with a hope so gigantic that it
gave a giant's force to all his endeavours, nothing could
effectually withstand them. After a most obstinate conflict,
Basing Castle was, on the sixteenth of October, 1645, taken
by storm, and be it ever recollected by those who may be
inclined to rank Cromwell among heroes, that after his victory
he put most of its incomparable garrison to the sword. The
Marquis had animated the besieged by his presence and
example to the last moment. His life was spared, and he
was sent a prisoner to London. What remained of his noble
seat, which Hugh Peters after its fall told the House of
Commons "would 1 have become an emperor to dwell in,"
the rebels wantonly burned to the ground, having pillaged it,
say all who have recorded this part of the tragical tale, of
money, jewels, plate, and household stuff, to the almost
incredible value of two hundred thousand pounds. After
having been for some time imprisoned, he was permitted to
retire, harassed with fines and sequestrations, to his estate at
Englefield in Berks, where he passed the long remainder of
his life in privacy, innocently dividing his time between
agricultural exercise and literary leisure. There the Restora-
tion found him, and left him, for this great creditor of the
Crown was never in the smallest degree requited. Impelled

FIFTH MARQUIS OF WINCHESTER. 287

perhaps by a spirit at once lofty and dejected, it is not impro-
bable that he might have steadfastly refused any mark of
royal favour ; and it is more agreeable to entertain that con-
jecture, than to load the memory of Charles the Second with
a new instance of ingratitude.

Three works translated from the French by the Marquis
are extant. " Devout Entertainments of a Christian Soul,"
by J. H. Quarre, D.D., done during his imprisonment, and
printed at Paris in 1649 : " The Gallery of Heroic Women,"
by Peter le Moine, a Jesuit, in folio, 1652 ; and " The Holy
History " of Nicholas Talon, in quarto, in the following year,
both which were printed in London. He published other
books, which, says Anthony Wood, " I have not yet seen."

The Marquis was thrice married : first to Jane, daughter of
Thomas, Viscount Savage, by whom he had issue Charles, his
successor, who was created Duke of Bolton by King William ;
secondly, to Honora, daughter of Richard de Burgh, Earl of
St. Alban's and Clanricarde, who brought him four sons, of
whom two only, John and Francis, lived to manhood ; and
three daughters ; Frances, married to Louis de Richardie, a
French gentleman; Anne to John Lord Belasyse; and
Honora, who died a spinster. By his third lady, Mary*
daughter of William Howard, Viscount Stafford, he had no
children. He died on the fifth of March, 1674, and was
buried in the parish church of Englefield, where, on an unos-
tentatious tablet, in compliance with the direction of his will,
appears this inscription, from the hand of Dryden.

" He who in impious times undaunted stood,
And 'midst rebellion durst be just and good ;
Whose arms asserted, and whose sufferings more
Confirm'd, the cause for which he fought before ;
Rests here rewarded, by a heavenly Prince
For what his earthly could not recompense.
Pray, reader, that such times no more appear;
Or, if they happen, learn true honour here.

288 JOHN POWLETT, FIFTH MARQUIS OF WINCHESTER.

Ark of his age's faith and loyalty,
Which, to preserve them, Heaven confined in thee.
Few subjects could a King like thine deserve,
And fewer such a King so well could serve.
Blest King ! hlest subject ! whose exalted state
By sufferings rose, and gave the law to fate.
Such souls are rare ; hut mighty patterns given
To Earth were meant for ornaments to Heaven.

Mytem; px.

AMME CtLD

COUNTESS OF

DORSET, PEM^JiOKE &M01TTGOMJ;B.T.
OB, 1675,

ANNE CLIFFORD,

COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.

IN an age the fashion of which was to confine the minds of
women of high birth to the study of school divinity and
morality, of the most simple domestic duties, and of a few
wretched social forms, which supplied the place of politeness
without bearing any resemblance to it ; to the gloomy habits
of implicit obedience to one, and of absolute rule over many ;
and to an intercourse only with those of their own rank, in
whom, if they were at all disposed to observation, they could
but retrace their own imperfect qualifications ; we are agree-
ably surprised at meeting occasionally with one of those
rare spirits in which a vigour of natural character opposed
itself to the taste, if I may so call it, of a nation, and
struggled, with whatever success, to loosen the shackles
which had been imposed on it by a declining barbarism :
such a one had Anne, Countess of Pembroke.

She was the only surviving child, and at length sole heir,
of the gallant and eccentric George Clifford, third Earl of
Cumberland, of whom some account will be found elsewhere
in this work, by Margaret, third daughter of Francis Russel,
Earl of Bedford, and was born at her father's seat of Skipton-
Castle, in Yorkshire, on the thirtieth of January, 1589.
Unhappy dissentions subsisted between her parents, and they
were separated in her childhood ; but it was her good fortune
to be left to the care of her mother, a woman of equal
prudence and probity, by whom the charge of the more

290 ANNE CLIFFOED,

important part of her education was entrusted to Samuel
Daniel, a poet of no mean fame in those days. From him
she acquired a taste for history and poetry, and a fondness
for literary composition, which she indulged to a great extent,
without publishing, or intending to publish, the fruits of her
application. She fell therefore into the common faults with
those who write for their own closets, and we find her pen
generally careless, often trifling and tedious, and always
egotistical ; yet in this unpromising mixture we meet
frequently with proofs of original genius, and solid intellect,
and with scattered examples of the purest and most graceful
style of her time. Her chief work is a summary of the
circumstances of her own life, which I mention thus early
because from that source the materials for the present Memoir
will be mostly drawn.

Her picture of her person and mind in her youth is too
curious to be omitted, especially as, while it imparts to us
her opinion of herself, it betrays features of character of
which it is almost certain that she was wholly unconscious.
"I was," says she, "very happy in my first constitution,
both in mind and body; both for internal and external
endowments ; for never was there a child more equally
resembling both father and mother than myself. The colour
of mine eyes was black, like my father's, and the form and
aspect of them was quick and lively, like my mother's. The
hair of my head was brown, and very thick, and so long that
it reached to the calf of my legs when I stood upright ; with
a peak of hair on my forehead, and a dimple on my chin :
like my father, full cheeks ; and round face, like my mother ;
and an exquisite shape of body, resembling my father. But
now time and age have long since ended all those beauties,
which are to be compared to the grass of the field : (Isaiah,
xl. 67, 68 ; 1 Peter, i. 24 :) for now, when I caused these
memorables of myself to be written, I have passed the sixty-
third year of my age. And, though I say it, the perfections
of my mind were much above those of my body : I had a

COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. 291

strong and copious memory; a sound judgment, and a
discerning spirit; and so much of a strong imagination in
me, as at many times even my dreams and apprehensions
proved to be true," &c. &c.

She was married to young Richard, third Earl of Dorset
of the Sackvilles, a man of lively parts, and licentious life,
and probably a polite and negligent husband ; and afterwards,
when she had passed the age of forty, to Philip Herbert,
Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, a person distinguished
only by the brutality of his manners, and the most ungrateful
disloyalty. She had abundant cause of private offence from
each. The first was a spendthrift, and quarrelled with her
because she prevented him from dissipating her estate ; the
second was a tyrant, and distracted her by the savageness of
his humour. Yet she speaks well, and even kindly, of both.
The one she tells us was in his nature of a just mind, of a
sweet disposition, and very valiant : that he excelled in every
sort of learning all the young nobility with whom he studied
at Oxford ; and that he was a true patriot, and an eminent
patron of scholars and soldiers. Of the other she says, that
he had a very quick apprehension, a sharp understanding,
and a discerning spirit, with a very cholerick nature ; and
that he was in all respects one of the most distinguished
noblemen in England, and well beloved throughout the
realm : all which, except the slight censure of his temper, is
expressly contradicted by the best historical evidence. How
happened it then, high spirited and clear sighted as she was,
that she should thus have sacrificed not only the truth, but
her own feelings of resentment, by these unmerited com-
pliments ? Probably because she disdained to own, even to
herself, an erroneous judgment in the choice of her consorts,
and because the burthen of their ill usage had been lightened
by the consolation she found in self-preference.

I will insert one more extract from her Memoirs, in her
own words ; not only as it exhibits a further proof of this
singular complaisance, but for the view which it affords us
u 2

292 ANNE CLIFFORD,

of her character, or rather of her own conception of it, in
middle age.

" I must confess," says she, " with inexpressible thankful-
ness, that, through the goodness of Almighty God, and the
mercies of my Saviour Jesus Christ, Redeemer of the world,
I was born a happy creature in mind, body, and fortune ;
and that those two Lords of mine, to whom I was afterwards
by divine Providence married, were in their several kinds
worthy noblemen as any there were in this kingdom ; yet it
was my misfortune to have contradictions and crosses with
them both. With my first Lord, about the desire he had to
make me sell my rights in the lands of my ancient inheritance
for a sum of money, which I never did, nor never would
consent unto, insomuch as this matter was the cause of a long
contention betwixt us ; as also for his profusion in consuming
his estate, and some other extravagances of his : and with my
second Lord, because my youngest daughter, the Lady Isabella
Sackville, would not be brought to marry one of his younger
sons, and that I would not relinquish my interest I had in
five thousand pounds, being part of her portion, out of my
lands in Craven. Nor did there want malicious ill willers,
to blow and foment the coals of dissention between us ; so
as in both their life times, the marble pillars of Knowle, in
Kent, and Wilton, in Wiltshire, were to me oftentimes but
the gay arbours of anguish ; insomuch as a wise man, that
knew the insides of my fortune, would often say that I lived
in both these my Lords' great families as the river Roan, or
Rhodanus, runs through the lake of Geneva without mingling
any part of its streams with that lake ; for I gave myself
wholly to retiredness as much as I could in both these great
families, and made good books and virtuous thoughts my
companions, which can never discern affliction, nor be
daunted when it unjustly happens ; and by a happy genius
I overcame all those troubles, the prayers of my blessed
mother helping me therein."

We have indeed abundant proof of the misery in which

COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. 293

she must have lived with Lord Pembroke from the following
letter, written by her to her uncle, Edward, Earl of Bedford,
which remains in the Harleian Collection.

" MY LORDE,

" Yesterdaye by Mr. Marshe I receved your Lord-
ship's letter, by which I perceved how much you were
trubled att the reporte of my beeing sicke, for which I
humble thanke your Lordshipe. I was so ill as I did make
full account to die ; but now, I thanke God, I am somthinge
better. And now, my Lorde, give me leve to desire that
favouer from your Lordship as to speke ernestly to my Lorde
for my coming up to the towne this terme, ether to Bainarde's
Castell, or the Cok-pitt; and I protest 1 will be reday to
returne backe hether agane whensoever my Lorde appoynttes
itt. I have to this purpos written now to my Lorde, and
putt it inclosed in a letter of mine to my Ladey of Carnarvan,
as desiring her to deliver itt to her father, whiche I know
shee will do with all the advantage shee can, to farder this
busines ; and iff your Lordshipe will joyne withe her in itt,
you shall afforde a charittable and a most acceptable favouer
to your Lordship's cossen, and humble frind to command,

" ANNE PEMBROOKE.

" Ramossbwry, this Itth of January, 1638.

" If my Lorde sholld deny my comming, then I desire your
Lordship I may understand itt as sone as may bee, thatt so
I may order my poore businesses as well as I cane witheoutt
my one comminge to the towne ; for I dare not ventter to
to come upe witheoutt his leve, lest he sholld take that
occasion to turne mee out of this howse, as hee did outt of
Whitthall, and then I shall not know wher to put my hede.
I desire nott to staye in the towne above 10 dayes, or a fort-
night att the most."

This worthless Peer, from whom she had been obliged at

294 ANNE CLIFFORD,

length to separate herself, died in 1649 ; and now, finding
herself emancipated from the thraldom under which she had
so long laboured, her great spirit bounded, as it were, at once
to the proper height which nature had allotted to it. She
retired to her own superb estates in the north ; not to
seclude herself from society, but to cheer and enliven it by
a princely hospitality ; not to cultivate in mortification the
devotions of the closet, but to invigorate the piety, and
improve the morals, of a very large community, as well by
her instruction as her example ; not to increase her revenues
by contracting her expenses, but to give loose to a profusion
at once magnificent and economical, and to adorn a region
with splendid monuments to the fame of her illustrious pro-
genitors, and to the zeal with which she had devoted herself
to the celebration of their memory. She was at that time
more than sixty years old, but she entered on her task with
the ardour and alacrity of youth. Skipton Castle, the chief
seat of her family, and its parish Church, had been demolished
by a siege during the grand rebellion, and five other castles
and mansions of her ancestors were in ruins. All these she
gradually restored to their pristine grandeur and convenience.
She rebuilt the Church at Bongate, near Appleby, and the
neighbouring Chapels of Brougham, Ninekirke, and Maller-
stang, and a great part of the Church of Appleby, where also
she built, and liberally endowed, a fine hospital for thirteen
respectable widows. She testified her filial piety by placing
in that town a statue of her beloved mother, and by covering,
at Skipton, the ashes of her father with a superb tomb ; and
her affection to departed genius by erecting a monument for
Spenser, in Westminster-abbey, and another for her tutor,
Daniel, at Beckingham, in Somersetshire. She reared also
in Westmoreland a stately obelisk, the remains of which, on
the Roman road called the Maiden Way, are still identified
by the name of " Countess Pillar," to mark the spot where,
for the last time, she parted with her mother.

"But it is still more to her honour," feelingly and

COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. 295

eloquently says Dr. Whitaker, in his History of Craven,
" that she patronised the poets of her youth, and the distressed
loyalists of her maturer age ; that she enabled her aged ser-
vants to end their lives in ease and independence ; and, above
all, that she educated and portioned the illegitimate children
of her first husband, the Earl of Dorset. Removing from
castle to castle, she diffused plenty and happiness around
her, by consuming on the spot the produce of her vast
domains in hospitality and charity. Equally remote from
the undistinguishing profusion of ancient times, and the
parsimonious elegance of modern habits, her house was a
school for the young, and a retreat for the aged ; -an asylum
for the persecuted, a college for the learned, and a pattern
for all."

Spite of these admirable attributes, and of all the monu-
ments which she herself had raised, the fame of this Lady
was sinking fast into oblivion, when it was suddenly revived
by the publication, in 1753, in a periodical paper called " the
World," of the following letter, alleged to have been written
by her to Sir Joseph Williamson, Secretary of State to Charles
the Second, who had presumed to recommend to her a candi-
date for her borough of Appleby.

tl I have been bullied by an Usurper ; I have been neg-
lected by a Court ; but I will not be dictated to by a Subject.
Your man sha'n't stand.

" ANNE DORSET, PEMBROKE, AND MONTGOMERY."

This letter, not to speak of its value as relating to the
Countess's story, was peculiarly recommended to notice by
some local circumstances. It appeared in a publication
avowedly written by one justly and equally celebrated for
the politeness of his literary taste, and for his extensive
acquaintance with the later antiquities of his country. It
flattered the political prejudices of the hour, and furnished a
new theme to the Whigs, drawn from a period comparatively

296 ANNE CLIFFORD,

slavish, yet ascribed to one of the highest of the aristo-
cracy. It was viewed as an inestimable curiosity in every
point of consideration, and a thousand times quoted or
repeated. It found its way even into the " Philosophy of
Rhetoric " of Dr. Campbell, who uses it to illustrate a posi-
tion. After all, I incline strongly to doubt, nay to deny, the
genuineness of the document itself. Fond as the Countess
was of recording even the most insignificant affairs of her
life, there are no traces of it, nor of the circumstance which
is said to have occasioned it, in her Memoirs ; nor does the
work in which it first appeared condescend to favour us with
any hint of reference to the original authority from which it
was derived. These, however, are but strong grounds for
suspicion ; but the internal evidence of the thing itself seems
completely to destroy all chance of its authenticity. The
measured construction and the brevity of each individual
sentence ; the sudden disjunction of the sentences from each
other ; the double repetition, in so small a space, of the same
phrase ; and the studied conciseness of the whole ; are all
evidently creatures of modern taste, and finished samples of
that science of composition which had then (I mean when
the Countess acquired her habits of writing,) scarcely dawned
on English prose. No instance, I think, can be found of the
verb " stand " having been used at that time in the sense to
which it is applied in this letter, nor was the quaint and
coarse word " bully " known but as a substantive. It is
vexatious to be obliged to strip this Lady's life of an anecdote
so interesting, but it would have been uncandid to insert
it without the remarks which I have taken the liberty to
make.

The Countess had the happiness to live very long, with
few infirmities. Dr. Whitaker states her age to have been
eighty-seven, but the inscription on the splendid tomb which
had been erected by herself at Appleby expressly informs us
that she was bora on the thirtieth of January, 1590, and
died, at her Castle at Brougham, on the twenty-second of

COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. 297

March, 1675. Rainbow, Bishop of Carlisle, preached a
sermon at her funeral, in the dull and conceited strain which
then distinguished such orations ; from which, however, I
will select a single passage, because we have hitherto received
no account of her character but from her own pen. " She
had," says he, " a clear soul, shining through a vivid body.
Her body was durable and healthful, her soul sprightful ; of
great understanding and judgment ; faithful memory, and
ready wit. She had early gained a knowledge, as of the best
things, so an ability to discourse in all commendable arts and
sciences, as well as in those things which belong to persons
of her birth and sex to know. She could discourse with
virtuosos, travellers, scholars, merchants, divines, statesmen,
and with good housewives, in any kind ; insomuch that a
prime and elegant wit, well seen in all human learning,"
(Dr. Donne) " is reported to have said of her that she knew
well how to discourse of all things, from predestination down
to slea-silk. If she had sought fame rather than wisdom
possibly she might have been ranked among those wits, and
learned of that sex, of whom Pythagoras, or Plutarch, or any
of the ancients, have made such honourable mention : but she
affected rather to study with those noble Bereans, and those
honourable women, who searched the Scriptures daily ; and,
with Mary, she chose the better part, of learning the doctrine
of Christ." The Sermon informs us that she left an account
of " the Honours, Descents, Pedigrees, Estates, Titles, and
Claims, of her progenitors, comprised, historically and metho-
dically, in three volumes of the larger size." Those who
have written of her seem to confound this work with the
Memoirs of herself, which have already been spoken of, but
the Bishop clearly distinguishes them. Lord Orford says
that she wrote Memoirs of her first husband, the Earl of
Dorset, which remain in manuscript. This has been, appa-
rently with little reason, doubted by some later writers.
Many curious effusions from her busy mind probably remain
unknown, and buried among the evidences of her posterity.

298 ANNE CLIFFORD, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.

This great Countess had by Lord Dorset three sons, who
died infants, and two daughters ; Margaret, married to John
Tufton, Earl of Thanet ; and Isabella, to James Compton,
Earl of Northampton. By the Earl of Pembroke she had no
children.

'DDL LOAM IK ER

EARL OF LOTHIAN.

OB, 1675,

WILLIAM KERR,

THIRD EARL OF LOTHIAN.

SIR ROBERT KERR, created Earl of Ancram in 1633, whose
incomparable loyalty, and whose elegant literary taste, ren-
dered him a conspicuous ornament to his country, at a period
when it unhappily possessed little of either, married, first,
Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Murray, of Blackbarony ;
and, secondly, Anne, daughter of William Stanley, sixth
Earl of Derby, and widow of Sir Henry Portman, of Orchard
in Somersetshire. His sole issue by the first of those ladies
was William, the subject of this memoir. By the other he
had several children ; and his Earldom, which had been
settled first on the fruit of his second marriage, devolved
accordingly at his death on Charles, the only son, whose line
failing in the next generation, it reverted to this nobleman,
whose lineal descendant, the present Marquis of Lothian,
now enjoys it. William, though third Earl of Lothian of his
family, did not inherit that dignity. He had married Anne
Kerr, Countess of Lothian in her own right, daughter and
heir to the second Earl, a lady of his own blood, but most
distant kindred, and the honour was therefore conferred
on him by a new patent, on the 31st of July, 1631. I
state these facts thus particularly because they are involved
in some degree of intricacy, and have been more than once
misrepresented.

This Earl, the chief care of whose parents had been to fix in
his mind, even from his cradle, an attachment to monarchical
government, and an affectionate veneration towards the person

300 WILLIAM KERR,

of the reigning king, became, by a strange perverseness, per-
haps the most sincere and bitter enemy among his countrymen
to both. In this double rebellion, however, at once against
his father and his prince, he had the merit at least of con-
sistency, for his fidelity to the cause which he had espoused
was invariable, and even unsuspected, and his motives wholly
disinterested ; and hence, rather than from his talents, which
were not of the highest class, he possessed the entire confi-
dence of his party. He appeared in 1638 among the most
vehement of the covenanters, and was in the following year
nominated, with thirteen others, to manage the deceitful and
vexatious treaty then offered by them to Charles at Berwick.
In 1640 he had a command in the Scottish army which
invaded England : was present at the siege of Newcastle-on-
Tyne, which was the only exploit worth naming in the
expedition, and on the reduction of that town was appointed
governor of it by the party which then ruled Scotland. He
was soon after named one of the four commissioners of the
Scottish Treasury, and in 1641 was placed at the head of a
deputation of trusty covenanters, who were sent to London to
offer to the Parliament a Scottish army to serve against the
Irish rebels, and to procure from that assembly an engage-
ment to maintain such troops as might be raised for that pur-
pose. This agreement, which had indeed been previously
made, and which had deeper views than the proposed expedi-
tion, was presently confirmed. The army was levied, and
Lothian, to whom the command of a regiment was given,
sailed with it to Ireland, where he seems to have done
nothing worth recording.

He was despatched in 1643 to Paris, under the pretence of
adjusting some differences relative to the privileges of his
countrymen in their commerce with France, but in fact for
the purpose of weakening the interest and distracting the
measures of Charles in that court. On his return he landed
at an English port, and went to Oxford to wait on the King,
who, having been apprised of his dealings in France, caused

THIRD EARL OF LOTHIAN. 301

him to be arrested, and he was committed, under an accusa-
tion of high treason, to the castle of Bristol, where he
remained for several months a close prisoner. Released from
thence, in compliance with a petition specially sent for that
purpose from the self-appointed government at Edinburgh to
the King, he returned into Scotland, and immediately accepted
from the same persons a commission, directed to the Marquis
of Argyll and himself, for the raising an army to oppose to
those brave and generous efforts for the royal cause by which
the gallant Montrose was then exciting the admiration even
of his enemies. They mustered their friends and dependants,
and were presently in the field at the head of a powerful
force ; but their campaign was short and inglorious. Lothian,
who commanded fifteen hundred horse, appears to have been
but once engaged, and on that occasion fled ignominiously. It
occurred in a skirmish under the walls of Faivy Castle,
near Strathbogie, and is thus spoken of by George Wiseheart,
afterwards Bishop of Edinburgh, the faithful biographer of
Montrose : " His," (Montrose's) " horse, which were but
fifty, being disposed in a place of danger, he timely secured
them by lining them with musqueteers ; for Lothian charged
them with five whole troops, who, before they had crossed
over half a field that lay between them, being scared with
our shot, wheeled about and returned to the place from
whence they came." Argyll soon after abandoned his
command, and shut himself up, with a garrison for his
own defence, in his castle of Inverary ; and Lothian, as
we hear no more of him in the field, probably followed the
same coarse.

In the autumn of 1646 he was placed at the head of a com-
mission, under the authority and direction of which himself
and some others waited on the King, then in the hands of the
Scottish army, to exhort him to accede to the last bitter pro-
positions offered to him by the rebel Parliament in England,
which, as is well known, Charles positively and magnani-
mously refused. The surrender of that Prince's person by

302 WILLIAM KERR,

the traitors who then governed Scotland speedily followed.
Lothian, who had been a willing party to that infamous mea-
sure, and had protested in Parliament against a late feeble
effort of doubtful loyalty, which is known in the Scottish
history by the name of " the Duke of Hamilton's engage-
ment," was now appointed Secretary of State, in the room of
that nobleman's brother, the Earl of Lanerick (Lanark), who
soon after fled to Holland. In the mean time the close of
Charles's miseries approached. A treaty however still sub-
sisted between him and his House of Commons, whose
authority, now little less shorn than his own, the leaders of
the covenant faction had resolved to support to their utmost ;
nor were they less anxious to deceive the world into a milder
opinion of their late treachery towards the King by some
public expression of their horror and resentment of the
extremities to which he was reduced by the new military
usurpation. With these views, as Lord Clarendon informs
us, " the Earl of Lothian, and two others who were known
to be most zealous for the covenant, and most enraged and
incensed against the proceedings of the army, were made
choice of, and presently sent away that they might make all
possible haste to Westminster, and were, immediately upon
their arrival, to demand permission to wait upon the King,
wherever he should be, and to receive from him such further
directions as he should judge necessary for his service."
They had scarcely arrived in London when Cromwell
marched his army thither ; dispersed in a moment the frantic
and iniquitous assembly, which had for some years usurped
the name and authority of a Parliament ; and erected his
" High Court of Justice " for the condemnation of the King.
The trouble of Lothian's commission was considerably
narrowed by these events. He had been directed to flatter
this nominal Parliament ; to amuse the unhappy Charles
with new deceptions : and to enter a cold dissent, should
circumstances render it necessary, from any resolution of
violence towards the royal person. A large abstract of his

THIRD EARL OF LOTHIAN. 303

instructions, displaying a turpitude of various treachery
inconsistent even with the fraud and apathy of the vilest
diplomatic negociations recorded in history, has been pre-
served by Lord Clarendon. Nothing, however, now remained
to be done but to make the protestation against the sacrifice
of the King, which was not presented till he had been twice
dragged before the tribunal by which he was to be judged,
and was couched in terms which scarcely maintained even
the affectation of sincerity. The remnant of a legislature
which Cromwell had permitted to subsist, partly understood
the spirit which had dictated this profession, and, having
first murdered the King, returned to Lothian such an answer
as they thought would be agreeable to the persons by whom
he had been sent, as well as to himself, who, as Lord Claren-
don informs us, " had upon all occasions carried the rebellion
highest, and showed the most implacable malice to the person
of the King."

But, however welcome the treason, some points in the reply
of the traitors were little relished by Lothian and his brethren.
They were told plainly that the government of England was
to be strictly republican, and, almost as plainly, that it was
intended to compel Scotland to adopt the same system. The
constitution of Scotland, a monarchy with few limitations,
had remained untouched ; and the covenanters, far from
aiming at the destruction of the regal character, looked for-
ward with hope to the authority of the young King, as an
instrument which they might easily bend to the accomplish-
ment of all their purposes. The commissioners therefore
rejoined, in a tone which gave much offence, and their English
friends having neither time nor inclination to expostulate
further with them, and foreseeing some probable inconveni-
ence from the liberty of persons of such condition disposed to
argue for royalty, shut them up without ceremony ; nor were
they released till the arrival of a remonstrance from Scotland,
when they were sent to Gravesend strictly guarded, and
embarked there for their own countrv. Of Lothian we have

304 WILLIAM KERR, THIRD EARL OF LOTHIAN.

no further intelligence after this period, than that he was
despatched to Breda by the Parliament in the beginning of
the succeeding year, 1650, together with the Earl of Cassilis
and others, to invite Charles the Second to Scotland, on the
hard conditions so frequently rejected by his royal father, as
they now were by himself.

William, third Earl of Lothian, survived till 1675. He had
issue by his Countess, who has been mentioned above, five
sons ; Robert, the eldest, who succeeded to the dignities, and
was in 1701 created Marquis of Lothian ; Sir William ;
Charles, ancestor of the Kerrs of Abbotsrule ; Harry, and
John, who died young. He had also nine daughters ; Anne,
wife of Alexander Fraser, Master of Saltoun ; Elizabeth,
married to John Lord Borthw T ick ; Jane and Margaret, who
died young ; Mary, wife of James Brodie, of Brodie ; Marga-
ret, married to James Richardson, of Smeaton ; Vere, to Lord
Neil Campbell, second son of Archibald Marquis of Argyll ;
Henrietta, to Sir Francis Scott, of Thirlestane ; and Lilias,
who died unmarried.

END OF VOL. V.

LODGE, EDMUND.

DA
28

Portraits of illustrious .L6
personages, vol. 5 v.5

DATE

ISSUED TO

' P _V ' \

LODGE, EDMUND.

Portraits of illustrious
personages, vol. 5

DA

28

.L6-

v.5