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Illustrations of British History, Biography, and Manners
By Edmund Lodge, Esq. Pursuivant of Arms, and F.S.A. in three volumes (1791)


Illustrations of British History, Biography, and Manners
In the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth, and James I, exhibited in a series of original papers, selected from the manuscripts of the noble families of Howard, Talbot, and Cecil, containing, among a variety of interesting pieces, a great Part of the Correspondence of Elizabeth, and her ministers, with George, the sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, during the fifteen years in which Mary Queen of Scots remained in his custody by Edmund Lodge, Esq. Pursuivant of Arms, and F.S.A. in three volumes (1791)

INTRODUCTION

THE advantages which may be derived from the publication! of ancient original papers have been so frequently and so amply discussed that little remains to be said in the general recommendation of such collections. They present to us a series of facts too numerous, and too minute, to be inserted in the history of a country: yet on these communications the historian must in a great measure depend, as the surest guides to truth, the only safeguards against partiality, and the lights which will direct him to the first principles of his literary duty. Minute historical facts are to history as the nerves and sinews, the veins and arteries, are to an animated body: They may not separately exhibit much of use, elegance, or just proportion, but taken collectively, they furnish strength, spirit, and existence itself: An historian who hath neglected to study them knows but the worst half of his profession, and, like a surgeon who is ignorant of anatomy, sinks into a mere manual operator. Unfortunately, however, the modern author of a general history usually contents himself with compiling from the most reputable of his predecessors. He sees only the more bold and prominent features of the picture he is about to copy, or to caricature, and heightens or depresses them as his fancy, or rather a sort of party spirit, leads him. He seems to think the scale of his canvas too extensive for the admission of delicate lights and shades, but as he cannot do without light and shade, he introduces them blended in large and distorted masses, and sacrifices the truth of his subject to the splendor of composition.

But these miscellaneous gleanings of antiquity always contain much information of another order, which, from certain ill-founded notions of the dignity fancifully attached to the study of history, it hath been the fashion to exclude from publications of this kind. Under this head may be classed anecdotes of eminent persons, who here become their own biographers, and involuntarily present their characters to the view of posterity: The disclosure of the minute springs of political plans, whose almost imperceptible influence probably yet exists in our system: The communication of obsolete customs peculiar to every age, which, not being properly within the province of history, have hitherto remained unnoticed: And a variety of circumstances of smaller importance, on which the apt phrase nugce antiques reflects no discredit; which generally impart some degree of useful knowledge, and, at the worst, afford an innocent and an elegant amusement.

For genuine illustrations then of history, biography, and manners, we must chiefly rely on ancient original papers. To them we must turn for the correction of past errors; for a supply of future materials; and for proofs of what hath already been delivered to us.

Our attention, however, hath been of late so frequently attracted in vain by pretences of new lights, and extraordinary discoveries, as to render all promises of that kind suspicious: As to the peculiar contents, therefore, of the following pages, their own merits must plead for them; they are before the Public, and will meet with the reception which they deserve. It is neither prudent nor modest in an Editor of these days to insist on the ancient right of conducting his reader to the choicest curiosities of his cabinet: They will derive no additional credit from his boasting, and can suffer no injury from his silence.

These few observations premised, the Editor begs leave to state briefly the several sources from whence the following papers have been obtained; the plan which he hath adopted for their arrangement; and the means whereby he hath attempted to elucidate their contents; and will conclude with some account of the four Earls of Shrewsbury, whose venerable remains have supplied the chief part of the collection.

The manuscripts distinguished by the title “Talbot Papers" were extracted from fifteen volumes which are preserved in the library of the College of Arms, to which they were given, with many others of singular curiosity, by Henry, sixth Duke of Norfolk of the Howards. They contain upwards of six thousand original letters, to, or from, the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh, Earls of Shrewsbury; besides many valuable public papers which are foreign from the intention of this work ; such as royal surveys, muster-rolls of several of the midland counties, abbey leases, and other topographical matters of importance. The chapter books of the College are nearly silent with respect to this splendid gift, and we. must have contented ourselves with merely knowing that the collection still existed there, but for a MS. with the loan'of which his Grace the Duke of Roxburgh lately honoured the Editor. It consists of transcripts from several of the Talbot papers, and was probably once the property of the laborious Mr. Strype, as extracts from some of the letters contained in it are to be found scattered in his various works, and may perhaps be occasionally recognized by the reader of the following sheets. Two memorandums which appear at the beginning of the book afford us as much intelligence as the subject requires.

I doe humbly desire those that will take the paines to read over or peruse these copies of letters following, in respect of my age, and weaknesse of eyesight, to pardon the badd writeing, and to correct and amend, the faults, errors, and mistakes ° therein. The twentieth of October, 1676.

“J. H. of L."

The courteous reader is likewise desired to take notice that by the favour of the right honourable the Earle of Norwich, I having access to the evidences in Sheffield Manner, 1671, at severall tymes, from amids multitudes of waste papers, and the havock that mice, ratts, and wett, had made, I rescued these letters, and as many more as I have bound up in 15 volums, and have more to gett bound; wherby they may be perfected for, the use of posterity, in my Lord Marshall’s library, or where els his Lordshipp will please to dispose of them. May 14, 1677.

“N. JOHNSTON.

To these persons then we find that Henry, Earl of Norwich, (soon after Duke of Norfolk) committed the charge of examining and methodizing this great body of papers. The former was John Hopkinson, of Lofthouse, near Wakefield, Clerk of the Peace for the West Riding of Yorkshire: the latter, Nathaniel Johnston, a physician at Pontefract. Both were antiquaries of some eminence;* yet the Talbot Manuscripts are most confusedly arranged; and the dates, and even the signatures, are frequently mis-stated in the indorsements, which are written by Doctor Johnston.

In one of the .foregoing minutes Doctor Johnston clearly points out the second division of our papers. He tells us that he had yet “ more to get bound/* From that residue, which hath been for above a century buried in the multiplicity of MSS. belonging to his Grace’s family, the Duke of Norfolk was pleased to permit the Editor to select those pieces-which it hath been thought fit to denominate “Howard Papers;" not only because they have been retained in the possession of that noble house, but on account of the large additions made to the original collection by Thomas, second Earl of Arundel. The whole consists of about five hundred letters; the superior importance of which, with regard to the secret history of Mary's imprisonment, as well as many passages on other delicate subjects in the unpublished MSS. seem to indicate that the separation of them from the Talbot Papers was not merely accidental.

The Cecil Papers came about forty years since into the possession of the Editor's father, as residuary legatee to a lady whose maiden name was Nelme; and who was first married to one of the ancient Surrey family of Byne, and afterwards to the Rev. William Hollier, Vicar of Carshalton, in that county: It may possibly be discovered from this statement how they fell into her hands, of which the Editor confesses himself to be wholly ignorant. They comprise about one thousand original MSS. which evidently appear to have been detached from the vast treasure of state relics at Hatfield, previously to the publications of Haynes and Murdin, and supply many links to the curious chain of correspondence which those gentlemen disclosed. They are of several dates, from the commencement of Sir William Cecil's ministry under Edward the Sixth to the death of the first Earl of Salisbury; so seldom connected with each other, and of such various degrees of merit, that there can be little doubt of their having been hastily snatched from their proper repository by an illicit hand. Impressed with this opinion, the Editor lately did himself the honour of presenting them to the Marquis of Salisbury, and they are now in his Lordship’s possession.

From these united funds comes the selection which is here offered to the public: With regard to the arrangement of its ancient materials, and the general method of the work, a very few words will be necessary. The Papers are placed, as nearly as their dates could be ascertained, in a precise chronological order; and are no otherwise divided than into four sections, by the several accessions of the Monarchs to whose reigns they respectively belong. They are li-* terally transcribed, even to the retention of their abbreviations; not with that whimsical taste which suffers inscriptions to remain illegible rather than remove the rust which obscures them, but for the sake of certain valuable intelligence with regard to our language which may be fairly expected from the observation of the varied orthography of an whole century. Those readers, however, to whom such an help may be necessary, will meet with a key to these difficulties in a table which precedes the Papers.

In the notes will be found explanations of obscurities in the text historical illustrations of important passages; notices of persons and’ places casually mentioned in the letters; and memoirs, at greater length, of the several writers. These numerous scraps of information were chiefly collected in the College of Arms; the Editor's official connection with which irresistibly tempted him to avail himself of those extensive aids to British History and Biography, under the Tudors and the Stuarts, which its most curious library peculiarly affords.

The very ancient portrait of John Talbot, the great ancestor of all the Earls of Shrewsbury, a plate from which is prefixed to the first volume, likewise remains in that College. It is said to have b^en brought thither at the time of the great fire, from St. Paul's Church, where it hung near the monument of his second Countess, Margaret Beauchamp; and Stowe's confused account of the embellishments of her tomb favours the tradition. The head of George, the sixth Earl, which is the frontispiece to the second, is taken from a painting in the possession of the Reverend Thomas Bancroft, of Chester, whose kind and polite condescension to the request of a stranger is here most thankfully acknowledged. The originality of this picture is indisputably determined by a singular circumstance —the inscription, which is closely imitated in the engraving, was written by the hand of Gilbert, Lord Talbot, the son and successor of the depicted Earl. For the use of the beautiful drawing of Arabella Stuart, engraved in the third volume, among many other marks of unexpected favour, the Editor is obliged to the Honourable Horace Walpole, whose flattering notice of this work in its progress, hath considerably lessened the doubt and anxiety which usually attend a first publication, and will always be remembered with equal pride and gratitude.

It is in order to prevent an unreasonable increase of the marginal observations that the Editor proposes to make some slight additions in this place to the many particulars of the illustrious house of Talbot which will be found in the following sheets.

George, Earl of Shrewsbury, with whose correspondence our collection opens, was the eldest son of John, the third Earl of his family, by Catherine, daughter of Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, and succeeded his father, June 28, 1473. In 1487, being then in his nineteenth year, he fought in the presence of Henry VII. at' the bloody battle of Stoke, and in the autumn of 1491 attended him in his warlike expedition to Boulogne. He is said to have been a Privy Councellor to that Prince; and Collins’s Peerage, upon the weak authority of Polydor Vergil, informs us that he was sworn in 1485, which is most improbable, for he was then barely sixteen years old. In the following reign, however, we find him a member of that council with which it commenced, composed, as Lord Herbert says, “ of scholars and soldiers.” Henry VIII. likewise at his accession, gave him the honourable office of Steward of the Household; in 1513 appointed him Captain of the Vanguard in the army which besieged Therotienne; and in 1522 Lieutenant General of the North. He was an evidence in the great cause between the King and Catherine of Arragon, his deposition on which occasion is preserved by the noble author lately quoted. It was favourable to the King’s purpose, and consequently adverse to Wolsey/ among whose enemies the Earl now ranked himself, and we accordingly find him a subscriber to rfie articles which were preferred against that Prelate on the 1st of December, 1529, and also to that earnest letter of the 30th of July in the following year, by which the Parliament conjured the Pope to pass the sentence of divorce. The Cardinal, who was soon after arrested at his episcopal house of Cawood, was permitted, on his way towards London, to repose himself for a fortnight in the Earl’s custody. During this sojournment in Sheffield Castle, where he experienced the most kind and delicate treatment, Wolsey was attacked by the disease which carried him off at Leicester Abbey. In 1536 the Earl, then nearly seventy years of age, appeared again in the field, and, by a timely, but dangerous service, had the chief share in quelling Aske’s rebellion. Upon this pressing occasion, finding himself at a great distance from the Court, and-surrounded by a barbarous people who grew every hour more disaffected, he ventured on the bold measure of raising troops by his own personal authority, and had nearly subdued the insurgents in Yorkshire before the arrival of his pardon, which, from a Prince of Henry’s character, he was by no means sure of obtaining. This was the last memorable act of his life. He died at his manor of Wingfield, in Derbyshire, July 26, 1541, and was buried at Sheffield, where his magnificent monument remains. Dugdale’s Baronage informs us that he^ ordered by his will, “ dated “ August 29, in the 29th of Henry VIII. that a tomb of marble “ should be set; over his grave, wTith three images to be laid there-“ in; one of himself, in a mantle of garters; another of his de-“ ceased wife, in her robes; and the third, of his wife then living but the latter lies, with her family, at Erith, in Kent.

This great Peer had by the former of these ladies (Anne, daughter of the amiable and unfortunate Lord Hastings) eleven children. Henry, who died young, and was buried in the Priory of Calke, in Derbyshire ; Francis, his successor; two sons, successively baptized John, who died infants; William, styled in the family pedigrees Marshal of Ireland; and Richard. The daughters were, Margaret, wife to Henry Clifford, first Earl of Cumberland; Anne; Dorothy; Mary, married to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland; and Elizabeth, to William Lord Dacre, of Gillesland. His second Countess, Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Sir Richard Walden, of Erith, brought him a son and a daughter: John, who died unmarried ; and Anne, married first to Peter Compton, son and heir of Sir William Compton, Knight, and, secondly, to William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.

Francis, the fifth Earl, though a nobleman of no ordinary abilities, appears to have been confined almost entirely to a military life, and his services in that line are largely detailed in the first volume of this work. He was born in Sheffield Castle in the year 1500, and was summoned to the House of Peers in the lifetime of his father, whom he succeeded in the appointment of Lieutenant General of the North. On the 17th of May, 1545, he was installed a Knight of . the Garter: An original letter, written to him on that occasion by the King, remains in the archives of the College of Arms.

“HENRY R.
'
Right trusty and right welbeloved cousein and counseiller we grete you well; acefteynyng you that, in consideration as well of your approved treuthe and fidellitie, as also of yor knightly cburrage, and vallyaunte actes, w‘ other your probable merites experiently knowen in sundry behalfe, we, with our compagnions of the noble Order of the Gartier, assembled at ellection holden this daye at our house of Sainte James, by Westmester, have ellecte and chosen you, amongeste other, to be oone of the compaignions of the sayde Order, as your sayde merytes condignely requyre; and therefore we will that with all conveniente dilligence, upon the sighte hereof, you addresse you unto our presence, to receive such things as to the saide Order apperteinethe.

Yeven under our signett, at our saide house, the xxinith day of Aprell, the xxxvnth yere of our reigne.

To our right trustie and right welbelovid cousin and counsaillor the Erle of Shreusbury, our Lieutenant Generali in the North Parts.

In the spring of 1547 he was constituted Lord Lieutenant of the counties of York, Lancaster, Chester, Derby, Stafford, Salop, and Nottingham; in the following year, Justice of the Forests North of Trent; and, on Mary's accession, President of the Council in the North. The bravery, prudence, and fidelity, which had distin-guished him in these important public situations, induced Elizabeth to retain him among those few servants of the late reign whom she admitted to her Privy Council when she mounted the Throne, but his steady adherence to the religion of his ancestors probably obstructed his further promotion. Of the whole body of the temporal Peers, who had so lately and unanimously subscribed to Mary's recognition of the Papal authority, only this nobleman, and one more (Viscount Montague) could now. be found to oppose the revocation of that concession. He survived this uncourtly act of sincerity but for a few months, and dying September 21, 1560, was buried with his father at Sheffield.

Earl Francis married, first, Mary, daughter of Thomas Lord Dacre of Gillesland, by whom he had issue George, who succeeded to his honours; Thomas, who died unmarried; and Anne, wife to John Lord Bray: Secondly, Grace, widow of Robert Shakerley, of Holme in Cheshire, who proved childless. Very soon after the death of the latter lady, whose family name hath not been transmitted to us, the Earl made an overture of marriage to the Lady Pope, widow of the famous founder of Trinity College, Oxford. Some original letters which passed between these experienced wooers upon that occasion are extant m the unpublished Talbot MSS. but the etiquette of courtship in those days required more time than could be spared by two lovers whose united years made up somewhat more than a century, and the good old Earl was arrested by death when perhaps he had not made half his advances.

George, the sixth Earl, in common with the young nobility of his time, first presents himself to us in the field. In October, 1557, he was sent by his father, at the head of a strong force, to aid the Earl of Northumberland, then pent up in Alnwick Castle by a Scottish army; and remained in service on the borders for some months after. On the 24th of April, 1560, the order of the Garter was conferred on him, and in the summer of 1565 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of the counties of York, Nottingham, and Derby. He 1 exercised the office of High Steward of England at the arraignment of the Duke of Norfolk, and succeeded that nobleman in the office of Earl Marshal. In January 156 8-9, the Queen of Scots was committed to his custody, and from that remarkable period till his death the most material circumstances of his history will be found in the uninterrupted series of letters between him and his friends, which composes the second volume. In perpetual danger from the suspicions of one Princess and the hatred of another; devoted to a service which it is to be hoped his heart did not approve; vexed by the jealousy and rapacity of an unreasonable wife, and by the excesses and quarrels of his sons, from whom he was obliged to withdraw that authoritative attention the whole of which was required by his charge ; we shall view this nobleman through the long space of fifteen years, relinquishing that splendor of public situation, and those blandishments of domestic life, which his exalted rank and vast wealth might have commanded, to become an instrument to the worst of tyrants, for the execution of the worst of tyrannies. Be it remembered, however, in apology for him, that he lived in a time when obedience to the will of the monarch was considered as the crown of public virtue—when man, always the creature of prejudice, instead of disturbing the repose of society with his theory of natural liberty, erred, with equal absurdity, but less danger, in the practice of unconditional submission.

He had by his first wife, Gertrude, daughter of Thomas Manners, first Earl of Rutland of that family, four sons, and three daughters. Francis, Lord Talbot, who married Anne, the daughter of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and died without issue in 1582: Gilbert : Henry, who had by his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Reyner, of Overtoil Longvile in Huntingdonshire, and widow of Thomas Holcroft, two daughters: (Gertrude, married to Robert Pierrepoint, afterwards Earl of Kingston; and Mary, to Sir William Armine, of Osgodby in Lincolnshire) Edward, who married Joan, eldest daughter and coheir of Cuthbert, the-last Lord-Ogle, and died childless in 1617. The daughters were, Catherine, wife of Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke: Mary, married to Sir George Savile, of Barrowby in Lincolnshire: and Grace to Henry Cavendish, eldest son of Sir William Cavendish.

The Earl's second wife, Elizabeth, by whom he had no children, was too remarkable a character to be slightly mentioned. She was a daughter and coheir to John Hardwick, of Hardwick in Derbyshire, and had been already thrice married; to Robert Barley, of Barley in that county ; to Sir William Cavendish, who is mentioned above; and to Sir William St. Lo, Captain of the Guard to Queen Elizabeth. She prevailed on the first of these gentlemen, who died without issue, to settle his estate on her, and her heirs, who were abundantly produced from her second marriage: Her third husband, who was very rich, was led by her persuasions to make a similar disposition of his fortune, to the utter prejudice of his daughters by a former wife ; and now, unsated with the wealth and the caresses of three husbands, she finished hep conquests by marrying the Earl of Shrewsbury, the richest and most powerful Peer of his time.

"Him she brought,” (says a right reverend author, who thought it became him to speak kindly of her because he had preached her great grandson's funeral sermon) “to terms of the greatest honour and advantage to herself and her children; for he not only yielded to a considerable jointure, but to an union of families, &c." In other words, shejlrew the Earl into the same disgraceful and imprudent concessions which she had procured from his unlucky predecessors ; and, partly by intreaties, partly by threats, induced him to sacrifice, in a great measure, the fortune, interest, and happiness, of himself and his family, to the aggrandizement of her children by Sir William Cavendish. To sum up her character with the brevity here required—she was a woman of a masculine understanding and conduct; proud, furious, selfish, and unfeeling. She was a builder, a buyer and seller of estates, a money lender, a farmer, and a merchant of lead, coals, and timber: When disengaged from these employments, she intrigued alternately with Elizabeth and Mary, always to the prejudice and terror of her husband. She lived to a great old age, continually flattered, but seldom deceived, and died in 1607, immensely rich, and without a friend.

The Earl was withdrawn by death from these complicated plagues on the 18th of November, 1590, and lies buried at Sheffield, under a grand monument,* with a Latin epitaph, stating at great length the principal occurrences of his life. Both the tomb and the inscription were, as nearly as might be, compleated by himself: He foretold, as one of Dugdale's MSS. in the College of Arms informs us, that his heirs would neglect to make that small addition which necessarily fell to their charge; and it turned out so, for the space which should contain the date of his death remains a blank to this day.

Gilbert, the seventh Earl, came into public life when the English nation was rapidly emerging from that simplicity of manners to which it had so long been confined by bigotry and war. We shall accordingly observe in his character certain amiable features, and certain faults, which were equally unknown to his ancestors. We shall find him the accomplished courtier, and well educated gentleman, occasionally relapsing into the pomp and the ferocity of an ancient Baron. The story of his public life lies within a narrow compass, for he was never called to any high office of the state, though apparently better qualified than any of his predecessors of whom we Have been treating. His case in this respect was peculiarly hard; for though it should seem that Elizabeth passed him over upon some suspicion of his disaffection to her, yet in the next reign he appears to have been thrust aside as one of the old followers of her Court. He was summoned to Parliament as a.Baron a few months before his father’s death; was installed a Knight of the Garter on the 20th of June, 1592; in 1596 went Ambassador to France to ratify the treaty of alliance with Henry the Great; and was appointed by James, at his accession, Chief Justice of the Forests North of Trent. He married Mary, third daughter of Sir William Cavendish, a lady who seems to have inherited no small portion of her mother's extraordinary’disposition, as will be fully proved by the following curious anecdote, which was taken from a MS. in the possession of the Rev. Sir Richard Kaye, Dean of Lincoln, entitled, ”Johnson’s Extracts from Norfolk Papers,” and communicated to the Editor by J. C. Brooke, Esquire. In 1592 the families of Cavendish and Stanhope, in the county of Nottingham, were upon exceeding ill terms, insomuch that blood was shed on both sides. The following is a copy of a message sent by Mary Cavendish, Countess of Salop, to Sir Thomas Stanhope, of Shelford, Knight, by one George Holt, and Williamson; and delivered by the said Williamson, February 15, 1592, in the presence of certain persons whose names were subscribed---- My Lady hath commanded me to say thus much to you. That though you be more wretched, vile, and miserable, than any creature living; and, for your wickedness, become more ugly in shape than the vilest toad in the world; and one to whom none of reputation would vouchsafe to send any message; yet she hath thought good to send thus much to you—that she be contented you should live, (and doth no waies wish your death) but to this end; that all the plagues and miseries that may befall any man may light upon such a caitiff as you are; and that you should live to have all your friends forsake you; and, without your great repentance, which she looketh not for because your life hath been so bad, you will be damned perpetually in hell fire With many other opprobrius and hatefull words, which could not be remembered, because the bearer would deliver it but once, as he said he was commanded; but said if he had failed in any thing, it was in speaking it more mildly, and not in terms of such disdain as he was commanded.

The Earl had issue by this high-spirited dame a son, George, who died an infant; and three daughters, Mary, Elizabeth, and Alathea, whom he had the happiness to dispose of in marriage, many years before his death, to three noblemen whose characters were as splendid as their titles: William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke; Henry Grey, Earl of Kent; and Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. He died at his house in Broad Street, London, on the 8th of May, 1616, and was succeeded by Edward Talbot, his only surviving brother, the last Earl of Shrewsbury of his illustrious line.

The Editor here concludes a task which hath occupied most of his leisure time for some years. With no great dread of censure, with smaller pretensions to praise, with no affectation, however, of indifference, as to that little portion of credit which his humble labours may deserve, he presents to the Public a collection of the works of others. For the series of ancient papers which is here brought to light he asks no favours—The notices which he hath presumed to add to those respectable pieces may. perhaps stand in need of much indulgence. Doubtless many errors will occur in numerous details of minute circumstances, abounding with names and dates, be thankful for candid correction.

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