circumstances, until their father’s sentence reduced them to poverty
and obscurity. The younger son, Governor of Bergen-op-Zoom, was a
wild, turbulent spirit, and had given his family much uneasiness.
Stung to the quick by his father’s wrongs, he laid a plot for the
assassination of the Stadtholder; with some difficulty he prevailed on
his more timid brother to enlist in the same cause, and as Maurice’s
popularity was already on the wane, he found several conspirators not
unwilling to join. The scheme was discovered or betrayed, and all
implicated therein, who had the means of escape, fled; the younger De
Barneveldt was conveyed in a case to the house of a friend at
Rotterdam, whence he started for Brussels, and reached the Court of
the Archduchess Isabella, who took him under her protection. He
afterwards entered his native country with alien troops as a traitor
and a renegade. His less fortunate, less blameable brother, wandered
about from place to place a miserable fugitive, and was at last taken
in the island of Flieland.
On hearing of his capture, his mother’s anguish knew no bounds; she
remained for days tearless, speechless, immoveable; but at length she
roused herself, and, accompanied by her daughter-in-law and infant
grandchild, she went her way to the Stadtholder’s palace.
Bowing the lofty spirit which had hitherto upheld her in all her
misfortunes, she cast herself on her knees, and with all the wild
eloquence of maternal sorrow, she implored mercy for her son.
Maurice received her with cold courtesy, and asked why she had never
raised her voice in behalf of the prisoner’s father. The answer was
worthy the widow of the great patriot:—
‘My husband,’ she said, ‘was innocent; my son is guilty.’
The Prince was unmoved, and coldly replied that it was out of his
power to interfere with the course of justice. The two unhappy women
and the little one, who was so soon to be an orphan, passed out of the
room, and all hope of mercy was at an end. The only clemency shown the
son of Olden de Barneveldt was exemption from the ignominy and anguish
of torture which was inflicted on his fellow-conspirators. The
deportment of this weak-minded man at his trial formed a sad contrast
to that of his illustrious father. When sentence of death had been
passed, he had a last interview with his mother and wife. The latter,
amid all the agony of her grief, exhorted her husband to die as became
his father’s memory and the noble name he bore. These loving commands
were strictly obeyed. The prisoner was calm and composed on the
scaffold, and in a few words he addressed to the people, told them
that evil counsel and the desire for vengeance had brought him to so
sad an end. His last audible word was ‘Patience.’
The days of Maurice of Nassau were also numbered. For a short time the
flame of popularity flickered; but his reputation had suffered, not
only by his injustice, but by his severity to the widow and family of
a man to whose memory his very opponents in religion and politics were
now beginning to render tardy justice. On one occasion the Stadtholder
was deeply mortified, when, crossing the public square of a large
town, amid a concourse of citizens, he was allowed to do so without
the slightest sign of recognition, without the lifting of a single
hat, or the raising of one shout in his honour. No man said, ‘God
bless him;’—he who was wont to ride down the streets amid deafening
cries of ‘Long live Prince Maurice!’
He was thwarted and opposed in many of his favourite measures by the
very party he had so strenuously upheld. He was more especially
mortified when they refused the subsidies he asked for the
prolongation of the war with Spain, and, though successful in his
attempt on Bergen-op-Zoom, he failed before Antwerp, while the
reverses of the Protestant army in Germany weighed heavily on his
mind. He received the exiled King and Queen of Bohemia at the Hague
with generous hospitality, and sympathised truly in their misfortunes;
but the successes of his great rival, the Marquis Spinola, which he
was now powerless to withstand, seemed the culminating point to his
distress. His last days were embittered by the knowledge that his
beloved stronghold of Breda, on the recovery of which he had expended
so much ingenuity, and run such enormous risks, thirty-four years
before, was now hotly besieged by the great Italian general, and he
himself unable to lift a finger in its defence. Maurice of Nassau
became thin and haggard, and fits of sleeplessness reduced his
strength,—he who his life long had slept so heavily that two gentlemen
were stationed in his bedchamber to awake him in any case of
emergency. He died in the spring of the year 1625.
Maurice, Prince of Orange, had announced his intention early in life
never to marry, a resolution to which he adhered; but he was a man of
pleasure, and not very refined in his tastes. He left several natural
children, of whom one, M. de Beverweert by name, was distinguished,
and held a high office under Government. Maurice’s chief pastime was
chess, at which (singular as it may appear) he was not very skilful.
His customary antagonist was a captain of the guard, one De la Caze,
greatly his superior in the game; but as the Prince hated defeat, and
would burst forth into fits of fury when worsted, his prudent
adversary was frequently induced to allow his Excellency to be
victorious in their trials of skill. On these propitious occasions the
Prince’s good-humour knew no bounds, conducting the officer to the
outer door, and bidding the attendants light, and even accompany him
home. The captain, whose income depended chiefly on his skill at games
of chance, was sorely put to it in the choice of winning and losing,
of times and of seasons.
Maurice merited the name of ‘the Silent’ more than his father; and
when he did speak, says La Houssaye (whose Memoirs throw great light
on the history of the time), ‘Il se servoit toujours, de petites
fraizes gauderonnées.’
He was of a dry and caustic humour, and showed especial contempt for
what he considered coxcombry in dress. He used to rally the French
gentlemen in particular on the lightness of their apparel, observing
they would rather catch cold than conceal their figures. He
depreciated the use of tight riding-boots, which prevented the
horseman from vaulting into his saddle, and set an example of
simplicity, sometimes amounting to shabbiness, in his own attire.
We have given elsewhere the description of his usual dress. La
Houssaye says, ‘Je l’ai toujours vu habillé de la même sorte, de la
même couleur, ce qui étoit brune, couleur de musc.’ He blamed the
Italian mode of horsemanship, with all their curvetings and
caracolings, which, he said, were dangerous, and lost no end of time.
Maurice left behind him a glorious reputation, but a heavy blot rests
on his escutcheon.
------------------
_No. 4._
SIR ANTONIO MORO.
_Black suit and ruff. Black cap._
BORN 1512, DIED 1588.
BY HIMSELF.
HE was a native of Utrecht, and a disciple of John Schoorel, who was
distinguished not only as a painter, being a pupil of Mabuse, but as a
poet and orator. Moro travelled in Italy, and studied the great
masters. He painted historical and sacred subjects, but excelled in
portraits, and followed the style of Holbein. Cardinal Granvelle
recommended him to Charles V., for whom he painted Prince Philip,
afterwards Philip II. of Spain. The Emperor gave Moro a commission to
the Court of Portugal, to execute the portraits of King John III., his
wife, Catherine of Austria, and the Infanta Mary, afterwards Queen of
Spain. Sir William Stirling, in his delightful work on Spanish
painters, says, ‘Moro’s pencil made that marrying monarch, Philip II.,
acquainted with the forms and features of his two first wives, the
Maries of Portugal and England.’ For the three Portuguese pictures the
painter received six hundred ducats, besides a costly gold chain,
presented to him by the nobles of the country, and other gifts. But
when he went to England to take sittings of Queen Mary (the betrothed
of Philip of Spain), Antonio was remunerated still more magnificently.
He received one hundred pounds (then esteemed a large sum) for the
Queen’s likeness, and a splendid chain of gold, with a pension of one
hundred pounds a quarter on his appointment as painter to the Court.
He remained in England during the whole of Mary’s reign, and both the
Queen and her husband sat to him several times. He also painted
numbers of the courtiers and nobility, but, from omitting to annex the
names, the identity of many of his characteristic portraits is lost.
Horace Walpole regrets this neglect in his notice of Moro, and says
truly, ‘The poorest performer may add merit to his works by
identifying the subjects, and this would be a reparation to the
curious world, though it would rob many families of imaginary
ancestors.’
When Queen Mary died, Moro, or More, as he was called in England,
followed King Philip to Spain, where he remained for some time in high
favour. He left the country suddenly, and the cause of his departure
has been differently accounted for by different writers. The version
of the story most currently believed is as follows:—King Philip
frequented the artist’s studio, and one day, as he was standing beside
the easel, his Majesty familiarly placed his hand on Moro’s shoulder.
The painter turned round abruptly, and smeared the Royal hand with
carmine. The attendants stood aghast at this breach of etiquette; but
the King appeared to treat the matter as a jest. It was not long,
however, before Moro received a warning from his patron that the
officers of the Inquisition were on his track, and that he was in
imminent danger of arrest on the plea of having ‘bewitched the King.’
One thing was certain, that the fact of an alien standing so high in
Philip’s favour had aroused a feeling of ill-will and jealousy among
the courtiers, who would probably lay hold of any pretext to effect
the favourite’s ruin. Moro fled to Brussels, where he was warmly
welcomed by the Duke of Alva, then Governor of the Low Countries; here
he painted the portrait of the brave but cruel commander, and of one
or two of his mistresses. It was rumoured that Philip invited him to
return to Spain, and that Alva intercepted the letters, being
unwilling to part with the great artist. Be this as it may, Moro never
again put himself in the power of the Inquisition, but passed the
remainder of his days in ease, and even opulence. He had amassed a
good fortune by his works in all parts of Europe, and the Duke of Alva
made him receiver of the revenues of West Flanders, an appointment
which is said to have so elated Moro that he burned his easel and
destroyed his painting tools; but we are not bound to believe a story
so unlikely.
He died at Antwerp, while engaged in painting the Circumcision for the
Cathedral of that city. Sir Antonio was remarkable for the refinement
of his manners and the dignity of his bearing. He painted several
portraits of himself, one of which represents him as a tall stately
man, with a frank open countenance, red hair and beard, dressed in a
dark doublet, with slashed sleeves, a massive chain round his throat,
and a brindled wolf-hound by his side.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]
SMALL DINING-ROOM.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SMALL DINING-ROOM.
-------
_No. 1._
THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM LAMB, SECOND SON OF THE FIRST VISCOUNT
MELBOURNE, TO WHOM HE SUCCEEDED.
_Nude child playing with a wolf._
BY MRS. COSWAY.
------------------
_No. 2._
GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK, SIXTH EARL COWPER.
_Black coat. White waistcoat. Loose cloak._
BORN 1806, DIED 1856.
BY LUCAS.
THE eldest son of the fifth Earl, by Emily, only daughter of the first
Viscount Melbourne. He went from a preparatory school at Mitcham to
Eton, and thence to Trinity College, Cambridge. On leaving the
University, he entered the Royal Horse Guards, Blue, and became M.P.
for Canterbury. In Lord Palmerston’s first Administration Lord
Fordwich was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs,—an office the arduous duties and grave responsibility of
which proved too much for his health, which was never very strong, and
he accordingly sent in his resignation at the end of a few months. In
1833 he married Lady Anne Florence, Baroness Lucas, eldest daughter of
Earl de Grey, and two years after he retired from public life
altogether. He succeeded his father in 1837. Lord Cowper was a staunch
Whig, and always supported his party in the House, otherwise he took
no leading part in politics; he was extremely popular, in spite of a
certain diffidence which never wore off in his contact with public and
official life, or general society. Perhaps it might be said (in the
case of a man of his great wealth and exalted position) to have
enhanced the charm of his refined and engaging manners and
proverbially musical voice. He enjoyed society, of which he was a
cheerful and agreeable member, and few houses were more celebrated for
their delightful reunions than Panshanger, near Hertford.
The circumstances attending Lord Cowper’s death were most unexpected
and painful. He was Lord-Lieutenant of the county of Kent, a post that
was in some measure irksome to him, as it entailed frequent residence
in a neighbourhood where he had few acquaintances,—with the exception
of Lord Sydney, one of his most valued and intimate friends. These two
noblemen had arranged to go down together to Maidstone at the time of
the Sessions, on the occasion of the reorganisation of the militia.
But at the eleventh hour Lord Sydney was prevented accompanying his
friend, as his presence was required in London in his capacity of Lord
Chamberlain.
The Lord-Lieutenant therefore went down alone, and while transacting
business in court he was taken suddenly ill, removed to the governor’s
residence in the gaol, and died the same evening, apparently unaware
of his danger.
Lady Cowper had some friends dining with her in St. James’s Square,
when she was summoned in all haste to Maidstone. She started
immediately, accompanied by her brother-in-law, William Cowper (the
present Lord Mount Temple), and the family physician, Dr. Ferguson.
But, alas! they arrived too late, for all was over.
The death of a man so much esteemed in public, so tenderly beloved in
private life, caused a profound sensation; and, says the friend to
whom we are indebted for these particulars, ‘few men have ever been
more widely and deeply lamented.’ Lord Cowper left two sons and three
daughters:—
The present Earl; the Honourable Henry Cowper, M.P. for Hertford;
Lady Florence, married to the Honourable Auberon Herbert,
brother of the Earl of Carnarvon; Adine, married to the
Honourable Julian Fane, fifth son of the eleventh Earl of
Westmoreland, both deceased; and Amabel, married to Lord
Walter Kerr, second son of the seventh Marquis of Lothian.
------------------
_No. 3._
THE HONOURABLE GEORGE LAMB, FOURTH SON OF THE FIRST VISCOUNT
MELBOURNE.
_As the infant Bacchus. A nude child._
BORN 1784. DIED 1834.
BY MRS. COSWAY.
HE was the fourth and youngest son of the first Viscount Melbourne, by
Elizabeth Milbanke. Educated at Eton and Cambridge. Called to the bar,
and went the Northern Circuit for a short time; but the law was not to
his taste: he preferred the pursuit of literature, and took great
interest in the drama. He became an active member of the Committee of
Management of Drury Lane Theatre, with Lords Essex and Byron, and the
Honourable Douglas Kinnaird, for colleagues. He was the author of some
operatic pieces and fugitive poems, and he also published a
translation of Catullus. In the year 1819 George Lamb stood for
Westminster, on the Whig interest, against the Radicals; the contest
lasted fifteen days, and Lady Melbourne, a keen politician, exerted
herself in the canvass, and was much pleased at her son’s return by a
large majority. At the general election in 1820 he had to relinquish
his seat, but in 1826 he was returned for Dungarvan (through the
interest of the Duke of Devonshire), which borough he represented in
four Parliaments. In Lord Grey’s Administration Mr. Lamb was appointed
Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department. In 1809 he married
Mademoiselle Caroline Rosalie Adelaide de St. Jules, who was reputed
to be a natural daughter of the Duke of Devonshire. George Lamb died
at Whitehall in 1834; his two elder brothers, Lords Melbourne and
Beauvale, survived him. He left no children.
------------------
_No. 4._
ANNE FLORENCE DE GREY, BARONESS LUCAS IN HER OWN RIGHT, WIFE OF
GEORGE, SIXTH EARL COWPER.
_In widow’s weeds._
BORN 1806, DIED 1880.
BY FREDERICK LEIGHTON, R.A., _afterwards_ P.R.A.
SHE was the eldest daughter and co-heir of Thomas Philip, Earl de
Grey, K.G., by Lady Henriette Cole, daughter of the first Earl of
Enniskillen. She married in 1833 George Augustus, sixth Earl Cowper,
and was left a widow, in 1856, by the sudden and unexpected death of
her husband. We cannot do better than transcribe the moral portraiture
of the late Lady Cowper, sketched by the hand of one who knew her
well, appreciated her highly, and who, moreover, bore a strong
resemblance to her in many moral and intellectual gifts:—
‘I think I can sum up Lady Cowper’s leading attributes in three
words—wit, wisdom, and goodness. In the relationship of daughter,
wife, and mother she left nothing to be desired; as a hostess she was
pre-eminently agreeable, being a most delightful companion; she had
lived with all that was politically and socially distinguished in her
day, and had read all that was worth reading in modern literature. She
derived keen enjoyment from “the give and take” of discussion; her
opinions were decided, and their expression fresh and spontaneous:
into whatever well it was lowered, the bucket invariably came up
full!’
‘In her latter days, even under the pressure of failing health, her
conversational powers never flagged; she was most brilliant in the
freshness of morning, and shone conspicuously at the breakfast-table,
thereby rendering that repast far more animated than is usually the
case. Her sallies, though never ill-natured, were often unexpected and
startling, which added a zest to her discourse, and gained for her the
title of ‘The Queen of Paradox.’
Her loss was deeply felt and mourned, not only in her own family, but
in the wider range of what is termed social life.
------------------
_No. 5._
FAMILY GROUP.
GEORGE, _third Earl Cowper; in a green coat, pink waistcoat, and
breeches_. MR. GORE, _playing on the violoncello; dark blue coat,
yellow breeches_. COUNTESS COWPER, _pale pink gown_. MRS. GORE,
_grey gown; one daughter in blue, the other in white brocade_.
MISS EMILY GORE _at the harpsichord_.
BY ZOFFANY.
COUNTESS COWPER was the daughter of Charles Gore, Esquire, of
Southampton. Her parents took her to Italy for her health, where the
family resided for a long time. Mr. Gore is supposed to have been the
original of Goethe’s ‘travelled Englishman’ in _Wilhelm Meister_. Mrs.
Delany, in one of her amusing letters, mentions the meeting of Lord
Cowper and Miss Gore at Florence, ‘when little Cupid straightway bent
his bow.’
They were married at Florence, and on that occasion Horace Walpole
condoles with Sir Horace Mann on the prospect, as he would lose so
much of the society of his great friend, Lord Cowper. Both Lady Cowper
and her husband were in high favour at the Grand-Ducal Court of
Tuscany, and the former was a great ornament of the brilliant (but by
no means straight-laced) society of the day. Miss Berry speaks in very
high terms of Miss Gore, who resided with her married sister. Three
sons were born to the Cowpers in Florence. In her later days the
Countess took up her abode at a villa a little way out of the city.
She survived her husband many years, and was said to have been
plundered by her servants. Indeed, this most interesting picture is
supposed to have been stolen at the time of her death. It was
purchased in 1845 by the Honourable Spencer Cowper (for the trifling
sum of £20), who made it a present to his brother, the sixth Earl.
------------------
_No. 6._
KATRINE CECILIA COMPTON, WIFE OF THE PRESENT EARL COWPER.
_Dark red velvet gown._
BY EDWARD CLOFFORD.
The eldest daughter of William, present and fourth Marquis of
Northampton. Married in 1870 to the present and seventh Earl Cowper.
------------------
_No. 7._
THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM LAMB, AFTERWARDS SECOND VISCOUNT MELBOURNE.
_As a youth. Black coat trimmed with fur._
BORN 1779, DIED 1848.
BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.
WILLIAM, second Lord Melbourne, was born March 15, 1779. His father
and mother were friends of the Prince of Wales, and lived in that
brilliant Whig circle of which Fox and Sheridan were the political
ornaments, and the Duchess of Devonshire the Queen of Beauty. It is
difficult now to realise the spirit of that society, in which
dissipation and intellectual refinement were so singularly combined.
Drunkenness among the men was too frequent to be considered
disgraceful, and even those who passed for being sober took their two
or three bottles a day. Conversation was habitually interlarded with
oaths; gambling, to such an extent as to cripple the largest fortunes,
was the common amusement of both sexes; and morality in other respects
was in a low state. But joined with this there was that high sense of
personal honour, which in England, and still oftener in France, has,
at other times, been united with similar manners. There was more than
this. There was a spirit of justice and generosity—even of
tenderness—and in some cases a delicacy of feeling which we are
accustomed now to associate only with temperance and purity. There was
also a very cultivated taste, derived from a far more extensive
knowledge of the Classics than is to be found in these days; a love of
poetry and history; and, above all, an enthusiastic worship of
liberty.
How came this strange worship of liberty among this exclusive and
luxurious aristocracy? Originally, perhaps, as the result of faction.
Excluded from power and deprived of popularity by misfortunes and
mistakes, which it would take too long to mention, the Whigs had been
driven in their adversity to fall back upon their original principles.
The debating instinct of their great Parliamentary leader seized upon
the cry of liberty as a weapon of warfare in the House of Commons, and
the cause which he advocated was so congenial to his frank and
generous nature that he embraced it enthusiastically and imparted his
enthusiasm to his friends. I must not pursue these thoughts further,
but the circumstances of a man’s early life have such influence in
moulding his character that, even in such a slight sketch as this, it
may not have been out of place to call attention to the state of that
society, with its vices and its redeeming qualities, in the midst of
which William Lamb grew up.
He went to Eton in 1790, and to Cambridge in 1796. In 1797 he was
entered at Lincoln’s Inn, but without leaving Cambridge. In 1798 he
won a prize by the oration on ‘The Progressive Improvement of
Mankind,’ which was alluded to by Fox in the House of Commons.
In 1799 he went to Glasgow to Professor Millar’s, from whose house he
wrote during this and the following year several letters to his
mother, which still exist. They show the keenest interest in politics,
and an enthusiastic admiration for the French; and they are not
entirely free from a slight taint of that apparent want of patriotism
which infected the Liberal party at that time, and which did it such
irreparable damage. It is only fair to say that there is an entry
written in a notebook a few years later showing how keenly he
appreciated and lamented this political error, and throughout the
whole course of the Peninsular War he expresses the warmest wishes for
the success of the British arms, and for those of our allies in
Germany.
His career at the bar was brief and uneventful, and by the death of
his elder brother he shortly became heir-apparent to his father’s
title and property.