'Fuimus.'
A little ploughed field in the parish of St. Erme, about five miles
north of Truro, on a farm still called Killigrew, is the site of the
old residence of this distinguished family. Their place knows them no
more; and even their own name is, with the sole exception just referred
to, and in one or two instances where it appears as a Christian name
of some of their remote descendants, 'clean blotted out.' Yet it
was once--as the old Cornish word implies--'a grove of eagles'; for
we shall find that their race soared high, and produced examples
of each of the distinguished classes noted above; and that their
memory is worthy of their tombs in Westminster Abbey, and of a local
monument--the pyramid which one who married into the family and assumed
the name, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, erected at
Falmouth in 1737-38.[51] There is some reason to believe that the
family was of royal descent. The first of the name whom I have been
able to trace, is one Ralph Killigrew, said to have been a natural son
of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, and King of the Romans, by his concubine
Joan de Valletort. Hence, so it is said, the double-headed spread
eagle and the 'border bezanty' of the family arms.[52] Henry, Otho,
Simon, Thomas, John, and Maugan are other Christian names of very early
Killigrews.
Lysons gives the following instances of their being at an early date
possessors of lands in Cornwall: John de Killigrew, of Killigrew, had
£20 a year or more in land in 1297; Henry de Killigrew held a military
feu in Orchard Marries (? Marrais) in the hundred of Stratton in 3rd
Henry IV. (1402); Rad. de Killigrew held a 'feod. parv.' at some place
in the hundred of Powder; Henry, son of Maugi de Killigrew, had a
similar tenure in Trewyn, in the same hundred--and they retained the
Manor of Killigrew till 1636, so Lysons says. I may add, as an early
instance of the name being mentioned, that there was a Richard (or
Michael) Killigrew, one of a riotous lot of junior scholars at Merton
College, Oxon, about the year 1350.
After the lapse of about a century and a half from the time of
Ralph, one of the Killigrews married the heiress of Arwenack, near
Falmouth--a lady of broad lands, for her estates extended, it is said,
from Arwenack (an old Cornish name which is said to signify either
'the beloved, still cove,' or 'upon the marsh') to the mouth of the
Helford river, a distance along the coast of some five or six miles. To
this place, overlooking the beautiful waters of Falmouth Haven, then
a deeper and far more important harbour than it is at present, the
Killigrew of the day, Simon by name, moved from his ancestral abode in
St. Erme sometime during the reign of Richard II., probably about 1385;
and here the Killigrews remained for nearly four centuries, acting
as governors of Pendennis Castle for a great part of that period,
intermarrying with many of the oldest Cornish families, and attending
at the Courts of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, the first and second James,
the first and second Charles, and William III.--loyal, able, and
trusted adherents.
The earliest monument to any member of the family is, so far as I
can ascertain, the brass in Gluvias Church, near Penryn, to Thomas
Killigrew and his two wives Joan and Elizabeth, and all their
children.[53] On the brass Thomas Killigrew is described as a
gentleman ('generosus'); he is represented in the costume of the latter
part of the fifteenth century, in a long handsome robe trimmed with
fur, and carries on his right shoulder his hat, after the fashion of
the time--a wealthy merchant, in all probability. Thus far and no
further, I regret to say, can I trace anything of interest respecting
the early Killigrews.
But we now approach comparatively modern times, and are soon bewildered
by the number of more or less illustrious names from which to select
examples. A genealogical table, which I compiled for my guidance,
offers at least fifty names not unknown in history, and of whose
possessors accounts, not without interest, might be given.[54] But
to do this would be to write a book instead of a chapter; and a far
smaller number must suffice.
The Killigrew family seems naturally to divide itself into two classes,
roughly speaking, complementary to each other: viz., the elder
branch, which was on the whole the steadier and the more prosperous,
whose present representative (by marriage) is the Earl of Kimberley,
Secretary of State for India; and the younger branch (now also extinct
in the male line) more fertile than the former in statesmen, soldiers,
and wits. This division it is proposed to adopt in the following
notices of both branches of the family.
_Seniores priores._ Let us commence with the first John Killigrew, of
importance, upon record. His brass, like that of the first Thomas, is
to be found in another little village church--St. Budock by name--near
Falmouth. Evidently a grim warrior, covered _cap-à-pied_ with plate
armour, and associated in the representation with his wife--one
of another good old Cornish family (now also extinct)--Elizabeth,
daughter of James Trewinnard of St. Erth. This John was a rich man,
his estate being worth no less than £6,000 a year; and he was the
first Captain of Pendennis Castle, built on his own ground, under his
own superintendence, and with the co-operation of Thomas Treffry of
Place (who, by the way, married Elizabeth Killigrew, John's sister),
in the reign of our castle-building King, Henry VIII. The same John
Killigrew was appointed in 1551, together with Sir William Godolphin
and Francis Godolphin, to survey the Islands of Scilly, and to build a
fort there; no doubt that which stands on St. Mary's Isle, and is now
known as Elizabeth Castle, with its inscription, 'E.R. 1593,' over the
principal entrance. He was, moreover, sheriff for the county, and in
that capacity wrote a letter, dated at Truro, to Cardinal Wolsey, on
the subject of a threatened French invasion. Not content with building
a castle for his King, John built (or rather rebuilt) for himself
(about 1571, according to Hals), Arwenack House, in such a style that
it was reputed the finest and most costly in the county at that time.
Little did he think that one of his descendants was to see it almost
entirely destroyed, either by Waller, or by the owner himself, to
prevent its falling into the enemy's hand, nearly a century later. Some
part of the structure still stands, and is used as a manor-office; and
here is preserved a conjectural restoration of Arwenack House in its
long-since-departed glory.
To him succeeded his son, Sir John Killigrew, Knight, as second captain
of the fortress. I find nothing further recorded of him, save that
he married one Mary Wolverston,[55] and that when he died on the 5th
March, 1584, he too was buried at St. Budock.
His son John--third of the name--seems to have been, according to
some contemporary accounts, a man of no very high character; in fact,
he has been stigmatized as 'a pirate,' an 'avoider of his debts,'
'a gamester,' and 'spendthrift.' Amongst the Lansdowne MSS., in the
British Museum, are preserved accounts of his misconduct. One, dated
7th March, 1588/9, is a 'Complaynte against John Killigrew of y^e
County of Cornwall, of many of his ill demeners.' First comes a list
of his 'knowen debtes' to Her Majesty and others. Then the document
sets forth that, notwithstanding many judgments obtained against
him, he 'satisfieth no man;' but rides abroad, attended by armed
servants, defies the bailiffs, and commits all sorts of high-handed
irregularities. It concludes with the statement that he endeavours to
satisfy his wealthier creditors with vain promises, and the poorer ones
with blows and threatening words; and in fact, the complainants say
it would require 'a hole quire of pap^r' to sum up all his misdeeds.
His boarding and pillaging a Danish ship, and some similar acts of
violence, are set forth by Sir Julius Cæsar in other documents of this
series; and our hero, together with one William Ewens, are set down as
'notorious pirates.' That he did not obtain the honour of knighthood
under such circumstances is hardly to be wondered at.
I cannot, however, help thinking that he has been debited with many of
the misdeeds of one Peter Killigrew, who lived a century before him,
but whose exact connexion with the family I have been unable to trace
satisfactorily. Perhaps the one mentioned in Strype's 'Memorials of
Edward VI.,' of whom it is observed, in 1552, that one 'Strangwich'
(? Restronguet), 'and two Killigrews with him, were such notable
sea-rovers, that, in the month of February of that year, the King sent
a letter to the French King, that he would do his endeavour for the
apprehension of them.' And yet, in 1592, a Mr. Killigrew, according to
the same authority, was appointed, at Sir Walter Raleigh's request,
on a commission to inquire into the matter of the distribution of
the spoil of a certain richly-laden Spanish carrack, '_The Mother of
God_' taken by some of Sir Walter's ships on her return from the
East Indies. Indeed, there is considerable difficulty in identifying
some of the Killigrews of the sixteenth and early in the seventeenth
centuries. But the fact is, that not only were the Killigrews concerned
in exploits of this nature, but there were many others amongst the
west-countrymen who, under Sir Peter Carew, slipped over to France,
and did a little privateering against Spain on their own account,
being anxious to do all in their power to prevent the marriage of
Mary with Philip of Spain. A Killigrew of this date had three ships
under his command, according to the Calais MSS. 'Wild spirits of all
nations,' says Froude--'Scots, English, French, whoever chose to
offer--found service under their flag. They were the first specimens
of the buccaneering chivalry of the next generation, the germ out of
which rose the Drakes, the Raleighs, the Hawkinses, who harried the
conquerors of the New World.' Ultimately the Godolphins and Killigrews
were threatened with prosecution, but nothing came of it. By his
wife Dorothy, daughter of Thomas Monck of Potheridge, Devon, John
is said to have had nine sons and five daughters, though I can only
trace ten children altogether. She was the sister of General Monck,
Duke of Albemarle, whose exploits on behalf of his royal masters, and
especially the prominent part he took in the restoration of Charles
II., are well-known matters of history. I have referred somewhat more
fully to this in the chapter on the Grenvilles.
This John (whom we have called the third) had two brothers, Thomas
and Simon, both of whom were Court favourites. Some other Cornish
gentlemen of the time seem to have been equally popular with the
Queen, as Elizabeth said of them that they were all 'born courtiers,
and with a becoming confidence.' Queen Elizabeth sent Thomas on an
embassy to the Count Palatine of the Rhine; and I find that he was
also commissioned to seize a certain ship of Brittany at 'Pensans'
(Penzance), and to 'distribute the spoil among such as by certain
Britaines have been heretofore spoiled of their goods and wronged.'
Rough and ready justice this, seemingly, and a lesson from which
some subsequent Killigrews, as we shall find, did not fail to take a
hint. John's younger brother, Simon, was, to some extent, a herald,
as appears by a letter from him on the subject of the Manaton coat
of arms, preserved amongst the Harleian MSS. (1079), in the British
Museum. The two younger brothers added to the family estates by
purchases of a property, with a town-house at Lothbury; a country
seat at Kineton (? Kempton) Park, near Hampton Court; besides sundry
lands and manors in East Cornwall, Devon, and Lincolnshire. Of their
two sisters, Mary and Katherine, I can learn nothing, except that the
latter married twice.
To return, therefore, to the main line--Sir John, the fourth and last
of that name (for Sir William, the eldest son, who was made a baronet
in 1661, and was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1665, would seem to
have led an uneventful life, and need not detain us), was knighted
at Whitehall on 8th November, 1617; he was 'a good, sober man,' and
was likewise, I fancy, a Captain of Pendennis. He seems, moreover, to
have been the chief promoter, at great pecuniary loss, of the first
beacon-light on the Lizard, for which he obtained a patent from King
James I., in 1619.[56] But he had the misfortune to marry an unsuitable
partner--Jane, the daughter of Sir George Fermor--about whom Hals
tells the following story (the credibility of which Davies Gilbert
thought was at least questionable; but the tradition is still locally
extant).[57]
Towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, two Dutch ships of the Hanse
Towns League, and therefore under special protection, sailed into
Falmouth Harbour, driven there either by the Spaniards or by stress of
weather. They had scarcely arrived before Dame Killigrew, accompanied
by some ruffians, boarded the Dutch ships, slew the owners, and seized
two hogsheads of pieces of eight, which she took 'for her own use.'
This high-handed proceeding of course produced remonstrances on the
part of the rightful proprietors of the money, and led to the trial,
conviction, and execution of all the offenders, save the lady herself,
at Launceston. She barely escaped, and not without the utmost interest
having been made for her with the Queen by Sir John Arundell, of
Tolverne, and Sir Nicholas Hals, of Pengerswick.
Nor was this the only irregularity for which the authorities of
Pendennis were complained of. In 1631 the Castle guns were fired
upon the King's ships! and on the 2nd November in that year a Captain
Kettleby writes thus: 'None disturb the free trade in those parts more
than the Captain of Pendennis Castle--he is at peace with neither
King's ships, nor others--both the Admiral and the writer have been
twice shot at by him in going in and out. The last shot fell in the
town of St. Mawes, but only hurt one woman.' Possibly the explanation
of such apparently wanton mischief as this is to be found in the
rivalry which existed for precedence between the two castles, Pendennis
and St. Mawes, on opposite sides of the harbour mouth--a rivalry so
intense as to have finally rendered a compromise indispensable.
Whether the details of the story of Dame Mary, or Dame Jane (an 'old
Jezebel,' as her enemies called her) be true or not; whether it be a
distorted reproduction of some of the misdeeds of her father-in-law,
the third John; or whether the real cause of the misunderstanding
between her husband and her faithless self was the now fast-growing
rivalry between the ports of Penryn and Falmouth--this much at least
is certain: that in the year 1633 Dame Jane gave to the mayor of
'Permarin,' and his successors in office for ever, a handsome silver
chalice, still used as a loving-cup at the mayor-choosings, on which
it is recorded that the Penryn mayor succoured her when she was 'in
greate miserie.'[58] The unhappy pair were divorced, without issue; the
husband dying in 1632 or 1636, and his wife twelve years afterwards.
A few words may be added here on the subject of the harbour. Penryn,
the more ancient port, lies at the head of a long, tortuous creek;
more secure, doubtless, from its position, and its once stockaded
channel, from an enemy's ships than Falmouth was before the erection of
Pendennis and St. Mawes Castles; and to Truro the same remark applied
with still greater force. The rivalry between the two more ancient
ports, Penryn and Truro, and the comparatively modern Falmouth, was,
as may be supposed, of the keenest; but the natural advantages of
Falmouth--at length defended by two forts, and aided by the powerful
interest of the Killigrews--prevailed; and Falmouth, too, became 'a
port.' A town--now one of the largest, busiest, and gayest of the quiet
towns of Cornwall--accordingly sprang up around the once lonely site of
Arwenack.[59]
Failing issue of the eldest brother, Sir William, the first
baronet--and also of Sir John--Sir Peter, first knight of that name,
now becomes the representative of this, the elder branch of the
family: 'a merry youth, bred under the Earl of Bristol,' says one
authority--and known as 'Peter the Post,' as another tells us, from the
alacrity with which he despatched 'like wild-fire' all the messages
and other commissions entrusted to him in the King's cause. On him was
laid the important duty of conveying from Oxford the King's proposals
to the Parliament in January, 1645. Like Rupert himself, he seems to
have been in perpetual motion; and on one occasion, during 'Oliver's
usurpation,' Sir Peter rode from Madrid, through France, and having
passed the sea, got to London in seven days. Like Sir Tristram in the
'Monks and Giants,'
'From realm to realm he ran, and never staid.'
He was one of those who very nearly succeeded, it is said, in enabling
Charles I. to effect his escape into France; and it was in his time
that (as it is said) in revenge for his attachment to the Stuart cause,
the mansion of Arwenack was ruined by Waller during the memorable
operations of the siege in the time of the Civil War. It is, however,
not improbable that its destruction was commenced by its patriotic
owner in order to prevent its occupation by the enemy. Pendennis
was the last castle (except Raglan) which held out for the King's
cause;[60] but on the 16th August, 1646, it too was forced to surrender
(though with flying colours, and all the honours of war) to Fairfax,
after a terrible five months of siege 'and famine and harsh wounds,'
endured gallantly by old John Arundell of Trerice, then nearly eighty
years of age.
'Lady Penelope, fair Queen, most chast,
Pendennis, of all Royall Forts the last,
The last, the only, Fort ne'er conquered was,
Ne'er shall be; who in constancy doth passe
The rest of all thy sisters, who to thee
(The eclipse of all thy kinde) but strumpets be.'
The author of these verses, after the surrender, significantly, and not
unnecessarily, added the ensuing note:
'Penelopen ipsam (persta modo), tempore vinces,
Capta vides sero Pergama; capta tamen.'
The family estates, worth, at one time, £6,000 a year, had sadly
dwindled away by the time they came into the second Sir Peter's
possession; indeed, they are said to have been worth no more than about
£80 a year; yet he contrived to become elected M.P. for Camelford, and
by 1630 had married Mary, the sister of Lord Lucas, of Colchester, Earl
Pembroke giving the marriage portion of 'a good £300 a year;' and the
_Mercurius Politicus_ for 15th March, 1660, informs us that in that
month he was made Governor of Pendennis by General Monk. This Sir Peter
continued, like his predecessors, a sturdy champion of Falmouth. He got
the Custom House removed from its old place at Penryn, to his own more
modern town; carved the parish of Falmouth out of that of St. Budock
(15 Charles II.); and, with the assistance of the King and others,
built and endowed the church, dedicated to the memory of King Charles
the martyr,[61] where his own bones first, and then those of other
Killigrews after him, were laid. Some accounts give 1670 as the date
of his death; others say--probably more accurately--that he died on
the road to Exeter, in 1667: possibly killed on one of his break-neck
rides; for, as we have seen, he was a man of no common energy and
daring. He left three children: Peter, William, and Elizabeth.
Of the sister it seems unnecessary to say more than that she married a
Count de Kinski, a title which, I believe, still survives. William, who
died unmarried in 1678, became a soldier of fortune, and ultimately a
general officer; and he was commander-in-chief of some Danish forces,
sent by the Spaniards against the Swedes. After one of his successful
engagements, he sold certain captured horses (his share of the spoil)
to His Majesty of Denmark for some £3,000. But failing to get his money
from his royal employer, the general executed the military movement
known as 'right-about-face,' and transferred his sword to the Dutch,
by whom his valour was more honourably rewarded. I have failed to
trace the details of his career; but he seems to have been recalled
to England at the Restoration, and had a regiment of foot. His nephew
succeeded to his estate, which Martin Lister says was 'composed more of
honour than of substance.'
It is, however, with the elder son of this generation that we have
chiefly to deal, for through him the succession was kept up. Sir
Peter, the second baronet (inheriting that title from his uncle, the
foregoing Sir William, the first), was born in 1634, and was educated,
notwithstanding his father's reduced estate, first at Oxford, and
afterwards in France. Whilst he was at Oxford, the horrible execution
of Anne Green, for murdering her infant illegitimate child, took place.
After hanging for half an hour, she recovered her life in consequence
of judicious medical treatment; and full particulars of the event
are given in a rare little volume published at Oxford in 1651, and
entitled 'News from the Dead.' To this work many of the members of the
university contributed short sets of verses, some in Latin, some in
English. The following lines were those supplied by the Cornish baronet:
'Death, spare your threats, we scorne now to obey;
If Women conquer thee, surely Men may.
How came this Champion on I cannot tell,
But I nere heard of one _come off_ so well.
'PET. KILLIGREW, Eq. Aur. fil. Coll. Reg.'
And here is a specimen of his powers as a writer of Latin verse, on a
very different subject:
[PRO REGE SOTERIA.]
'Funera funeribus commiscens, bustaq; bustis
Ira avidæ, nato Principe, pestis abit.
Filius an regis potuit dum vagijt infans
A tôta rabidam gente fugare luem?
Nec valet, Antidotas sibi Rex, depellere varos
Cujus Apollinea est tarn benè nota manus?
Tantane _Carolidæ_ potuêre crepundia? plebem
De tumulo redimet qui modò natus erat?
Et res usque; nova est? morbum miramur abortum,
Depulsum sceptro, Carole magne, tuo?'
In 1662, Sir Peter, who had been made Governor of Pendennis on the
Restoration, married the handsome, virtuous, and accomplished Frances
Twysden, daughter of Sir Roger, the well-known judge of that name;[62]
and the union appears to have been a happy one in every respect, save
as to the offspring. Peter, the eldest, died young; George, the second
son, was killed in a tavern brawl at Penryn (at the house of a Mr.
Chalons, says Tonkin), by 'a stab in the back' from a barrister named
Walter Vincent. Another account states that the skull, which was found
in 1861, showed that the hole made by the rapier was clearly visible in
the forehead. Frances, the elder daughter, married a Cornish gentleman
named Richard Erissey,[63] who 'cast her off' three years after their
marriage. Ann, the youngest, who died without issue, married Martin
Lister, a Staffordshire gentleman and soldier of fortune, who assumed
the name of Killigrew, and managed the estates for many years. Clearly
the main stem of the great race of Killigrew was rapidly decaying!
On the death, or murder, of his son George, old Sir Peter, who had
gone to live at Arwenack in 1670, disappointed at having no male
issue, and sick of the innumerable squabbles in which he found himself
involved with the Falmouth folk, retired, first to London, and then,
in 1697, to Ludlow, where he passed his time in scientific pursuits
of a speculative character, the results of which appear to have died
with him. His portrait, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, now in the possession
of Mrs. Boddam Castle, of Grove House, Clifton (a descendant of the
Killigrews), fully harmonizes with what we know of his character. One
practical thing, however, he did: viz., to build the public quay at
Falmouth; and to that old town, endeared to him by so many pleasant
memories of the past, were his remains conveyed to be interred in
the parish church, among those of his more immediate ancestors. The
monuments are not, at present, to be seen; perhaps they are hidden
under the raised floor of the chancel: but there were laid, in 1704,
the remains of Sir Peter Killigrew,--the last male in the main[64] line.
George, his son, though, as we have seen, he died young, was not
unmarried. He gained for his wife an offshoot of another old Cornish
family, Ann, daughter of Sir John St. Aubyn, Bart., by whom he had
issue one daughter (Ann), married to a Major John Dunbar. To the
heiress of the ill-starred Erissey match--Sir Peter's youngest
grand-daughter, Mary--the bulk of the remaining Killigrew property
seems to have descended; and through her the present representative of
the family (the Earl of Kimberley) holds it. She married, in 1711, a
Colonel John West.[65]
There are few things more amusing in its way than the account which
Mr. R. N. Worth has preserved for us in the _Journal of the Royal
Institution of Cornwall_, of the arrangements which Martin Killigrew
(Lister) requested should be made for Colonel West's reception at
Arwenack. They are as follows:
'MR. ABRM. HALL,
* * * * *
'It is but by guess I have to tell you that you are not to expect to
see ye Col^n. till about ye end of ye first week in May, who bringing
with him ye young gentleman[66] in question, must add considerably
to ye flurry you will be put in from his being a person of great
consideration as I hear, tho' I know not so much as his name and as
Little any particular of his circumstances. But suppose you must be
advised by the Col^n. as to your providing accommodation for their
Retinue: Two bed chambers for ye gentlemen you will put in ye best
order you can; a room for ye servants to Eat in: The best Cook your
Town affords; some choise good Hambs and a provision of fatt chickens:
Wine you must leave Mr. James to provide; and if any fine green
Tea[67] be to be had, you must secure some of it, as what ye Col^n.
is most Nice in, and drinkes much off. Two of ye largest Tea potts
you can borrow, He using them both at a time. Nice and knowing beyond
ye comon in providing a Table, so that your Mother will only have to
receive his orders every morning on that head. The stable put in ye
best order you can, provided with Hay and Corne.
'If I do not greatly mistake, this flurry cannot continue above three
weeks, for that their impatience will be greater to get back to Bath
than it is to see Falmouth.
'You are still in time to see that your Closett and Books be put in ye
best Order you can, and nothing to be seen there belonging to other
people's business, but only to ye Estate. You will finde ye Col^n.
quick of comprehention and as ready at figures as can be supposed.
'_At ye same time you observe to them ye great sums I have raised
from ye Estate you will do me Justice to note ye improvements I
have made upon it. And that tho' times are now dead as thro'out ye
kingdome, yet as they have been good it may reasonably be hoped they
will be so again, & that in ye main you doubt not of giving a yearly
demonstration (by ye Rentall) of ye increase of ye Estate_; when Diner
is over you get back to your Closet, and as you see it proper, you
returne with your pen in your ear, making ye Col^n. sensible he is
wanted above, whereby he may git rid of impertinant Comp^n. if such
be with him. Nor can I see in respect to time ye Col^n. can do more
in business than from day to day, he giving you orders which you will
take in writing, and at parting take his hand to them, you giving him
a duplicate.
'You will be able to borrow glasses, knives, forks, and spoons, with
some handsome pieces of plate, in everything to make ye best figure
you can; and if you can borrow a better horse than your own, you
ought to do it. Relying upon ye Col^n. generosity (His greatest
fault), you will be nothing out of pocket upon this occasion. As
from me pray your Mother to trouble ye Col^n. with as Little of her
conversation as her business will admit off. I thinke enough at a time
to a man of your accute parts--
'Yours
'MART. KILLIGREW.
'St. James's, 16th April, 1737.'
It will be seen from the above that Martin was a man of some mettle,
and able to manage the affairs of his stewardship adroitly, though
far away from the scene. He was always at war with the Corporation of
Falmouth, of which borough he was for some time Recorder, and he died
in St. James's Square, London, on 7th March, 1745.[68]
Amongst the latest notices of any member of the family that I have
met with, one is contained in the sprightly pages of Mrs. Delany's
'Life and Correspondence;' the subject of her remarks seems to have
been a true Killigrew, at least so far as his dramatic talent affords
any indication. On the 26th January, 1752, at Mr. Bushe's (near
Dublin), at a dinner-party, she met a Mr. Killigrew, who was 'a very
entertaining, charming man, well-bred, good-humoured, and sings in a
most extraordinary manner; has a fine voice, fine taste, no knowledge
of music, but the exactest imitation of Senesino and Monticelli that
you can imagine. He sings French songs incomparably, with so much
humour that in spite of my gloom he made me laugh heartily.'
Of another, the last male of his name, Thomas Guildford Killigrew,
I find from _Notes and Queries_, 1873, p. 224, and also from other
sources, including information[69] with which I have been favoured by
Mrs. Boddam Castle, that he married Miss Catharine Chubb, a distant
relative, after having much impoverished himself in the Stuart cause
in 1745, and that he settled in Bristol for the sake of economy. He
died in 1782 without issue. At his death Mrs. Killigrew adopted her
great niece, Mary Iago, afterwards married to Daniel Wait, Mayor of
Bristol, in 1805. On the death of Mrs. Killigrew, in 1810, the family
plate and portraits (one of the latter, Sir Peter Killigrew, by Sir
Godfrey Kneller, and another, of Thomas Guildford Killigrew himself)
passed to Mrs. Wait by will, and from her to Mrs. Boddam Castle, wife
of Mr. Boddam Castle, barrister-at-law, now residing at Clifton. Some
of the plate is more than 150 years old; the crest a demi-griffin, with
'T.C.K.' over it.
The last who bore the surname of Killigrew was Frances Maria (daughter
of George Augustus Killigrew, of Bond Street), who died in Portman
Street, London, on 20th July, 1819, aged seventy-one.
And here let us pause, after having exhausted (so far as I am aware)
all the sources of information, and having, I believe, at least set
down all that was noteworthy, of the _elder_ branch of the Killigrews.
_THE SECOND BRANCH._
John Killigrew, the first Captain of Pendennis, had three brothers,
James, Thomas, and Bennet, of whom I can learn nothing of interest. And
he also had other sons than John the second knight, his successor at
Pendennis Castle, of whom we have already heard. One son--Thomas--died
young. Another, the fourth son, was the famous Sir Henry Killigrew,
Knight, who sat as Member of Parliament for Launceston in 1552-53,
and for Truro about twenty years later. Him let us take as our first
representative of the younger branch of the family. He is described
as a Teller of the Exchequer, Commander of 'Newhaven' (Nieuwport),
and Ambassador to Germany, France (where he temporarily relieved Sir
Francis Walsingham), Scotland, the Palatinate, Frankfort, and the Low
Countries.[70] Of a man of such mark--one whom Emerson would have
called 'a bright personality'--traces would assuredly be forthcoming;
and we do not seek them in vain amongst the Lansdowne, the Cottonian,
the Egerton, and the 'Additional' Manuscripts in the British Museum;
amongst the Scotch MSS.; and in the Public Record Office. Moreover, the
Yelverton MSS. contain references to him, as also do the collections in
Lambeth Palace Library. Most of these are Letters, Instructions, and
Memorials, referring to the diplomatic functions which he was called
upon to discharge, and partaking rather too much of the 'Dryasdust'
character to be interesting to the general reader. There are some
verses by him to 'My Ladye Cecylle' (his wife's sister), preserved in
the Cambridge University Library; but I propose to omit these in favour
of some Latin lines addressed to the same lady by Sir Henry's wife;
not only because of the courteous maxim, '_Place aux dames_,' but also
because the lady's verses are really charming. In lieu of any specimen
of Sir Henry's _poetic_ vein, an extract from a letter which he wrote
from Edinburgh, on 6th October, 1572, descriptive of John Knox--towards
the close of his life--and some other fragments of his prose, will
probably be more acceptable. 'John Knox,' he says, 'is now so feeble
as scarce can he stand alone, or speak to be heard of any audience,
yet doth he every Sunday cause himself to be carried to a place where
a certain number do hear him, and preacheth with the same vehemency
and zeal that ever he did.' This account is fully confirmed by another
contemporary description of him, which is so graphic that I cannot
refrain from giving it.
From May, 1571, to August, 1572, Knox lived in St. Andrews, and
frequently preached there. 'I haid my pen and my little book,' says
James Melville, 'and tuk away sic things as I could comprehend. In the
opening upe of his text he was moderat the space of an halff houre; bot
when he enteret to application, he maid me sa to grew & tremble, that I
could nocht hald a pen to wryt.... He was verie weak. I saw him everie
day of his doctrine go hulie and fear, with a furring of martriks about
his neck, a staff in the an hand, and guid godlie Richart Ballanden,
his servand, halding upe the uther oxtar, from the Abbay to the paroche
kirk; and be the said Richart and another servant, lifted upe to the
pulpit, whar he behovit to lean at his first entrie; bot or he haid
done with his sermont, he was sa active and vigorus that he was lyk to
ding that pulpit in blads, and fly out of it!' But his work was nearly
done; weary of the world, and 'thirsting to depart,' in a few months he
entered into his rest.
We learn of Sir Henry, from Heppe, that Queen Elizabeth being very
desirous of concluding a sincere alliance, or 'Common League,' between
herself and the Evangelical Princes of the Empire, sent to the Elector
Palatine and other the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire and the
States, Henry Killigrew--her 'approved and faithful servant'--and her
'orator,' Dr. Mount, with a view to counteracting 'the pernicious and
sanguinary plots of certain persons against all the professors of the
Holy Gospel in every place.' The Congress to which they were accredited
met at Frankfort, in April, 1569, but Killigrew and Mount arrived too
late for it.
These, and other of his diplomatic missions are referred to in the
following extract from a memorial in Leonard Howard's 'Collection of
Letters of Princes, Great Personages, and Statesmen.' After recounting
his many[71] diplomatic missions for his Queen to France, 'to discover
theire intents there against this Realme;' to Germany, 'to sound the
Princes of Germanye touching a League defensive for Religion' (for
which he had 'but Fortye Pounds allowance for all manner of Chardges;
which coste me as muche more with the least'); and again several times
to those Countries, as well as to Scotland in 1573, and to Newhaven,
where he was hurt and imprisoned--Sir Henry thus concludes:
'Now for all these Journeys, Chardges, Daungers, Hurtes and Losses,
in the meanwhile, and the Tyme used only in her Majesties' service,
without any Proffitt of my owne, I have only to lyve by, of Her
Majesties' Goodness, the Tellershippe, which was given me before I went
to Newehaven....' In consideration of all which--by way of a provision
for his family--he prefers a 'Suite for the said Firme of the Manor of
Sarrake (?) in Cornwall ...'; adding, 'The Rent is somewhat great, I
confess; but truly the Profitt nothinge equall.'
Let us hope that services so long, so faithful, and so important, at
length received their reward. That they probably did may be surmised
from the following account of the close of his active career, given
by the Cornish historian Carew: 'After ambassades and messages, and
many other profitable employments of peace and warre, in his prince's
service, to the good of his country, (Sir Henry Killigrew) hath made
choyce of a retyred estate, and, reverently regarded by all sorts,
placeth his principal contentment in himselfe, which, to a life so well
acted, can no way bee wanting.'
Lord Burleigh's instructions to him,[72] on the subject of his Scotch
mission, written with his own hand, dated 10th September, 1572,
especially as to getting Mary Queen of Scots out of the kingdom, and
delivering her to the Regent's party, form a most interesting document.
The letter closes thus: 'Herein yow shall, as Comodite shall serve yow,
use all good Spede, with the most Secresy that yow can, to understand
their Mynds; _and yet so to deale to your uttermost, that this Matter
might be rather Oppened to yow, than yourself to seme first to move
it_....'
Another object of his momentous mission to Scotland, as to which
Elizabeth gave him her instructions with her own mouth, was to impress
upon Mary Queen of Scots a sense of her faults, her duties, and her
danger--a vain task! Froude gives an account of the interview, which
took place after Darnley's murder. 'The windows at Holyrood were
half-closed, the rooms were darkened, and in the profound gloom the
English Ambassador was unable to see the Queen's face, but by her
words she seemed very doleful.' And at length, having extorted from
her a promise that Bothwell should be put upon his trial, Killigrew
went back to London in less than a week, after having carried out his
difficult and delicate duty 'like a loyal servant.'
The 'Cabala' states that when Henry Killigrew went to France, he was
considered 'in livelihood much inferior to Walsingham;' but Leicester's
opinion of him was subjected to revision. He says he found our hero
'a quicker and stouter fellow than he tooke him for.' I have often
wondered whether this impression was derived from Sir Henry's bearing
when the question of his pay was mooted. '60/ a pece, per dyem' had
been set down, complains Leicester, writing to Walsingham on 15th
December, 1585, as the pay of Killigrew and his colleague, whereas _he_
had understood it was to be only 40s. The Earl's impression proved to
be correct, and heart-burnings doubtless arose; with what result I
know not, but Leicester's revised estimate of his man may point to the
event. Sir H. Killigrew was at the siege of St. Quentin, in 1557; and
Sir James Melville says how he met at La Ferre (? La Frette) 'Maister
Hary Killygrew, an Englis gentleman, my auld frend, wha held my horse
till I sate down in ane barbour's buith, to be pensit of the hurt in
my head.'[73] He is found described, amongst the strangers resident
in London in 1595 ('Nichols' Collections,' viii. 206), as living then
in 'Broad Street Warde;' and he died on the 16th March, 1602/3. The
character of this 'Admirable Crichton' has been so well drawn by David
Lloyd in his 'State Worthies,' that I cannot refrain from giving it, in
the words of Whitworth's translation.
'Travellers report, that the place wherein the body of Absalom was
buried is still extant at Jerusalem, and that it is a solemn custome
of pilgrims passing by it to cast a stone on the place; but a
well-disposed man can hardly go by the memory of this worthy person
without doing grateful homage thereunto in bestowing upon him one or
two of our observations.
'It's a question sometimes whether diamond gives more lustre to
the ring it's set in, or the ring to the diamond; this gentleman
received honour from his family, and gave renoun to it. Writing is the
character of the speech, as that is of the mind. From Tully (whose
orations he could repeat to his dying day) he gained an even and
apt stile, flowing at one and the selfsame height. Tully's Offices,
a book which boys read, and men understand, was so esteemed of my
Lord Burleigh, that to his dying day he always carried it about him,
either in his bosome or his pocket, as a compleat piece that, like
Aristotle's rhetorick, would make both a scholar and an honest man.
Cicero's magnificent orations against Anthony, Catiline and Verres;
Cæsar's great Commentaries that he wrote with the same spirit that
he fought; flowing Livy; grave, judicious and stately Tacitus;
eloquent, but faithful Curtius; brief and rich Salust; prudent and
brave Xenophon, whose person was Themistocles his companion, as his
book was Scipio Affricanus his pattern in all his wars; ancient
and sweet Herodotus; sententious and observing Thucidides; various
and useful Polybius; Siculus, Halicarnasseus, Trogus, Orosius,
Justine, made up our young man's retinue in all his travels where
(as Diodorus the Sicilian writes) he "_sate on the stage of human
life, observing the great circumstances of places, persons, times,
manners, occasions, etc, and was made wise by their example who haue
trod the path of errour and danger before him_." To which he added
that grave, weighty and sweet Plutarch, whose books (said Gaza) would
furnish the world, were all others lost. Neither was he amazed in the
labyrinth of history, but guided by the clue of cosmography, hanging
his study with maps, and his mind with exact notices of each place.
He made in one view a judgement of the situation, interest, and
commodities (for want whereof many statemen and souldiers have[74]
failed) of nations; but to understand the nature of places, is but a
poor knowledge, unless we know how to improue them by art; therefore
under the figures of triangles, squares, circles and magnitudes, with
their terms and bounds, he could contrive most tools and instruments,
most engines, and judge of fortifications, architecture, ships, wind
and water-works, and whatever might make this lower frame of things
useful and serviceable to mankinde; which severer studies he relieved
with noble and free Poetry-aid, once the pleasure and advancement
of the soul, made by those higher motions of the minde more active
and more large. To which I adde her sister Musick, wherewith he
revived his tired spirits, lengthened (as he said) his sickly days,
opened his oppressed breast, eased his melancholy thoughts, graced
his happy pronunciation, ordered and refined his irregular and gross
inclinations, fixed and quickened his floating and dead notions;
and by a secret, sweet and heavenly Vertue, raised his spirit, as
he confessed, sometime to a little less than angelical exaltation.
Curious he was to please his ear, and as exact to please his eye;
there being no statues, inscriptions or coyns that the Vertuosi of
Italy could shew, the antiquaries of France could boast off, or the
great hoarder of rarieties the great duke of Tuscany (whose antic
coyns are worth £100,000) could pretend to, that he had not the view
of. No man could draw any place or work better, none fancy and paint a
portraicture more lively; being a Durer for proportion, a Goltzius for
a bold touch, variety of posture, a curious and true shadow, an Angelo
for his happy fancy, and an Holben for works.
'Neither was it a bare ornament of discourse, or naked diversion of
leisure time; but a most weighty piece of knowledge that he could
blazon most noble and ancient coats, and thereby discern the relation,
interest, and correspondence of great families, and thereby the
meaning and bottom of all transactions, and the most successful
way of dealing with any one family. His exercises were such as his
employments were like to be, gentle and man-like. Whereof the two
most eminent were riding and shooting that at once wholesomely
stirred, and nobly knitted and strengthened his body. Two eyes he
said he travelled with; the one of wariness upon himself, the other
of observation upon others. This compleat gentleman was guardian to
the young Brandon in his younger years, agent for Sir John Mason in
king Edward the sixth's time, and the first embassador for the state
in Queen Elizabeth's time. My Lord Cobham is to amuse the Spaniard,
my Lord Effingham to undermine the French, and Sir Henry Killigrew
is privately sent to engage the German princes against Austria in
point of interest, and for her majesty in point of religion: he had
a humour that bewitched the elector of Bavaria, a carriage that awed
him of Mentz, a reputation that obliged them of Colen and Hydelberg,
and that reach and fluency in discourse that won them all. He assisted
the Lords Hunsdon and Howard at the treaty with France in London,
and my Lord of Essex in the war for France and Britain. Neither was
he less observable for his own conduct than for that of others,
whose severe thoughts, words and carriage so awed his inferiour
faculties, as to restrain him through all the heats of youth, made
more than usually importunate by the full vigour of a high and
sanguine constitution; insomuch that they say he looked upon all
the approaches to that sin, then so familiar to his calling as a
souldier, his quality as a gentleman, and his station as a courtier,
not onely with an utter disallowance in his judgement, but with a
natural abhorrency and antipathy in his very lower inclinations.
To which happiness it conduced not a little, that though he had a
good, yet he had a restrained appetite (a knife upon his throat as
well as upon his trencher) that indulged itself neither frequent nor
delicate entertainment; its meals, though but once a day, being its
pressures, and its fast, its only sensualities; to which temperance in
diet, adde but that in sleep, together with his disposal of himself
throughout his life to industry and diligence, you will say he was a
spotless man, whose life taught us this lesson, (which, if observed,
would accomplish mankinde; and which King Charles the first would
inculcate to noble travellers, and Dr. Hammond to all men), viz.: _To
be furnished always with something to do_; a lesson they proposed as
the best expedience for innocence and pleasure; the foresaid blessed
man assuring his happy hearers, "_That no burden is more heavy, or
temptation more dangerous, then to have time lie on one's hand: the
idle man being not onely_" (as he worded it) "_the Devil's shop, but
his kingdome too; a model of, and an appendage unto Hell, a place
given up to torment and to mischief_."'
He left four daughters only, Anna, Dorothy, Elizabeth, and Mary, by his
wife Katherine, fourth of the erudite daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke,
of Giddy Hall, Essex, the accomplished Preceptor of Edward VI.--'vir
antiqua serenitate,' according to Camden--from whom (as Strype tells
us) his 'daughter Killigrew' inherited, amongst other things, 'a nest
of white bowls.'
Dame Katherine was skilled, after the manner of the learned ladies of
her time, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and in poetry; and both Sir
John Harrington and Thomas Fuller commend and quote her compositions.
But that, with all her learning, she had, what was even better, a
devotedly affectionate heart, let the following lines testify, which
she addressed to her sister Mildred, who had married Cecil, Lord
Burghley.[75] The Lord Treasurer was about to send his young relative
on a diplomatic mission to France, at a dangerous juncture--whether
before or after the death in that country of Thomas Hobby, who married
her sister Elizabeth, and who also went to France as an ambassador, I
am uncertain--while the loving Katherine thought her husband would be
safer and happier with her in Cornwall--probably either at Arwenack, or
at Rosmeryn in Budock, or at Trevose in Mawgan, or at Penwerris, at all
of which places were estates of the Killigrews. The dauntless wife thus
threatens Elizabeth's solemn First Minister:
'Si mihi quem cupio cures Mildreda remitti
Tu bona, tu melior, tu mihi sola soror:
Sin male cessando retines, et trans mare mittis,
Tu mala, tu pejor, tu mihi nulla soror.
Is si Cornubiam, tibi pax sit et omnia læta,
Sin Mare, Ciciliæ nuncio bella. Vale.'
Of which, for the benefit of (some few at least of) my lady readers in
these later days, I have appended Fuller's harsh translation:
'If, Mildred, by thy care, he be sent back whom I request,
A sister _good_ thou art to me, yea _better_, yea the _best_.
But if with stays thou keep'st him still, or send'st where seas
may part,
Then unto me a sister _ill_, yea _worse_, yea _none_ thou art.
If go to Cornwall he shall _please_, I _peace_ to thee foretell;
But, Cecil, if he set to Seas, I _war_ denounce. Farewell.'
Fortunately, thanks to the poetic skill of my friend Mr. H. G. Hewlett,
I am able to give his smoother and more classical rendering of the
lines:
'Mildred! if truly my sister, the best, the one of all others,
Make it thy care to send back him whom I love to my arms.
If by neglect thou withholdest thine aid, and art cause of his
exile,
Wicked, the worst, wilt thou be, sister in nowise of mine.
Should he to Cornwall return, all is peace with the Cecils and
kindness;
If o'er the sea he depart, count on my hatred! Farewell!'
I do not know the exact date of Dame Katherine Killigrew's death; but
she was alive on the 22nd May, 1576. She was buried in the Church of
St. Thomas the Apostle, in the Vintry Ward of the City of London, where
there is--or rather was, for the church is destroyed--'her elegant
monument;' and many Greek and Latin verses were addressed to her memory
by her sister Elizabeth and others. She thus wrote her own epitaph:
'Dormio nunc Domino, Domini virtute resurgam;
Et σωτῆρα [Greek: sôtêra] meum came videbo meâ.
Mortua ne dicar, fruitur pars altera Christo:
Et surgam capiti tempore tota meo.'
By his second wife, Jael de Peigne, the friend and hostess of Isaac
Casaubon, our Sir Henry left two sons, Sir Joseph and Sir Henry
Killigrew, and one daughter; but nearly all traces of Sir Joseph and
his sister Jane are lost, save what is interesting to the genealogist
alone.
But Henry was a man of some mark. He was one of those loyal Members
of the House of Commons who refused to join the Parliament against
the Crown, and is described by Clarendon as 'a person of entire
affections to the King,' and as commanding a troop of horse on Charles
I.'s march from Shrewsbury to London in 1642.[76] The Lords Capel
and Hopton were particular friends of his; and with such Royalist
connexions and predilections, one is not surprised to learn that,
together with Messrs. Coryton, Scawen, and Roscarroth, he was elected
one of the Royal Commissioners for the County of Cornwall; and that,
when Pendennis Castle was besieged, he was one of its stout defenders,
remaining in it to the very last, and striving, both by sword and
pen, to shake off the grip of the Roundhead bulldogs; all in vain, as
we have already seen. The following letter from Lord Jermyn, who had
married his cousin Katherine, serves to show, at once how sore were
the straits of the besieged, and how highly their efforts were rated
by Queen Henrietta Maria. (It will be remembered that Harry Jermyn was
commander-in-chief of the army which marched from York to Oxford for
the relief of Charles I., under the Queen, who used to style herself,
'She Majesty Generalissima over all.' It is believed that relations
of too intimate a character existed between the Queen and _her_
commander-in-chief.)
'MY DEAR COUSIN HARRY,
'I have received yours, and truly do, with all the grief and respect
that you can imagine to be in any body, look upon your sufferings and
bravery in them; and do further assure you that the relief of so many
excellent men, and preservation of so important a place, is taken into
all the considerations that the utmost possibility, that can be in the
Queen to contribute to either, can extend to. The same care is in the
prince, from whose own hand you will particularly understand it.
'I have now only time to tell you, that I am confident those little
stores that will give us and you time to stay and provide for more,
will be arrived with you; and I do not so encourage you vainly, but
to let you know a truth that cannot fail, that if you, as I do no
way doubt, have rightly represented the state of the place, and of
the minds that are in it, you shall be enabled to give the account
of it you wish beyond your expectations; and already some money is
at the sea-side for this purpose, and more shall daily be sent. I
entreat most earnestly of you that the Governor, Sir John Digby, and
those other gentlemen that did me the honour to write to me, may find
here that I shall not fail to give them answer by the next. In the
mean space, God of heaven keep you all, and give us, if he please, a
meeting with you in England. I have no more to add.
'I am, most truly,
'Your most humble and most faithful Servant,
'HE. JERMYN.'
On the surrender of the Castle,[77] Sir Henry appears to have gone to
St. Malo, where he died on 27th September, 1646, from splinter-wounds
received in the forehead by the explosion of a firearm whilst he
was discharging it in the air after the capitulation of Pendennis.
Clarendon sums up his character for us as being 'a very gallant
gentleman, of a noble extraction, and a fair revenue in land; he was of
excellent parts and great courage, and was exceedingly beloved. He was
a passionate opposer of the extravagant proceedings of the Parliament;'
and, when it came to blows, though he 'was in all actions, and in those
parts where there was most danger, yet he would take no command in the
army, yet he was always consulted; he was of great courage, and of a
pleasant humour, but was a sharp reprover of those who neglected their
duty. His loss was much lamented by all good men.' The Rev. Lionel
Gatford (who acted as chaplain to the Royalists during the siege of
Pendennis) preached Sir Henry Killigrew's funeral sermon, which is
described in a MS. in the possession of S. Elliott Hoskins, M.D.,
F.R.S., Guernsey, as 'une perle de grand prix, lequel ravissoit le
cœur de ses auditeurs.'
Whilst he lay dying of his wound at St. Malo, some priests tried to
convert him to the Roman faith; but he would have nothing to say to
them, and sent for a clergyman of his own Communion forthwith. By his
own wish his body was taken across to Jersey. It lay in state at the
Constable's house at St. Helier's, guarded by his exiled soldiers. The
funeral was performed with all military honours, on 3rd October, 1646,
and the corpse was laid in a vault in the church or 'Temple' of St.
Helier's, near that of Maximilian Norys. His income had been about £800
a year before the troubles of the Civil War; but he had lost it all.
Sir Henry married a lady named Jemima Bael, and by her had one son,
Henry. He too was a warrior; and fell, a Major in the King's army, at
Bridgewater in 1644, whilst defending a magazine of provisions against
an attack by the Parliamentary troops: 'a very hopeful young man,' says
Clarendon, 'the son of a gallant and most deserving father.'
As we have already seen, three daughters only were the fruit of old Sir
Henry's first marriage with Katherine Cooke.
Sir William Killigrew, Knight, the first Sir Henry's next brother, now
claims a short notice. He too--Killigrew-like--was about the Court,
for he was a Groom of the Privy Chamber to James I., and was sworn
in Chamberlain of the Exchequer on 28th November, 1605. He married
Margaret Saundars of Uxbridge, a widow lady; and they seem to have
been a steady-going old couple, to whom, it may be mentioned, John Fox
and Robert Some dedicated a volume of their sermons. There is some
correspondence about Sir William in the Lansdowne MSS. touching his
'farming' the Seals of the Queen's Bench and Common Pleas, to which the
Chief Justice of the latter court objected; and Sir William, who was
appointed to his post by Burghley, seems to have ultimately compromised
matters by receiving the sum of £3,000. The Additional MSS. contain
other references to him; but hardly anything of sufficient interest to
warrant our lingering over his share in the family history. He died at
Lothbury on 23rd November, 1622; and his portrait, with that of Thomas
Carew, by Van Dyck, is preserved in the collection of Her Majesty Queen
Victoria. Richard Carew says that he was 'the most kind patron of all
his country and countrymen's (county) affairs at Court.'
But from this Sir William and 'Mystresse Margarye' descended Killigrews
who have made some noise in the world, as we shall presently find.
Besides two daughters, Katherine and Elizabeth--both of whom married,
but make no figure in our story--they had a son, Sir Robert Killigrew
of Hanworth, a wealthy man, and Chamberlain to two Queens of England,
viz., Elizabeth and the hapless consort of Charles I. He too kept
up the old family connexion with Pendennis Castle--of which he was
made Governor in succession to Sir John Parker, on 11th June, 1632,
towards the close of his life; and he further served the Crown by
going, in 1625, as an Ambassador to the United Provinces. Sir Robert
was an original shareholder in the New River Company (incorporated
in 1619); and was a great stickler for his rights in the matter of
the reclaimed lands in Lindsey Level, Lincolnshire (as to which, see
Dugdale's 'History of Embanking'); moreover, Farnaby, the celebrated
schoolmaster, dedicated to him the 1624 edition of his translations of
'Martial's Epigrams.' He was once 'sequestered' for a manual scuffle in
the House, in 1614, as appears in Spedding's 'Works of Francis Bacon;'
and he was mixed up in the story about the poisoned powder administered
to Sir Thomas Overbury, though it was clearly proved that Killigrew
was not to blame in that matter; but it is nevertheless true that he
was sent from the Council Table to the Fleet Prison for talking with
Overbury at his prison-window, after having paid a visit to Sir Walter
Raleigh in the Tower of London.
Sir Robert gave Whitelocke 'a place for Helston,' whereupon Whitelocke
caused his brother-in-law Bulstrode to be returned for that place.
He must have had a fine seat at Hanworth; for Conway, writing to
Buckingham on 3rd May, 1623, says that on that day the King passed Sir
Robert Killigrew's, 'and there saw the designment of a fine ground: a
pretty lodge, a gracious lady, a fair maid, the daughter, and a fine
bouquet. He saw the pools, the deer, and the herondry; which was his
errand.'
When he took to himself a wife, he went to a good stock, for he
selected Mary Wodehouse, a daughter of Sir Henry Wodehouse, of
Kimberley, Norfolk,[78] known as the 'young' or the 'French' Lady
Killigrew. She was a niece of one whose name (erroneously as we apply
it) is familiar to every Englishman--I mean Lord Bacon. Of Sir Robert
himself, little more need be said here than that he died on the 26th
November, 1632; but his offspring will detain us much longer.
Sir Robert had six daughters and five sons; and it may be as well to
offer first the slight result of my inquiries into the careers of the
former.
They were about the Court of Charles II.; and one of them, Elizabeth,
who married Viscount Shannon, became one of the dissolute King's
mistresses. She died at her house in Pall Mall on 28th July, 1684,
and was buried in Westminster Abbey, 'having no Coat-of-arms of her
own, as the King had assigned her none.' Mary married Sir John James,
Knight; and has a monument at the east end of the north choir aisle
in Westminster Abbey. Of the others, I can only learn that they
married men of title--one the Earl of Yarmouth; another Berkeley, Lord
Fitz-Hardinge; and one married into a grand old Cornish family--the
Godolphins. Another, Anne, 'a beauty and a poetess,' was the first wife
of George Kirk, and the unhappy lady was drowned at London Bridge, in
the Queen's barge, in July, 1641; like so many others of her race, she
was interred in Westminster Abbey.
Robert, the eldest son, died young. The only trace I can find of him
is the following college exercise on the birth of Charles II.:
'Dum Solis radios abscondit Luna, videmus
Reginæ ex utero surgere Solem alium:
Quid tu, Phœbe, redis? et cur te pœnitet umbræ?
Non deerit, vel te deficiente, dies.'
His brother William, next in age, succeeded him as the representative
of the family--a position which he must have held for about seventy
years; for he was nearly ninety when he died, in or about 1694. When a
Gentleman Commoner of Oxford he wrote some verses, which Henry Lawes
thought good enough to set to music; he also wrote four plays; and when
he left the University (where he afterwards took the degree of D.C.L.),
he was forthwith welcomed at Court, and became a Gentleman Usher of
the Privy Chamber, and afterwards Vice-Chamberlain to Queen Katherine.
About 1661 he was made a Baronet, probably on account of his loyal
attachment to the late King, whose body-guard he often commanded. At
York, when the Civil War broke out in 1642, he commanded a troop of
cavalry, composed of servants and retainers of the 1st troop of Life
Guards, under Lord Bernard Stuart; and at Edgehill he was one of the
foremost in Prince Rupert's fiery charge--a charge which at once began
and had almost ended the battle.
Old Sir William kept up the Killigrew connexion with the West-country,
by being, in his turn also, made Governor of Pendennis; but he is best
known and remembered by two little books which he wrote very late in
life, and especially by his 'Artless Midnight Thoughts,' written when
he was eighty-two years old, and described by himself as the reflexions
'of a gentleman at Court, who for many years built on sand, which every
Blast of Cross Fortune has defaced; but now he has laid new Foundations
on the Rock of his Salvation, which no Storms can shake; and will
outlast the Conflagration of the World, when Time shall melt into
Eternity.'[79]
This curious little work is full of pious reflexions and thoughts,
both in prose and verse. It was dedicated first to Charles II., and
afterwards to James II., who had made his old age much happier than
ever his youth was, 'when I shared in all the glories of this Court,
and splendour of Four great Kings for three score years.' He himself
describes the book as 'a small parcel of such fruit as my little cell
in White Hall doth naturally produce from the barren brains of 82 years
old.' He also wrote some plays of a very different stamp from those of
his younger brother, as may be judged from the following lines:
'COMMENDATORY VERSES BEFORE THREE PLAYS[80] OF SIR WILLIAM
KILLIGREW.--(By T. L.)
'That thy wise and modest Muse
Flies the Stage's looser use;
Not bawdry _Wit_ does falsely name,
And to move laughter puts off shame:--
'That thy theatre's loud noise
May be virgin's chaste applause;
And the stoled matron, grave divine,
Their lectures done, may tend to thine:--
'That no actor's made profane,
To debase Gods, to raise thy strain;
And people forced, that hear thy Play,
Their money and their _souls_ to pay:--
'That thou leav'st affected phrase
To the shops, to use and praise;
And breath'st a noble Courtly vein,--
Such as may Cæsar entertain,
'When he wearied would lay down
The burdens that attend a crown;
Disband his soul's severer powers,
In mirth and ease dissolve two hours;--
'These are thy inferior arts,
These I call thy second parts;--
But, when thou carriest on the plot,
And all are lost in th' subtle knot,
* * * * *
'Th' easy and the even design;
A plot, without a God, divine!--
Let others' bold pretending pens
Write acts of Gods, that know not men's;
In this to thee all must resign;
Th' Surprise of th' Scene is wholly thine.'
He was buried at the Savoy some time between 1693 and 1695, and left
by his wife, Mary Hill, a Warwickshire lady, one son, Sir Robert,
Vice-Chamberlain to Queen Anne of Denmark, and some time Lord of
the Manor of Crediton, in Devon, whose only son Sir Henry died in
St. Giles'-in-the-Fields, without issue. Of his two daughters, one,
Elizabeth, married Sir Francis Clifton; the other, Mary, married
Frederic de Nassau, Lord of Zulestein. Their son William Henry was in
great favour with our William III., who, in 1695, created him Baron
Enfield, Viscount Tonbridge, and Earl of Rochford; but, as we have
seen, the descent, in _the male line_, from old Sir William became
extinct.
The venerable author of the 'Artless Thoughts' had, however, two
brothers--Thomas[81] and Henry--and of these we have now to speak. Of
the former, 'Tom Killigrew, the King's jester,' as he is sometimes
inaccurately styled--probably more persons have heard than of any other
member of this family; and for his fame he is indebted, perhaps, in as
great a degree to his being enshrined in the pages of that delightful
gossip, Samuel Pepys, as to his printed plays.
Tom was Sir Robert's fourth son, and was born in 1611. Very early he
became, through the family influence, a Page of Honour to Charles I.;
and he followed into exile that monarch's dissolute son, to whom, on
the Restoration, he became a Groom of the Bedchamber and Master of the
Revels, with a salary of £400 per annum. He seems to have added to his
income by taking fees from those who were silly enough to offer them
for using his interest in procuring for the gullible candidates the
post of 'King's physic-taster,' or His Majesty's 'curtain-drawer.'
Doubtless Killigrew was sometimes a minister to the profligacies of
the 'merry' monarch; yet he was also one who could venture to tell a
home-truth to the King when it was absolutely necessary, and when no
one else durst do it. The following story may serve as an example.
One day, Tom Killigrew came into the King's presence, clothed in
pilgrim's weeds, and with a staff in his hand, evidently prepared for
some long journey. 'Whatever are you about now, Killigrew?' cried the
King; 'where are you going?' 'To hell, sir!' replied Tom, 'to fetch
back one Oliver Cromwell to this unfortunate country; it was governed
badly enough in his time, but infinitely better then than it is now.'
An engraved portrait of him, dressed as a pilgrim, and another after
Wissing, representing him with a beard, and armed with a sword, are
preserved in the Print Room of the British Museum. Another instance
of his adroitness in recalling Charles to a sense of his duty may be
mentioned. The King found councils tedious; and would often leave them
before the business was concluded,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair,
greatly to the disgust of (amongst others) Lauderdale. Accordingly, on
a certain day, Tom Killigrew--between whom and the Chancellor no love
seems to have been lost--offered to bet £100 that _he_ could bring the
King to the council, though the minister himself could not. The bet
was concluded, and Killigrew started off after His Majesty, knowing
probably better than anyone else where he was likely to be found. At
once he disclosed to Charles what had happened, and urged the King to
let him win the bet, whereby he, Tom Killigrew, would be £100 (sorely
wanted, perhaps) in pocket; whilst Lauderdale, who was remarkable
for the tight grip with which he held his money, would be mulct in
that amount. Charles could not resist the double pleasure of annoying
Lauderdale and gratifying Killigrew, and so granted the latter's
request, and won his bet for him.
Thomas Killigrew was sent--not without some misgivings, as it would
seem--by Charles II., whilst in exile, as 'Resident' to Venice; and his
instructions from the King (with many other papers, some of which are
in Killigrew's own writing, are preserved among the Harleian MSS., in
the British Museum) throw an amusing light upon the circumstances of
the Ambassador and his Royal Master. They were, amongst other things,
'to presse the Duke to furnish Us with a present Some of Money and We
will engage Ourself by any Act or Acts to repay with Interest, and so
like wise for any Armes and Ammunition hee shalbe pleased to furnish Us
withall. The summe you shall moue him to furnish Us with shall be Ten
thousand Pistolls.'
Killigrew's first paper was presented to the Duke and Senate in Venice,
14th February, 1649-50. It consists of five closely-written folio pages
in Latin, and he quotes in it King James's saying of 'Sublato Episcopo
tollitur Rex,' in support of his arguments against the cause of 'the
Rebels,' who, Charles feared, might be sending an ambassador of their
own, on a similar errand, to that Court.
This mission does not seem to have proved very successful; and Tom
Killigrew and his servants got into sad disgrace at Venice with the
Doge, Francis, Erizzo, and other authorities, for their riotous
behaviour, the result being that the whole party were dismissed;
deservedly perhaps, but somewhat informally. On Thomas Killigrew's
return to the English Court, Sir John Denham addressed him in these
lines:
'Our Resident Tom
From Venice is come,
And has left all the statesmen behind him;
Talks at the same pitch,
Is as wise, and as rich,
And just where you left him you'll find him.
'But who says he's not
A man of much plot
May repent of this false accusation;
Having plotted and penned
Six plays, to attend
On the farce of his negotiation.'
The last three lines naturally lead us to a consideration of the
'Resident's' dramatic works, written, as he says, to beguile the tedium
of exile. Thomas Killigrew wrote eleven plays in all; and, according to
Genest, strictly speaking wrote but two at Venice; but the four written
at Naples, Rome, Turin and Florence, were probably completed before his
return to Paris. Dibdin, in his 'History of the Stage,' points out that
these plays are by no means original, tracing some of them to their
sources, and calling them 'paste-and-scissors' affairs. But this is not
their chief defect. I have, as I thought myself in duty bound, read
one of them, and intend never to read another. How it was possible,
even in that dissolute age--'never to be recalled,' as Macaulay says,
'without a blush'--for a man to sit down and deliberately write such
obscene buffoonery, and dedicate it to ladies--some of whom were his
own relations--I cannot imagine. Plays too, of which one, at least,
'The Parson's Wedding,' was to be performed wholly by women! and in
which the words assigned to those who played the women's parts are
scarcely less offensive than those supposed to be spoken by men![82] We
find ourselves indeed 'surrounded by foreheads of bronze, hearts like
the nether millstone, and tongues set on fire of hell.' I must add that
they have scarcely a sparkle of that witty wickedness which one meets
with in the writings of Sir Charles Sedley;--luckily they are dead, and
they deserved to die! It is difficult to find an extract which is now
presentable; and I can put my hand on no better specimen, on the whole,
than this: