who had formerly lived under the protection of a Mr. Best, a friend of
his lordship. Some mutual acquaintance told him that Best had said
something slighting of him to this woman. This so exasperated Lord
Camelford that on March 6th, 1804, meeting Mr. Best in the Prince of
Wales's Coffee-house, he went up to him and said in threatening tones:
"I find, sir, that you have spoken of me in most unwarrantable terms."
Mr. Best replied that he was quite unconscious of having done so. Lord
Camelford, then speaking loud enough for every one present to hear,
declared that he knew well enough what Best had said to Mrs. Simmons,
and that he esteemed him, Best, to be "a scoundrel, a liar, and a
ruffian."
Best could do no other than send him a challenge, but with it an
assurance that his lordship had been misinformed, as no such words had
ever passed his lips. He expected, accordingly, that Lord Camelford
would acknowledge his mistake, and then all would be as before. But
Lord Camelford would listen to no explanation, and a meeting was
appointed to take place the following morning.
Lord Camelford went to his lodgings in Bond Street, and there wrote
his will, and added to it the following declaration: "There are many
other matters, which at another time I might be inclined to mention,
but I will say nothing more at present than that in the present
contest I am fully and entirely the aggressor, as well in the spirit
as in the letter of the word. Should I, therefore, lose my life in a
contest of my own seeking, I most solemnly forbid any of my friends or
relations, let them be of whatsoever description they may, from
instituting any vexatious proceedings against my antagonist; and
should, notwithstanding the above declaration on my part, the laws of
the land be put in force against him, I desire that this part of my
will may be made known to the King, in order that his royal heart may
be moved to extend his mercy towards him."
From this it would appear that Lord Camelford was convinced that he
had made a mistake, and no longer believed that Best had used the
expressions attributed to him. At the same time he was too proud to
admit that he had been mistaken, and submit to make a public apology.
His lordship quitted his lodgings between one and two on the morning
of Wednesday, the 7th March, and slept at a tavern, with a view to
avoid the officers of the police, should they get wind of the proposed
meeting and prevent it.
Agreeably to the appointment made by the seconds, Lord Camelford and
Mr. Best met early in the morning at a coffee-house in Oxford Street,
and here again Mr. Best made an attempt at a reconciliation, and
renewed the assurance that he never had uttered the words reported to
have been said by him. "Camelford," said he, "we have been friends,
and I know the unsuspecting generosity of your nature. Upon my honour,
you have been imposed upon by a strumpet. Do not insist on prosecuting
a quarrel in which one of us must fall."
To this Lord Camelford replied, "Best, this is child's play! the thing
must go on."
Mr. Best was esteemed the best shot in England, and his lordship
dreaded, should he retract the offensive words used by himself at the
coffee-house, that malicious folk might say he did it out of fear.
Accordingly his lordship and Mr. Best, on horseback, took the road to
Kensington, followed by a post-chaise, in which were the two seconds.
On their arrival at the "Horse and Groom," about a quarter to eight,
the parties dismounted, and proceeded along the path leading to the
fields behind Holland House. The seconds measured the ground, and they
took their station at the distance of thirty paces. Lord Camelford
fired first, but missed his aim. A space of some seconds intervened,
and then Best fired; whereupon Lord Camelford fell.
The seconds, together with Mr. Best, at once ran to his assistance,
when he is said to have grasped the hand of his antagonist, and to
have said, "Best, I am a dead man; you have killed me, but I freely
forgive you."
The report of the pistols had attracted attention, and several persons
were seen running up, whereupon Best and his second got into the
post-chaise and drove off at a gallop.
One of Lord Holland's gardeners now approached, and Lord Camelford's
second ran to summon a surgeon, Mr. Thompson, of Kensington, and bring
him to the spot.
Meanwhile the gardener hallooed to his fellows to stop the
post-chaise; but the dying man interposed, saying "that he did not
wish them to be arrested; he was himself the aggressor, and he forgave
the gentleman as he trusted that God would forgive him."
Meanwhile a sedan-chair was procured, and his lordship was conveyed to
Little Holland House, the residence of a Mr. Ottey, and a messenger
was despatched to the Rev. W. Cockburne, Lord Camelford's cousin, to
inform him as to what had taken place. That gentleman at once
communicated with the police, and then hurried to his noble relative.
By this time others had arrived, Mr. Knight, the domestic surgeon of
his lordship, and his most intimate friend, Captain Barrie. The wound
was examined, and was pronounced to be mortal.
Lord Camelford continued in agonies of pain during the whole day, when
laudanum was administered, and he was able to obtain some sleep during
the night, so that in the morning he felt easier.
During the second day his spirits revived, and he conversed with those
about his bed. The surgeons, however, could not give the smallest hope
of recovery. To the Rev. W. Cockburne, who remained with him till he
expired, his lordship expressed his confidence in the mercy of God;
and he said that he received much comfort from the reflection that he
felt no ill-will against any man. In the moments of his greatest pain
he cried out that he trusted the sufferings he endured might be
accepted as some expiation for the crimes of his life.
He lingered, free from acute pain, from Thursday till Saturday
evening, about half-past eight, when mortification set in and he
breathed his last.
On the evening of his decease an inquest was held on the body, and a
verdict of wilful murder returned against "some person or persons
unknown."
Thereupon a bill of indictment was preferred against Mr. Best and his
second, but this was ignored by the grand jury.
As Thomas, the second Baron Camelford, died without issue, Boconnoc
passed to his sister, Lady Grenville.
A life of Lord Camelford, with portrait, was published in London
(Mace, New Russell Court, Strand), 1804.
The Rev. W. Cockburne also wrote _An Authentic Account of the late
Unfortunate Death of Lord Camelford_, London (J. Hatchard), 1804. As
in this he animadverted on the negligence of the magistrates in not
preventing the duel, Mr. Cockburne was answered by one of them, Philip
New, in _A Letter to the Rev. Wm. Cockburne_, London (J. Ginger,
Piccadilly), 1804.
WILLIAM NOYE
Cornwall has no great cause to boast of William Noye as her son. He
was undoubtedly a shrewd, subtle, and learned lawyer; but he was
wholly without principle and consistency.
He was the son of Edward Noye, of Carnanton, in Mawgan parish, and
grandson of William Noy, or Noye, of Pendrea, in Buryan. He was born at
this latter place, it is asserted, in 1577. In 1593 he entered Exeter
College, Oxford, and thence removed to Lincoln's Inn to study common
law. He represented Grampound in Parliament 1603-14, Fowey 1623-5, S.
Ives 1625-7, Helston 1627-31. In Parliament he proved himself an able
and determined opponent to the encroachment of the Royal prerogative.
Hals says: "In the beginning of the reyne of King Charles I he was
specially famous for beinge one of the boldest and stoutest champions of
the subjects' liberty in Parliament that the western parts of England
afforded; which beinge observed by the Court party, Kinge Charles was
advised by his Cabinet Councill that it wold be a prudent course to
divert the force and power of Noye's skill, logick, and rhetorique
another waye, by givinge him som Court preferment. Whereupon Kinge
Charles made him his Attorney-General, 1631, by which expedient he was
soon metamorphized from an asserter of the subjects' liberty and
property to a most zealous and violent promoter of the despotick and
arbitrary prerogative or monarchy of his Prince; soe that like the
image of Janus at Rome, he looked forward and backward, and by means
thereof greatly enriched himself.--Amongst other things, he is reflected
upon by our chronologers for beinge the principal contriver of the
ship-money tax, layd by Kinge Charles upon his subjects for settinge
forth a navye, or fleet of shipps at sea, without the consent of Lords
or Commons in Parliament, which moneys were raysed by writt of the
sheriffs of all countys and commissioners, and for a long tyme brought
into the exchequer twenty thousand pound per mensem, to the greate
distast of the Parliament, the layety, and clergye, who declard against
it as an unlawfull tax."
Noye's appointment as Attorney-General was on October 27th, 1631. He was
not the only one who was a turncoat. Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards
created Earl of Strafford, Sir Dudley Digges, and Littleton also
apostatized. Wentworth, the most renowned of the set, after being one of
the sturdiest of the reformers and boldest declaimers in the House of
Commons--after suffering imprisonment for refusing to contribute to the
forced loan--this eminent person, a gentleman of Yorkshire, who boasted
his descent, by bastardy, from the royal line of the Plantagenets, out
of a very ignoble rivalry and an ambition for rank and title (even his
friends could discover no purer motives), sold himself body and soul to
the Court. Sir Dudley Digges, though a spirited debater and a man of
talent, had been known for some time to be without principle, and, upon
being offered the post of Master of the Rolls, he closed at once with
the bargain and turned round upon his former friends.
Noye and Littleton were both distinguished lawyers. Noye's _Treatise
of the Principall Grounds and Maximes_ _of the Laws of this
Kingdom_ has gone through numerous editions down to 1870. His
_Compleat Lawyer_ has also been republished frequently. Noye as
Attorney-General, and Littleton as Solicitor-General, now used their
wits and their knowledge to explain and stretch the prerogative, and
they did this apparently without a blush at the recollection of their
previous conduct when they had combated for the rights of Parliament
and the liberties of the people.
[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM NOYE, ATTORNEY GENERAL TO KING CHARLES THE
FIRST]
Among Howell's _Familiar Letters_ is one to Sir Arthur Ingram at York.
"Our greatest news here now is, that we have a new Attorney-General,
which is news indeed, considering the humour of the man, how he hath
been always ready to entertain any cause whereby he might clash with
the Prerogative: but now Judg Richardson told him, his head full of
Proclamations and Decrees, how to bring money into the Exchequer. He
hath lately found out amongst the old records of the Tower some
precedents for raising a tax called Ship-Money in all the Port-Towns
when the kingdom is in danger. Whether we are in danger or no, at
present 'twere presumption in me to judg."
That England needed a fleet to protect her could not be disputed.
Howell admits as much. "One with half an eye may see we cannot be
secure while such large fleets of men-of-war, both Spanish, French,
Dutch, and Dunkirkers, some of them laden with ammunition, men, arms,
and armies, do daily sail on our seas and confront the King's chambers
(guns), while we have only three or four ships abroad to guard our
coast and kingdom, and to preserve the fairest flower of the crown,
the dominion of the Narrow Sea, which I hear the French Cardinal
begins to question, and the Hollander lately would not vail to one of
His Majesties ships that brought over the Duke of Lenox and my Lord
Weston from Bullen (Boulogne); and indeed we are jeer'd abroad that we
send no more ships to guard our seas."[20]
Dunkirk was peculiarly obnoxious, as it was a nest of pirates that fell
on our small trading vessels, and even Algerines came with impunity to
our coasts and carried off captives as slaves in Africa. The Dutch,
taking advantage of the domestic broils in England, had greatly advanced
their commerce, and were prepared to dispute with England the command of
the Channel. They excluded English vessels from the northern fisheries,
and went so far as to claim and to exercise the right of fishing along
the English coasts. The Navy of France, moreover, was also rapidly
augmented, under the fostering care of Richelieu.
Hitherto the ports on the coast had contributed towards the defence of
the land and the protection of our shipping, but the inland towns had
been exempted. This was not reasonable, and Charles resolved on
imposing a general tax to provide England with a fleet. He had
recourse to Noye instead of placing the matter before Parliament.
Noye, says Clarendon, "was wrought upon by degrees by the great
persons that steered the public affairs to be an instrument in all
their designs, turning his learning and industry to the discovery of
sources of revenue, and to the justifying them when found--thinking
that he could not give a clearer testimony that his knowledge of the
law was greater than all other men's, than by making that law which
all other men believed to be not so. So he moulded, framed, and
pursued the odious and crying project of soap, and with his own hand
drew and prepared the writ for ship-money, both which will be lasting
monuments of his fame."
About the soap monopoly presently.
The first writ was issued by the Lords of the Council "for the
assessing and levying of the ship-money against this next spring," on
the 20th October, 1634. It was signed by the King, and was addressed
to the mayor, commonalty and citizens of London, and to the sheriffs
and good men in the said city and in the liberties thereof. They were
commanded by the 1st March to provide one ship of war of 900 tons with
350 men at the least, one other ship of war of 800 tons and 260 men at
the least, four other ships of war of 500 tons with 200 men in each,
and another ship of war of 300 tons with 150 men. They were further
ordered to supply those ships with guns, powder, and all necessary
arms, with double tackling, provisions, and stores; as also to defray
at their charges the men's wages for twenty-six weeks. The Common
Council remonstrated, declaring that by their ancient liberties they
ought to be free from any such burden; but the Privy Council rejected
the remonstrance, and compelled submission.
At the beginning of the following year, 1635, the writs, after having
been served along the sea-board, were sent to the inland counties, but
from them money was asked in lieu of ships at the rate of £3300 for
every ship, and the local magistrates were empowered to assess all the
inhabitants for a contribution.
In spite of the resistance offered to the exaction of this tax in 1635
and the following year a fleet was raised, the Dutch fishing vessels
were driven from the coast, and a number of English slaves were
rescued from Moorish pirates.
Howell wrote to Mr. Philip Warwick in Paris:[21] "The greatest news we
have here is that we have a gallant Fleet Royal ready to set to sea for
the security of our Coasts and Commerce, and for the sovereignty of our
seas. Hans (the Hanseatic League) said the King of England was asleep
all the while, but now he is awake. Nor, do I hear, doth your French
Cardinal tamper any longer with our King's title and right to the
dominion of the Narrow Seas. These are brave fruits of the Ship-Money."
The King was still in great straits for money, and he turned for help
to Noye. The Parliament had insisted on the suppression of monopolies,
but Charles revived them by Noye's advice; and for the sum of £10,000
which they paid for their patent, and for a duty of £8 upon every ton
of soap they should make, he granted to a company a charter according
to it the exclusive privilege to make and to sell soap. The patent had
a proviso in it permitting every soap-boiler then exercising his trade
in England to become a member of the chartered company; and that
precious turncoat, Noye, who devised the project, considered that in
this way he had evaded the letter of the law, as the Act of Parliament
forbidding monopolies had been directed against individuals and
against some two or three monopolists favoured by the Court. These
incorporated soap-boilers, as part of their bargains, received powers
to appoint searchers; and they exercised a sort of inquisition over
the trade. Such dealers as resisted their interference, or tried to
make soap on their own account, were handed over to the tender mercies
of the Star Chamber.
This precedent was followed by the creation of a similar company of
starch-makers.
The King and Laud, who had been promised the primacy on the death of
Archbishop Abbot, were embarked together on an evil course. Laud
believed in the Divine Right of Kings, and he was a man totally devoid
of suavity of manner and of breadth of mind. He would compel all men to
think as he thought, and act as he chose. That wheat and tares should
grow together till the harvest was a doctrine of the Gospel he could not
comprehend, and his energies and power were directed towards the
forcible uprooting of the tares in the field of the Church, and the
tares were the heterodox Puritans. Between him and the King they would
allow no liberty to men either in their bodies and goods, or in their
souls and consciences. That there should be crabbed and crooked sticks
Laud would not allow; all must be clean and straight as willow wands. To
the civil despotism alone as exercised by Charles, the English people
might possibly have submitted for some time longer, for the ship-money
had produced the desired effect; but the scourge of Laud lashed them to
fury. And Noye was the scourge Laud employed in the Star Chamber. Hammon
Le Strange, in his _Life of King Charles I_, says that Noye became so
servilely addicted to the King's prerogative, by ferreting out old penal
statutes and devising new exactions, that he was the most pestilential
vexation of the subject that the age produced.
When William Prynne, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, was brought (1634)
before the Star Chamber to answer for his book _Histrio-Mastix, or the
Players' Scourge_, it was Noye who filed information against him.
Prynne attacked all plays, masques, and dances. The offence charged
against him was this: "Although he knew that His Majesty's royal
Queen, the Lords of the Council, etc. were in festivals oftentimes
present spectators of some masques and dances, and many recreations
that were tolerable and in themselves sinless, and so declared to be
by a book printed in the time of His Majesty's royal father; yet Mr.
Prynne, in his book, hath railed not only against stage-plays,
comedies, dancings, and all other exercises of the people, and against
all such as frequent or behold them; but further, in particular,
against hunting, public festivals, Christmas-keeping, bond-fires, and
May-poles; nay, even against the dressing up of houses with green
ivy." He was further accused of directly casting aspersions upon the
Queen, and of stirring up the people to discontent against the King,
whom he had spoken of in "terms unfit for so sacred a person."
The whole tenor of the book, according to Noye, was not less against
the Church of England than against these amusements, and their Sacred
Majesties for countenancing them. "The music in the Church," said the
Attorney-General, "the charitable terms he giveth it is, not to be a
noise of men, but rather a bleating of bruit beasts; choristers bellow
the tenor as it were oxen, bark a counter-point as a kennel of dogs,
roar out a treble like a sort of bulls, grunt out a bass as it were a
number of hogs ... also his general censure of all the bishops and of
all the clergy; they scorn to feed the poor--these silk and satin
divines. Very charitable terms upon those of the Church. Christmas, as
it is kept, is a devil's Christmas--nay, he doth bestow a great number
of pages to make men affect the name of Puritan, as though Christ were
a Puritan, and so he saith in his Index."
The fact was Prynne was a narrow-minded, cantankerous fanatic, whose
only idea of religion was of an acrid nature, and who looked upon all
entertainments as wicked. He complained that forty thousand playbooks
had been sold in London, and that there was no keen demand for printed
sermons; that Ben Jonson's plays and poems had been published on
better paper than Bibles.
Instead of treating Prynne, as a religious maniac, with good-humoured
contempt, he was sentenced by the Star Chamber to pay £10,000, be
branded on the forehead, have his nostril slit, and his ears cropped.
This infamous sentence was executed, and then Prynne was sent to the
Fleet, where he was to endure imprisonment till he retracted and
apologized. So far from apologizing, he sent from the Fleet to Laud a
stinging letter about the Star Chamber sentences, which letter Laud
showed to the King, and then, by the King's command, showed it to
Noye. Noye had Prynne forthwith brought to his chamber, exhibited the
letter, and asked him whether he acknowledged his handwriting. Prynne
replied that he could not tell unless he were allowed a close
inspection of it. The letter being then placed in his hands, and Mr.
Attorney Noye having retired to his closet for a pressing necessity,
Prynne, when his back was turned, tore it to shreds and threw the
scraps out of the window. Noye then brought Prynne again before the
Star Chamber, but Laud now interfered, and urged that the matter of
the insulting letter might not be pressed against him.
In 1636, as soon as he could get hold of ink and paper, this
incorrigible pamphleteer published fresh attacks on the bishops, among
others _News from Ipswich_, under the name of Matthew White. He was
again dragged before the Star Chamber, and was fined £5000 and ordered
to lose the rest of his ears, to be branded on both cheeks with "S.
L." for "Seditious Libeller." Noye, however, had no part in this final
persecution; nor did he live to see the results to the King of the
course he had recommended and which had been pursued.
His health began to fail, and he went to Tunbridge Wells to drink the
waters. They, however, did him no good, and he died on the 9th August,
1635, at the Wells, and was buried in New Brentford Church on the
ensuing 11th August.
Howell, in a letter to Viscount Savage dated 1st October, 1635, wrote:
"The old steward of your Courts, Master Attorney-General Noy, is
lately dead, nor could Tunbridge Waters do him any good. Though he had
good matter in his brain, he had, it seems, ill materials in his body,
for his heart was shrivelled like a leather penny-purse when he was
dissected, nor were his lungs found.
"Being such a Clerk in the Law, all the world wonders he left such an
odd will, which is short and in Latin. The substance of it is, that he
having bequeathed a few Legacies, and left his second son one hundred
marks a year, and nine hundred pounds in money, enough to bring him up
in his Father's Profession, he concludes: _Reliqua meorum omnia
primogenito meo Edwardo, dissipanda nec melius unquam (speravi) lego_:
I leave the rest of my goods to my firstborn Edward (mistake for
Humphry), to be consum'd or scattered (for I never hoped better). A
strange, and scarce a Christian Will, in my opinion, for it argues
uncharitableness. Nor doth the world wonder lesse, that he should
leave no Legacy to some of your Lordship's children, considering what
deep obligations he had to your Lordship; for I am confident he had
never bin Attorney-General else."