of the days of the Tudors, it will probably be made apparent that
these circumstances do concur in the person to whom my Lord Herbert
ascribes the work. Men of little celebrity in their lives, and whose
track through the world cannot be discovered by the light of history,
are sometimes found attaining a faint and obscure "life after death"
in the herald's visitation books and the labours of the scrivener.
Those rolls of immortality are open to every man. They transmit to a
remote posterity the worthless and the silly with as much certainty as
the name of one who was instinct with the fire of genius, and whom a
noble ambition to be good and great distinguished from the common herd
of men. It is in these rolls only that the name of George Cavendish of
Glemsford is come down to us: he forms a link in the pedigree: he is a
medium in the transmission of manorial property.
[Sidenote: Obscurity of George Cavendish a presumption in his favour.]
But this very obscurity creates a presumption in favour of his claim.
What employment that should raise him into notice would be offered in
the days of Henry and Edward to the faithful and affectionate attendant
upon a character so unpopular among the great as the haughty, low-born
Wolsey? What should have placed his name upon public record who did
not, like Cromwell and some other of Wolsey's domestics, "find himself
a way out of his master's wreck to rise in" by throwing himself upon
the court, but retired, as Cavendish at the conclusion of the Memoirs
tells us he did, to his own estate in the country, with his wages, a
small gratuity, and a present of six of the Cardinal's horses to convey
his furniture? That, living at a distance from the court, he should
have been overlooked on the change of the times, cannot be surprising:
he was only one among many who would have equal claims upon Mary and
her ministry. Had she lived indeed till his work had been published,
we might then reasonably have expected to have seen a man of so much
virtue, and talent, and religious zeal, drawn from his obscurity, and
his name might have been as well known to our history as that of his
brother the reformist. But Mary died too soon for his hopes and those
of many others of his party, though not too soon for the interests
of religion and humanity. All expectation of seeing the admirer and
apologist of Wolsey emerge from his obscurity must end with the
accession of the protestant princess Elizabeth.
[Sidenote: What is known of George Cavendish of Glemsford.]
It is therefore not surprising, and on the whole rather favourable to
our argument, that nearly all which can now be collected of George
Cavendish of Glemsford is contained in the following passage extracted
from certain "Notices of the manor of Cavendish in Suffolk, and of the
Cavendish family while possessed of that manor," which was communicated
to the Society of Antiquaries by Thomas Ruggles, Esq., the owner of the
said manor[35]. Cavendish, it will be recollected, is a manor adjoining
to Glemsford, and which belonged to the same parties.
George Cavendish is stated to be the eldest son of Thomas Cavendish,
Esq. who was clerk of the pipe in the Exchequer. He "was in possession
of the manor of Cavendish Overhall, and had two sons; William was
the eldest, to whom, in the fourth year of Philip and Mary, 1558,
he granted by deed enrolled in Chancery this manor in fee, on the
said William, releasing to his father one annual payment of twenty
marks, and covenanting to pay him yearly for life, at the site of
the mansion-house of Spains-hall, in the parish of Finchingfield,
in the county of Essex, forty pounds, at the four usual quarterly
days of payment. When George Cavendishe died is uncertain: but it is
apprehended in 1561 or 1562.
"William Cavendishe his son was in possession of the manor in the
fourth year of Elizabeth."... "He was succeeded in this estate by his
son William Cavendysh of London, mercer, who, by that description,
and reciting himself to be the son of William Cavendishe, gentleman,
deceased, by deed dated the 25th of July, in the eleventh year of the
reign of Elizabeth, 1569, released all his right and title to this
estate, and to other lands lying in different parishes, to William
Downes of Sudbury, in Suffolk, Esq."
[Sidenote: His fortune decayed.]
[Sidenote: Married before 1526.]
This detail plainly intimates that decay of the consequence and
circumstances of a family which we might expect from the complaints
in the Memoirs of Wolsey, of the unequal dealings of fortune, and of
the little reward all the writer's "painfull diligence" had received.
We see George Cavendish, for a small annual payment in money, giving
up the ancient inheritance of his family, a manor _called after his
own name_: and only eleven years after, that very estate passed to
strangers to the name and blood of the Cavendishes by his grandson and
next heir, who was engaged in trade in the city of London. We find also
what we have the concurrent testimony of the heralds of that time to
prove, that this George Cavendish was married, and the father of sons:
but on a closer inspection we find more than this: we discover that
he must have been married as early as 1526, when we first find the
biographer of Wolsey a member of the Cardinal's household[36]. William
Cavendish, the younger, grandson to George Cavendish, must have been
of full age before he could convey the estate of his forefathers. He
was born therefore as early as 1548. If from this we take a presumed
age of his father at the time of his birth, we shall arrive at this
conclusion, that George Cavendish the grandfather was a family-man at
least as early as 1526.
[Sidenote: A Catholic.]
[Sidenote: Lived in the three reigns.]
To another point, namely, the religious profession of this Suffolk
gentleman, our proof, it must be allowed, is not so decisive. I rely
however, with some confidence, upon this fact, for which we are
indebted to the heralds, that _he was nearly allied to Sir Thomas
More_, the idol of the Catholic party in his own time, and the object
of just respect with good men in all times, Margery his wife being a
daughter of William Kemp of Spains-hall in Essex, Esq. by Mary Colt
his wife, sister to Jane, first wife of the Chancellor[37]. Indeed it
seems as if the Kemps, in whose house the latter days of this George
Cavendish were spent, were of the old profession. The extraordinary
penance to which one of this family subjected himself savours strongly
of habits and opinions generated by the Roman Catholic system. It is
perhaps unnecessary, in the last place, to remind the reader, that what
Mr. Ruggles has discovered to us of the owner of Cavendish shows that
his life was extended through the reigns of the second, third, and
fourth monarchs of the house of Tudor: now the family pedigrees present
us with no other George Cavendish of whom this is the truth. And here
the case is closed.
[Sidenote: Genealogy.]
It has been thought proper to annex the following genealogical table,
which exhibits the relationship subsisting among the several members of
the house of Cavendish whose names have been mentioned in the preceding
treatise.
THOMAS CAVENDISH, = ALICE, daughter and heir of
Clerk of the Pipe. | John Smith of Padbrook-hall,
Will dated 13th April, 1523. | co. Suff.
Died next year. |
|
+----------------------+----------------+
| |
GEORGE, = MARGERY, Sir WILLIAM, = ELIZABETH, third
of Glemsford and | daughter of of North | wife, daughter of
Cavendish, Esq. | Wm. Kemp, Awbrey, and | John Hardwick,
eldest son and heir, | of Spains-hall, Chatsworth, | of Hardwick, co.
Gentleman usher | Essex, Knt. Auditor | Derby, Esq. widow
to Cardinal Wolsey, | niece to Sir of the Court of | of Robert Barlow,
and writer of | Thos. More. Augmentations, | of Barlow, in the
his life. Born | &c. | same county. She
about 1500. Died | Under age 1523 | survived Cavendish,
about 1561 or 1562. | Died 1557. | and married Sir
| | Wm. St. Lowe,
| | and George 6th
| | Earl of Shrewsbury.
| |
+------------+ +-------+-------+
| | |
WILLIAM, 1. HENRY, 1. FRANCES,
gent. of Tutbury Wife of Sir
Owner of the _s. p._ Henry Pierrepoint.
manor of Cavendish | |
1562. | |
| | |
WILLIAM, 2. WILLIAM, 2. ELIZABETH,
of London, mercer. created Earl of Wife of Charles
Sold Cavendish Devonshire 16 Stuart, Earl of
1569. Jac. I. 1618. Lenox.
| |
| |
3. Sir CHARLES, 3. MARY,
of Welbeck, Wife of Gilbert
father of William Talbot, Earl of
Duke of Newcastle. Shrewsbury.
[Sidenote: Origin of the mistaken appropriation of this work.]
Supposing that the reader is convinced by the preceding evidence and
arguments, that this work could not be the production of Sir William
Cavendish, and that he was not the faithful attendant upon Cardinal
Wolsey, I shall give him credit for a degree of curiosity to know how
it happened that a story so far from the truth gained possession of the
public mind, and established itself in so many works of acknowledged
authority. That desire I shall be able to gratify, and will detain
him but a little while longer, when the disclosure has been made of a
process by which error has grown up to the exclusion of truth, in which
it will be allowed that there is something of curiosity and interest.
Error, like rumour, often appears _parva metu primo_, but, like her
also, _vires acquirit eundo_. So it has been in the present instance.
What was at first advanced with all the due modesty of probability
and conjecture, was repeated by another person as something nearer
to certain truth: soon every thing which intimated that it was only
conjecture became laid aside, and it appeared with the broad bold front
in which we now behold it.
[Sidenote: Kennet.]
The father of this misconception was no other than Dr. White Kennet. In
1708, being then only Archdeacon of Huntingdon, this eloquent divine
published a sermon which he had delivered in the great church at
Derby, at the funeral of William the first Duke of Devonshire. Along
with it he gave to the world Memoirs of the Family of Cavendish, in
which nothing was omitted that, in his opinion, might tend to set
off his subject to the best advantage. He lauds even the Countess
of Shrewsbury, and this at a time when he was called to contemplate
the virtues and all womanly perfections of Christian Countess of
Devonshire. It was not to be expected that he should forget the
disinterested attendant upon Wolsey, and the ingenious memorialist
of that great man's rise and fall; whose work had then recently been
given to the public in a third edition. After reciting from it some
particulars of Cavendish's attendance upon the Cardinal, and especially
noticing his faithful adherence to him when others of his domestics
had fled to find a sun not so near its setting, he concludes in these
words: "To give a more lasting testimony of his gratitude to the
Cardinal, he drew up a fair account of his life and death, of which the
oldest copy is in the hands of the noble family of Pierrepoint, into
which the author's daughter was married: for _without express authority
we may gather from circumstances_, that this very writer was the head
of the present family; the same person with the immediate founder of
the present noble family, William Cavendish of Chatsworth, com. Derb.
Esq." p. 63.
[Sidenote: Collins.]
The editors of the Peerages, ever attentive to any disclosure that
may add dignity to the noble families whose lives and actions are
the subjects of their labours, were not unmindful of this discovery
made by the learned Archdeacon. The book so popular in this country
under the name of Collins's Peerage was published by the industrious
and highly respectable Arthur Collins, then a bookseller at the
Black Boy in Fleet-street, in a single volume, in the year 1709. In
the account of the Devonshire family no more is said of Sir William
Cavendish than had been told by Dugdale, and than is the undoubted
truth[38]. But when, in 1712, a new edition appeared, we find added
to the account of Sir William Cavendish all that the Archdeacon had
said of Mr. Cavendish, the attendant upon Wolsey: but with this
remarkable difference, arising probably in nothing more blameworthy
than inattention, that while Kennet had written "for _without_ express
authority we may gather from circumstances, &c." Collins says, "for
_with_ express authority we may gather from circumstances, &c.[39]" A
third edition appeared in 1715, in two volumes, in which no change is
made in the Cavendish article[40]. In 1735 the Peerage had assumed a
higher character, and appeared with the arms engraven on copper-plates,
in four handsome octavo volumes. In this edition we find the whole
article has been recomposed; and we no longer hear of the _gathering
from circumstances_, or the _with_ or _without_ express authority; but
the account of Sir William Cavendish's connexion with the Cardinal is
told with all regularity, dovetailed with authentic particulars of his
life, forming a very compact and, seemingly, consistent story[41].
The only material change that has been introduced in the successive
editions of a work which has been so often revised and reprinted, has
arisen from the discovery made by some later editor, that my Lord
Herbert had quoted the work as the production of a George Cavendish.
The gentle editors were not however to be deprived of what tended in
their opinion so much to the credit of the house of Cavendish, and
rendered the account they had to give of its founder so much more
satisfactory. Without ceremony, therefore, they immediately put down
the quotation to the inaccuracy and inattention of that noble author.
[Sidenote: The Biographia.]
Having once gained an establishment in a work so highly esteemed and
so widely dispersed, and carrying a _primâ facie_ appearance of truth,
it is easy to see how the error would extend itself, especially as in
this country the number of persons is so small who attend to questions
of this nature, and as the means of correcting it were not so obvious
as since the publication of the "Ecclesiastical Biography." But it
assumed its most dangerous consequence by its introduction into the
Biographia. The greatest blemish of that extremely valuable collection
of English lives seems to be that its pages are too much loaded with
stale genealogy taken from the commonest of our books. Wherever Collins
afforded them information, the writers of that work have most gladly
accepted of it, and have
"----------whisper'd whence they stole
Their balmy sweets,"
by using in many instances his own words. His facts they seem to have
generally assumed as indubitable. In the present instance nothing
more was done than to new-mould the account given of Sir William
Cavendish in the later editions of the Peerage, and, by an unprofitable
generalization of the language, to make his mixture of truth and fable
more palatable to the taste of their readers.
[Sidenote: Bragg the bookseller.]
Poor Arthur Collins was not the only bookseller who took advantage of
the learned archdeacon's unfortunate conjecture. There was one Bragg,
a printer, at the Blue Ball in Ave Maria Lane, a man of no very high
character in his profession, who published in 1706 an edition of
Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, taken from the second edition by Dorman
Newman, and with all the errors and omissions of that most unfaithful
impression. Copies were remaining upon his shelves when Kennet's sermon
made its appearance. Rightly judging that this must cause inquiries to
be made after a book, the production of one who was the progenitor of
a person and family at that particular period, from a concurrence of
circumstances, the subject of universal conversation, he cancelled the
anonymous title-page of the remaining copies, and issued what he called
a "Second Edition," with a long Grub-street title beginning thus:
Sir William Cavendish's
Memoirs of the Life of Cardinal Wolsey,
&c.
This has sometimes been mistaken for a really new edition of the work.
[Sidenote: Editions of the work.]
And having thus adverted to the different editions, it may not be
improper to add a few words on the impressions which have been issued
of this curious biographical fragment. Till Dr. Wordsworth favoured the
public with his "Ecclesiastical Biography," what we had was rather an
abridgement than the genuine work. But even in its mutilated form it
was always popular, and the copies were marked at considerable prices
in the booksellers' catalogues.
The first edition, it is believed, is that in 4to, London, 1641, for
William Sheeres, with the title "The Negotiations of Thomas Woolsey,
the great Cardinall of England, &c. composed by one of his own
Servants, being his Gentleman-Usher." The second was in 12mo, London,
1667, for Dorman Newman, and is entitled "The Life and Death of Thomas
Woolsey, Cardinal, &c. written by one of his own Servants, being his
Gentleman-Usher." The third is the one just mentioned in 8vo, London,
1706, for B. Bragg, and having for its title "The Memoirs of that great
Favourite Cardinal Woolsey, &c." It is supposed that it was first
made public in order to provoke a comparison between Wolsey and the
unpopular Archbishop Laud. These are the only editions known to the
writer.
It is printed in the form of notes to Grove's History of the Life and
Times of Cardinal Wolsey[42], again in the Harleian Miscellany, and
in the selection from that work. And last of all, it forms a most
valuable part of the "Ecclesiastical Biography," published by Dr.
Wordsworth.
[Sidenote: The supposed edition of 1590.]
It must not however be concealed that mention has been made of a still
earlier edition than any of those above described. Bishop Nicholson, in
his English Historical Library[43], asserts that it was published at
London in 4to, 1590; and in this he is followed by Dodd the Catholic
historian. Nicholson's authority is not very high in respect of
bibliographical information; and there is great reason to believe that
he has here described an edition to be found only in the _Bibliotheca
abscondita_ of Sir Thomas Brown. This however is certain, that the
commentators on Shakspeare are agreed, that though the labours of
Cavendish must have been known in part to our great Dramatist, he has
followed them so closely in many of his scenes, it could have been only
by a perusal of them in manuscript, or by the ample quotations made
from them in the pages of Hollinshead and Stowe. Mr. Malone indeed
expressly affirms that they were not sent to the press before 1641.
The earliest edition known to the editor of the Censura Literaria,
whose intimate acquaintance with early English literature every one
acknowledges, and whose attention has been peculiarly drawn to this
work, was of that date. The catalogues, published and unpublished, of
most of our principal libraries have been consulted, and no earlier
edition than that of 1641 found in any one of them. No earlier
edition than that is to be found in the Royal Library at Paris. It
appears, therefore, on the whole, most probable that though there
are undoubtedly black-letter stores, which the diligence of modern
bibliomaniacs has not brought to light, no such edition exists, as
that which the author of the English Historical Library tells us was
published in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and during the height of the
persecutions which she authorized against the Catholics. Under this
persuasion the succeeding sheets have been composed.
It is possible that Bishop Nicholson may have been misled by another
work on the same subject; The Aspiring, Triumph, and Fall of Wolsey,
by Thomas Storer, Student of Christ Church. This appeared in _quarto_,
1599.
[Sidenote: Conclusion.]
The writer now lays down his pen with something like a persuasion that
it will be allowed he has proved his two points,--that Sir William
Cavendish of Chatsworth could not have been the author of the Life of
Wolsey, and that we owe the work to his brother George Cavendish of
Glemsford. The necessary inference also is, that the foundation of the
present grandeur of the house of Cavendish was not laid, as is commonly
understood, in an attendance upon Cardinal Wolsey, and in certain
favourable circumstances connected with that service. The inquiry,
even in all its bearings, like many other literary inquiries, cannot
be considered as of very high importance. The writer will not however
affect to insinuate that he considers it as of no consequence. In works
so universally consulted as the Biographia and the Peerages, it is
desirable that no errors of any magnitude should remain undetected and
unexposed. Error begets error, and truth begets truth: nor can any one
say how much larger in both cases may be the offspring than the sire. I
do not indeed scruple to acknowledge, that, though not without a relish
for inquiries which embrace objects of far greater magnitude, and a
disposition justly to appreciate their value, I should be thankful to
the man who should remove my uncertainty, as to whose countenance was
concealed by the _Masque de Fer_, or would tell me whether Richard
was the hunch-backed tyrant, and Harry "the nimble-footed mad-cap"
exhibited by our great dramatist; whether Charles wrote the Εικων
Βασιλικη, and Lady Packington "The whole Duty of Man." Not that I would
place this humble disquisition on a level with the inquiries which have
been instituted and so learnedly conducted into these several questions.
In one material point, however, even this disquisition may challenge an
equality with them. There is a much nearer approach made to _certainty_
than in the discussions of any of the abovementioned so much greater
questions.
There are amongst readers of books some persons whose minds being
every moment occupied in the contemplation of objects of the highest
importance, look down with contempt upon the naturalist at his
_leucophræ_, the critic at his μεν and δε work, the
astronomer at his _nebulæ_, and the toiling antiquary at every thing.
One word to these gentlemen before we part. To them may be recommended
the words of a writer of our own day, a man of an enlarged and highly
cultivated mind:--
"He who determines with certainty a single species of the minutest
moss, or meanest insect, adds so far to the general stock of human
knowledge, which is more than can be said of many a celebrated name.
No one can tell of what importance that simple fact may be to future
ages: and when we consider how many millions of our fellow-creatures
pass through life without furnishing a single atom to augment that
stock, we shall learn to think with more respect of those who do."
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Kippis's Edit. vol. iii. p. 321.
[8] Vol. i. p. 302.
[9] Vol. i. p. 314.
[10] See the marginal references in the Biographia and the Peerages.
[11] Catalogue Harl. MSS. No. 428.
[12] Vol. ii. p. 51.
[13] In his 'Ecclesiastical Biography; or, Lives of eminent Men
connected with the History of Religion in England,' 6 vols. 8vo. a
useful and valuable collection, Dr. Wordsworth very properly rejected
the parenthesis, "at which time it was apparent that he had poisoned
himself," which had been introduced into the printed copies without
the authority of the manuscripts. The editor of the Censura Literaria
once intimated his intention to prepare an edition of this work. (C. L.
iii. 372.) How could the press of Lee Priory, of whose powers we have
had so many favourable specimens, have been more worthily engaged than
in producing a correct edition of this valuable piece of antiquarian
lore,--except in favouring the public with more of its able director's
own feeling and beautiful essays?
[14] Vol. i. p. 321.
[15] The reader will bear in mind that this passage was written in
1814, when the writer could not, for obvious reasons, have been
acquainted with the claims of Mr. Lloyd's manuscript, to be considered
as the _original autograph_ of the author. I will here take occasion
to observe that, to the manuscripts enumerated above, two more may
be added, described in the preface to the Life, which are in the
possession of the writer of this note. S. W. S.
[16] It appears by the Catalogus MSS. Anglie that there were two copies
in the library of Dr. Henry Jones, rector of Sunningwell in Berks, both
in folio: and a third also in folio among the MSS. of the Rev. Abraham
De la Pryme, F. R. S. of Thorne in Yorkshire. There was a copy in the
very curious library formed about the middle of the last century by Dr.
Cox Macro at his house, Norton near St. Edmund's Bury.