exemplary woman than to quote the words of her distinguished son,
Edward, tenth Lord Herbert of Cherbury: ‘My mother, Magdalen, was the
fourth daughter of Sir Richard Newport, by his wife, Margaret, daughter
and heir of Sir Thomas Bromley, one of the Privy Council, and Executor
of King Henry the Eighth. She married Richard Herbert, grandson of Sir
Richard Herbert of Blackhall, County Montgomery, Knight, and surviving
her husband, gave rare testimonies of an incomparable piety to God and
love to her children. She was most assiduous and devout in her daily,
both private and public, prayers, and so careful to provide for her
posterity, that though it were in her power to give her estate, which
was very great, to whom she would, yet she continued long unmarried, and
so provident for them, that after she had bestowed all her daughters
with sufficient portions upon very good neighbouring families she
delivered up her estate and care of her housekeeping to her eldest son
Francis. She had for many years kept hospitality with that plenty and
order as exceeded all, either of her county or town, for besides
abundance of provision and good cheer for guests, which her son Sir
Francis continued, she used ever after dinner to distribute with her own
hands to the poor, who resorted to her in great numbers. Alms in money
she gave also, more or less, as she thought they needed it. After my
mother had lived most virtuously and lovingly with her husband for many
years (who died in 1597), she after his death erected a fair monument
for him in Montgomery Church, brought up her children carefully, and put
them in good courses for making their fortunes, and briefly was that
woman Dr. Donne has described in his funeral sermon.’
Speaking of his father Lord Herbert says: ‘He was black-haired, and
bearded, of a manly but somewhat stern look, but withal very handsome;
compact in his limbs, and of a great courage.’ His grandfather was also
distinguished for the same quality, and was noted to be a great enemy to
the outlaws and thieves of his time, who appeared in great numbers in
the mountains of Montgomeryshire. Lord Herbert also commends his
grandfather’s extreme hospitality, which caused it to be an ordinary
saying, if any one saw a fowl rise in the country at that time—‘Fly
where thou wilt, thou wilt light at Blackhall.’
Mistress Herbert had seven sons, of whom the eldest was the
aforementioned Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and three daughters. She seems
to have merited her son’s encomiums. Izaak Walton says of her: ‘She was
a person of superior abilities, and was highly esteemed for her great
and harmless wit, cheerful gaiety, and obliging behaviour, which gained
her a friendship with most of any eminent birth or learning in the
University of Oxford, where she resided four years during the time of
her widowhood, in order to superintend the education of her children,
who were all young at the time of their father’s death. When she had
provided for them she took to her second husband, Sir John Danvers,
Knight, brother and heir to Henry, Earl of Danby, who highly valued both
her person and most excellent endowments of mind. It was Magdalen
Newport, Mrs. Herbert, and Dame Danvers, who inspired those favourite
lines of Dr. Donne, Dean of St. Paul’s, so often quoted—
‘No spring or summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in an autumnal face.’
She lies buried at Chelsea.
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No. 44. THOMAS CROMWELL, EARL OF ESSEX.
_Black and white dress._
BY HOLBEIN.
HE was the son of a blacksmith at Putney; his mother, who married again,
sent him to a small school, where he learned little more than reading,
writing, and the rudiments of Latin. When quite young he evinced a
passion for travel, and set out for the Continent with very scanty
means, which were soon exhausted, and he found himself at Antwerp
without money or connections of any kind. But he was energetic and
hard-working, and he soon found employment as a clerk in an English
factory established in the city. Glad as Cromwell was to earn his
livelihood, the drudgery and confinement of the life were irksome to the
eager restless spirit of our young adventurer, and he took advantage of
the first opportunity to escape. He made acquaintance with some
countrymen from Boston in Lincolnshire, bound for Rome, in order to
obtain certain indulgences from the reigning Pope, Julius the Second.
These men soon became aware that Cromwell’s intelligence and capability
were likely to make him a valuable fellow-traveller. They therefore
proposed to convey him to Italy, an offer with which it may be imagined
Cromwell eagerly closed. At Rome he rose into favour at the Vatican by
his talent and ability, added to which substantial qualifications our
young traveller made himself acceptable to the Pope by ministering to
the well-known tastes of Julius for good living. He is said to have
instructed the Papal cook in the art of preparing many a delicacy for
the Pontiff’s table, till then unknown in Rome, especially ‘_some rare
English jellies, which his Holiness pronounced delicious_.’ Italy was at
that period the theatre of constant warfare, and Cromwell became not
only a spectator, but an actor in many of the exciting events, serving
for a time as trooper in the army of the Duke, afterwards Connétable, de
Bourbon.
This great commander had left the service of France in disgust, and had
espoused the cause of Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Germany. A companion
in arms was John Russell, eventually Earl of Bedford; a man who shone
alike as a soldier and a diplomatist, and had been employed in the
latter capacity by Henry the Eighth, and his prime minister, Cardinal
Wolsey. Being at Bologna a plot was formed to seize his person and send
him prisoner to Paris, the hotel in which he lodged being already
guarded by the soldiers of the Gonfaloniere. Thomas Cromwell was also in
Bologna at that time, and no sooner did he receive intelligence of the
affair than he went to the municipal authorities representing himself as
a Neapolitan acquaintance of the English knight, and offering to
persuade him to give himself up quietly. He thus gained access to
Russell’s presence, and providing him with the disguise of a peasant
contrived in the most skilful manner to effect his escape. Russell urged
his deliverer to accompany him, but Cromwell was not disposed to leave
Italy so soon, and entered the service of a rich merchant at Venice.
Cromwell was said to have been present at the battle of Pavia, where
Francis the First of France was taken prisoner. On his return to
England, the man whose life and liberty he had saved, came forward to
lend him a helping hand.
Russell, then in much repute at Court, recommended him to the patronage
of Wolsey, then in the zenith of his power. The Cardinal took Cromwell
into his service and confidence, and made him secretary and chief agent
in the great scheme of the dissolution of the religious houses, which
was now carrying on, the funds thus raised being ostensibly apportioned
to defraying the expenses attendant on the erection of the colleges
which Wolsey was now founding—
‘Those twin seats of learning,
Ipswich and Oxford.’
But there were whisperings abroad that much of the money thus obtained
overflowed into the pockets of ‘master and man,’ a circumstance which
Cromwell emphatically denied in a conversation with Master George
Cavendish, one of the Cardinal’s gentlemen, and his eventual biographer.
The question of Cromwell’s fidelity to his master, when Wolsey fell on
evil days, has been differently treated by different writers; but there
is no doubt that when Wolsey left London in disgrace, Cromwell followed
him to Esher—or Asher, as it is written by Master Cavendish—who tells us
he went into the great chamber, and to his surprise found Master
Cromwell standing in the large window, the tears distilling from his
eyes, with a primer in his hand, praying earnestly,—‘the which was a
strange sight,’ for it did not appear that the said Master Cromwell was
by any means given to devotion. Cavendish inquired into the cause of his
sorrow, asking anxiously if he considered their master’s case to be so
very hopeless, on which Cromwell, with much candour, confessed that it
was his own fate he was bewailing, for it seemed most likely that he was
on the point of losing everything for which he had been travailing all
the days of his life; moreover, that he was in disdain of all men simply
for doing his master’s service, through which he had never increased his
living, on the contrary, had been a heavy loser. Then he confided to
Master Cavendish how, that very afternoon, when the Cardinal had dined,
it was his (Cromwell’s) intention to ride with all speed to London, and
so to Court, ‘where I will either make or mar ere I come back again.’
Assuredly in the audience which he solicited and obtained did Master
Cromwell make, and not mar, as far as he himself was concerned. He had a
long and explicit conversation with the King, into whose favour he
ingratiated himself by suggesting the very line of conduct on which he
well knew Henry’s heart was bent. Acquainted with the Monarch’s
infatuation for Anne Boleyn, he now suggested, as if from his own notion
of advisability, that the King should throw off all allegiance to the
Pope, declare himself supreme head of the Church throughout his own
kingdom, and thus facilitate the much desired measure of his divorce
from Queen Katherine. Such palatable advice was indeed well calculated
to win Henry’s good graces, and from that moment Cromwell’s rapid rise
began. The King, knowing what a valuable auxiliary he had proved to his
late patron in the matter of the suppression of the religious houses,
resolved to secure Cromwell’s services for the same purpose. He
therefore confirmed him in the office of Steward of the Dissolved
Monasteries, made him a Privy Councillor, a Knight, Secretary of State,
Master of the Royal Jewel-house, Clerk of the Hanaper (a lucrative post
in the Court of Chancery), and what Cromwell’s enemies termed ‘the Lord
knows what.’ In 1535 Visitor-General of the said suppressed monasteries
throughout the realm, in which capacity Sir Thomas incurred much
censure, and was branded by many as cruel, rapacious, and overbearing.
In our judgment of this sentence we must take into consideration the
fever heat at which religious animosity now stood; suffice it to say
that Cromwell satisfied the views of his royal master, and was not Henry
cruel, rapacious, and overbearing? Fabulous sums were extorted from the
exchequers of these establishments, and it was almost universally
believed that the favourite came in for a considerable share of the
booty. It was indeed evident he did not remember the injunction laid
upon him by Sir Thomas More, namely, that he should advise the King what
he _ought_ to do, not only what he was _able_ to do. In 1536 he was made
Privy Seal, and the same year Baron Cromwell of Okeham, County Rutland,
and (the authority of the Pope being by this time abolished in England)
Henry instituted a new office, to which he appointed his favourite. This
was Vicar-General, or in other words, Supreme Head of the Church, as
representative of the King, in which capacity he sat in the House of
Lords, and also at Convocation above the Archbishop of Canterbury. The
office included that of Principal Commissary for the Administration of
Justice in all ecclesiastical affairs; of the godly reformation, and the
redress of all errors, heresies, and abuses of the English Reformed
Church, both in Parliament and Convocation.
It was indeed strange that the man who, a very short time before, had
professed infidel doctrines (and was so unsettled in his creed that when
Cavendish found him at prayers, the primer in his hand should be our
lady’s matins) strange to say that this individual should now come
forward as the principal pillar of the Reformation. Dr. Hook, in his
_Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury_, says, Cromwell ‘was not a real
Protestant, and was generally supposed to be a man who supported the
party from which he could obtain most, a statesman whose religion
depended on politics, and who had no knowledge of theological subjects.’
Yet from the circumstances in which he was now placed all the English
Protestants rallied round him, and those of Germany treated with him. In
his new capacity Cromwell issued the most stringent and binding
regulations for the conduct of the reformed clergy, was indefatigable in
propagating the Bible throughout the country, causing it to be read in
churches, and placed in convenient parts of the building, where the
parishioners themselves could refer to it on their own account. But
Cromwell’s life forms part of the history of the reign of Henry the
Eighth, and indeed of the Reformation itself. And it is incumbent on us
to condense this narrative lest it exceed the prescribed bounds.
He continued to receive marks of favour from the King, but his keen eye
detected the gathering clouds in his own future; and he knew if Henry
once failed him there would be little hope of stemming the tide of
unpopularity which threatened to overpower him. He well knew that he was
hated by all classes; the nobility, who grudged all the titles and
honours bestowed on ‘the blacksmith’s son’; the Roman Catholics, who had
good reason to detest him; while the reformed clergy rebelled against
many of the changes and innovations which the Vicar-General had
instituted in the services and conduct of the Church; and the poorer
classes were indignant with him for depriving them of the bounty which
they had so long received from the religious houses. Cromwell had good
cause to be uneasy. He began by propitiating ‘the poor and needy,’ who
now flocked by invitation to the gate of his house in Throckmorton
Street, oftentimes twice a day, where they were regaled with bread and
meat and money. He then set on foot negotiations with the Protestant
Princes of Germany, more especially the reigning Duke of Cleves, in
order to bring about a marriage between that Prince’s sister and Henry
the Eighth, who was at this moment in one of his transitory intervals of
widowhood. Lord Cromwell imagined that a Protestant queen of his own
selection would be an invaluable ally at Court, and help him to retain
the favour of the King, who was persuaded into the belief that the Lady
Anne of Cleves was not only ‘fair and portly,’ but comely in face and
feature, an error in which Henry was confirmed by a very flattering
portrait from the pencil of Holbein. So the Princess was sent for to
come over to England, and a magnificent cortége was despatched, with the
Archbishop of Canterbury himself, to bring her on her way to London; and
Henry conceived the romantic idea of riding down to Rochester in
disguise to waylay his bride. Alas! for the eager glance which his Grace
cast into the travelling coach, where sat a lady tall and portly indeed,
but coarse and ugly in face and feature! Henry, we are told, was
‘alarmed and abashed,’ but he also was furious. He felt he had been
deceived, and he sent for Cromwell and bade him devise some means for
the prevention of the marriage. It was too late; matters had gone too
far, and the ceremony was performed.
It would appear that at the time the King did not realise the idea that
Cromwell was the principal instigator of the hated union, for it was
after the marriage that he was raised to the Earldom of Essex, and made
Lord Chamberlain, and his son granted a separate peerage. We know from
the pages of history how the King’s horror of ‘the Flanders mare’
increased day by day, and he never rested till he had obtained a
divorce, soon followed by the downfall of the newly created Earl of
Essex, whose ruin was resolved on.
The Duke of Norfolk was intrusted with the task of arresting his enemy
at the Council Board on the opening of Parliament in June 1540, and
despatching him to the Tower, nor was he loth to carry out the royal
command. Essex claimed a trial by his Peers, but the privilege was
denied him. He was condemned, says Dr. Hook, by the iniquitous statute,
admitting of attainder without trial, a measure of which he was not the
actual founder, as affirmed by some writers, but the reviver of the
same, and therefore by many pronounced deserving of his fate.
He was accused of high treason, heresy, embezzlement, and a host of
other misdemeanours, but there is little doubt the worst offence in
Henry’s eyes was his instrumentality in promoting the hateful marriage
with Anne of Cleves.
The only voice that was raised in his behalf was that of Archbishop
Cranmer, who wrote a most eloquent letter to the King, entreating him to
spare the life of Lord Essex, but it was unavailing. Cromwell’s
demeanour in the Tower was very different from that which had
characterised Sir Thomas More. He addressed the most abject letters to
Henry, and would have accepted life at almost any price. He wrote ‘with
a heavy heart and trembling hand,’ and signed himself, ‘Your highness’s
most humble and wretched prisoner and poor slave, Thomas Cromwell.’
While underneath the subscription came the words, ‘I cry for mercy,
mercy, mercy!’
Henry caused the letters to be read to him four times, and at one moment
showed signs of relenting, but in the end was (as usual) inexorable.
Four days from the passing of the sentence, Lord Essex was led forth to
execution, and beheaded on Tower Hill. He made a speech full of loyalty
and submission to the royal will, words which were thought to have been
dictated by paternal solicitude for the welfare of his only son. He
furthermore confessed his sins, repenting that he had ever abandoned the
Catholic faith to which he now returned, for in that he was resolved to
die; then kneeling in prayer, ‘he submitted his neck to the executioner,
who mangled him in a shocking manner.’
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No. 46. LADY KILLIGREW.
_Standing. White satin gown, dark drapery. Hands crossed.
Brown curls._
BY VANDYCK.
Mistress Cecilia Crofts, maid of honour to the Queen Henrietta Maria?
[Illustration]
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[Illustration]
PRINCIPAL STAIRCASE.
[Illustration]
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PRINCIPAL STAIRCASE.
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No. 1. GRACE, COUNTESS OF DYSART.
_Pale yellow dress. Leaning her elbow on a table._
DIED 1744.
BY WRIGHT.
SHE was the daughter of Sir Thomas Wilbraham of Woodhey, County Chester,
by Elizabeth, daughter and sole heir of Edward Mytton, Esq., of
Weston-under-Lizard, County Stafford. She married, 1680, Lionel
Tollemache, Earl of Dysart, and, becoming co-heir with her sister, the
Countess of Bradford, took large estates to her husband’s family. Lady
Dysart had one son, who died _v.p._, and two daughters.
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No. 2. MARY, WIFE OF RICHARD NEWPORT, SECOND EARL OF BRADFORD.
_Pale yellow dress. Pink drapery. Holding a flower._
BORN 1661, DIED 1737.
BY WRIGHT.
SHE was the daughter and co-heir of Sir Thomas Wilbraham of Woodhey,
County Chester, Bart., by Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of Edward
Mytton, Esq. of Weston-under-Lizard, which estate (besides a large
fortune from her father) Lady Bradford inherited from her mother, and
brought into the Newport family.
It is seldom the lot of any woman to live continuously in one loved
home, but Mary Wilbraham was born, married, died, and was buried at
Weston, where her childhood, youth, the chief part of her married life,
and the latter days of her widowhood were all passed, and which she
brought into the Newport family. Francis, Earl of Bradford, and his wife
were most anxious to secure for their eldest son so desirable a match as
this young lady presented, not only on account of her noble inheritance,
but in respect of her amiable qualities and the comeliness of her
person.
They accordingly made good settlements on Lord Newport to facilitate the
union. We have a list of the lands and messuages allotted to him, but to
prove their worth we consider two of them will suffice, at least in
point of syllables, namely—the Manors of Ginnioneth-ys-Kerdine, and
Dykewyde, in the county of Cardigan. Lady Bradford had six sons, of whom
four died without children, and two, Henry and Thomas, succeeded to the
Earldom, and four daughters, Mary, who died unmarried; Elizabeth, wife
of James Cocks of Worcester, Esq., ancestor to the present Lord Somers;
Anne, married to Sir Orlando Bridgeman of Castle Bromwich, County
Warwick, Bart.; and Diana, married to Algernon Coote, Earl of Mountrath.
Mary, Countess of Bradford, survived her husband many years, and lies
buried by his side at Weston. Her loss was deeply mourned by all
classes, especially by the poor, to whom her charity was unbounded.
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No. 3. RICHARD NEWPORT, SECOND EARL OF BRADFORD.
_Slashed dress of golden brown. White sleeves. Wig._
BORN 1644, DIED 1723.
BY SIR PETER LELY.
HE was the eldest son of the first Earl of Bradford, by Lady Diana
Russell. During his father’s lifetime he represented Shropshire in
Parliament for many years, and gained great popularity in his county by
his strenuous support of the Bill of Exclusion, which obtained for him a
complimentary address signed by every member of the grand jury,
consisting of all the principal landholders of the neighbourhood. He was
Privy Councillor in the reigns of Queen Anne and George the First, and
Lord Lieutenant and _Custos Rotulorum_ for the county of Montgomery. In
1681 he married the daughter and co-heir of Sir Thomas Wilbraham of
Woodhey, and Weston-under-Lizard, Bart., by whom he had a numerous
family. During his father’s lifetime he resided chiefly at
Eyton-upon-Severn, but in later days he took up his abode at Weston, his
wife’s inheritance in Staffordshire.
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No. 4. SIR ORLANDO BRIDGEMAN.
_Robes of the Lord-Keeper. Holding the purse. Oval, in a square frame._
BORN 1609, DIED 1674.
BY RILEY.
THE son of Dr. John Bridgeman, Bishop of Chester, by Elizabeth, daughter
of Dr. Helyar, Canon of Exeter, and Archdeacon of Barnstaple. Educated
by his father until he went to Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he took
his degree of B.A. in 1623. The following year he entered the Inner
Temple, and applied himself vigorously to the study of common law, ‘of
which he became,’ says Lord Campbell, ‘a profound master, caring little
in comparison for either literature or politics.’ When called to the bar
he made himself remarkable for his diligent attention to business,
although he had the expectation of a goodly inheritance from his father.
At the commencement of the Long Parliament Orlando Bridgeman was
returned for the borough of Wigan in Lancashire. He voted silently, but,
with the exception of some measures on which he had conscientious
scruples, almost invariably for the King. He was also one of the few who
voted against the attainder of Lord Strafford, in whose behalf he made a
short but manly appeal. When the civil war broke out Orlando did not
indeed, as was the case with several lawyers, throw aside the gown for
the sword; but he went into the north, and in the city of Chester, and
elsewhere, did the King good service by affording the royal troops all
the assistance in his power, in cooperation with his father, the Bishop
of the diocese. Clarendon tells us how ‘the city of Chester remained
true to his Majesty, influenced thereto by the credit and example of
Bishop John Bridgeman, and the reputation and dexterity of his son
Orlando, a lawyer of very good estimation.’ For these proofs of loyalty
Bridgeman was expelled the House of Commons, and the Bishop’s estates
sequestrated. But when Charles summoned the members of both Houses that
had been faithful to him, to his own Parliament at Oxford, Orlando
Bridgeman took his seat as member for Wigan, in Christchurch Hall, and
was there nominated by patent (sealed by Lord-Keeper Lyttleton) to the
post of Attorney-General of the Court of Wards and Liveries, ‘an
office,’ says Lord Campbell, ‘when actually exercised, of great
importance and emolument, but now a mere feather in his cap, which
Parliament would not allow him to wear in their sight. At the time of
the Treaty of Uxbridge, Bridgeman was chosen one of the Commissioners,
and was thereto designated by his new title, but the potentates of
Westminster would not acknowledge the appointment as valid, and treated
him as plain Orlando Bridgeman.’ When Oxford capitulated to Fairfax, he
retired to his country house at Morton, where he was joined by the
Bishop, and afterwards he proceeded privately to London.