in Charles’s mind, but on joining him at Oxford, he completely cleared
himself, was promoted, and ordered to relieve Sandwich, where he was
taken prisoner by the Roundheads and sent to the Tower. During the two
years of his captivity Monck steadily refused all overtures made to him
by the Protector, and occupied his leisure hours in making notes on
military and political subjects. Cromwell entertained a high opinion of
his soldier-like qualities, and offered him the alternative of prolonged
imprisonment or a command to put down the Irish rebels under O’Neill.
Monck accepted the latter, but was ill supported by the Government at
home, so much so that he was reluctantly compelled to sign a truce with
the insurgents. For this he was called to account on his return to
England, but he was too useful that Cromwell should afford to quarrel
with him again; and so he was despatched to Scotland, where he did much
service. The Protector at the time was well aware of the General’s loyal
proclivities, and wrote to him shortly before his death: ‘There be those
that tell me there is a certain cunning fellow in Scotland called
General Monck, who is said to lie in wait there to introduce Charles
Stuart. I pray you to use your diligence to apprehend him and send him
up to me.’
The share which Monck took in the Restoration is too well known to be
repeated here. Charles called him his father, gave him the Garter,
created him Baron Monck, Earl of Torrington, and Duke of Albemarle, and
appointed him Lieutenant-General of the forces of the United Kingdom,
with a large income.
In 1653 he married or acknowledged his marriage with Anne, daughter of
John Clarges, who had long resided under his roof,—‘a lady,’ says
Guizot, ‘whose manners were more vulgar and less simple than those of
her husband, and who was the laughing-stock of a witty and satirical
Court.’
The French historian speaks disparagingly of the great General, but in
the time of the plague, when the King and Ministers left London, the
Duke remained to watch over the necessities of the wretched inhabitants,
to save families from pillage, and to alleviate the sufferings of the
poor. He was afloat when the fire occurred, and the general cry was:
‘Ah, if old George had been here, this would not have happened.’
He died in his sixty-second year, leaving an enormous fortune to his
spendthrift son Christopher, and was buried in Westminster Abbey with
great splendour, Charles II. attending the funeral. Guizot says:
‘C’etoit un homme capable de grandes choses, quoiqu’il n’eut pas de
grandeur dans l’âme.’ His jealousy of his noble comrade Lord Sandwich
seems to bear out the French historian’s opinion in some measure. In his
last illness he was much occupied in the arrangement of the alliance of
his surviving son Christopher (the death of the elder had been a
terrible blow to him) with the heiress of the wealthy Duke of Newcastle.
His death was peaceful: he expired in his arm-chair without a groan.
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No. 109.
HENRY BENNET, EARL OF ARLINGTON.
BY SIR PETER LELY.
BORN 1618, DIED 1685.
_Black dress, white sleeves. Sitting holding a letter. Black patch
on his nose._
THE family was settled in Berkshire, when towards the close of the
sixteenth century two brothers Bennet went to London and respectively
made their fortunes by successful commercial undertakings. From the
elder descended a certain Sir John Bennet, living at Dawley, county
Middlesex, who married Dorothy, daughter of Sir John Crofts of Saxham,
county Norfolk. The subject of this notice was their second son. He was
carefully educated under the paternal roof, but went to Oxford, and was
entered a student at Christ Church, where he took his degree as B.A. and
M.A., and was much esteemed both as scholar and poet. He remained some
time at the University, where he was still a resident when the Court
arrived in 1644.
He was presented to King Charles, and soon after entered the army as a
volunteer. Lord Digby, then Secretary of State, took a fancy to young
Bennet, and appointed him Under-Secretary. But this post did not
interfere with his military duties, he was ever in the field ‘when
honour called,’ and was so severely wounded at Andover, in an engagement
near that town, as to be invalided for a long time. He was indeed
dangerously ill, and there is little doubt that it was in one of these
encounters, that he received the scar by which he is so well known in
all his portraits.
Deeply attached to the Royalist cause, on the termination of the war
Bennet went to France, and on into Germany and Italy, never losing sight
of the hope of once more joining and serving the house of Stuart. In
1649 he was summoned to Paris by James Duke of York, to fill the post of
private secretary.
King Charles, writing to his brother, says: ‘You must be very kind to
Harry Bennet, and communicate freely with him, for as you are sure that
he is full of duty and integrity to you, so I must tell you that I shall
trust him more than any about you, and cause him to be instructed in
those businesses of mine, when I cannot write to you myself.’
Charles’s letters to Bennet also plainly show the terms of intimacy and
trust which existed between them.
This was especially remarkable as regarded the affairs of Spain; and in
1658, Sir Henry Bennet, Knight, was sent as Ambassador to Madrid.
Clarendon says the step was at the instigation of Lord Bristol, but at
this time there was strife between the new Ambassador and his former
patron. Henry Bennet, with all the zeal that usually characterises a
recent convert to Catholicism, was very anxious that his royal master
should make his profession to the same faith, whereas Digby, or rather
the Earl of Bristol, (as he had become,) though himself a Roman
Catholic, considered that such a step would be ruinous to Charles’s
interests, and opposed it stoutly. Great bitterness in consequence
existed between Bristol and Bennet, increased by the jealousy excited in
the mind of the former with regard to Bennet’s mission, being under the
impression that he himself was far better fitted for the post.
Sir Henry, however, seems to have pleased most parties in his diplomatic
capacity; and at the Restoration he was sent for by the King, who gave
him the office of Privy Purse, and made him his constant companion.
Bennet was well calculated to suit the taste of the Merry Monarch.
Burnet tells us he had the art of observing the King’s humour, and
managing it, beyond all the men of his time; and Clarendon gives us a
clew to one of the reasons, when he mentions that ‘Bennet filled a
principal place, to all intents and purposes, at the nightly meetings,’
(alluding to the King’s jovial suppers in Lady Castlemaine’s
apartments,) added to which, he was most lively and sparkling in
conversation.
In 1662 Charles bribed Sir Edward Nicholas to resign his Secretaryship
of State, (and that with a considerable sum,) that he might bestow the
vacant post on his favourite. The contrast between Bennet’s entire
submission to the Royal will and the honest rectitude of the Chancellor
(Clarendon) increased the King’s dislike to that worthy servant of the
Crown, on whose downfall Bennet rose still higher.
In 1663 he was raised to the Peerage as Lord Arlington, whereupon
Clarendon threw some ridicule on the choice of the title, taken from an
obscure village in Middlesex, which had once belonged to Bennet’s
father, but was now in the possession of another family.
While at the head of public affairs, no measures of any importance were
undertaken, with the exception of the first Dutch war.
In 1670 was formed the famous Cabal Ministry (spoken of more fully in
our notice of Lord Shaftesbury) which Arlington consented to join, and
of which his title formed one of the initials.
So notoriously now did he consult the King’s wishes rather than the
public good, that he was rewarded in 1672 by the dignity of Baron
Thetford and Earl of Arlington, and later invested with the Garter.
Being sent on an embassy to Utrecht, in company with the Duke of
Buckingham and Lord Halifax, (which was productive of no good results,)
he afterwards turned his attention to the overthrow of the Cabal, in the
breaking up of which he was most instrumental. He however fell into
great disrepute with both Catholics and Protestants about this time, the
Duke of York (on the passing of the Test Act) loading him with every
kind of abuse, while the opposite side charged him with endeavouring to
introduce Popery.
The Duke of Buckingham was loud in censure of Lord Arlington, who was
impeached, and, after making a long defence, acquitted by a small
majority. He held office for a short time longer, and advocated a treaty
of peace with the Dutch, but soon after resigned office, having received
(it was said) a douceur from his successor of several thousands.
In 1674 he was named Chamberlain of the Household in recompence (so ran
the Royal declaration) ‘of his long and faithful services, and
particularly of his having discharged the office of principal Secretary
of State to his Majesty’s entire satisfaction.’
Lord Arlington’s wish to be again employed in public affairs was not
gratified till 1675, when he once more went on a diplomatic mission to
Holland, in company with the Earl of Ossory. Lady Arlington and Lady
Ossory were sisters, and members of the house of Nassau. This was his
last appearance in public life. Burnet says that ‘Arlington entirely
mistook the character of William Prince of Orange,’ with whom he had to
deal; speaking to him in a dictatorial manner, which was not at all
agreeable to that Prince, although he was then young in years. Arlington
still held a place in the royal household, but he had fallen into
disgrace, and the King encouraged and enjoyed any jest, or ridicule, at
the expense of his former boon companion. Nothing delighted Charles more
than to see some of his courtiers put a black patch upon their noses,
and strut about with a long white staff, in imitation of ‘Harry Bennet.’
James II. on his accession did not remove Arlington from his post in the
household, but he only survived a few months, dying in July 1685.
He was buried at Euston, in Suffolk. He married Isabella, daughter of
Lewis de Nassau, Lord of Beverwart, in the United Provinces, by whom he
had an only child, Isabella, married, in 1672, to Henry Fitzroy (son of
Charles _II._ by Barbara Villiers), who was created Earl of Euston and
Duke of Grafton.
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No. 110.
THE HONOURABLE HENRY THYNNE.
BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER.
BORN 1675, DIED 1708.
_Blue coat. Full wig._
THE eldest son of the first Lord Weymouth, by Lady Frances Finch,
daughter of the Earl of Winchilsea. He was of a studious and literary
turn of mind, and delighted in the companionship of his father’s guest,
Bishop Ken, in conjunction with whom he formed a pleasant coterie of
cultivated spirits at Longleat. Henry Thynne was a good linguist, and,
as we have mentioned in the notice of Bishop Ken, gave lessons in French
and Latin to the young poetess afterwards known as Elizabeth Rowe. He
married Grace, daughter and sole heir of Sir George Strode of Leweston,
county Dorset, by whom he had two daughters, Frances Countess of
Hertford, and Mary, married to William Greville, Lord Brooke, who died
in the nineteenth year of her age. Lady Hertford inherited her father’s
taste for literature, and became a patron and friend of divers authors,
many of whom are well known to fame, while others were only local bards.
For instance, Pope and Thomson were her guests, while she patronised and
befriended Stephen Duck, known by the title of ‘The Wiltshire Thresher.’
Henry Thynne died before his father, at the age of thirty-three.
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No. 111.
WILLIAM CAVENDISH, DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.
BY ABRAHAM VAN DIEPENBEKE.
BORN 1592, DIED 1676.
_He is dressed as a Roman warrior in armour, leading his wife by the
hand. She wears a yellow robe, and has a white veil on her head.
Several children in fantastic costumes. Horses. One of the children
is mounted on horseback._
HE was the son of Sir Charles Cavendish, (who was brother to the first
Earl of Devonshire of that family,) by a daughter and co-heir of the
last Lord Ogle. Educated at home, and then at Cambridge, he was made
Knight of the Bath when Henry (son to King James I.) was created Prince
of Wales. He accompanied Sir Henry Wotton on his embassy to Savoy, who
writes of him as ‘a young man nobly bred, and of great expectations.’
The Duke of Savoy took a fancy to Cavendish, offered him a high post in
his army, and loaded him with valuable presents when he returned to
England.
In 1620 he was created Lord Ogle and Viscount Mansfield, having already
succeeded to the paternal estates. Charles I., after his accession,
further created him Lord Cavendish of Bolsover and Earl of Newcastle,
and subsequently Governor to the Prince of Wales, with a seat in the
Council.
Newcastle was much liked at Court. ‘The King esteemed him highly, as did
Wentworth, but Buckingham was jealous of him.’ His manner of living was
splendid; indeed, it was said of him later in life, that he went to
battle in a coach-and-six. He entertained the King and Queen at his
dwelling-houses of Welbeck and Bolsover in so sumptuous a manner as to
make a great noise.
When the war broke out with the Scots, he was one of those loyal nobles
who contributed large sums towards levying troops for the Royal service,
and he raised a regiment at his own expense, which he named the Prince
of Wales’s Own. It was on account of a question of precedency for this
regiment, (in which many members of the Cavendish family held
commissions,) that Newcastle quarrelled with Lord Holland, General of
the Horse, and no sooner was the army disbanded, than he sent that
General a challenge, but the King having gained intimation of the
impending duel, prohibited the same, upon which some of Newcastle’s
enemies accused him of avoiding the encounter from want of personal
courage, a statement ill borne out by his proverbial valour.
Shortly after this he resigned his post at Court, and retired to his own
estates; but, on the breaking out of the Civil War, he once more buckled
on his armour, and resumed the military career for which Clarendon tells
us ‘he had neither talent nor inclination, but pursued from sheer
loyalty.’ Collins gives a very different version, enumerating manifold
victories which Newcastle was mainly instrumental in gaining, in the
north of England, more especially the battle of Bradford, where the
rebels were defeated, and where he took twenty-two great guns, and many
colours.
In 1642 he met the Queen at Burlington, when she landed with supplies,
and escorted her to Oxford, where the King then was, for which and other
services he was made Marquis of Newcastle and Knight of the Garter.
In 1643 his first wife died. Newcastle had a stormy time of it in that
most stormy period, not only through the vicissitudes of war, not only
in the battlefield, but through bickerings and jealousies in the army,
and ‘slanderous pens,’ which often tempted the Marquis to throw up his
command in disgust. This design he carried into effect, immediately
after the battle of Marston Moor, where he commanded the right wing of
the Royal army. He took ship at Scarborough, and, accompanied by several
relatives and friends, sailed for Hamburgh. He spent many years on the
Continent, frequently visiting his royal master Charles II. in Holland,
and when the King was invited to Scotland, his faithful servant asked
permission to attend him, but was refused by the Scots. While abroad the
Duke and Duchess of Newcastle (for he had married a second time) were in
most straitened circumstances, and were often compelled to pawn their
clothes to procure the necessaries of life, the English Parliament
having seized upon most of his estates and revenues, and cut down his
timber, which caused the Duchess to go over to England, as we shall
presently see. The noble exiles, after many wanderings, had settled in
the City of Antwerp—‘my Lord choosing it for the pleasantest and
quietest place to retire himself and his ruined fortunes in.’ It was
here he wrote that splendid work on Horsemanship which adorns most of
our finest libraries, and by which the name of the Marquis of Newcastle
will ever be remembered.
At the Restoration they returned to England, when he received a dukedom,
but he resolved to have no more to do with public life, and retired to
the shade of the few ancestral trees his enemies’ axes had spared him.
The Duke’s remaining years were spent in the society of his beloved wife
and valued friends, and in the pursuit of his favourite occupations. He
died at an advanced age, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where
stands a monument to him, on which are represented the forms of William,
Duke of Newcastle, the ‘loyall Duke,’ and his wife, side by side. He was
brave and accomplished, loved riding, dancing, singing, and was so
devoted to poetry, that he was said to have made Sir William Davenant
his Lieutenant-General of Ordnance, more on account of his proficiency
as a poet, than for any knowledge of military affairs. ‘His courage,’
says Sir Philip Warwick, ‘was invincible, but his edge had too much of
the razor in it.’ He was a strong upholder of monarchy and the Church,
though not very nice as to points of creed. We have no room for one
hundredth part of the eulogiums pronounced on him by his Duchess, but of
his exterior she tells us that ‘his shape was exactly proportioned, his
stature of a middle size, his complexion sanguine, his behaviour a
pattern to all gentlemen, courtly, civil, and fine, without formality,’
and so forth; while another account of him was, ‘a fantastic general and
a virtuoso on horseback!’ From the heading of one of the chapters in his
book, it is evident he was very proud of his proficiency as an
equestrian, for he says, ‘Some, seeing, imitate, and imagine they ride
as well as I do.’
His first wife was Margaret Basset of Blore, county Stafford, relict of
Henry Howard, son to the Earl of Suffolk, by whom he had a very large
family, and of whom her successor records that ‘she was a kind,
virtuous, and loving lady, who blessed her husband with dutiful and
obedient children, who did all in their power to relieve and support
their father in his banishment.’
Margaret Lucas, Newcastle’s second wife, is better known to fame. Her
epitaph says ‘she was youngest sister to Lord Lucas of Colchester, a
noble familie, for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters
virtuous. This Duches was a wise, wittie, and learned lady, which her
manie books doe testifie. She was a most loving, virtuous, and careful
wife, and was with her lord all the time of his banishment and miseries,
and when he came home, never parted from him in his solitary
retirement.’ She was a voluminous writer in a quaint and high-flown
style, and a great favourite of Charles Lamb’s, whose mention of her in
Elia causes her perhaps to be better known than her own literary merits
may lay claim to. Elia says, ‘where a book is good and rare, such a
book, for instance, as the life of the Duke of Newcastle, by his
Duchess, no casket is sufficiently durable to honour and keep safe such
a jewel.’
In 1643, the year in which Lord Newcastle lost his first wife, Margaret
Lucas went to the Court of Henrietta Maria, where, she tells us, her
gravity, reticent, and virtuous timidity, which ill assorted with the
courtly manners of the period, caused her to be regarded as a simpleton.
She did not relish the life, but remained on, by her mother’s wish; and
when the Queen fled to France, Margaret Lucas accompanied her.
In 1645, Newcastle, being in Paris, saw, and loved the Maid of Honour,
who became his wife. The union was most happy. ‘They loved each other
truly, and had many pursuits and tastes in common, notwithstanding which
a story is told that the Duke, being once complimented on the talent of
his wife, replied, ‘Sir, a wise woman is a very foolish thing.’
The Duchess was of graceful person, reserved, and reticent. Her piety,
generosity, and charity, were proverbial, and, as we have before
observed, when her husband’s affairs were involved, she went to England,
where she spent a year and a half, endeavouring with the help of her
brother and brother-in-law to get some compensation for the property
seized by the Parliament. ‘Then I made haste to return to my Lord, with
whom I had rather be as a poor beggar, than to be mistress of the world,
absented from him.’ And they were happy, ‘though fortune did pinch their
lives with poverty.’
It would seem that this picture must represent Margaret Lucas, since the
first wife was never Duchess; the introduction of the horses, too, would
surely imply that the portraits were painted after, or at the time, the
book on Horsemanship was published; when we surmise also that Newcastle
made the acquaintance of the painter Diepenbeke at Antwerp, though he
accompanied the Duke to England.
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No. 112.
SIR THOMAS OVERBURY.
BY ZUCCHERO.
BORN 1581, POISONED 1613.
_Oval. Black coat. Red and white sash. Lace collar. Pointed beard._
WAS of a good family in Warwickshire. Born at Compton Scorfen, the home
of his maternal grandfather. Entered Queen’s College, Oxford, as
gentleman commoner, where he studied logic and philosophy, and
afterwards went to the Middle Temple.
His father, having been bred to the law, wished he should pursue the
same calling, but Thomas preferred the study of polite literature, and
the allurements of a Court life.
After a brief tour on the Continent he went to Scotland, where he became
acquainted with Robert Carr or Kerr, then page to the Earl of Dunbar,
and, forming a close friendship, they travelled to London together.
Writers appear to be at variance as to the date when King James I. saw,
and took a fancy to young Carr; and the story of his falling wounded
from his horse, in a tilting-match, at the King’s feet, requires
confirmation.
But there was no doubt that he soon stood high in the royal favour, and
Carr was one who well knew how to improve his opportunities, being of a
time-serving disposition, and no way above flattery. His education had
been neglected, and the ‘royal pedant,’ as James has so often been
called, undertook to teach the youth Latin. Whether he prosecuted his
studies with much zeal we do not know, but he was an adept in the art of
self-aggrandisement; and, believing in Overbury’s disinterested
friendship, he consulted him on every step he took. Interceding with the
King for his friend, he gained the honour of knighthood (for honour it
was indeed esteemed in those days) for Thomas, and managed that the
father Overbury should be made a judge. This was about 1608.
Carr himself was raised to the peerage by the title of Viscount
Rochester. He became enamoured of the Countess of Essex, (wife to the
third Earl of the Devereux family, and daughter to Howard, Earl of
Suffolk,) then but eighteen years of age, ‘of a sweet and bewitching
countenance, hiding a wicked heart.’ She was headstrong into the
bargain, and her passion for Carr knew no bounds. She hated her husband,
her father, and all who expostulated with her on her shameless conduct,
and smiled on no one but her lover and ‘sweet Mistress Turner,’ her
go-between.
It has been adduced against Overbury, that he at first encouraged the
intrigue, but when the question of a divorce arose, he left no stone
unturned to dissuade Rochester from the attempt to procure one, which
brought down upon him the lasting hatred of the beautiful termagant.
Overbury warned his friend, that it would be destructive to his future
fortunes to marry a woman whose husband was still living; moreover, that
her conduct was infamous, and would brand them both with ignominy.
Peyton (Sir Thomas’s servant) describes the quarrel which took place
between his master and my Lord of Rochester on the occasion.
Overbury waited ‘in the chamber next the privy gallery’ for the return
of Rochester, who did not appear till three in the morning. High words
passed between them, my Lord asking angrily what Sir Thomas ‘did there
at that time of night;’ Overbury replying by the question, ‘Where have
you been? Will you never leave the company of that bad woman?’ But all
his warnings and admonitions were thrown away, and only insured him the
deadly enmity of both lovers. The King, who was not likely to be
deterred by any sense of rectitude from the weak pleasure he found in
complying with any demand that Rochester might make, not only connived
at the passing of the divorce, but created Carr Earl of Somerset, as he
was not considered of sufficiently high rank to marry one who had been a
Countess. The lovers now turned their thoughts to the ruin of their
quondam friend. It was easy in those days to procure a commitment to the
Tower, and Sir Thomas Overbury soon found himself within those dreary
walls, Somerset pretending all the while the greatest friendship for the
prisoner.