Characters from the Histories & Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century
by unknown · English · Gutenberg #13751 · 662,867 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Characters from the Histories & Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Characters from the Histories & Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century
Editor: David Nichol Smith
Release date: October 14, 2004 [eBook #13751]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13751
Credits: Produced by William Flis and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARACTERS FROM THE HISTORIES & MEMOIRS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ***
CHARACTERS
FROM THE
HISTORIES & MEMOIRS
OF THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
With an Essay on THE CHARACTER
and Historical Notes
By DAVID NICHOL SMITH
OXFORD
1918
CONTENTS
ESSAY ON THE CHARACTER
I. The Beginnings
II. The Literary Models
III. Clarendon
IV. Other Character Writers
CHARACTERS
1. JAMES I. By Arthur Wilson
2. " By Sir Anthony Weldon
3. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM (George Villiers, first Duke). By Clarendon
4. SIR THOMAS COVENTRY. By Clarendon
5. SIR RICHARD WESTON. By Clarendon
6. THE EARL OF ARUNDEL (Thomas Howard, fourteenth Earl). By Clarendon
7. THE EARL OF PEMBROKE (William Herbert, third Earl). By Clarendon
8. SIR FRANCIS BACON. By Ben Jonson
9. " " " By Arthur Wilson
10. " " " By Thomas Fuller
11. " " " By William Rawley
12. BEN JONSON. By Clarendon
13. " " By James Howell
14. HENRY HASTINGS. By Shaftesbury
15. CHARLES I. By Clarendon
16. " By Sir Philip Warwick
17. THE EARL OF STRAFFORD (Thomas Wentworth, first Earl). By Clarendon
18. THE EARL OF STRAFFORD (Thomas Wentworth, first Earl). By Sir Philip
Warwick
19. THE EARL OF NORTHAMPTON (Spencer Compton, second Earl). By Clarendon
20. THE EARL OF CARNARVON (Robert Dormer, first Earl). By Clarendon
21. LORD FALKLAND (Lucius Cary, second Viscount). By Clarendon
22. LORD FALKLAND (Lucius Cary, second Viscount). By Clarendon
23. SIDNEY GODOLPHIN. By Clarendon
24. WILLIAM LAUD. By Clarendon
25. " " By Thomas Fuller
26. " " By Sir Philip Warwick
27. WILLIAM JUXON. By Sir Philip Warwick
28. THE MARQUIS OF HERTFORD (William Seymour, first Marquis). By Clarendon
29. THE MARQUIS OF NEWCASTLE (William Cavendish, first Marquis, and Duke).
By Clarendon
30. THE LORD DIGBY (George Digby, second Earl of Bristol). By Clarendon
31. THE LORD CAPEL (Arthur Capel, first Baron). By Clarendon
32. ROYALIST GENERALS: PATRICK RETHVEN, EARL OF BRENTFORD; PRINCE RUPERT;
GEORGE, LORD GORING; HENRY WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER. By Clarendon
33. JOHN HAMPDEN. By Clarendon
34. JOHN PYM. By Clarendon
35. OLIVER CROMWELL. By Clarendon
36. OLIVER CROMWELL. By Clarendon
37. " " By Sir Philip Warwick
38. " " By John Maidston
39. " " By Richard Baxter
40. SIR THOMAS FAIRFAX. By Richard Baxter
41. SIR HENRY VANE, the younger. By Clarendon
42. " " " " " By Clarendon
43. COLONEL JOHN HUTCHINSON. By Lucy Hutchinson
44. THE EARL OF ESSEX (Robert Devereux, third Earl). By Clarendon
45. THE EARL OF SALISBURY (William Cecil, second Earl). By Clarendon
46. THE EARL OF WARWICK (Robert Rich, second Earl). By Clarendon
47. THE EARL OF MANCHESTER (Edward Montagu, second Earl). By Clarendon
48. THE LORD SAY (William Fiennes, first Viscount Say and Sele). By
Clarendon
49. JOHN SELDEN. By Clarendon
50. JOHN EARLE. By Clarendon
51. JOHN HALES. By Clarendon
52. WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH. By Clarendon
53. EDMUND WALLER. By Clarendon
54. THOMAS HOBBES. By Clarendon
55. " " Notes by John Aubrey
56. THOMAS FULLER. Anonymous
57. JOHN MILTON. Notes by John Aubrey
58. " " Note by Edward Phillips
59. " " Notes by Jonathan Richardson
60. ABRAHAM COWLEY. By himself
61. " " By Thomas Sprat
62. CHARLES II. By Halifax
63. CHARLES II. By Burnet
64. CHARLES II. By Burnet
65. THE EARL OF CLARENDON (Edward Hyde, first Earl), By Burnet
66. THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE (John Maitland, second Earl, created
Duke 1672). By Clarendon.
67. THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE (John Maitland, second Earl, created
Duke 1672). By Burnet
68. THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY (Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl).
By Burnet
69. THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY (Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl).
By Dryden
70. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM (George Villiers, second Duke). By Burnet
71. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM (George Villiers, second Duke). By Dryden
72. THE MARQUIS OF HALIFAX (George Savile, first Marquis). By Burnet
73. SIR EDMUND SAUNDERS. By Roger North
74. TWO GROUPS OF DIVINES: (1. Benjamin Whitchcot, Ralph Cudworth, John
Wilkins, Henry More, John Worthington; 2. John Tillotson, Edward
Stillingfleet, Simon Patrick, William Lloyd, Thomas Tenison). By
Burnet
75. JAMES II. By Burnet
76. JAMES II. By Burnet
THE CHARACTER
The seventeenth century is rich in short studies or characters of its
great men. Its rulers and statesmen, its soldiers and politicians,
its lawyers and divines, all who played a prominent part in the public
life, have with few notable exceptions been described for us by their
contemporaries. There are earlier characters in English literature;
but as a definite and established form of literary composition
the character dates from the seventeenth century. Even Sir Robert
Naunton's _Fragmenta Regalia, or Observations on the late Queen
Elizabeth her Times and Favourites_, a series of studies of the great
men of Elizabeth's court, and the first book of its kind, is an old
man's recollection of his early life, and belongs to the Stuart period
in everything but its theme. Nor at any later period is there the same
wealth of material for such a collection as is given in this volume.
The eighteenth century devoted itself rather to biography. When the
facts of a man's life, his works, and his opinions claimed detailed
treatment, the fashion of the short character had passed.
Yet the seventeenth century did not know its richness. None of its
best characters were then printed. The writers themselves could not
have suspected how many others were similarly engaged, so far were
they from belonging to a school. The characters in Clarendon's
_History of the Rebellion_ were too intimate and searching to be
published at once, and they remained in manuscript till about
thirty years after his death. In the interval Burnet was drawing the
characters in his _History of His Own Time_. He, like Clarendon,
was not aware of being indebted to any English model. Throughout the
period which they cover there are the characters by Fuller, Sir Philip
Warwick, Baxter, Halifax, Shaftesbury, and many others, the Latin
characters by Milton, and the verse characters by Dryden. There is no
sign that any of these writers copied another or tried to emulate
him. Together, but with no sense of their community, they made the
seventeenth century the great age of the character in England.
I. The Beginnings.
The art of literary portraiture in the seventeenth century developed
with the effort to improve the writing of history. Its first and at
all times its chief purpose in England was to show to later ages what
kind of men had directed the affairs and shaped the fortunes of
the nation. In France it was to be practised as a mere pastime; to
sketch well-known figures in society, or to sketch oneself, was for
some years the fashionable occupation of the salons. In England the
character never wholly lost the qualities of its origin. It might be
used on occasion as a record of affection, or as a weapon of political
satire; but our chief character writers are our historians. At the
beginning of the seventeenth century England was recognized to be
deficient in historical writings. Poetry looked back to Chaucer as its
father, was proud of its long tradition, and had proved its right to
sing the glories of Elizabeth's reign. The drama, in the full vigour
of its youth, challenged comparison with the drama of Greece and Rome.
Prose was conscious of its power in exposition and controversy. But in
every review of our literature's great achievement and greater promise
there was one cause of serious misgivings. England could not yet rank
with other countries in its histories. Many large volumes had been
printed, some of them containing matter that is invaluable to the
modern student, but there was no single work that was thought to
be worthy of England's greatness. The prevailing type was still the
chronicle. Even Camden, 'the glory and light of the kingdom', as Ben
Jonson called him, was an antiquary, a collector, and an annalist.
History had yet to be practised as one of the great literary arts.
Bacon pointed out the 'unworthiness' and 'deficiences' of English
history in his _Advancement of Learning_.[1] 'Some few very worthy,
but the greater part beneath mediocrity' was his verdict on modern
histories in general. He was not the first to express these views.
Sir Henry Savile had been more emphatic in his dedication to Queen
Elizabeth of his collection of early chronicles, _Rerum Anglicarum
Scriptores post Bedam_, published in 1596.[2] And after Bacon,
somewhere about 1618, these views were again expressed by Edmund
Bolton in his _Hypercritica, or a Rule of Judgement for writing or
reading our Histories_.[3] 'The vast vulgar Tomes', he said, 'procured
for the most part by the husbandry of Printers, and not by appointment
of the Prince or Authority of the Common-weal, in their tumultuary and
centonical Writings do seem to resemble some huge disproportionable
Temple, whose Architect was not his Arts Master'. He repeated what he
calls the common wish 'that the majesty of handling our history might
once equal the majesty of the argument'. England had had all other
honours, but only wanted a history.
But the most valuable statement on the conditions of English history
at this time and the obstacles that hindered its progress was made by
Sir John Hayward at the beginning of his _Lives of the III Normans,
Kings of England_, published in 1613. Leaving aside the methods of the
chroniclers, he had taken the classical historians as his model in
his _First Part of the Life and raigne of King Henrie the IIII_. The
interest of this work to the modern reader lies in its structure, its
attempt at artistic unity, its recognition that English history must
be written on a different plan, rather than in its historical matter.
But it was no sooner published than Hayward was committed to the
Tower because the account of the deposition of Richard II was held
to be treasonable, the offence being aggravated by the dedication,
in perfectly innocent terms, to the Earl of Essex. His work was thus
checked till he met with encouragement from Henry, Prince of Wales,
a patron of literature, of whom, though a mere youth, such men as
Jonson, Chapman, and Raleigh, spoke with an enthusiasm that cannot be
mistaken for flattery. Prince Henry saw the need of a worthy history
of England. He therefore sent for Hayward to discuss the reasons with
him:
Prince Henry ... sent for mee, a few monethes before his
death. And at my second comming to his presence, among some
other speeches, hee complained much of our Histories of
England; and that the English Nation, which is inferiour to
none in Honourable actions, should be surpassed by all, in
leauing the memorie of them to posteritie....
I answered, that I conceiued these causes hereof; One,
that men of sufficiencie were otherwise employed; either
in publicke affaires, or in wrestling with the world, for
maintenance or encrease of their private estates. Another is,
for that men might safely write of others in maner of a tale,
but in maner of a History, safely they could not: because,
albeit they should write of men long since dead, and whose
posteritie is cleane worne out; yet some aliue, finding
themselues foule in those vices, which they see obserued,
reproued, condemned in others; their guiltinesse maketh them
apt to conceiue, that whatsoeuer the words are, the finger
pointeth onely at them. The last is, for that the Argument of
our _English_ historie hath been so foiled heretofore by some
unworthie writers, that men of qualitie may esteeme themselues
discredited by dealing in it....
Then he questioned, whether I had wrote any part of our
_English_ Historie, other then that which had been published;
which at that time he had in his hands. I answered, that I
had wrote of certaine of our _English_ Kings, by way of a
briefe description of their liues: but for historie, I did
principally bend, and binde my selfe to the times wherein
I should liue; in which my owne obseruations might somewhat
direct me: but as well in the one as in the other I had at
that time perfected nothing.
The result of the interview was that Hayward proceeded to 'perfect
somewhat of both sorts'. The brief description of the lives of the
three Norman kings was in due course ordered to be published, and
would have been dedicated to its real patron but for his untimely
death; in dedicating it instead to Prince Charles, Hayward fortunately
took the opportunity to relate his conversation with Prince Henry.
How far he carried the other work is not certain; it survives in the
fragment called _The Beginning of the Raigne of Queene Elizabeth_,[4]
published after his death with _The Life and Raigne of King Edward
the Sixt_. He might have brought it down to the reign of James. Had he
been at liberty to follow his own wishes, he would have been the first
Englishman to write a 'History of his own time'. But when an author
incurred imprisonment for writing about the deposition of a sovereign,
and when modern applications were read into accounts of what had
happened long ago, the complexity of his own time was a dangerous if
not a forbidden subject.
There is a passage to the same effect in the preface to _The Historie
of the World_ by Sir Walter Raleigh, who, unlike Hayward, willingly
chose to be silent on what he knew best:
I know that it will bee said by many, That I might have beene
more pleasing to the Reader, if I had written the Story of
mine owne times; having been permitted to draw water as neare
the Well-head as another. To this I answer, that who-so-ever
in writing a moderne Historie, shall follow truth too neare
the heeles, it may happily strike out his teeth. There is no
Mistresse or Guide, that hath led her followers and servants
into greater miseries.... It is enough for me (being in that
state I am) to write of the eldest times: wherein also why may
it not be said, that in speaking of the past, I point at the
present, and taxe the vices of those that are yet lyving, in
their persons that are long since dead; and have it laid to my
charge? But this I cannot helpe, though innocent.
He wrote of remote ages, and contributed nothing to historical
knowledge. But he enriched English literature with a 'just history',
as distinct from annals and chronicles.[5] 'I am not altogether
ignorant', he said, 'in the Lawes of Historie, and of the Kindes.'
When we read his lives and commendations of the great men of antiquity
as he pictured them, we cannot but regret that the same talents, the
same overmastering interest in the eternal human problems, had not
been employed in depicting men whom he had actually known. The other
Elizabethan work that ranks with Raleigh's in its conception of the
historian's office and in its literary excellence, deals with another
country. It is the _History of the Turks_ by Richard Knolles.
The character was definitely introduced into English literature when
the historians took as their subjects contemporary or recent events
at home, and, abandoning the methods of the chronicle, fashioned their
work on classical models. Its introduction had been further prepared
to some extent by the growing interest in lives, which, unlike
chronicles that recorded events, recognized the part played by men
in the control of events. In his _Advancement of Learning_ Bacon
regretted that Englishmen gave so little thought to describing the
deeds and characters of their great countrymen. 'I do find strange',
he said, 'that these times have so little esteemed the virtues of the
times, as that the writing of lives should be no more frequent.' He
and Hayward both wrote lives with the consciousness that their methods
were new in English, though largely borrowed from the classics.[6]
Hayward tried to produce a picture of the period he dealt with,
and his means for procuring harmoniousness of design was to centre
attention on the person of the sovereign. It is a conception of
history not as a register of facts but as a representation of the
national drama. His _Henry IV_ gives the impression, especially by its
speeches, that he looked upon history as resolving itself ultimately
into a study of men; and it thus explains how he wished to be free
to describe the times wherein he lived. He is on the whole earlier
than Bacon, who wrote his _Historie of the Reigne of King Henry the
Seventh_ late in life, during the leisure that was forced on him
by his removal from all public offices. Written to display the
controlling policy in days that were 'rough, and full of mutations,
and rare accidents', it is a study of the statecraft and character of
a king who had few personal gifts and small capacity for a brilliant
part, yet won by his ready wisdom the best of all praises that 'what
he minded he compassed'. How he compassed it, is what interested
Bacon. 'I have not flattered him,' he says, 'but took him to the life
as well as I could, sitting so far off, and having no better light.'
Would that Bacon had felt at liberty to choose those who sat near at
hand. Who better than the writer of the _Essays_ could have painted a
series of miniatures of the courts of Elizabeth and James?
When at last the political upheaval of this century compelled men to
leave, whether in histories, or memoirs, or biographies, a record of
what they had themselves experienced, the character attained to its
full importance and excellence. 'That posterity may not be deceaved
by the prosperous wickednesse of these tymes, into an opinyon, that
lesse then a generall combination and universall apostacy in the whole
Nacion from their religion and allegiaunce could in so shorte a tyme
have produced such a totall and prodigious alteration and confusion
over the whole kingdome, and so the memory of those few who out of
duty and conscience have opposed and resisted that Torrent which hath
overwhelmed them, may loose the recompence dew to ther virtue, and
havinge undergone the injuryes and reproches of this, may not finde
a vindication in a better Age'--in these words Clarendon began his
_History of the Rebellion_. But he could not vindicate the memory
of his political friends without describing the men who had overcome
them. The history of these confused and difficult years would not be
properly understood if the characters of all the chief actors in the
tragic drama were not known. For to Clarendon history was the record
of the struggle of personalities. When we are in the midst of a
crisis, or view it from too near a distance, it is natural for us
to think of it as a fight between the opposing leaders, and the
historians of their own time are always liable to attribute to the
personal force of a statesman what is due to general causes of which
he is only the instrument. Of these general causes Clarendon took
little account. 'Motives which influenced masses of men', it has been
said, 'escape his appreciation, and the _History of the Rebellion_
is accordingly an account of the Puritan Revolution which is
unintelligible because the part played by Puritanism is misunderstood
or omitted altogether'.[7] But the _History of the Rebellion_ is a
Stuart portrait gallery, and the greatest portrait gallery in the
English language.
[Footnote 1: Book II, ed. Aldis Wright, pp. 92-5.]
[Footnote 2: 'Historæ nostræ particulam quidam non male: sed qui totum
corpus ea fide, eaque dignitate scriptis complexus sit, quam suscepti
operis magnitudo postularet, hactenus plane neminem extitisse
constat.... Nostri ex fæce plebis historici, dum maiestatem tanti
operis ornare studuerunt, putidissimis ineptiis contaminarunt. Ita
factum est nescio qua huiusce insulæ infoelicitate, ut maiores tui,
(serenissima Regina) viri maximi, qui magnam huius orbis nostri partem
imperio complexi, omnes sui temporis reges rerum gestarum gloria
facile superarunt, magnorum ingeniorum quasi lumine destituti, iaceant
ignoti, & delitescant.']
[Footnote 3: _Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century_, ed.
Spingarn, vol. i, pp. 82-115.]
[Footnote 4: See also Camden Society Publications, No. 7, 1840.]
[Footnote 5: Roger Ascham in his _Scholemaster_ divides History into
'Diaria', 'Annales', 'Commentaries', and 'Iustam Historiam'.]
[Footnote 6: Bacon told Queen Elizabeth that there was no treason in
Hayward's _Henry IV_, but 'very much felony', because Hayward 'had
stolen many of his sentences and conceits out of Cornelius Tacitus'
(_Apophthegms_, 58). Hayward and Bacon had a precursor in the author
of _The History of King Richard the Thirde_, generally attributed to
Sir Thomas More, and printed in the collection of his works published
in 1557. It was known to the chroniclers, but it did not affect the
writing of history. Nor did George Cavendish's _Life and Death of
Thomas Wolsey_, which they likewise used for its facts.]
[Footnote 7: C.H. Firth, 'Burnet as a Historian', in Clarke and
Foxcroft's _Life of Gilbert Burnet_, 1907, pp. xliv, xlv.]
II. The Literary Models.
The authentic models for historical composition were in Greek and
Latin. Much as our literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries owed to the classics, the debt was nowhere more obvious,
and more fully acknowledged, than in our histories. The number of
translations is in itself remarkable. Many of them, and notably
the greatest of all, North's Plutarch, belong to the early part of
Elizabeth's reign, but they became more frequent at the very time when
the inferiority of our native works was engaging attention.[1] By the
middle of the seventeenth century the great classical historians could
all be read in English. It was not through translation, however, that
their influence was chiefly exercised.
The classical historians who were best known were Thucydides,
Polybius, and Plutarch among the Greeks, and Sallust, Livy, Tacitus,
and Suetonius among the Latins; and the former group were not so well
known as the latter. It was recognized that in Thucydides, to use
Hobbes's words, 'the faculty of writing history is at the highest.'[2]
But Thucydides was a difficult author, and neither he nor Polybius
exerted the same direct influence as the Latin historians who had
imitated them, or learned from them. Most of what can be traced
ultimately to the Greeks came to England in the seventeenth century
through Latin channels. Every educated man had been trained in Latin,
and was as familiar with it for literary purposes as with his native
tongue. Further, the main types of history--the history of a long
period of years, the history of recent events, and the biographical
history--were all so admirably represented in Latin that it was not
necessary to go to Greek for a model. In one respect Latin could claim
pre-eminence. It might possess no single passage greater than the
character study of Pericles or of the Athenians by Thucydides, but it
developed the character study into a recognized and clearly defined
element in historical narrative. Livy provided a pattern of narrative
on a grand scale. For 'exquisite eloquence' he was held not to
have his equal.[3] But of all the Latin historians, Tacitus had the
greatest influence. 'There is no learning so proper for the direction
of the life of man as Historie; there is no historie so well worth the
reading as Tacitus. Hee hath written the most matter with best conceit
in fewest words of any Historiographer ancient or moderne.'[4] This
had been said at the beginning of the first English translation of
Tacitus, and it was the view generally held when he came to be better
known. He appealed to Englishmen of the seventeenth century like no
other historian. They felt the human interest of a narrative based
on what the writer had experienced for himself; and they found
that its political wisdom could be applied, or even applied itself
spontaneously, to their own circumstances. They were widely read in
the classics. They knew how Plutarch depicted character in his Lives,
and Cicero in his Speeches. They knew all the Latin historians. But
when they wrote their own characters their chief master was Tacitus.
* * * * *
Continental historians provided the incentive of rivalry. They too
were the pupils of the Ancients, and taught nothing that might not be
learned equally well or better from their masters, but they invited
the question why England should be behind Italy, France, or the Low
Countries in worthy records of its achievements. In their own century,
Thuanus, Davila, Bentivoglio, Strada, and Grotius set the standard for
modern historical composition. Jacques Auguste de Thou, or Thuanus,
wrote in Latin a history of his own time in 138 books. He intended to
complete it in 143 books with the assassination of Henri IV in 1610,
but his labours were interrupted by his death in 1617. The collected
edition of his monumental work was issued in 1620 under the title
_Iacobi Augusti Thuani Historiarum sui temporis ab anno 1543 usque
ad annum 1607 Libri CXXXVIII_. Enrico Caterino Davila dealt with the
affairs of France from Francis II to Henri IV in his _Historia
delle guerre civili di Francia_, published in 1630. Cardinal Guido
Bentivoglio described the troubles in the Low Countries in his _Della
Guerra di Fiandra_, published from 1632 to 1639. Famianus Strada
wrote on the same subject in Latin; the first part of his _De Bella
Belgico_, which was meant to cover the period from 1555 to 1590 but
was not completed, appeared in 1632, and the second in 1647. Hugo
Grotius, the great Dutch scholar, had long been engaged on his
_Annales et Historiæ de Rebus Belgicis_ when he died in 1640; it was
brought out by his sons in 1657, and contained five books of Annals
from 1566 to 1588, and eighteen books of Histories to 1609. These
five historians were well known in England, and were studied for their
method as well as their matter. Burnet took Thuanus as his model. 'I
have made him ', he says, 'my pattern in writing.'[5] The others are
discussed by Clarendon in a long passage of his essay 'On an Active
and on a Contemplative Life'.[6] He there develops the view, not
without reference to his own history, that 'there was never yet a good
History written but by men conversant in business, and of the best
and most liberal education'; and he illustrates it by comparing the
histories of his four contemporaries:
Two of these are by so much preferable before the other Two,
that the first may worthily stand by the Sides of the best
of the Ancients, whilst both the others must be placed under
them; and a Man, without knowing more of them, may by reading
their Books find the Difference between their Extractions,
their Educations, their Conversations, and their Judgment. The
first Two are _Henry D'Avila_ and Cardinal _Bentivoglio_, both
_Italians_ of illustrious Birth; ... they often set forth and
describe the same Actions with very pleasant and delightful
Variety; and commonly the greatest Persons they have occasion
to mention were very well known to them both, which makes
their Characters always very lively. Both their Histories are
excellent, and will instruct the ablest and wisest Men how to
write, and terrify them from writing. The other Two were _Hugo
Grotius_ and _Famianus Strada_, who both wrote in _Latin_
upon the same Argument, and of the same Time, of the Wars of
_Flanders_, and of the _Low-Countries_.
He proceeds to show that Grotius, with all his learning and abilities,
and with all his careful revisions, had not been able to give his
narrative enough life and spirit; it was deficient in 'a lively
Representation of Persons and Actions, which makes the Reader present
at all they say or do'. The whole passage, which is too long to
be quoted in full, is not more valuable as a criticism than as an
indication of his own aims, and of his equipment to realize them. Some
years earlier, when he was still thinking 'with much agony' about the
method he was to employ in his own history, he had cited the methods
of Davila, 'who', he added, 'I think hath written as ours should be
written.'[7]
One of Clarendon's tests of a good history, it will be noted, is
the 'lively representation of persons'; the better writers are
distinguished by making 'their characters always very lively'. In
his own hands, and in Burnet's, the character assumes even greater
importance than the continental historians had given it. At every
opportunity Clarendon leaves off his narrative of events to describe
the actors in the great drama, and Burnet introduces his main subject
with what is in effect an account of his _dramatis personæ_. They
excel in the range and variety of their characters. But they had
studied the continental historians, and the encouragement of example
must not be forgotten.
* * * * *
The debt to French literature can easily be overstated. No French
influence is discoverable in the origin and rise of the English
character, nor in its form or manner; but its later development may
have been hastened by French example, especially during the third
quarter of the seventeenth century.
France was the home of the _mémoire_, the personal record in which
the individual portrays himself as the centre of his world, and
describes events and persons in the light of his own experience. It
was established as a characteristic form of French literature in the
sixteenth century,[8] and it reached its full vigour and variety
in the century of Sully, Rohan, Richelieu, Tallemant des Réaux,
Bassompierre, Madame de Motteville, Mlle de Montpensier, La
Rochefoucauld, Villars, Cardinal de Retz, Bussy-Rabutin--to name but
a few. This was the age of the _mémoire_, always interesting, often
admirably written; and, as might be expected, sometimes exhibiting the
art of portraiture at perfection. The English memoir is comparatively
late. The word, in the sense of a narrative of personal recollections,
was borrowed at the Restoration. The thing itself, under other names,
is older. It is a branch of history that flourishes in stirring
and difficult times when men believe themselves to have special
information about hidden forces that directed the main current of
events, and we date it in this country from the period of the Civil
Wars. It is significant that when Shaftesbury in his old age composed
his short and fragmentary autobiography he began by saying, 'I in this
follow the French fashion, and write my own memoirs.' Even Swift, when
publishing Temple's _Memoirs_, said that ''tis to the French (if I
mistake not) we chiefly owe that manner of writing; and Sir William
Temple is not only the first, but I think the only Englishman (at
least of any consequence) who ever attempted it.' Few English memoirs
were then in print, whereas French memoirs were to be numbered by
dozens. But the French fashion is not to be regarded as an importation
into English literature, supplying what had hitherto been lacking. At
most it stimulated what already existed.
The _mémoire_ was not the only setting for French portraits at this
time. There were the French romances, and notably the _Artamène ou
le Grand Cyrus_ and the _Clélie_ of Madeleine de Scudéry. The full
significance of the _Grand Cyrus_ has been recovered for modern
readers by Victor Cousin, with great skill and charm, in his _Société
française au XVIIe siècle_, where he has shown it to be, 'properly
speaking, a history in portraits'. The characters were drawn from
familiar figures in French society. 'Ainsi s'explique', says Cousin,
'l'immense succès du _Cyrus_ dans le temps où il parut. C'était une
galerie des portraits vrais et frappants, mais un peu embellis,
où tout ce qu'il y avait de plus illustre en tout genre--princes,
courtisans, militaires, beaux-esprits, et surtout jolies
femmes--allaient se chercher et se reconnaissaient avec un plaisir
inexprimable.'[9] It was easy to attack these romances. Boileau made
fun of them because the classical names borne by the characters
were so absurdly at variance with the matter of the stories.[10] But
instead of giving, as he said, a French air and spirit to Greece and
Rome, Madeleine de Scudéry only gave Greek and Roman names to France
as she knew it. The names were a transparent disguise that was not
meant to conceal the picture of fashionable society.
The next stage was the portrait by itself, without any setting. At the
height of the popularity of the romances, Mlle de Montpensier hit upon
a new kind of entertainment for the talented circle of which she was
the brilliant centre. It was nothing more nor less than a paper game.
They drew each other, or persons whom they knew, or themselves, and
under their real names. And they played the game so well that what was
written for amusement was worth printing. _Divers Portraits, Imprimés
en l'année M DC LIX_ was the simple title of the first collection,
which was intended only for the contributors.[11] When it reached its
final form in 1663, it contained over a hundred and fifty portraits,
and was offered to the public as _La Galerie des Peintures, ou Recueil
des portraits et éloges en vers et en prose, contenant les portraits
du Roy, de la Reyne, des princes, princesses, duchesses, marquises,
comtesses, et autres seigneurs et dames les plus illustres de France;
la plupart composés par eux-mêmes_.[12] The introductory defence of
the portrait cites Suetonius and Plutarch, and Horace and Montaigne,
but also states frankly the true original of the new fashion--'il faut
avouer que nous sommes très redevables au _Cyrus_ et à la _Clélie_
qui nous en ont fourni les modèles.' About the same time Antoine
Baudeau, sieur de Somaize, brought out his _Grand Dictionnaire des
Précieuses_,[13] in which there are many portraits in the accepted
manner. The portrait was more than a fashion at this time in France;
it was the rage. It therefore invited the satirists. Molière has a
passing jest at them in his _Précieuses Ridicules_;[14] Charles Sorel
published his _Description de I'isle de la Portraiture et de la ville
des Portraits_; and Boileau wrote his _Héros de Roman_.
The effects of all this in England are certainly not obvious. It is
quite a tenable view that the English characters would have been
no less numerous, nor in any way different in quality, had every
Englishman been ignorant of French. But the _mémoires_ and romances
were well known, and it was after 1660 that the art of the character
attained its fullest excellence. The literary career of Clarendon
poses the question in a simple form. Most of his characters, and the
best as a whole, were written at Montpelier towards the close of
his life. Did he find in French literature an incentive to indulge
and perfect his natural bent? Yet there can be no conclusive answer
to those who find a sufficient explanation in the leisure of these
unhappy years, and in the solace that comes to chiefs out of war
and statesmen out of place in ruminating on their experiences and
impressions.
* * * * *
Something may have been learned also from the other kind of character
that is found at its best in modern literature in the seventeenth
century, the character derived from Theophrastus, and depicting not
the individual but the type. In France, the one kind led on to the
other. The romances of Scudéry prepared the way for the _Caractères ou
les Moeurs de ce Siècle_ of La Bruyère. When the fashionable portrait
of particular persons fell out of favour, there arose in its place the
description of dispositions and temperaments; and in the hands of La
Bruyère 'the manners of the century' were the habits and varieties
of human nature. In England the two kinds existed side by side. They
correspond to the two methods of the drama. Begin with the individual,
but draw him in such a way that we recognize in him our own or others'
qualities; or begin with the qualities shared by classes of people,
embody these in a person who stands for the greatest common measure of
the class, and finally--and only then--let him take on his distinctive
traits: these are methods which are not confined to the drama, and
at all stages of our literature have lived in helpful rivalry. Long
before France had her La Bruyère, England had her Hall, Overbury, and
Earle.[15] The Theophrastan character was at its best in this country
at the beginning of the seventeenth century when the historical
character was still in its early stages; and it was declining when
the historical character had attained its full excellence. They cannot
always be clearly distinguished, and they are sometimes purposely
blended, as in Butler's character of 'A Duke of Bucks,' where
the satire on a man of pronounced individuality is heightened by
describing his eccentricities as if they belonged to a recognized
class.
The great lesson that the Theophrastan type of character could teach
was the value of balance and unity. A haphazard statement of
features and habits and peculiarities might suffice for a sketch,
but perspective and harmony were necessary to a finished portrait.
It taught that the surest method in depicting character was first
to conceive the character as a whole, and then to introduce detail
incidentally and in proper subordination. But the same lesson could
have been learned elsewhere. It might have been learned from the
English drama.
[Footnote 1: North's Plutarch went into five editions between 1579
and 1631; Thucydides was translated by Hobbes in 1629, and Polybius
by Edward Grimeston in 1633; Xenophon's _Anabasis_ was translated
by John Bingham in 1623, and the _Cyropædia_ by Philemon Holland in
1632; Arthur Golding's version of Cæsar's _Gallic War_ was several
times reprinted between 1565 and 1609; Philemon Holland, the
translator-general of the age, as Fuller called him, brought out
his Livy in 1600, and his Suetonius in 1606; Sallust was translated
by Thomas Heywood in 1608, and by William Crosse in 1629; Velleius
Paterculus was 'rendred English by Sir Robert Le Grys' in 1632; and by
1640 there had been six editions of Sir Henry Savile's _Histories_ and
_Agricola_ of Tacitus, first published in 1591, and five editions of
Richard Grenewey's _Annals_ and _Germany_, first published in 1598.
See H.R. Palmer's _English Editions and Translations of Greek and
Latin Classics printed before 1641_, Bibliographical Society, 1911.]
[Footnote 2: 'Thucydides ... in whom (I beleeve with many others) the
Faculty of writing History is at the Highest.' Thucydides, 1629, 'To
the Readers.']
[Footnote 3: Philemon Holland's Livy, 1600, 'Dedication to
Elizabeth.']
[Footnote 4: Sir Henry Savile's Tacitus, 1591, 'A.B. To the Reader.']
[Footnote 5: _Supplement to Burnet's History_, ed. H.C. Foxcroft, p.
451.]
[Footnote 6: In 'Reflections upon Several Christian Duties, Divine and
Moral, by Way of Essays', printed in _A Collection of several Tracts
of Edward Earl of Clarendon_, 1727, pp. 80-1.]
[Footnote 7: Letter to the Earl of Bristol, February 1, 1646
(_State Papers_, vol. ii, p. 334). Davila was very well known in
England--better, it would appear, than the other three--and was
credited with being more than a mere literary model. Clarendon says
that from his account of the civil wars of France 'no question our
Gamesters learned much of their play'. Sir Philip Warwick, after
remarking that Hampden was well read in history, tells us that the
first time he ever saw Davila's book it was lent to him 'under the
title of Mr. Hambden's _Vade Mecum_' (_Mémoires_, 1701, p. 240).
A translation was published by the authority of the Parliament in
1647-8. Translations of Strada, Bentivoglio, and Grotius followed in
1650, 1654, and 1665. Only parts of Thuanus were translated. The size
of his history was against a complete version.]
[Footnote 8: See the _Mémoires_ of Monluc, Brantôme, La Noue, &c. The
fifty-two volumes in Petitot's incomplete series entitled _Collection
des Mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France jusqu'au commencement
du dix-septième siècle_ show at a glance the remarkable richness of
French literature in the _mémoire_ at an early date.]
[Footnote 9: _La Socíété française au XVIIe siècle_, 1858 vol. i, p.
7. The 'key' drawn up in 1657 is printed as an appendix.]
[Footnote 10: _Art poétique_, iii. 115-18.]
[Footnote 11: Cousin, _Madame de Sablé_, 1854, pp. 42-8.]
[Footnote 12: Edited by Edouard de Barthélemy in 1860 under the title
_La Galerie des Portraits de Mademoiselle de Montpensier_.]
[Footnote 13: Edited by Ch. Livet, 1856 (Bibliothèque Elzevirienne. 2
vols.).]
[Footnote 14: Sc. x, where Madelon says 'Je vous avoue que je suis
furieusement pour les portraits: je ne vois rien de si galant que
cela', and Mascarille replies, 'Les portraits sont difficiles, et
demandent un esprit profond: vous en verrez de ma manière qui ne vous
déplairont pas.']
[Footnote 15: Joseph Hall's _Characters of Vertues and Vices_ appeared
in 1608 Overbury's _Characters_ 1614-22. For Earle, see pp. 168-70.]
III. Clarendon.
Clarendon's _History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England_
is made up of two works composed with different purposes and at
a distance of twenty years. The first, which may be called the
'Manuscript History', belongs to 1646-8; the second, the 'Manuscript
Life', to 1668-70. They were combined to form the _History_ as we
now read it in 1671, when new sections were added to give continuity
and to complete the narrative. On Clarendon's death in 1674 the
manuscripts passed to his two sons, Henry Hyde, second Earl of
Clarendon, and Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester; and under the
supervision of the latter a transcript of the _History_ was made for
the printers. The work was published at Oxford in three handsome
folio volumes in 1702, 1703, and 1704, and became the property of the
University. The portions of the 'Manuscript Life' which Clarendon
had not incorporated in the _History_ as being too personal, were
published by the University in 1759, under the title _The Life
of Edward Earl of Clarendon_, and were likewise printed from a
transcript.[1]
The original manuscripts, now also in the possession of the University
of which Clarendon's family were such generous benefactors, enable
us to fix the dates of composition. We know whether a part belongs
originally to the 'Manuscript History' or the 'Manuscript Life', or
whether it was pieced in later. More than this, Clarendon every now
and again inserts the month and the day on which he began or ended
a section. We can thus trace the stages by which his great work was
built up, and learn how his art developed. We can also judge how
closely the printed texts represent what Clarendon had written. The
old controversy on the authenticity of the first edition has long been
settled.[2] The original editors did their work faithfully according
to the editorial standards of their day; and they were well within the
latitude allowed them by the terms of Clarendon's instructions when
they occasionally omitted a passage, or when they exercised their
somewhat prim and cautious taste in altering and polishing phrases
that Clarendon had dashed down as quickly as his pen could move.[3]
Later editors have restored the omitted passages and scrupulously
reproduced Clarendon's own words. But no edition has yet reproduced
his spelling. In the characters printed in this volume the attempt
is made, for the first time it is believed, to represent the original
manuscripts accurately to the letter.[4]
On the defeat of the last Royalist army in Cornwall in February 1646
it was necessary to provide for the safety of Prince Charles, and
Clarendon, in these days Sir Edward Hyde, accompanied him when on the
night of March 2 he set sail for Scilly. They arrived in Scilly on
March 4, and there they remained till April 16, when the danger of
capture by the Parliamentary fleet compelled them to make good their
escape to Jersey. It is a remarkable testimony to the vigour of
Clarendon's mind that even in the midst of this crisis he should
have been able to begin his _History_. He began it in Scilly on March
18, 1646--the date is at the head of his manuscript; and once he
was settled in Jersey he immediately resumed it. But in writing his
_History_ he did not, in these days, think of himself only as an
historian. He was a trusted adviser of the defeated party, and he
planned his faithful narrative of what he knew so well not solely to
vindicate the character and conduct of the King, but also with the
immediate purpose of showing how the disasters had been brought out,
and, by implication, how further disaster might be avoided. The proof
of this is to be found not in the _History_ itself, where he seems
to have his eye only on 'posterity' and 'a better age', but in his
correspondence. In a letter written to Sir Edward Nicholas, the King's
secretary, on November 15, 1646, Clarendon spoke of his _History_ at
some length:
As soon as I found myself alone, I thought the best way to
provide myself for new business against the time I should be
called to it (for, Mr. Secretary, you and I must once again
to business) was to look over the faults of the old; and so
I resolved (which you know I threatned you with long ago) to
write the history of these evil times, and of this most lovely
Rebellion. Well; without any other help than a few diurnals
I have wrote of longer paper than this, and in the same fine
small hand, above threescore sheets of paper.... I write with
all fidelity and freedom of all I know, of persons and things,
and the oversights and omissions on both sides, in order to
what they desired; so that you will believe it will make mad
work among friends and foes, if it were published; but out
of it enough may be chosen to make a perfect story, and the
original kept for their perusal, who may be the wiser for
knowing the most secret truths; and you know it will be an
easier matter to blot out two sheets, than to write half an
one. If I live to finish it (as on my conscience I shall, for
I write apace), I intend to seal it up, and have it always
with me. If I die, I appoint it to be delivered to you, to
whose care (with a couple of good fellows more) I shall leave
it; that either of you dying, you may so preserve it, that
in due time somewhat by your care may be published, and the
original be delivered to the King, who will not find himself
flattered in it, nor irreverently handled: though, the truth
will better suit a dead than a living man. Three hours a
day I assign to this writing task; the rest to other study
and books; so I doubt not after seven years time in this
retirement, you will find me a pretty fellow.[5]
From this, as from other passages in his letters, Clarendon's
first intentions are clear. The _History_ was to be a repository of
authentic information on 'this most lovely Rebellion', constructed
with the specifically didactic purpose of showing the King and his
advisers what lessons were to be learned from their errors; they would
be 'the wiser for knowing the most secret truths'. At first he looked
on his work as containing the materials of a 'perfect story', but as
he proceeded his ambitions grew. He had begun to introduce characters;
and when in the spring of 1647 he was about to write his first
character of Lord Falkland, he had come to the view that 'the
preservation of the fame and merit of persons, and deriving the same
to posterity, is no less the business of history than the truth of
things'.[6] He gave much thought to the character of Falkland, 'whom
the next age shall be taught', he was determined, 'to value more than
the present did.'[7] Concurrently with the introduction of characters
he paid more attention to the literary, as distinct from the
didactic, merits of his work. We find him comparing himself with other
historians, and considering what Livy and Tacitus would have done
in like circumstances. By the spring of 1648 he had brought down his
narrative to the opening of the campaign of 1644. Earlier in the
year he had been commanded by the King to be ready to rejoin Prince
Charles, and shortly afterwards he received definite instructions from
the Queen to attend on her and the Prince at Paris. He left Jersey
in June, and with his re-entry into active politics his _History_ was
abruptly ended. The seven years of retirement which he had anticipated
were cut down by the outbreak of the Second Civil War to two; and
within a year the King for whose benefit he had begun this _History_
was led to the scaffold. Not for twenty years was Clarendon again to
have the leisure to be an historian. When in 1668 he once more took
up his pen, it was not a continuation of the first work, but an
entirely new work, that came in steady flow from the abundance of his
knowledge.
Clarendon returned to England as Lord Chancellor in 1660, and for
seven years enjoyed the power which he had earned by ceaseless
devotion to his two royal masters. The ill success of the war with the
Dutch, jealousy of his place and influence, the spiteful opposition
of the King's chief mistress, and the King's own resentment at an
attitude that showed too little deference and imprudently suggested
the old relations of tutor and pupil, all combined to bring about his
fall. He fled from England on November 30, 1667, and was never to set
foot in England again. Broken in health and spirit, he sought in vain
for many months a resting-place in France, and not till July 1668 did
he find a new home at Montpelier. Here his health improved, and here
he remained till June 1671. These were busy years of writing, and
by far the greater portion of his published work, if his letters
and state papers be excluded, belongs to this time. First of all he
answered the charge of high treason brought against him by the House
of Commons in _A Discourse, by Way of Vindication of my self_, begun
on July 24, 1668; he wrote most of his _Reflections upon Several
Christian Duties, Divine and Moral_, a collection of twenty-five
essays, some of considerable length, on subjects largely suggested
by his own circumstances; and he completed between December 1668 and
February 1671 his _Contemplations and Reflections upon the Psalms of
David_, an elaborate exposition extending to well over four hundred
folio pages of print, which he had begun at Jersey in 1647. But his
great work at this time was his _Life_, begun on July 23, 1668,
and brought down to 1660 by August 1, 1670. It is by far the most
elaborate autobiography that had yet been attempted in English. The
manuscript consists of over six hundred pages, and each page contains
on an average about a thousand words. He wrote with perfect freedom,
for this work, unlike the earlier _History_, was not intended for the
eyes of the King, and the didactic days were over. He wrote too with
remarkable ease. The very appearance of the manuscript, where page
follows page with hardly an erasure, and the 'fine hand' becomes finer
and finer, conveys even a sense of relief and pleasure. His pen seems
to move of itself and the long and elaborate sentences to evolve of
their own free will. The story of his life became a loose framework
into which he could fit all that he wished to tell of his own times;
and the more he told, his vindication would be the more complete.
'Even unawares', he admitted, 'many things are inserted not so
immediately applicable to his own person, which possibly may
hereafter, in some other method, be communicated to the world.'[8] He
welcomed the opportunity to tell all that he knew. There was no reason
for reticence. He wrote of men as of things frankly as he knew them.
More than a history of the Rebellion, his _Life_ is also a picture of
the society in which he had moved. It is the work which contains most
of his characters.[9]
His early _History_ had been left behind in England on his sudden
flight. For about four years he was debarred from all intercourse with
his family, but in 1671 the royal displeasure so far relaxed that his
second son, Laurence, was granted a pass to visit him, and he brought
the manuscript that had been left untouched for twenty years. They met
in June at Moulins, which was to be Clarendon's home till April 1674.
Once the old and the new work were both in his hands, he cast his
great _History of the Rebellion_ in its final form, and thus 'finished
the work which his heart was most set upon'. In June 1672 he turned
to the 'Continuation of his Life', which deals with his Chancellorship
and his fall, and was not intended 'ever for a public view, or for
more than the information of his children'. As its conclusion shows,
it was his last work to be completed, but while engaged on it he found
time to write much else, including his reply to Hobbes's _Leviathan_.
'In all this retirement', he could well say, in a passage which reads
like his obituary, 'he was very seldom vacant, and then only when he
was under some sharp visitation of the gout, from reading excellent
books, or writing some animadversions and exercitations of his own,
as appears by the papers and notes which he left.' The activity of
these years of banishment is remarkable in a man who had turned sixty
and had passed through about thirty years of continuous storm. His
intellectual vitality was unimpaired. The old English jollity that
Evelyn had remarked in him in happier if more difficult days had gone,
but the even temper from which it had sprung still remained. He was at
his best as a writer then; writing was never an effort to him, but in
his exile it was an exercise and recreation. He could have said with
Dryden that 'what judgment I had increases rather than diminishes; and
thoughts, such as they are, come crowding in so fast upon me, that my
only difficulty is to choose or to reject'.
He was still in hopes that he would be allowed to return to England,
to die in his own country and among his children. 'Seven years',
he said, 'was a time prescribed and limited by God himself for the
expiration of some of his greatest judgements.'[10] In the seventh
year of his banishment he left Moulins for Rouen, so as to be nearer
home. His hopes were vain. He died at Rouen on December 9, 1674.[11]
His body was brought to England for burial in Westminster.
* * * * *
Clarendon had been interested in the study of character all his
life. His earliest work was 'The Difference and Disparity between the
Estates and Conditions of George Duke of Buckingham and Robert Earl of
Essex'. Sir Henry Wotton had written observations on these statesmen
'by way of parallel', and Clarendon pointed out as a sequel wherein
they differed. It is a somewhat laboured composition in comparison
with his later work, a young man's careful essay that lacks the
confidence that comes with experience, but it shows at an early stage
the talents which knowledge and practice were to develop into mastery.
The school in which he learned most was the circle of his friends. Few
men can have owed more to their friends than he did, or have been more
generous in acknowledging the debt. He tells us he was often heard to
say that 'next the immediate blessing and providence of God Almighty,
which had preserved him throughout the whole course of his life
(less strict than it ought to have been) from many dangers and
disadvantages, in which many other young men were lost, he owed
all the little he knew, and the little good that was in him, to the
friendships and conversation he had still been used to, of the most
excellent men in their several kinds that lived in that age; by whose
learning, and information, and instruction, he formed his studies,
and mended his understanding, and by whose gentleness and sweetness
of behaviour, and justice, and virtue, and example, he formed his
manners, subdued that pride and suppressed that heat and passion he
was naturally inclined to be transported with.' He used often to say,
he continues, that 'he never was so proud, or thought himself so good
a man, as when he was the worst man in the company'. He cultivated
his friendships, it is true, with an eye to his advancement; but it
is equally true that he had a nature which invited friendships. He
enjoyed to the full the pleasure of living and seeing others live,
and a great part of his pleasure consisted in observing how men
differed in their habits and foibles. He tells how Ben Jonson did
not understand why young Mr. Hyde should neglect the delights of his
company at the call of business; how Selden, with all his stupendous
learning, was never more studious of anything than his ease; how
Earle gave a wrong impression by the negligence of his dress and
mien, whereas no man was more wary and cultivated in his behaviour and
discourse; how Chillingworth argued for the pleasure of arguing and
thereby irritated his friends and at last grew confident of nothing;
how Hales, great in scholarship but diminutive in stature, liked to be
by himself but had a very open and pleasant conversation in congenial
company; how Waller nursed his reputation for ready wit by seeming
to speak on the sudden what he had thoroughly considered. In all his
accounts of the friends of his youth Clarendon is in the background,
but we picture him moving among them at ease, conscious of his
inferiority in learning and brilliance and the gentler virtues,
yet trusting to his own judgement, and convinced that every man
worth knowing has a pronounced individuality. In these happy and
irresponsible days, when he numbered poets among his friends, he
himself wrote poetry. Little of it is preserved. He contributed
introductory verses to Davenant's _Albovine_, and composed verses on
the death of Donne. His poetry was well enough known for Dryden to
allude to it during his Lord Chancellorship, in the address presented
to him at the height of his power in 1662:
The _Muses_, who your early Courtship boast,
Though now your Flames are with their Beauty lost,
Yet watch their Time, that if you have forgot
They were your Mistresses, the world may not.
But first the law claimed him, and then politics, and then came the
Civil War. As Privy Councillor and Chancellor of the Exchequer he was
in the thick of the conflict. The men whom he had now to study were
men of affairs. He had the clear and unimpassioned vision which often
goes with a warm temperament, and could scrutinize his friends without
endangering his affection for them. However deeply his feelings might
be engaged, he had taken a pleasure in trying to see them exactly as
they were. When he came to judge his political enemies he continued
the same attitude of detachment, and studiously cultivated it. 'I am
careful', he said in a private letter,[12] 'to do justice to every
man who hath fallen in the quarrel, on which side soever.' 'I know
myself', he said in the _History_,[13] 'to be very free from any of
those passions which naturally transport men with prejudice towards
the persons whom they are obliged to mention, and whose actions they
are at liberty to censure.' It was beyond human nature for a man who
had lived through what he did to be completely unprejudiced. He did
not always scrupulously weigh what he knew would be to the discredit
of the Parliamentary leaders, nor did he ignore mere Royalist rumour,
as in the character of Pym. But his characters of them are often more
favourable than might have been expected. He may show his personal
dislike, or even his sense of their crime, but behind this he permits
us to see the qualities which contributed to their success. There can
be no reasonable objection to his characters of Hampden and Cromwell.
Political partisans find them disappointing, and they are certainly
not the final verdict. The worst that can be said of them is that
they are drawn from a wrong point of view; but from that point of view
their honesty is unquestionable. He does not distinguish men by their
party. The folly of his own side is exhibited as relentlessly as the
knavery of his opponents. Of no one did he write a more unfavourable
character than the Earl of Arundel. He explains the failure of Laud,
and he does not conceal the weakness of Charles.
There is a broad distinction between his earlier and later characters.
While he was still in the midst of the conflict and hoped to influence
it by stating what he knew, he depicted the individual in relation
to events. When the conflict was over and he was at leisure to draw
on his recollections, he made the individual to a greater degree the
representative of the type. But the distinction is not clearly marked,
and Clarendon may not have suspected it. His habitual detachment was
assisted by his exile. The displeasure of his ungrateful master, from
whom he had never been separated during seventeen difficult years, had
proved the vanity of the little things of life. He looked at men from
a distance that obscures what is insignificant, and shows only the
essential.
All his characters are clearly defined. We never confound them; we
never have any doubt of how he understood them. He sees men as a whole
before he begins to describe them, and then his only difficulty, as
his manuscripts show, is to make his pen move fast enough. He does not
build up his characters. He does not, as many others do, start with
the external features in the hope of arriving at the central facts. He
starts from the centre and works outwards. This is the reason of the
convincingness of his characters, their dramatic truth. The dramatic
sense in him is stronger than the pictorial.
He troubles little about personal appearance, or any of the traits
which would enable us to visualize his men. We understand them rather
than see them. Hampden, he tells us, was 'of a most civil and affable
deportment' and had 'a flowing courtesy to all men', a 'rare temper
and modesty'; it is Sir Philip Warwick who speaks of the 'scurf
commonly on his face'.[14] He says that the younger Vane 'had an
unusual aspect', and leaves us wondering what was unusual. His
Falkland is an exception, but he adopted a different scale when
describing his greatest friend and only hero. Each of his two accounts
of Falkland is in fact a brief biography rather than a character;
the earliest of them, written shortly after Falkland's death, he once
thought of making into a volume by itself. In his characters proper
he confines himself more strictly than any other writer to matters of
character. They are characters rather than portraits.
But portraiture was one of his passions, though he left its practice
to the painters. He adorned his houses with the likenesses of his
friends. It was fitting that our greatest character writer should
have formed one of the great collections of pictures of 'wits, poets,
philosophers, famous and learned Englishmen'.[15] To describe them
on paper, and to contrive that they should look down on him from his
walls, were different ways of indulging the same keen and tireless
interest in the life amid which he moved.
[Footnote 1: For a detailed examination of the composition and value
of Clarendon's _History_ see the three articles by Professor C.H.
Firth in _The English Historical Review_ for 1904. No student of
Clarendon can ever afford to neglect them.]
[Footnote 2: See No. 33, introductory note.]
[Footnote 3: See No. 6, introductory note, and No. 36, p. 140, II.
17-22 note.]
[Footnote 4: Contractions have been expanded. The punctuation of the
original is slight, and it has been found desirable occasionally to
insert commas, where seventeenth century printers would have inserted
them; but the run of the sentences has not been disturbed. In
modernized versions Clarendon's long sentences are sometimes
needlessly subdivided.]
[Footnote 5: _State Papers_, 1773, vol. ii, pp. 288-9.]
[Footnote 6: Letter of March 16, 1647; _infra_ p. 275.]
[Footnote 7: Letter of January 8, 1647; T.H. Lister, _Life of
Clarendon_, 1837, vol. iii, p. 43.]
[Footnote 8: Ed. 1857, part 1, § 85; omitted in the edition of 1759.]
[Footnote 9: Of the thirty-seven characters by Clarendon in this
volume, twenty-seven are from the 'Manuscript Life'.]
[Footnote 10: _State Papers_, 1786, vol. iii, supp., p. xlv.]
[Footnote 11: Clarendon's lifetime coincided almost exactly with
Milton's. He was two months younger than Milton, and died one month
later.]
[Footnote 12: December 14, 1647; _infra_ p. 275.]
[Footnote 13: Book ix, _ad init._; ed. Macray, vol. iv, p. 3.]
[Footnote 14: See note, p. 129, ll. 22 ff.]
[Footnote 15: Evelyn's _Diary_, December 20, 1668. See the account of
'The Clarendon Gallery' in Lady Theresa Lewis's _Lives of the friends
of Clarendon_, 1852, vol. i, pp. 15* ff., and vol. iii, pp. 241 ff.]
IV. Other Character Writers.
When Clarendon's _History_ was at last made public, no part of it
was more frequently discussed, or more highly praised, than its
characters--'so just', said Evelyn, 'and tempered without the least
ingredient of passion or tincture of revenge, yet with such natural
and lively touches as show his lordship well knew not only the
persons' outsides, but their very interiors.'[1] About the same time,
and probably as a consequence of the publication of Clarendon's work,
Bishop Burnet proceeded to put into its final form the _History_ on
which he had been engaged since 1683. He gave special attention to his
characters, some of which he entirely rewrote. They at once invited
comparison with Clarendon's, and first impressions, then as now, were
not in their favour. 'His characters are miserably wrought,' said
Swift.[2]
Burnet was in close touch with the political movements of his time.
'For above thirty years,' he wrote, 'I have lived in such intimacy
with all who have had the chief conduct of affairs, and have been so
much trusted, and on so many important occasions employed by them,
that I have been able to penetrate far into the true secrets of
counsels and designs.'[3] He had a retentive memory, and a full share
of worldly wisdom. But he was not an artist like Clarendon. His style
has none of the sustained dignity, the leisurely evolution, which in
Clarendon is so strangely at variance with the speed of composition.
All is stated, nothing suggested. There is a succession of short
sentences, each perfectly clear in itself, often unlinked to what
precedes or follows, and always without any of the finer shades of
meaning. It is rough work, and on the face of it hasty, and so it
would have remained, no matter how often it had been revised. Again,
Burnet does not always have perfect control of the impression he
wishes to convey. It is as if he did not have the whole character in
his mind before he began to write, but collected his thoughts from
the stores of his memory in the process of composition. We are often
uncertain how to understand a character before we have read it all. In
some cases he seems to be content to present us with the material from
which, once we have pieced it together ourselves, we can form our own
judgement. But what he tells us has been vividly felt by him, and is
vividly presented. The great merit of his characters lies in their
realism. Of the Earl of Lauderdale he says that 'He made a very ill
appearance: He was very big: His hair red, hanging oddly about him:
His tongue was too big for his mouth, which made him bedew all that
he talked to.' There is no hint of this in Clarendon's character of
Lauderdale, nor could Clarendon have spoken with the same directness.
Burnet has no circumlocutions, just as in private life he was
not known to indulge in them. When he reports what was said in
conversation he gives the very words. Lauderdale 'was a man, as the
Duke of Buckingham called him to me, of a blundering understanding'.
Halifax 'hoped that God would not lay it to his charge, if he could
not digest iron, as an ostrich did, nor take into his belief things
that must burst him'. It is the directness and actuality of such
things as these, and above all his habit of describing men in relation
to himself, that make his best characters so vivid. Burnet is seldom
in the background. He allows us to suspect that it is not the man
himself whom he presents to us but the man as he knew him, though
he would not have admitted the distinction. He could not imitate the
detachment of Clarendon, who is always deliberately impersonal, and
writes as if he were pronouncing the impartial judgement of history
from which there can be no appeal. Burnet views his men from a much
nearer distance. His perspective may sometimes be at fault, but he
gets the detail.
With all his shrewd observation, it must be admitted that his range of
comprehension was limited. There were no types of character too subtle
for Clarendon to understand. There were some which eluded Burnet's
grasp. He is at his best in describing such a man as Lauderdale, where
the roughness of the style is in perfect keeping with the subject.
His character of Shaftesbury, whom he says he knew for many years in a
very particular manner, is a valuable study and a remarkable companion
piece to Dryden's _Achitophel_. But he did not understand Halifax. The
surface levity misled him. He tells us unsuspectingly as much about
himself as about Halifax. He tells us that the Trimmer could never be
quite serious in the good bishop's company.
We learn more about Halifax from his own elaborate study of Charles
II. It is a prolonged analysis by a man of clear vision, and perfect
balance of judgement, and no prepossessions; who was, moreover, master
of the easy pellucid style that tends to maxim and epigram. A more
impartial and convincing estimate of any king need never be expected.
In method and purpose, it stands by itself. It is indeed not so
much a character in the accepted sense of the word as a scientific
investigation of a personality. Others try to make us see and
understand their men; Halifax anatomizes. Yet he occasionally permits
us to discover his own feelings. Nothing disappointed him more in the
merry monarch than the company he kept, and his comprehensive taste in
wit. 'Of all men that ever _liked_ those who _had wit_, he could the
best _endure_ those who had _none_': there is more here than is on the
surface; we see at once Charles, and his court, and Halifax himself.
As a class, the statesmen and politicians more than hold their
own with the other character writers of the seventeenth century.
Shaftesbury's picture of Henry Hastings, a country gentleman of the
old school, who carried well into the Stuart period the habits and
life of Tudor times, shows a side of his varied accomplishments which
has not won the general recognition that it deserves. It is a sketch
exactly in the style of the eighteenth century essayists. It makes us
regret that the fragmentary autobiography in which it is found did not
come down to a time when it could have included sketches of his famous
contemporaries. The literary skill of his grandson, the author of the
_Characteristicks_, was evidently inherited.
Sir Philip Warwick has the misfortune to be overshadowed by Clarendon.
As secretary to Charles I in the year before his execution, and as
a minor government official under Charles II, he was well acquainted
with men and affairs. Burnet describes him as 'an honest but a weak
man', and adds that 'though he pretended to wit and politics, he was
not cut out for that, and least of all for writing of history'. He
could at least write characters. They do not bear the impress of a
strong personality, but they have the fairmindedness and the calm
outlook that spring from a gentle and unassertive nature. His Cromwell
and his Laud are alike greatly to his credit; and the private view
that he gives us of Charles has unmistakable value. His _Mémoires_
remained in manuscript till 1701, the year before the publication of
Clarendon's _History_. It was the first book to appear with notable
characters of the men of the Civil Wars and the Protectorate.
The Histories and Memoirs of the seventeenth century contain by far
the greatest number of its characters; but they are to be found also
in scattered Lives, and in the collections of material that mark the
rise of modern English biography. There are disappointingly few by
Fuller. In his _Worthies of England_ he is mainly concerned with the
facts of a man's life, and though, in his own word, he fleshes the
bare skeleton of time, place, and person with pleasant passages,
and interlaces many delightful stories by way of illustrations, and
everywhere holds us by the quaint turns of his fertile fancy, yet the
scheme of the book did not involve the depicting of character, nor did
it allow him to deal with many contemporaries whom he had known. In
the present volume it has therefore been found best to represent him
by the studies of Bacon and Laud in his _Church-History_. Bacon he
must have described largely from hearsay, but what he says of Laud is
an admirable specimen of his manner, and leaves us wishing that he had
devoted himself in larger measure to the worthies of his own time.
There are no characters in Aubrey's _Brief Lives_, which are only a
series of rough jottings by a prince of gossips, who collected what
he could and put it all on paper 'tumultuarily'. But the extracts from
what he says of Hobbes and Milton may be considered as notes for a
character, details that awaited a greater artist than Aubrey was to
work them into a picture; and if Hobbes and Milton are to be given a
place, as somehow or other they must be, in a collection of the kind
that this volume offers, there is no option but to be content with
such notes, for there is no set character of either of them. The value
of the facts which Aubrey has preserved is shown by the use made of
them by all subsequent biographers, and notably by Anthony à Wood,
whose _Athenæ Oxonienses_ is our first great biographical dictionary.
Lives of English men of letters begin in the seventeenth century,
and from Rawley's _Life of Bacon_, Sprat's _Life of Cowley_, and the
anonymous _Life of Fuller_ it is possible to extract passages which
are in effect characters. But Walton's _Lives_, the best of all
seventeenth century Lives, refuse to yield any section, for each of
them is all of a piece; they are from beginning to end continuous
character studies, revealing qualities of head and heart in their
affectionate record of fact and circumstance. There is therefore
nothing in this volume from his _Life of Donne_ or his _Life of
Herbert_. As a rule the characters that can be extracted from Lives
are much inferior to the clearly defined characters that are inserted
in Histories. The focus is not the same. When an author after dealing
with a man's career sums up his mental and moral qualities in a
section by itself, he does not trust to it alone to convey the total
impression. He is too liable also to panegyric, like Rawley, who could
see no fault in his master Bacon, or Sprat who, in Johnson's words,
produced a funeral oration on Cowley. There are no characters
of scholars or poets so good as Clarendon's Hales, or Earle, or
Chillingworth, or Waller; and for this reason, that Clarendon
envisages them, not as scholars or poets but as men, and gains a
definite and complete effect within small compass.
Roger North made his life of his brother Lord Keeper Guilford an
account of the bench and bar under Charles II and James II. Of its
many sketches of lawyers whom he or his brother had known, none is
so perfect in every way as the character of Chief Justice Saunders, a
remarkable man in real life who still lives in North's pages with
all his eccentricities. North writes at length about his brother,
yet nowhere do we see and understand him so clearly as we see and
understand Saunders. The truth is that a life and a character have
different objects and methods and do not readily combine. It is only
a small admixture of biography that a character will endure. And with
the steady development of biography the character declined.
A character must be short; and it must be entire, the complete
expression of a clear judgement. The perfect model is provided
by Clarendon. He has more than formal excellence. 'Motives', said
Johnson, 'are generally unknown. We cannot trust to the characters
we find in history, unless when they are drawn by those who knew the
persons; as those, for instance, by Sallust and by Lord Clarendon.'[4]
[Footnote 1: Letter to Pepys, January 20, 1703; Pepys's _Diary_, ed.
Braybrooke, 1825, vol. ii, p. 290.]
[Footnote 2: 'Short Remarks on Bishop Burnet's _History_,' _ad init._]
[Footnote 3: _History_, preface]
[Footnote 4: Boswell, 1769, ed. G.B. Hill, vol. ii, p. 79.]
* * * * *
Sooner or later every one who deals with the history or literature
of the seventeenth century has to own his obligations to Professor
C.H. Firth. My debt is not confined to his writings, references to
which will be found continually in the notes. At every stage of
the preparation of this volume I have had the advantage of his most
generous interest. And with his name it is a pleasure to associate in
one compendious acknowledgement the names of Dr. Henry Bradley and Mr.
Percy Simpson.
Oxford,
September 16, 1918.
D.N.S.
1.
JAMES I.
_James VI of Scotland 1567. James I 1603._
_Born 1566. Died 1625._
By ARTHUR WILSON.
He was born a King, and from that height, the less fitted to look
into inferiour things; yet few escaped his knowledge, being, as it
were, a _Magazine_ to retain them. His _Stature_ was of the _Middle
Size_; rather tall than low, well set and somewhat plump, of a ruddy
Complexion, his hair of a light brown, in his full perfection, had
at last a Tincture of white. If he had any predominant _Humor_ to
Ballance his _Choler_, it was Sanguine, which made his _Mirth Witty_.
His Beard was scattering on the Chin, and very thin; and though his
Clothes were seldome fashioned to the _Vulgar_ garb, yet in the whole
man he was not uncomely. He was a King in understanding, and was
content to have his Subjects ignorant in many things; As in curing the
_Kings Evil_, which he knew a _Device_, to ingrandize the _Vertue_ of
Kings, when _Miracles_ were in fashion; but he let the World believe
it, though he smiled at it, in his own _Reason_, finding the strength
of the _Imagination_ a more powerfull _Agent_ in the _Cure_, than
the _Plaisters his Chirurgions_ prescribed for the _Sore_. It was a
hard _Question_, whether his Wisedome, and knowledge, exceeded his
_Choler_, and _Fear_; certainly the last couple drew him with most
violence, because they were not acquisititious, but _Naturall_; If he
had not had that _Allay_, his high touring, and mastering _Reason_,
had been of a _Rare_, and sublimed _Excellency_; but these earthy
_Dregs_ kept it down, making his _Passions_ extend him as farre
as _Prophaness_, that I may not say _Blasphemy_, and _Policy_
superintendent of all his _Actions_; which will not last long (like
the _Violence_ of that _Humor_) for it often makes those that know
well, to do ill, and not be able to prevent it.
He had pure _Notions_ in _Conception_, but could bring few of them
into _Action_, though they tended to his own _Preservation_: For this
was one of his _Apothegms_, which he made no timely use of. _Let that
Prince, that would beware of Conspiracies, be rather jealous of such,
whom his extraordinary favours have advanced, than of those whom
his displeasure hath discontented. These want means to execute their
Pleasures, but they have means at pleasure to execute their desires_.
Ambition to rule is more vehement than Malice to revenge. Though the
last part of this _Aphorism_, he was thought to practice too soon,
where there was no cause for prevention, and neglect too late, when
time was full ripe to produce the effect.
Some _Parallel'd_ him to _Tiberius_ for _Dissimulation_, yet _Peace_
was maintained by him as in the Time of _Augustus_; And _Peace_ begot
_Plenty_, and _Plenty_ begot _Ease_ and _Wantonness_, and _Ease_ and
_Wantonnesse_ begot _Poetry_, and _Poetry_ swelled to that _bulk_
in his time, that it begot strange _Monstrous Satyrs_, against the
King[s] own person, that haunted both _Court_, and _Country_, which
exprest would be too bitter to leave a sweet perfume behind him.
And though bitter ingredients are good to imbalm and preserve dead
_bodies_, yet these were such as might indanger to kill a living name,
if _Malice_ be not brought in with an _Antidote_. And the tongues
of those times, more fluent than my _Pen_, made every little
_miscarriage_ (being not able to discover their true operations, like
smal _seeds_ hid in earthy _Darknesse_) grow up, and spread into such
exuberant _branches_, that evil _Report_ did often pearch upon them.
So dangerous it is for _Princes_, by a _Remisse Comportment_, to give
growth to the least _Error_; for it often proves as _fruitful_ as
_Malice_ can make it.
2.
By SIR ANTHONY WELDON.
This Kings Character is much easier to take then his Picture, for he
could never be brought to sit for the taking of that, which is the
reason of so few good peeces of him; but his Character was obvious to
every eye.
He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through his cloathes then
in his body, yet fat enough, his cloathes ever being made large and
easie, the Doublets quilted for steletto proofe, his Breeches in great
pleites and full stuffed: Hee was naturally of a timorous disposition,
which was the reason of his quilted Doublets: His eyes large, ever
rowling after any stranger came in his presence, insomuch, as many
for shame have left the roome, as being out of countenance: His Beard
was very thin: His Tongue too large for his mouth, which ever made
him speak full in the mouth, and made him drink very uncomely, as if
eating his drink, which came out into the cup of each side of his
mouth: His skin was as soft as Taffeta Sarsnet, which felt so, because
hee never washt his hands, onely rubb'd his fingers ends slightly with
the wet end of a Naptkin: His Legs were very weake, having had (as was
thought) some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born,
that he was not able to stand at seven years of age, that weaknesse
made him ever leaning on other mens shoulders, his walke was ever
circular ... He was very temperate in his exercises, and in his dyet,
and not intemperate in his drinking; however in his old age, and
_Buckinghams_ joviall Suppers, when he had any turne to doe with
him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the very next day
remember, and repent with teares; it is true, he dranke very often,
which was rather out of a custom then any delight, and his drinks were
of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, High Country wine,
Tent Wine, and Scottish Ale, that had he not had a very strong brain,
might have daily been overtaken, although he seldom drank at any
one time above four spoonfulls, many times not above one or two; He
was very constant in all things, his Favourites excepted, in which
he loved change, yet never cast down any (he once raised) from
the height of greatnesse, though from their wonted nearnesse, and
privacy; unlesse by their own default, by opposing his change, as in
_Somersets_ case: yet had he not been in that foul poysoning busines,
and so cast down himself, I do verily beleeve not him neither; for al
his other Favorites he left great in Honour, great in Fortune; and did
much love _Mountgomery_, and trusted him more at the very last gaspe,
then at the first minute of his Favoriteship: In his Dyet, Apparrell,
and Journeys, he was very constant; in his Apparrell so constant, as
by his good wil he would never change his cloathes untill worn out to
very ragges: His Fashion never: Insomuch as one bringing to him a Hat
of a _Spanish_ Block, he cast it from him, swearing he neither loved
them nor their fashions. Another time, bringing him Roses on his
Shooes, he asked, if they would make him a ruffe-footed-Dove? one yard
of six penny Ribbond served that turne: His Dyet and Journies were
so constant, that the best observing Courtier of our time was wont
to say, were he asleep seven yeares, and then awakened, he would tell
where the King every day had been, and every dish he had had at his
Table.
Hee was not very uxorious, (though he had a very brave Queen that
never crossed his designes, nor intermedled with State affaires,
but ever complyed with him (even against the nature of any, but of
a milde spirit) in the change of Favourites;) for he was ever best,
when furthest from the Queene, and that was thought to be the first
grounds of his often removes, which afterwards proved habituall.
He was unfortunate in the marriage of his Daughter, and so was all
Christendome besides; but sure the Daughter was more unfortunate in
a Father, then he in a Daughter: He naturally loved not the sight of
a Souldier, nor of any Valiant man; and it was an observation that
Sir _Robert Mansell_ was the only valiant man he ever loved, and him
he loved so intirely, that for all _Buckinghams_ greatnesse with
the King, and his hatred of Sir _Robert Mansell_, yet could not
that alienate the Kings affections from him; insomuch as when by
the instigation of _Cottington_ (then Embassadour in _Spaine_) by
_Buckinghams_ procurement, the _Spanish_ Embassadour came with a
great complaint against _Sir Robert Mansell_, then at _Argiers_, to
suppresse the Pirats, That he did support them; having never a friend
there, (though many) that durst speake in his defence, the King
himselfe defended him in these words: _My Lord Embassadour, I cannot
beleeve this, for I made choyce my selfe of him, out of these reasons;
I know him to be valiant, honest, and Nobly descended as most in my
Kingdome, and will never beleeve a man thus qualified will doe so base
an act_. He naturally loved honest men, that were not over active,
yet never loved any man heartily untill he had bound him unto him by
giving him some suite, which he thought bound the others love to him
againe; but that argued a poore disposition in him, to beleeve that
any thing but a Noble minde, seasoned with vertue, could make any
firme love or union, for mercinary mindes are carried away with a
greater prize, but Noble mindes, alienated with nothing but publick
disgraces.
He was very witty, and had as many ready witty jests as any man
living, at which he would not smile himselfe, but deliver them in a
grave and serious manner: He was very liberall, of what he had not in
his owne gripe, and would rather part with 100._li._ hee never had in
his keeping, then one twenty shillings peece within his owne custody:
He spent much, and had much use of his Subjects purses, which bred
some clashings with them in Parliament, yet would alwayes come off,
and end with a sweet and plausible close; and truly his bounty was not
discommendable, for his raising Favourites was the worst: Rewarding
old servants, and releiving his Native Country-men, was infinitely
more to be commended in him, then condemned. His sending Embassadours,
were no lesse chargeable then dishonourable and unprofitable to him
and his whole Kingdome; for he was ever abused in all Negotiations,
yet hee had rather spend 100000._li._ on Embassies, to keep or procure
peace with dishonour, then 10000._li._ on an Army that would have
forced peace with honour: He loved good Lawes, and had many made in
his time, and in his last Parliament, for the good of his Subjects,
and suppressing Promoters, and progging fellowes, gave way to that
_Nullum tempus, &c._ to be confined to 60. yeares, which was more
beneficiall to the Subjects in respect of their quiets, then all the
Parliaments had given him during his whole Reign. By his frequenting
Sermons he appeared Religious; yet his Tuesday Sermons (if you will
beleeve his owne Country men, that lived in those times when they
were erected, and well understood the cause of erecting them) were
dedicated for a strange peece of devotion.
He would make a great deale too bold with God in his passion, both in
cursing and swearing, and one straine higher vergeing on blasphemie;
But would in his better temper say, he hoped God would not impute
them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from
passion: He had need of great assurance, rather then hopes, that would
make daily so bold with God.
He was so crafty and cunning in petty things, as the circumventing any
great man, the change of a Favourite, &c. insomuch as a very wise man
was wont to say, he beleeved him the wisest foole in Christendome,
meaning him wise in small things, but a foole in weighty affaires.
He ever desired to prefer meane men in great places, that when he
turned them out again, they should have no friend to bandy with them:
And besides, they were so hated by being raised from a meane estate,
to over-top all men, that every one held it a pretty recreation to
have them often turned out: There were living in this Kings time, at
one instant, two Treasurers, three Secretaries, two Lord Keepers, two
Admiralls, three Lord chief Justices, yet but one in play, therefore
this King had a pretty faculty in putting out and in: By this you
may perceive in what his wisdome consisted, but in great and weighty
affaires even at his wits end.
He had a trick to cousen himselfe with bargains under hand, by taking
1000._li._ or 10000._li._ as a bribe, when his Counsell was treating
with his Customers to raise them to so much more yearly, this went
into his Privy purse, wherein hee thought hee had over-reached the
Lords, but cousened himselfe; but would as easily breake the bargaine
upon the next offer, saying, he was mistaken and deceived, and
therefore no reason he should keep the bargaine; this was often the
case with the Farmers of the Customes; He was infinitely inclined
to peace, but more out of feare then conscience, and this was the
greatest blemish this King had through all his Reign, otherwise might
have been ranked with the very best of our Kings, yet sometimes would
hee shew pretty flashes of valour which might easily be discerned to
be forced, not naturall; and being forced, could have wished, rather,
it would have recoiled backe into himselfe, then carryed to that
King it had concerned, least he might have been put to the tryall, to
maintaine his seeming valour.
In a word, he was (take him altogether and not in peeces) such a King,
I wish this Kingdom have never any worse, on the condition, not
any better; for he lived in peace, dyed in peace, and left all his
Kingdomes in a peaceable condition, with his owne Motto:
_Beati Pacifici_.
3.
THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.
_George Villiers, created Viscount Villiers 1616, Earl of Buckingham
1617, Marquis 1618, and Duke 1623. Born 1592. Assassinated 1628_.
By CLARENDON.
The Duke was indeede a very extraordinary person, and never any man in
any age, nor I believe in any country or nation, rose in so shorte a
tyme to so much greatenesse of honour fame and fortune upon no other
advantage or recommendation, then of the beauty and gracefulnesse
and becommingnesse of his person; and I have not the least purpose of
undervale[w]inge his good partes and qualityes (of which ther will be
occasion shortly to give some testimony) when I say, that his first
introduction into favour was purely from the handsomnesse of his
person: He was the younger Sunn of S'r George Villyers of Brookesby in
the County of Leicester, a family of an auncient extraction, even from
the tyme of the conquest, and transported then with the conqueror out
of Normandy, wher the family hath still remayned and still continues
with lustre: After S'r Georges first marriage, in which he had 2 or
3 Sunnes and some daughters, who shared an ample inheritance from
him, by a secounde marriage with a younge lady of the family of the
Beaumonts, he had this gentleman, and two other Sunns, and a daughter,
who all came afterwards to be raysed to greate titles and dignityes.
George, the eldest Sunn of this secounde bedd, was after the death
of his father, by the singular affection and care of his Mother, who
injoyed a good joynture in the accounte of that age, well brought up,
and for the improvment of his education, and givinge an ornament to
his hopefull person, he was by her sent into France, wher he spent
2. or 3. yeeres in attayninge the language, and in learninge the
exercises of rydinge and dauncinge, in the last of which he excelled
most men; and returned into Englande by the tyme he was 21. yeeres
old.
Kinge James raingned at that tyme, and though he was a Prince of
more learninge and knowledge then any other of that age, and really
delighted more in bookes, and in the conversation of learned men,
yett of all wise men livinge, he was the most delighted and taken with
handsome persons, and with fyne clothes; He begann to be weary of his
Favorite the Earle of Somersett, who was the only Favorite who kept
that post so longe without any publique reproch from the people, and
by the instigation and wickednesse of his wife, he became at least
privy to a horrible murther, that exposed him to the utmost severity
of the law (the poysoninge of S'r Thomas Overbury) upon which both he
and his wife were condemned to dy, after a tryall by ther Peeres, and
many persons of quality were executed for the same: Whilst this was
in agitation, and before the utmost discovery was made, Mr. Villiers
appeared in Courte, and drew the Kings eyes upon him: Ther were enough
in the Courte enough angry and incensed against Somersett, for beinge
what themselves desyred to be, and especially for beinge a Scotchman,
and ascendinge in so shorte a tyme from beinge a page, to the height
he was then at, to contribute all they coulde, to promote the one,
that they might throw out the other; which beinge easily brought to
passe, by the proceedinge of the law upon his cryme aforesayd, the
other founde very little difficulty in rendringe himselfe gracious to
the Kinge, whose nature and disposition was very flowinge in affection
towards persons so adorned, insomuch that in few dayes after his first
appearance in Courte he was made Cup-bearer to the Kinge, by which
he was naturally to be much in his presence, and so admitted to that
conversation and discource, with which that Prince alwayes abounded
at his meales; and his inclination to his new Cuppbearer disposed him
to administer frequent occasions of discourcinge of the Courte of
France, and the transactions ther, with which he had bene so lately
acquainted, that he could pertinently inlarge upon that subjecte,
to the Kings greate delight, and to the reconcilinge the esteeme and
valew of all the Standers by likewise to him, which was a thinge
the Kinge was well pleased with: He acted very few weekes upon this
Stage, when he mounted higher, and beinge knighted, without any other
qualification he was at the same tyme made Gentleman of the Bedd
chamber, and Knight of the Order of the Gartar; and in a shorte tyme
(very shorte for such a prodigious ascent,) he was made a Barron,
a Viscount, an Earle, a Marquisse, and became L'd High Admirall of
Englande, L'd Warden of the Cinque Ports, Master of the Horse, and
intirely disposed of all the graces of the Kinge, in conferringe
all the Honours and all the Offices of the three kingdomes without
a ryvall; in dispencinge wherof, he was guyded more by the rules of
appetite then of judgement, and so exalted almost all of his owne
numerous family and dependants, who had no other virtue or meritt then
ther allyance to him, which æqually offended the auncient nobility and
the people of all conditions, who saw the Flowres of the Crowne every
day fadinge and withered, whilst the Demeasnes and revennue therof
was sacrificed to the inrichinge a private family (how well soever
originally extracted) not heard of before ever to the nation, and
the exspences of the Courte so vast, unlimited by the old good rules
of Oeconomy, that they had a sadd prospecte of that poverty and
necessity, which afterwards befell the Crowne, almost to the ruine of
it.
Many were of opinion, that Kinge James before his death, grew weary of
his Favorite, and that if he had lyved, he would have deprived him at
least of his large and unlimited power; and this imagination prævayled
with some men, as the L'd Keeper Lincolne, the Earle of Middlesex, L'd
High Treasurer of England, and other gentlemen of name, though not
in so high stations, that they had the courage, to withdraw from ther
absolute dependance upon the Duke, and to make some other assayes,
which prooved to the ruine of every on of them, ther appearinge no
markes or evidence, that the Kinge did really lessen his affection
to him, to the houre of his death; on the contrary, as he created him
Duke of Buckingham, in his absence, whilst he was with the Prince
in Spayne, so after his returne, he exequted the same authority in
conferringe all favours and graces, and revenginge himselfe upon
those who had manifested any unkindnesse towards him: And yett
notwithstandinge all this, if that Kings nature had æqually disposed
him, to pull downe, as to builde and erecte, and if his courage and
severity in punishinge and reforminge had bene as greate, as his
generosity and inclination was to obliege, it is not to be doubted,
but that he would have withdrawne his affection from the Duke intirely
before his death, which those persons who were admitted to any privacy
with [him], and were not in the confidence of the other (for before
those he knew well how to dissemble) had reason enough to exspecte....
* * * * *
This greate man was a person of a noble nature and generous
disposition, and of such other indowments, as made him very capable
of beinge a greate favorite to a greate Kinge; he understoode the Arts
and artifices of a Courte, and all the learninge that is professed
ther, exactly well; by longe practice in businesse, under a Master
that discourced excellently, and surely knew all things wounderfully,
and tooke much delight in indoctrinatinge his younge unexsperienced
Favorite, who he knew would be alwayes looked upon as the
workemanshipp of his owne handes, he had obtayned a quicke conception
and apprehension of businesse, and had the habitt of speakinge very
gracefully, and pertinently. He was of a most flowinge courtesy and
affability to all men, who made any addresse to him, and so desyrous
to obliege them, that he did not enough consider the valew of the
obligation, or the meritt of the person he chose to obliege, from
which much of his misfortune resulted. He was of a courage not to be
daunted, which was manifested in all his actions, and his contests
with particular persons of the greatest reputation, and especially
in his whole demeanour at the Isle of Rees, both at the landinge and
upon the retriete, in both which no man was more fearelesse, or more
ready to expose himselfe to the brightest daungers. His kindnesse
and affection to his frends was so vehement, that it was so many
marriages, for better and worse, and so many leagues offensive and
defensive, as if he thought himselfe oblieged to love all his frends,
and to make warr upon all they were angry with, let the cause be what
it would. And it cannot be denyed, that he was an enimy in the same
excesse, and prosequted those he looked upon as his enimyes, with
the utmost rigour and animosity, and was not easily induced to a
reconciliation; and yett ther were some examples of his receadinge in
that particular; and in highest passyon, he was so farr from stoopinge
to any dissimulation, wherby his displeasure might be concealed and
covered, till he had attayned his revenge, the low methode of Courts,
that he never indeavoured to do any man an ill office, before he first
told him what he was to exspecte from him, and reproched him with the
injures he had done, with so much generosity, that the person found
it in his pouer, to receave farther satisfaction in the way he would
chuse for himselfe....
His single misfortune was (which indeede was productive of many
greater) that he never made a noble and a worthy frendshipp with a man
so neere his æquall, that he would frankely advize him, for his honour
and true interest, against the current, or rather the torrent of his
impetuous passyons: which was partly the vice of the tyme, when the
Courte was not replenished with greate choyce of excellent men, and
partly the vice of the persons, who were most worthy to be applyed
to, and looked upon his youth, and his obscurity, as obligations upon
him, to gayne ther frendshipps by extraordinary application; then his
ascent was so quicke, that it seemed rather a flight, then a growth,
and he was such a darlinge of fortune, that he was at the topp, before
he was seene at the bottome, for the gradation of his titles, was the
effecte, not cause of his first promotion, and as if he had bene borne
a favorite, he was supreme the first moneth he came to courte, and
it was wante of confidence, not of creditt, that he had not all at
first, which he obtayned afterwards, never meetinge with the least
obstruction, from his settinge out, till he was as greate as he could
be, so that he wanted dependants, before he thought he could wante
coadjutors; nor was he very fortunate in the election of those
dependants, very few of his servants havinge bene ever qualifyed
enough to assiste or advize him, and were intente only upon growinge
rich under [him], not upon ther masters growinge good as well as
greate, insomuch as he was throughout his fortune, a much wiser man,
then any servant or frende he had: Lett the faulte or misfortune be
what and whence it will, it may very reasonably be believed that if
he had bene blessed with one faythfull frende, who had bene qualifyed
with wisdome and integrity, that greate person would have committed
as few faults, and done as transcendant worthy actions, as any man
who shyned in such a sphere in that age, in Europe, for he was of
an excellent nature, and of a capacity very capable of advice and
councell; he was in his nature just and candid, liberall, generous,
and bountifull, nor was it ever knowne that the temptation of money
swayed him to do an unjust, or unkinde thinge, and though he left a
very greate inheritance to his heyres, consideringe the vast fortune
he inherited by his wife (the sole daughter and Heyre of Francis
Earle of Rutlande,) he owed no parte of it to his owne industry or
sollicitation, but to the impatient humour of two kings his masters,
who would make his fortune æquall to his titles, and the one above
other men, as the other was, and he considered it no otherwise then
as thers, and left it at his death ingaged for the crowne, almost to
the valew of it, as is touched upon before. If he had an immoderate
ambition, with which he was charged, and is a weede (if it be a weede)
apt to grow in the best soyles, it does not appeare that it was in
his nature, or that he brought it with him to the Courte, but rather
founde it ther, and was a garment necessary for that ayre; nor was
it more in his power to be without promotion, and titles, and wealth,
then for a healthy man to sitt in the sunn, in the brightest dogge
dayes, and remayne without any warmth: he needed no ambition who was
so seated in the hartes of two such masters.
4.
SIR THOMAS COVENTRY.
_Solicitor-General 1617. Attorney-General 1621. Lord Keeper 1625.
Created Baron Coventry 1628. Born 1578. Died 1640_.
By CLARENDON.
S'r Thomas Coventry was then L'd Keeper of the Greate Seale of
England, and newly made a Barron. He was a Sunn of the Robe, his
father havinge bene a Judge in the courte of the Common pleas, who
tooke greate care to breede his Sunn, though his first borne, in
the Study of the common law, by which himselfe had bene promoted to
that degree, and in which, in the society of the Inner Temple, his
Sunn made a notable progresse, by an early eminence in practice and
learninge, insomuch as he was Recorder of London, Sollicitor generall,
and Kings Atturny before he was forty yeeres of age, a rare ascent,
all which offices he discharged, with greate abilityes, and singular
reputation of integrity: In the first yeere after the death of Kinge
James, he was advanced to be Keeper of the Greate Scale of Englande,
the naturall advancement from, the office of Atturny Generall, upon
the remoovall of the Bishopp of Lincolne, who though a man of greate
witt, and good scholastique learninge, was generally thought so very
unæquall to the place that his remoove was the only recompence and
satisfaction that could be made for his promotion, and yett it was
enough knowne, that the disgrace proceeded only from the pri[v]ate
displeasure of the Duke of Buckingham[1]: The L'd Coventry injoyed
this place with a universall reputation (and sure justice was never
better administred) for the space of aboute sixteen yeeres, even to
his death, some months before he was sixty yeeres of age, which was
another importante circumstance of his felicity: that greate office
beinge so slippery, that no man had dyed in it before, for neere the
space of forty yeeres, nor had his successors for some tyme after him
much better fortune: and he himselfe had use of all his strenght and
skill (as he was an excellent wrastler) to præserve himselfe from
fallinge, in two shockes, the one given him by the Earle of Portlande,
L'd High Treasurer of Englande, the other by the Marq's of Hambleton,
who had the greatest power over the affections of the Kinge, of any
man of that tyme.
He was a man of wounderfull gravity and wisdome, and understood not
only the whole science and mistery of the Law, at least æqually with
any man who had ever sate in that place, but had a cleere conception
of the whole policy of the government both of Church and State, which
by the unskilfulnesse of some well meaninge men, justled each the
other to much. He knew the temper, and disposition and genius of the
kingdome most exactly, saw ther spiritts grow every day more sturdy,
and inquisitive, and impatient, and therfore naturally abhorred all
innovations, which he foresaw would produce ruinous effects: yett many
who stoode at a distance thought that he was not active and stoute
enough in the opposinge those innovations, for though by his place he
præsided in all publique councells, and was most sharpe sighted in the
consequence of things, yett he was seldome knowne to speake in matters
of state, which he well knew were for the most parte concluded, before
they were brought to that publique agitation, never in forrainge
affayres, which the vigour of his judgement could well comprehende,
nor indeede freely in any thinge, but what immediately and playnely
concerned the justice of the kingdome, and in that as much as he
could, he procured references to the Judges. Though in his nature he
had not only a firme gravity, but a severity, and even some morosity
(which his children and domestiques had evidence enough of) [yet][2]
it was so happily tempred, that his courtesy and affability towards
all men was so transcended, so much without affectation, that it
marvellously reconciled [him] to all men of all degrees, and he was
looked upon as an excellent courtyer, without receadinge from the
native simplicity of his owne manner. He had in the playne way of
speakinge and delivery (without much ornament of eloqution) a strange
power of makinge himselfe believed (the only justifiable designe of
eloquence) so that though he used very frankely to deny, and would
never suffer any man to departe from him, with an opinion that he
was inclined to gratify when in truth he was not, (holdinge that
dissimulation to be the worst of lyinge) yett the manner of it was
so gentle and oblieginge, and his condescension such, to informe the
persons, who[m] he could not satisfy, that few departed from him,
with ill will and ill wishes; but then this happy temper, and these
good facultyes, rather præserved him from havinge many enimyes, and
supplyed him with some well-wishers, then furnished him with any
fast and unshaken frends, who are alwayes procured in courtes by more
ardour, and more vehement professions and applications, then he would
suffer himselfe to be entangled with; so that he was a man rather
exceedingly liked, then passionately loved, insomuch that it never
appeared, that he had any one frende in the Courte, of quality enough
to prævent or diverte any disadvantage he mighte be exposed to, and
therfore it is no wonder, nor to be imputed to him, that he retyred
within himselfe as much as he could, and stood upon his defence,
without makinge desperate sallyes against growinge mischieves, which
he knew well he had no power to hinder, and which might probably begin
in his owne ruine: to conclude, his security consisted very much, in
the little creditt he had with the Kinge, and he dyed in a season most
opportune, and in which a wise man would have prayed to have finished
his cource, and which in truth crowned his other signall prosperity in
this worlde.
[Footnote 1: 'Buckinghman', MS.]
[Footnote 2: 'but', MS.]
5.
SIR RICHARD WESTON.
_Chancellor of the Exchequer 1621. Lord Treasurer 1628. Baron Weston
1628, and Earl of Portland 1633._
_Born 1577. Died 1635._
By CLARENDON.
S'r Richard Weston had bene advanced to the white staffe, to the
office of L'd High Treasurer of England, some moneths before the
death of the Duke of Buckingham, and had in that shorte tyme so much
disoblieged him, at least disappointed his exspectation, that many who
were privy to the Dukes most secrett purposes, did believe that if
he had outlived that voyage, in which he was ingaged, he would have
remooved him, and made another Treasurer: and it is very true that
greate office to had bene very slippery, and not fast to those who
had trusted themselves in it, insomuch as there were at that tyme
five noble persons alive, who had all succeded on another immediately
in that unsteady charge, without any other person interveninge, the
Earle of Suffolke, the L'd Viscount Mandevill, afterwards Earle of
Manchester, the Earle of Middlesex, and the Earle of Marleborough, who
was remooved under prætence of his age, and disability for the work
(which had bene a better reason against his promotion, so few yeeres
before, that his infirmityes were very little increased) to make roome
for the present Officer, who though advanced by the Duke, may properly
be sayd to be establish'd by his death.
He was a gentleman of a very good and auncient extraction, by father
and mother; his education had bene very good, amongst bookes and
men. After some yeeres study of the law in the Middle temple, and at
an age fitt to make observations and reflexions, out of which that
which is commonly called exsperience is constituted, he travelled
into forrainge partes, and was acquainted in forrainge partes;[1] he
betooke himselfe to the courte, and lyved ther some yeeres at that
distance, and with that awe, as[2] was agreable to the modesty of that
age, when men were seene some tyme, before they were knowne, and well
knowne before they were præferred, or durst prætende to be præferred.
He spent the best parte of his fortune, a fayre on, that he inherited
from his father, in his attendance at courte, and involved his
frends in securityes with him, who were willinge to runn his hopefull
fortune, before he receaved the least fruite from it, but the
countenance of greate men, and those in authority, the most naturall,
and most certayne stayres to ascende by: He was then sent Ambassadour
to the Arch-Dukes Alberte and Isabella into Flanders, and to the Diett
in Germany, to treate aboute the restitution of the Palatinat, in
which negotiation he behaved himselfe with greate prudence, and with
the concurrent testimony of a wise man, from all those with whome he
treated, Princes and Ambassadours: and upon his returne was made a
Privy Councellour, and Chauncelour of the Exchequer, in the place of
the L'd Brooke, who was ether perswaded, or putt out of the place,
which beinge an office of honour and trust, is likewise an excellent
stage for men of parts to tread, and expose themselfes upon, and
wher they have occasion of all natures to lay out and spredd all
ther facultyes and qualifications most for ther advantage; He behaved
himselfe very well in this function, and appeared æquall to it, and
carryed himselfe so luckily in Parliament, that he did his master much
service, and præserved himselfe in the good opinion and acceptation
of the house, which is a blessinge not indulged to many by those high
powers: He did swimme in those troubled and boysterous waters, in
which the Duke of Buckingham rode as Admirall, with a good grace, when
very many who were aboute him, were drowned or forced on shore, with
shrewde hurtes and bruises, which shewed he knew well how and when to
use his limbes and strenght to the best advantage, sometimes only to
avoyde sinkinge, and sometymes to advance and gett grounde; and by
this dexterity he kept his creditt with those who could do him good,
and lost it not with others, who desyred the destruction of those upon
whome he most depended.
He was made L'd Treasurer in the manner, and at the tyme mentioned
before, upon the remoovall of the Earle of Marleborough, and few
moneths before the death of the Duke; the former circumstance, which
is often attended by compassion towards the degraded, and præjudice
toward the promoted, brought him no disadvantage, for besydes the
delight that season had in changes, there was little reverence towards
the person remooved, and the extreme, visible poverty of the Exchequer
sheltered that Provence from the envy it had frequently created,
and opened a doore for much applause to be the portion of a wise and
provident Minister: For the other of the Dukes death, though some who
knew the Dukes passyons and præjudice (which often produced rather
suddayne indisposition, then obstinate resolution) believed he would
have bene shortly cashiered, as so many had lately bene, and so that
the death of his founder, was a greater confirmation of him in the
office, then the delivery of the white staffe had bene, many other
wise men, who knew the Treasurers talent, in remoovinge præjudice and
reconcilinge himselfe to waveringe and doubtfull affections, believed
that the losse of the Duke was very unseasonable, and that the awe or
apprehension of his power and displeasure, was a very necessary allay
for the impetuosity of the new officers nature, which needed some
restrainte and checque for some tyme to his immoderate prætences and
appetite of power. He did indeede appeare on the suddayne wounderfully
elated, and so farr threw off his olde affectation to please some very
much, and to displease none, in which arte he had excelled, that in
few moneths after the Dukes death, he founde himselfe to succeede him
in the publique displeasure, and in the malice of his enimyes, without
succeedinge him in his creditt at courte, or in the affection of any
considerable dependants; and yett, though he was not superiour to all
other men, in the affection, or rather resignation of the Kinge, so
that he might dispence favours and disfavours accordinge to his owne
election, he had a full share in his masters esteeme, who looked upon
him as a wise and able servant and worthy of the trust he reposed
in him, and receaved no other advice in the large businesse of his
revennue, nor was any man so much his superiour, as to be able to
lessen him in the Kings affection, by his power; so that he was in a
post in which he might have founde much ease and delight, if he could
have contayned himselfe within the verge of his owne Provence, which
was large enough, and of such an extente, that he might at the same
tyme have drawne a greate dependance upon him of very considerable
men, and appeared a very usefull and profitable Minister to the Kinge,
whose revennue had bene very loosely managed duringe the late yeeres,
and might by industry and order have bene easily improoved, and no
man better understoode what methode was necessary towards that good
husbandry then he. But I know not by what frowardnesse in his starres,
he tooke more paynes in examininge and enquiringe into other mens
offices, then in the discharge of his owne, and not so much joy in
what he had, as trouble and agony for what he had not. The truth is,
he had so vehement a desyre to be the sole favorite, that he had
no relish of the power he had, and in that contention he had many
ryvalls, who had creditt enough to do him ill offices, though not
enough to satisfy ther owne ambition, the Kinge himselfe beinge
resolved to hold the raynes in his owne handes, and to putt no further
trust in others, then was necessary for the capacity they served
in: which resolution in his Majesty was no sooner believed, and the
Treasurers prsetence taken notice,[3] then he founde the number of
his enimyes exceedingly increased, and others to be lesse eager in the
pursuite of his frendshipp; and every day discovered some infirmityes
in him, which beinge before knowne to few, and not taken notice,[3]
did now expose him both to publique reproch, and to private
animosityes, and even his vices admitted those contradictions in them,
that he could hardly injoy the pleasante fruite of any of them. That
which first exposed him to the publique jealosy, which is alwayes
attended with publique reproch, was the concurrent suspicion of
his religion. His wife and all his daughters were declared of the
Roman religion, and though himselfe and his Sunns sometimes went to
church, he was never thought to have zeale for it, and his domestique
conversation and dependants, with whome only he used intire freedome,
were all knowne Catholiques, and were believed to be agents for the
rest; and yett with all this disadvantage to himselfe, he never had
reputation and creditt with that party, who were the only people of
the kingdome, who did not believe him to be of ther profession, for
the penall lawes (those only excepted, which were sanguinary, and even
those sometimes lett loose) were never more rigidly executed, nor had
the Crovme ever so greate a revennue from them, as in his tyme, nor
did they ever pay so deere for the favours and indulgencyes of his
office towards them.
No man had greater ambition to make his family greate, or stronger
designes to leave a greate fortune to it, yett his exspences were so
prodigiously greate, especially in his house, that all the wayes he
used for supply, which were all that occurred, could not serve his
turne, insomuch that he contracted so greate debts, (the anxiety
wherof he prætended broke his minde, and restrayned that intentnesse
and industry which was necessary for the dew execution of his office)
that the Kinge was pleased twice to pay his debts, at least towards
it, to disburse forty thousande pounde in ready mony out of his
Exchequer; besydes his Majesty gave him a whole forrest, Chute forrest
in Hampshyre, and much other lande belonginge to the Crowne, which
was the more taken notice of, and murmured against, because beinge the
chiefe Minister of the revennue, he was particularly oblieged as
much as in him lay to prævent and even oppose such disinherison; and
because under that obligation, he had avowedly and sowrely crossed the
prætences of other men, and restrayned the Kings bounty from beinge
exercised almost to any; and he had that advantage (if he had made the
right use of it) that his creditt was ample enough (secounded by the
Kings owne exsperience, and observation, and inclination) to retrench
very much of the late unlimited exspences, and especially those of
bountyes, which from the death of the Duke, rann in narrow channells,
which never so much overflowed as towards himselfe; who stopped the
current to other men.
He was of an imperious nature, and nothinge wary in disoblieginge
and provokinge other men, and had to much courage in offendinge and
incensinge them, but after havinge offended and incensed them, he
was of so unhappy a feminine temper that he was always in a terrible
fright and apprehension of them. He had not that application, and
submissyon and reverence for the Queene as might have bene exspected
from his wisdome and breedinge, and often crossed her prætences and
desyres, with more rudenesse then was naturall to him; yett he was
impertinently sollicitous to know what her Majesty sayd of him in
private, and what resentments shee had towards him; and when by some
confidents (who had ther ends upon him from those offices) he was
informed of some bitter exspressions fallen from her Majesty, he was
so exceedingly afflicted and tormented with the sense of it, that
sometimes by passionate complaints and representations to the Kinge,
sometimes by more dutifull addresses and expostulations with the
Queene in bewaylinge his misfortunes, he frequently exposed himselfe,
and left his condition worse then it was before: and the eclarcicement
commonly ended in the discovery of the persons from whome he had
received his most secrett intelligence. He quickly lost the character
of a bold, stoute, and magnanimous man, which he had bene longe
reputed to be, in worse tymes, and in his most prosperous season, fell
under the reproch of beinge a man of bigg lookes, and of a meane and
abjecte spiritt....
To conclude, all the honours the Kinge conferred upon him, as he made
him a Barren, then an Earle, and Knight of the Gartar, and above
this, gave a younge, beautifull Lady, neerely allyed to him and to the
Crowne of Scotlande, in marriage to his eldest Sunn, could not make
him thinke himselfe greate enough; nor could all the Kings bountyes
nor his owne large accessions, rayse a fortune to his Heyre, but after
six or eight yeeres spent in outward opulency, and inward murmur and
trouble, that it was no greater, after vast summes of mony and greate
wealth gotten and rather consumed then injoyed, without any sense
or delight in so greate prosperity, with the agony that it was no
greater, He dyed unlamented by any, bitterly mentioned by most, who
never pretended to love him, and sevearely censured and complayned of,
by those who exspected most from him, and deserved best of him, and
left a numerous family, which was in a shorte tyme worne out, and yett
outlyved the fortune he left behinde him.
[Footnote 1: In the MS. the words 'he travelled into forrainge parts'
occur after 'Middle temple', as well as after 'constituted'. The whole
sentence is faulty. 'After this' is inserted in the edition of 1702
before 'he betooke'.]
[Footnote 2: 'as' inserted in late hand in MS. in place of 'and'.]
[Footnote 3: 'off' added in later hand in MS.; 'notice of', ll. 2, 6,
ed. 1704.]
6.
THE EARL OF ARUNDEL.
_Thomas Howard, fourteenth Earl of Arundel._
_Born 1586. Died 1646._
By CLARENDON.
The Earle of Arrundell was the next to the officers of State, who in
his owne right and quality, præceded the rest of the councell. He was
a man supercilious and prowde, who lyved alwayes within himselfe,
and to himselfe, conversinge little with any, who were in common
conversation, so that he seemed to lyve as it were in another nation,
his house beinge a place, to which all men resorted, who resorted
to no other place, strangers, or such who affected to looke like
strangers, and dressed themselves accordingly. He resorted sometimes
to the Courte, because ther only was a greater man then himselfe,
and went thither the seldomer, because ther was a greater man then
himselfe. He lived toward all Favorites and greate officers without
any kinde of condescention, and rather suffred himselfe to be ill
treated by ther power and authority (for he was alwayes in disgrace,
and once or twice prysoner in the tower) then to descende in makinge
any application to them; and upon these occasyons, he spent a greate
intervall of his tyme, in severall journyes into forrainge partes, and
with his wife and family had lyved some yeeres in Italy, the humour
and manners of which nation he seemed most to like and approve, and
affected to imitate. He had a good fortune by descent, and a much
greater from his wife, who was the sole daughter upon the matter
(for nether of the two Sisters left any issue) of the greate house of
Shrewsbury, but his exspences were without any measure, and alwayes
exceeded very much his revennue. He was willinge to be thought a
scholar, and to understande the most misterious partes of Antiquity,
because he made a wounderfull and costly purchase of excellent statues
whilst he was in Italy and in Rome (some wherof he could never obtayne
permission to remoove from Rome, though he had payd for them) and had
a rare collection of the most curious Medalls; wheras in truth he was
only able to buy them, never to understande ihem, and as to all partes
of learninge he was almost illiterate, and thought no other parte of
history considerable, but what related to his owne family, in which no
doubt ther had bene some very memorable persons.
It cannot be denyed, that he had in his person, in his aspecte and
countenance, the appearance of a greate man, which he preserved in
his gate and motion. He wore and affected a habitt very different
from that of the tyme, such as men had only beheld in the pictures of
the most considerable men, all which drew the eyes of most and the
reverence of many towards him, as the image and representative of the
primitive nobility, and natife gravity of the nobles, when they had
bene most venerable. But this was only his outsyde, his nature and
true humour beinge so much disposed to levity, and vulgar delights,
which indeede were very despicable and childish: He was never
suspected to love anybody, nor to have the least propensity to
justice, charity, or compassion, so that, though he gott all he
could, and by all the wayes he could, and spent much more then he
gott or had, he was never knowne to give any thinge, nor in all his
imployments (for he had imployments of greate profitt as well as
honour, beinge sent Ambassadour extraordinary into Germany, for the
treaty of that Generall peace, for which he had greate appointments,
and in which he did nothinge of the least importance, and which is
more wounderfull, he was afterwards made Generall of the Army raysed
for Scotlande, and receaved full pay as such, and in his owne office
of Earle Marshall, more money was drawne from the people by his
authority and prætence of jurisdiction, then had ever bene extorted
by all the officers præcedent) yett I say in all his offices and
imployments, never man used, or imployed by him, ever gott any fortune
under him, nor did ever any man acknowledge any obligation to him. He
was rather thought to be without religion, then to inclyne to this
or that party of any. He would have bene a proper instrument for any
tyranny, if he could have a man tyrant enough to have bene advized by
him, and had no other affection for the nation or the kingdome, then
as he had a greate share in it, in which like the greate Leviathan he
might sporte himselfe, from which he withdrew himselfe, as soone as
he decerned the repose therof was like to be disturbed, and dyed in
Italy, under the same doubtfull character of religion, in which he
lyved.
7.
THE EARL OF PEMBROKE.
_William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke._
_Born 1580. Died 1630._
By CLARENDON.
Willyam Earle of Pembroke was next, a man of another molde and
makinge, and of another fame and reputation with all men, beinge
the most universally loved and esteemed, of any man of that age, and
havinge a greate office in the courte, made the courte itselfe better
esteemed and more reverenced in the country; and as he had a greate
number of frends of the best men, so no man had ever wickednesse to
avow himselfe to be his enimy. He was a man very well bredd, and of
excellent partes, and a gracefull speaker upon any subjecte, havinge
a good proportion of learninge, and a ready witt to apply it, and
inlarge upon it, of a pleasant and facetious humour and a disposition
affable, generous, and magnificent; he was master of a greate fortune
from his auncestors, and had a greate addition by his wife (another
daughter and heyre of the Earle of Shrewsbury) which he injoyed
duringe his life, shee outlivinge him, but all served not his
exspence, which was only limited by his greate minde, and occasions
to use it nobly; he lyved many yeeres aboute the courte, before in it,
and never by it, beinge rather regarded and esteemed by Kinge James
then loved and favored, and after the fowle fall of the Earle of
Somersett, he was made L'd Chamberlyne of the Kings house more for
the Courtes sake, then his owne, and the Courte appeared with the more
lustre, because he had the goverment of that Province. As he spente
and lived upon his owne fortune, so he stoode upon his owne feete,
without any other supporte then of his proper virtue and meritt, and
lyved towards the favorites with that decency, as would not suffer
them to censure or reproch his Masters judgement and election, but as
with men of his owne ranke. He was exceedingly beloved in the Courte,
because he never desyred to gett that for himselfe, which others
labored for, but was still ready to promote the prætences of worthy
men, and he was equally celebrated in the country, for havinge
receaved no obligations from the courte, which might corrupt or sway
his affections and judgement; so that all who were displeased and
unsatisfyed in the courte or with the Courte, were alwayes inclined
to putt themselves under his banner, if he would have admitted them,
and yett he did not so rejecte them, as to make them choose another
shelter, but so farr to depende on him, that he could restrayn them
from breakinge out beyounde private resentments, and murmurs. He was a
greate lover of his country, and of the religion and justice which he
believed could only supporte it, and his frendshipps were only with
men of those principles; and as his conversation was most with men of
the most pregnant parts and understandinge, so towards any who needed
supporte or encouragement, though unknowne, if fayrely recommended to
him, he was very liberall; and sure never man was planted in a courte,
that was fitter for that soyle, or brought better qualityes with him
to purify that heyre.
Yett his memory must not be so flattered, that his virtues and good
inclinations may be believed without some allay of vice, and without
beinge clowded with greate infirmityes, which he had in to exorbitant
a proportion: He indulged to himselfe the pleasures of all kindes,
almost in all excesses; whether out of his naturall constitution,
or for wante of his domestique content and delight (in which he was
most unhappy, for he payed much to deere for his wife's fortune,
by takinge her person into the bargayne) he was immoderately given
up to women,[1] but therin he likewise retayned such a pouer and
jurisdiction over his very appetite, that he was not so much
transported with beauty and outwarde allurements, as with those
advantages of the minde, as manifested an extraordinary witt,
and spirit, and knowledge, and administred greate pleasure in the
conversation; to these he sacrificed himselfe, his pretious tyme,
and much of his fortune, and some who were neerest his trust and
frendshipp, were not without apprehension that his naturall vivacity,
and vigour of minde, begann to lessen and decline, by those excessive
indulgences. Aboute the tyme of the death of Kinge James or presently
after, he was made L'd Steward of his Majestys house, that the Staffe
of Chamberlyne might be putt into the hands of his brother, the Earle
of Mountgomery, upon a new contracte of frendshipp with the Duke of
Buckingham, after whose death he had likewise such offices of his, as
he most affected, of honour and commaunde, none of profitt, which he
cared not for; and within two yeeres after he dyed himselfe, of an
Apoplexy, after a full and cheerefull supper.
[Footnote 1: The words 'to women' occur twice in the MS., before
'whether out' and after 'given up'.]
8.
SIR FRANCIS BACON.
_Lord Keeper 1617. Lord Chancellor 1618. Baron Verulam 1618, and
Viscount St. Albans 1621._
_Born 1561. Died 1626._
By BEN JONSON.
[Sidenote: _Dominis Verulanus._]
_One_, though hee be excellent, and the chiefe, is not to bee imitated
alone. For never no Imitator, ever grew up to his _Author_; likenesse
is alwayes on this side Truth: Yet there hapn'd, in my time, one noble
_Speaker_, who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language,
(where hee could spare, or passe by a jest) was nobly _censorious_. No
man ever spake more neatly, more presly, more weightily, or suffer'd
lesse emptinesse, lesse idlenesse, in what hee utter'd. No member of
his speech, but consisted of the owne graces: His hearers could not
cough, or looke aside from him, without losse. Hee commanded where hee
spoke; and had his Judges angry, and pleased at his devotion. No man
had their affections more in his power. The feare of every man that
heard him, was, lest hee should make an end.
9.
By ARTHUR WILSON.
Not long after comes the great _Lord Chancellor Bacon_ to a _Censure_,
for the most _simple_, and _ridiculous follies_, that ever entred
into the _heart_ of a _Wise man_. He was the true _Emblem_ of _humane
frailty_, being _more_ than _a man_ in some things, and less than a
_woman_ in others. His _crime_ was _Briberie_, and _Extortion_ (which
the King hinted at in his Speech, when he _facetiously_ sayd, _He
thought the Lords had bribed the Prince to speak well of them_) and
these he had often condemned others for as a _Judge_, which now
he comes to suffer for as a _Delinquent_: And they were proved, &
aggravated against him with so many _circumstances_, that they fell
very _fouly_ on him, both in _relation_ to his _Reception_ of them,
and his expending of them: For that which he raked in, and scrued
for one way, he scattered and threw abroad another; for his Servants,
being young, prodigall and expensive Youths, which he kept about him,
his Treasure was their common Store, which they took without stint,
having free accesse to his most retired Privacies; and his indulgence
to them, and familiarity with them, opened a _gap_ to infamous
_Reports_, which left an unsavoury _Tincture_ on him; for where such
_Leeches_ are, there must be _putrid bloud_ to fill their _craving
Appetites_. His _gettings_ were like a _Prince_, with a strong hand;
his _expences_ like a _Prodigall_, with a weak head; and 'tis a wonder
a man of his Noble, and Gallant Parts, that could fly so high above
_Reason_, should fall so far below it; unlesse that _Spirit_ that
_acted_ the first, were too proud to stoop, to see the _deformities_
of the last. And as he affected his men, so his Wife affected hers:
Seldome doth the Husband deviate one way, but the Wife goeth another.
These things came into the _publique mouth_, and the _Genius_ of the
_Times_ (where _malice_ is not _corrivall_) is the great _Dictator_
of all _Actions_: For _innocency_ it self is a _crime_, when _calumny_
sets her mark upon it. How prudent therefore ought men to be, that not
so much as their _garments_ be defiled with the _sour breath_ of the
_Times_!
This poor _Gentleman_, mounted above _pity_, fell down below it: His
_Tongue_, that was the glory of his time for _Eloquence_, (that tuned
so many sweet _Harrangues_) was like a forsaken _Harp_, hung upon the
_Willows_, whilst the _waters_ of _affliction_ overflowed the _banks_.
And now his high-flying _Orations_ are humbled to _Supplications_,...
* * * * *
He was of a _middling stature_, his countenance had in-dented with
_Age_ before he was old; his _Presence_ grave and comely; of a
high-flying and lively _Wit_, striving in some things to be rather
admired than understood, yet so quick and easie where he would express
himself, and his _Memory_ so strong and active, that he appeared the
_Master_ of a large and plenteous _store-house_ of _Knowledge_, being
(as it were) _Natures Midwife_, stripping her _Callou-brood_, and
clothing them in new _Attire_. His _Wit_ was quick to the last; for
_Gondemar_ meeting him the _Lent_ before his _Censure_, and hearing
of his _Miscarriages_, thought to pay him with his _Spanish Sarcasms_
and _Scoffs_, saying, _My Lord, I wish you a good Easter_; _And you
my Lord_, replyed the _Chancellor_, _a good Passeover_: For he could
neither close with his _English Buffonerie_, nor his _Spanish Treaty_
(which _Gondemar_ knew) though he was so wise as publiquely to oppose
neither. _In fine, he was a fit Jewel to have beautified, and adorned
a flourishing Kingdom, if his flaws had not disgraced the lustre that
should have set him off._
10.
By THOMAS FULLER.
[Sidenote: An essay at his character.]
None can character him to the life, save himself. He was _in parts_,
more than a Man, who in any Liberal profession, might be, whatsoever
he would himself. A great Honourer of _antient Authors_, yet a great
Deviser and Practiser of new waies in Learning. Privy Counsellor,
as to King JAMES, so to _Nature_ it self, diving into many of her
abstruse Mysteries. New conclusions he would _dig out_ with _mattocks_
of _gold & silver_, not caring what his experience cost him, expending
on the _Trials of Nature_, all and more than he got by the _Trials at
the Barre_, Posterity being the better for his, though he the worse
for his own, dear experiments. He and his Servants had _all in
common_, the _Men_ never wanting what their _Master_ had, and thus
what came _flowing_ in unto him, was sent _flying_ away from him, who,
in giving of rewards knew no _bounds_, but the _bottome_ of his own
purse. Wherefore when King James heard that he had given _Ten pounds_
to an _under-keeper_, by whom He had sent him a _Buck_, the King said
merrily, _I and He shall both die Beggars_, which was condemnable
Prodigality in a _Subject_. He lived many years after, and in his
Books will ever survive, in the reading whereof, modest Men commend
him, in what they doe, condemn themselves, in what they doe not
understand, as believing the fault in their own eyes, and not in the
object.
11.
By WILLIAM RAWLEY.
He was no _Plodder_ upon _Books_; Though he read much; And that, with
great Judgement, and Rejection of Impertinences, incident to many
_Authours_: For he would ever interlace a _Moderate Relaxation_ of
His _Minde_, with his _Studies_; As _Walking_; Or _Taking_ the _Aire
abroad_ in his _Coach_; or some other befitting _Recreation_: And
yet he would _loose_ no _Time_, In as much as upon his _First_ and
_Immediate Return_, he would fall to _Reading_ again: And so suffer
no _Moment_ of _Time_ to Slip from him, without some present
_Improvement_.
His _Meales_ were _Refections_, of the _Eare_, as well as of the
_Stomack_: Like the _Noctes Atticæ_; or _Convivia Deipno-Sophistarum_;
Wherein a Man might be refreshed, in his _Minde_, and _understanding_,
no lesse then in his _Body_. And I have known some, of no mean Parts,
that have professed to make use of their _Note-Books_, when they have
risen from his _Table_. In which _Conversations_, and otherwise, he
was no Dashing Man; As some Men are; But ever, a _Countenancer_, and
_Fosterer_, of another Mans _Parts_. Neither was he one, that would
_appropriate_ the _Speech_, wholy to Himself; or delight to out-vie
others; But leave a Liberty, to the _Co-Assessours_, to take their
_Turns_, to Wherein he would draw a _Man_ on, and allure him, to
speak upon such a Subject, as wherein he was peculiarly _Skilfull_,
and would delight to speak. And, for Himself, he condemned no Mans
_Observations_; But would light his _Torch_ at every Mans _Candle_.
His _Opinions_, and _Assertions_, were, for the most part, _Binding_;
And not contradicted, by any; Rather like _Oracles_, then _Discourses_.
Which may be imputed, either to the well weighing of his _Sentence_, by
the Skales of _Truth_, and _Reason_; Or else, to the _Reverence_, and
_Estimation_, wherein he was, commonly, had, that no _Man_ would
_contest_ with him. So that, there was no _Argumentation_, or _Pro_ and
_Con_, (as they term it,) at his _Table_: Or if there chanced to be
any, it was Carried with much _Submission_, and _Moderation_.
I have often observed; And so have other Men, of great Account; That
if he had occasion to repeat another Mans _Words_, after him; he
had an use, and Faculty, to dresse them in better _Vestments_, and
_Apparell_, then they had before: So that, the _Authour_ should finde
his own _Speech_ much amended; And yet the _Substance_ of it still
_retained_. As if it had been _Naturall_ to him, to use good _Forms_;
As _Ovid_ spake, of his _Faculty_ of _Versifying_;
_Et quod tentabam Scribere, Versus erat._
When his _Office_ called him, as he was of the _Kings Counsell
Learned_, to charge any _Offenders_, either in _Criminals_, or
_Capitals_; He was never of an _Insulting_, or _Domineering Nature_,
over them; But alwayes tender Hearted, and carrying himself decently
towards the _Parties_; (Though it was his Duty, to charge them home:)
But yet, as one, that looked upon the _Example_, with the Eye of
_Severity_; But upon the _Person_, with the Eye of _Pitty_, and
Compassion. And in _Civill Businesse_, as he was _Counseller_
of _Estate_, he had the best way of _Advising_; Not engaging his
_Master_, in any _Precipitate_, or _grievous_, Courses; But in
_Moderate_, and _Fair_, Proceedings: The _King_, whom he served,
giving him this _Testimony_; That he ever dealt, in Businesse,
Suavibus Modis; _Which was the way, that was most according to his own
Heart_.
Neither was He, in his time, lesse Gracious with the _Subject_,
then with his _Soveraign_: He was ever Acceptable to the _House of
Commons_, when He was a _Member_ thereof. Being the _Kings Atturney_,
& chosen to a place, in _Parliament_, He was allowed, and dispensed
with, to sit in the _House_; which was not permitted to other
_Atturneys_.
And as he was a good _Servant_, to his _Master_; Being never, in 19.
years Service, (as himself averred,) rebuked by the _King_, for any
Thing, relating to his _Majesty_; So he was a good _Master_, to his
_Servants_; And rewarded their long _Attendance_, with good _Places_,
freely, when they fell into his Power. Which was the Cause, that so
many young _Gentlemen_, of _Bloud_, and _Quality_, sought to list
themselves, in his _Retinew_. And if he were abused, by any of them,
in their _Places_; It was onely the _Errour_ of the _Goodnesse_ of
his _Nature_; But the Badges of their _Indiscretions_, and
_Intemperances_.
12.
BEN JONSON.
_Born 1573. Died 1637._
By CLARENDON.
Ben Johnsons name can never be forgotten, havinge by his very good
learninge, and the severity of his nature, and manners, very much
reformed the Stage and indeede the English poetry it selfe; his
naturall advantages were judgement to order and governe fancy,
rather then excesse of fancy, his productions beinge slow and upon
deliberation, yett then aboundinge with greate witt and fancy, and
will lyve accordingly, and surely as he did exceedingly exalte the
English language, in eloquence, propriety, and masculyne exspressions,
so he was the best judge of, and fittest to prescribe rules to poetry
and poetts, of any man who had lyved with or before him, or since, if
M'r Cowly had not made a flight beyounde all men, with that modesty
yett to own much of his to the example and learninge of Ben. Johnson:
His conversation was very good and with the men of most note, and he
had for many yeares an extraordinary kindnesse for M'r Hyde, till he
founde he betooke himselfe to businesse, which he believed ought never
to be preferred before his company: He lyved to be very old, and till
the Palsy made a deepe impression upon his body and his minde.
13.
By JAMES HOWELL.
_To Sir THO. HAWK. Knight_.
Sir,
I was invited yesternight to a solemne supper by _B.I._ wher you
were deeply remembred, ther was good company, excellent chear, choice
wines, and joviall welcom; one thing interven'd which almost spoyld
the relish of the rest, that _B._ began to engross all the discourse,
to vapour extremely of himself, and by villifying others to magnifie
his owne _muse_; _T. Ca._ buz'd me in the eare, that though _Ben_
had barreld up a great deal of knowledg, yet it seems he had not
read the _Ethiques_, which among other precepts of morality forbid
self-commendation, declaring it to be an ill favourd solecism in good
manners; It made me think upon the Lady (not very young) who having a
good while given her guests neat entertainment, a capon being brought
upon the table, instead of a spoon she took a mouthfull of claret and
spouted it into the poope of the hollow bird; such an accident happend
in this entertainment you know--_Proprio laus sordet in ore; be a mans
breath never so sweet, yet it makes ones prayses stink, if he makes
his owne mouth the conduit pipe of it_; But for my part I am content
to dispense with this _Roman_ infirmity of _B._ now that time hath
snowed upon his pericranium. You know _Ovid_, and (your) _Horace_ were
subject to this humour, the first bursting out into,
_Tamq; opus exegi quod nec Iovis ira, nec ignis_, &c.
The other into,
_Exegi monumentum ære perennius_, &c.
As also _Cicero_ while he forc'd himself into this Exameter; _O
fortunatam natam me consule Romam_. Ther is another reason that
excuseth _B._ which is, that if one be allowed to love the naturall
issue of his body, why not that of the brain, which is of a spirituall
and more noble extraction; I preserve your manuscripts safe for you
till your return to _London_, what newes the times afford this bearer
will impart unto you. So I am,
Sir,
_Your very humble and most faithfull Servitor_, J.H.
_Westmin. 5 Apr. 1636._
14.
HENRY HASTINGS.
_Born 1551. Died 1650._
By SHAFTESBURY.
Mr. Hastings, by his quality, being the son, brother, and uncle to
the Earls of Huntingdon, and his way of living, had the first place
amongst us. He was peradventure an original in our age, or rather the
copy of our nobility in ancient days in hunting and not warlike times;
he was low, very strong and very active, of a reddish flaxen hair, his
clothes always green cloth, and never all worth when new five pounds.
His house was perfectly of the old fashion, in the midst of a large
park well stocked with deer, and near the house rabbits to serve
his kitchen, many fish-ponds, and great store of wood and timber; a
bowling-green in it, long but narrow, full of high ridges, it being
never levelled since it was ploughed; they used round sand bowls, and
it had a banqueting-house like a stand, a large one built in a tree.
He kept all manner of sport-hounds that ran buck, fox, hare, otter,
and badger, and hawks long and short winged; he had all sorts of nets
for fishing: he had a walk in the New Forest and the manor of Christ
Church. This last supplied him with red deer, sea and river fish; and
indeed all his neighbours' grounds and royalties were free to him, who
bestowed all his time in such sports, but what he borrowed to caress
his neighbours' wives and daughters, there being not a woman in all
his walks of the degree of a yeoman's wife or under, and under the
age of forty, but it was extremely her fault if he were not intimately
acquainted with her. This made him very popular, always speaking
kindly to the husband, brother, or father, who was to boot very
welcome to his house whenever he came. There he found beef pudding and
small beer in great plenty, a house not so neatly kept as to shame him
or his dirty shoes, the great hall strewed with marrow bones, full of
hawks' perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers, the upper sides of
the hall hung with the fox-skins of this and the last year's skinning,
here and there a polecat intermixed, guns and keepers' and huntsmen's
poles in abundance. The parlour was a large long room, as properly
furnished; on a great hearth paved with brick lay some terriers and
the choicest hounds and spaniels; seldom but two of the great chairs
had litters of young cats in them, which were not to be disturbed,
he having always three or four attending him at dinner, and a little
white round stick of fourteen inches long lying by his trencher, that
he might defend such meat as he had no mind to part with to them. The
windows, which were very large, served for places to lay his arrows,
crossbows, stonebows, and other such like accoutrements; the corners
of the room full of the best chose hunting and hawking poles; an
oyster-table at the lower end, which was of constant use twice a day
all the year round, for he never failed to eat oysters before dinner
and supper through all seasons: the neighbouring town of Poole
supplied him with them. The upper part of this room had two small
tables and a desk, on the one side of which was a church Bible, on the
other the Book of Martyrs; on the tables were hawks' hoods, bells,
and such like, two or three old green hats with their crowns thrust
in so as to hold ten or a dozen eggs, which were of a pheasant kind
of poultry he took much care of and fed himself; tables, dice, cards,
and boxes were not wanting. In the hole of the desk were store of
tobacco-pipes that had been used. On one side of this end of the room
was the door of a closet, wherein stood the strong beer and the wine,
which never came thence but in single glasses, that being the rule
of the house exactly observed, for he never exceeded in drink or
permitted it. On the other side was a door into an old chapel not
used for devotion; the pulpit, as the safest place, was never wanting
of a cold chine of beef, pasty of venison, gammon of bacon, or great
apple-pie, with thick crust extremely baked. His table cost him not
much, though it was very good to eat at, his sports supplying all but
beef and mutton, except Friday, when he had the best sea-fish as well
as other fish he could get, and was the day that his neighbours of
best quality most visited him. He never wanted a London pudding, and
always sung it in with 'my part lies therein-a.' He drank a glass of
wine or two at meals, very often syrrup of gilliflower in his sack,
and had always a tun glass without feet stood by him holding a pint
of small beer, which he often stirred with a great sprig of rosemary.
He was well natured, but soon angry, calling his servants bastard
and cuckoldy knaves, in one of which he often spoke truth to his own
knowledge, and sometimes in both, though of the same man. He lived to
a hundred, never lost his eyesight, but always writ and read without
spectacles, and got to horse without help. Until past fourscore he
rode to the death of a stag as well as any.
15.
CHARLES I.
_Born 1600. Succeeded James I 1625. Beheaded 1649._
By CLARENDON.
The severall unhearde of insolencyes which this excellent Prince was
forced to submitt to, at the other tymes he was brought before that
odious judicatory, his Majesticke behaviour under so much insolence,
and resolute insistinge upon his owne dignity, and defendinge it
by manifest authorityes in the lawe, as well as by the cleerest
deductions from reason, the pronouncinge that horrible sentence upon
the most innocent person in the worlde, the execution of that sentence
by the most execrable murther that ever was committed, since that of
our blessed Savyour, and the circumstances therof, the application
and interposition that was used by some noble persons to prævent that
wofull murther, and the hypocrisy with which that interposition was
deluded, the Saintlike behaviour of that blessed Martir, and his
Christian courage and patience at his death, are all particulars
so well knowne, and have bene so much inlarged upon in treatises
peculiarly applyed to that purpose, that the farther mentioninge it
in this place, would but afflicte and grieve the reader, and make the
relation itselfe odious; and therfore no more shall be sayd heare of
that lamentable Tragedy, so much to the dishonour of the Nation, and
the religion professed by it; but it will not be unnecessary to
add the shorte character of his person, that posterity may know the
inestimable losse which the nation then underwent in beinge deprived
of a Prince whose example would have had a greater influence upon the
manners and piety of the nation, then the most stricte lawes can have.
To speake first of his private qualifications as a man, before the
mention of his princely and royall virtues, He was, if ever any,
the most worthy of the title of an honest man; so greate a lover of
justice, that no temptation could dispose him to a wrongfull action,
except it were so disguysed to him, that he believed it to be just; he
had a tendernesse and compassion of nature, which restrayned him from
ever doinge a hard hearted thinge, and therfore he was so apt to grant
pardon to Malefactors, that his Judges represented to him the damage
and insecurity to the publique that flowed from such his indulgence,
and then he restrayned himselfe from pardoninge ether murthers or
highway robberyes, and quickly decerned the fruits of his severity, by
a wounderfull reformation of those enormityes. He was very punctuall
and regular in his devotions, so that he was never knowne to enter
upon his recreations or sportes, though never so early in the
morninge, before he had bene at publique prayers, so that on huntinge
dayes, his Chaplynes were bounde to a very early attendance, and he
was likewise very stricte in observinge the howres of his private
cabbinett devotions, and was so seveare an exactor of gravity and
reverence in all mention of religion, that he could never indure any
light or prophane worde in religion, with what sharpnesse of witt so
ever it was cover'd; and though he was well pleased and delighted with
readinge verses made upon any occasyon, no man durst bringe before
him any thinge that was prophane or uncleane, that kinde of witt had
never any countenance then. He was so greate an example of conjugall
affection, that they who did not imitate him in that particular,
did not bragge of ther liberty, and he did not only permitt but
directe his Bishopps to prosequte those skandalous vices, in the
Ecclesiasticall Courtes, against persons of eminence, and neere
relation to his service.
His kingly virtues had some mixture and allay that hindred them from
shyninge in full lustre, and from producinge those fruites they should
have bene attended with; he was not in his nature bountifull, though
he gave very much, which appeared more after the Duke of Buckinghams
death, after which those showers fell very rarely, and he paused to
longe in givinge, which made those to whome he gave lesse sensible of
the benefitt. He kept state to the full, which made his Courte very
orderly, no man prsesuminge to be seene in a place wher he had no
pretence to be; he saw and observed men longe, before he receaved any
about his person, and did not love strangers, nor very confident men.
He was a patient hearer of causes, which he frequently accustomed
himselfe to, at the Councell Board, and judged very well, and was
dextrous in the mediatinge parte, so that he often putt an end to
causes by perswasion, which the stubbornesse of mens humours made
delatory in courts of justice. He was very fearelesse in his person,
but not enterpryzinge, and had an excellent understandinge, but was
not confident enough of it: which made him often tymes chaunge his
owne opinion for a worse, and follow the advice of a man, that did not
judge so well as himselfe: and this made him more irresolute, then the
conjuncture of his affayres would admitt: If he had bene of a rougher
and more imperious nature, he would have founde more respecte and
duty, and his not applyinge some seveare cures, to approchinge evills,
proceeded from the lenity of his nature, and the tendernesse of his
conscience, which in all cases of bloode, made him choose the softer
way, and not hearken to seveare councells how reasonably soever urged.
This only restrayned him from pursuinge his advantage in the first
Scotts expedition, when humanely speakinge, he might have reduced that
Nation to the most slavish obedyence that could have bene wished,
but no man can say, he had then many who advized him to it, but the
contrary, by a wounderfull indisposition all his Councell had to
fightinge, or any other fatigue. He was alwayes an immoderate lover of
the Scottish nation, havinge not only bene borne ther, but educated by
that people and besiedged by them alwayes, havinge few English aboute
him till he was kinge, and the major number of his servants beinge
still of those, who he thought could never fayle him, and then no
man had such an ascendent over him, by the lowest and humblest
insinuations, as Duke Hambleton had.
As he excelled in all other virtues, so in temperance he was so
stricte that he abhorred all deboshry to that degree, that at a greate
festivall solemnity wher he once was, when very many of the nobility
of the English and Scotts were entertayned, he was[1] told by one who
withdrew from thence, what vast draughts of wine they dranke, and
that ther was one Earle who had dranke most of the rest downe and was
not himselfe mooved or altred, the kinge sayd that he deserved to
be hanged, and that Earle comminge shortly into the roome wher his
Majesty was, in some gayty to shew how unhurte he was from that
battle, the kinge sent one to bidd him withdraw from his Majestys
presence, nor did he in some dayes after appeare before the kinge.
Ther were so many miraculous circumstances contributed to his ruine,
that men might well thinke that heaven and earth conspired it, and
that the starres designed it, though he was from the first declension
of his power, so much betrayed by his owne servants, that there were
very few who remayned faythfull to him; yett that trechery proceeded
not from any treasonable purpose to do him any harme, but from
particular and personall animosityes against other men; and afterwards
the terrour all men were under of the Parliament and the guilte they
were conscious of themselves, made them watch all opportunityes to
make themselves gratious to those who could do them good, and so they
became spyes upon ther master, and from one piece of knavery, were
hardned and confirmed to undertake another, till at last they had no
hope of præservation but by the destruction of ther master; And after
all this, when a man might reasonably believe, that lesse then a
universall defection of three nations, could not have reduced a greate
kinge to so ugly a fate, it is most certayne that in that very howre
when he was thus wickedly murthered in the sight of the sunn, he had
as greate a share in the heartes and affections of his subjects in
generall, was as much beloved, esteemed and longed for by the people
in generall of the three nations, as any of his predecessors had ever
bene. To conclude, he was the worthyest gentleman, the best master,
the best frende, the best husbande, the best father, and the best
Christian, that the Age in which he lyved had produced, and if he was
not the best kinge, if he was without some parts and qualityes which
have made some kings greate and happy, no other Prince was ever
unhappy, who was possessed of half his virtues and indowments, and so
much without any kinde of vice.
[Footnote 1: 'he was' altered to 'being' in ed. 1792.]
16.
By SIR PHILIP WARWICK.
He was a person, tho' born sickly, yet who came thro' temperance and
exercise, to have as firm and strong a body, as most persons I ever
knew, and throughout all the fatigues of the warr, or during his
imprisonment, never sick. His appetite was to plain meats, and tho'
he took a good quantity thereof, yet it was suitable to an easy
digestion. He seldom eat of above three dishes at most, nor drank
above thrice: a glasse of small beer, another of claret wine, and
the last of water; he eat suppers as well as dinners heartily; but
betwixt meales, he never medled with any thing. Fruit he would eat
plentifully, and with this regularity, he moved as steddily, as a star
follows its course. His deportment was very majestick; for he would
not let fall his dignity, no not to the greatest Forraigners, that
came to visit him and his Court; for tho' he was farr from pride,
yet he was carefull of majestie, and would be approacht with respect
and reverence. His conversation was free, and the subject matter of
it (on his own side of the Court) was most commonly rational; or if
facetious, not light. With any Artist or good Mechanick, Traveller, or
Scholar he would discourse freely; and as he was commonly improved by
them, so he often gave light to them in their own art or knowledge.
For there were few Gentlemen in the world, that knew more of useful
or necessary learning, than this Prince did: and yet his proportion of
books was but small, having like Francis the first of France, learnt
more by the ear, than by study. His way of arguing was very civil and
patient; for he seldom contradicted another by his authority, but
by his reason: nor did he by any petulant dislike quash another's
arguments; and he offered his exception by this civill introduction,
_By your favour, Sir, I think otherwise on this or that ground_: yet
he would discountenance any bold or forward addresse unto him. And
in suits or discourse of busines he would give way to none abruptly
to enter into them, but lookt, that the greatest Persons should in
affairs of this nature addresse to him by his proper Ministers, or
by some solemn desire of speaking to him in their own persons. His
exercises were manly; for he rid the great horse very well; and on
the little saddle he was not only adroit, but a laborious hunter or
field-man: and they were wont to say of him, that he fail'd not to do
any of his exercises artificially, but not very gracefully; like some
well-proportion'd faces, which yet want a pleasant air of countenance.
He had a great plainnes in his own nature, and yet he was thought even
by his Friends to love too much a versatile man; but his experience
had thorowly weaned him from this at last.
He kept up the dignity of his Court, limiting persons to places
suitable to their qualities, unless he particularly call'd for them.
Besides the women, who attended on his beloved Queen and Consort, he
scarce admitted any great Officer to have his wife in the family. Sir
Henry Vane was the first, that I knew in that kind, who having a good
dyet as Comptroller of the Houshold, and a tenuity of fortune, was
winkt at; so as the Court was fill'd, not cramm'd. His exercises of
Religion were most exemplary; for every morning early, and evening not
very late, singly and alone, in his own bed-chamber or closet he spent
some time in private meditation: (for he durst reflect and be alone)
and thro' the whole week, even when he went a hunting, he never
failed, before he sat down to dinner, to have part of the Liturgy read
unto him and his menial servants, came he never so hungry, or so late
in: and on Sundays and Tuesdays he came (commonly at the beginning of
Service) to the Chappell, well attended by his Court-Lords, and chief
Attendants, and most usually waited on by many of the Nobility in
town, who found those observances acceptably entertain'd by him. His
greatest enemies can deny none of this; and a man of this moderation
of mind could have no hungry appetite to prey upon his subjects, tho'
he had a greatnes of mind not to live precariously by them. But when
he fell into the sharpnes of his afflictions, (than which few men
underwent sharper) I dare say, I know it, (I am sure conscientiously
I say it) tho' God dealt with him, as he did with St. Paul, not remove
the thorn, yet he made his grace sufficient to take away the pungency
of it: for he made as sanctified an use of his afflictions, as most
men ever did.
No Gentleman in his three nations, tho' there were many more learned,
(for I have supposed him but competently learned, tho' eminently
rational) better understood the foundations of his own Church, and the
grounds of the Reformation, than he did: which made the Pope's Nuncio
to the Queen, Signior Con, to say (both of him and Arch-Bishop Laud,
when the King had forced the Archbishop to admit a visit from, and
a conference with the Nuncio) _That when he came first to Court, he
hoped to have made great impressions there; but after he had conferr'd
with Prince and Prelate, (who never denyed him any thing frowardly or
ignorantly, but admitted all, which primitive and uncorrupted Rome for
the first 500 years had exercised_,) he declared he found, _That they
resolved to deal with his Master, the Pope, as wrestlers do with one
another, take him up to fling him down_. And therefore tho' I cannot
say, I know, that he wrote his _Icon Basilike_, or _Image_, which
goes under his own name; yet I can say, I have heard him, even unto my
unworthy selfe, say many of those things it contains: and I have bin
assur'd by Mr. Levett, (one of the Pages of his Bedchamber, and who
was with him thro' all his imprisonments) that he hath not only seen
the Manuscript of that book among his Majestie's papers at the Isle
of Wight, but read many of the chapters himselfe: and Mr. Herbert,
who by the appointment of Parliament attended him, says, he saw the
Manuscript in the King's hand, as he believed; but it was in a running
character, and not that which the King usually wrote. And whoever
reads his private and cursory letters, which he wrote unto the
Queen, and to some great men (especially in his Scotch affairs, set
down by Mr. Burnet, when he stood single, as he did thro' all his
imprisonments) the gravity and significancy of that style may assure
a misbeliever, that he had head and hand enough to express the
ejaculations of a good, pious, and afflicted heart; and Solomon says,
that _affliction gives understanding_, or elevates thoughts: and we
cannot wonder, that so royal a heart, sensible of such afflictions,
should make such a description of them, as he hath done in that book.
And tho' he was of as slow a pen, as of speech; yet both were very
significant: and he had that modest esteem of his own parts, that he
would usually say, _He would willingly make his own dispatches, but
that he found it better to be a Cobler, than a Shoomaker_. I have
bin in company with very learned men, when I have brought them their
own papers back from him, with his alterations, who ever contest his
amendments to have bin very material. And I once by his commandment
brought him a paper of my own to read, to see, whether it was suitable
unto his directions, and he disallow'd it slightingly: I desir'd him,
I might call Doctor Sanderson to aid me, and that the Doctor might
understand his own meaning from himselfe; and with his Majestie's
leave, I brought him, whilst he was walking, and taking the aire;
whereupon wee two went back; but pleas'd him as little, when wee
return'd it: for smilingly he said, _A man might have as good ware out
of a Chandler's shop_: but afterwards he set it down with his own pen
very plainly, and suitable unto his own intentions. The thing was
of that nature, (being too great an owning of the Scots, when Duke
Hamilton was in the heart of England so meanely defeated, and like
the crafty fox lay out of countenance in the hands of his enemies,)
that it chilled the Doctors ink; and when the matter came to be
communicated, those honourable Persons, that then attended him,
prevayl'd on him to decline the whole. And I remember, when his
displeasure was a little off, telling him, how severely he had dealt
in his charactering the best pen in England, Dr. Sanderson's; he told
me, he had had two Secretaries, one a dull man in comparison of the
other, and yet the first best pleas'd him: _For_, said he, _my Lord
Carleton ever brought me my own sense in my own words; but my Lord
Faulkland most commonly brought me my instructions in so fine a dress,
that I did not alwaies own them._ Which put me in mind to tell him
a story of my Lord Burleigh and his son Cecil: for Burleigh being at
Councill, and Lord Treasurer, reading an order penn'd by a new Clerk
of the Councill, who was a Wit and Scholar, he flung it downward to
the lower end of the Table to his son, the Secretary, saying, _Mr.
Secretary, you bring in Clerks of the Councill, who will corrupt the
gravity and dignity of the style of the Board_: to which the Secretary
replied, _I pray, my Lord, pardon this, for this Gentleman is not warm
in his place, and hath had so little to do, that he is wanton with his
pen: but I will put so much busines upon him, that he shall be willing
to observe your Lordship's directions._ These are so little stories,
that it may be justly thought, I am either vain, or at leasure to sett
them down; but I derive my authority from an Author, the world hath
ever reverenced, _viz_, Plutarch; who writing the lives of Alexander
the great and Julius Cesar, runs into the actions, flowing from their
particular natures, and into their private conversation, saying,
_These smaller things would discover the men, whilst their great
actions only discover the power of their States._
One or two things more then I may warrantably observe: First, as
an evidence of his natural probity, whenever any young Nobleman or
Gentleman of quality, who was going to travell, came to kiss his hand,
he cheerfully would give them some good counsel, leading to morall
virtue, especially to good conversation; telling them, that _If he
heard they kept good company abroad, he should reasonably expect, they
would return qualified to serve him and their Country well at home_;
and he was very carefull to keep the youth in his times uncorrupted.
This I find in the Mémoires upon James Duke Hamilton, was his advice
unto that noble and loyal Lord, William, afterwards, Duke Hamilton,
who so well serv'd his Son, and never perfidiously disserv'd him, when
in armes against him. Secondly, his forementioned intercepted letters
to the Queen at Naisby had this passage in them, where mentioning
religion, he said, _This is the only thing, wherein we two differ_;
which even unto a miscreant Jew would have bin proofe enough of this
King's sincerity in his religion; and had it not bin providence or
inadvertence, surely those, who had in this kind defam'd him, would
never themselves have publish'd in print this passage, which thus
justified him.
This may be truly said, That he valued the Reformation of his own
Church, before any in the world; and was as sensible and as knowing
of, and severe against, the deviations of Rome from the primitive
Church, as any Gentleman in Christendom; and beyond those errors, no
way quarrelsom towards it: for he was willing to give it its due, that
it might be brought to be willing to accept, at least to grant, such
an union in the Church, as might have brought a free and friendly
communion between Dissenters, without the one's totall quitting his
errors, or the other's being necessitated to partake therein: and I
truly believe this was the utmost both of his and his Archbishop's
inclinations; and if I may not, yet both these Martyrs confessions on
the scaffold (God avert the prophecy of the last, _Venient Romani_)
surely may convince the world, that they both dyed true Assertors of
the Reformation. And the great and learned light of this last age,
Grotius, soon discern'd this inclination in him: for in his dedication
of his immortal and scarce ever to be parallel'd book, _De Jure Belli
& Pacis_, he recommends it to Lewis XIII, King of France, as the most
Royall and Christian design imaginable for his Majestic to become a
means to make an union amongst Christians in profession of religion;
and therein he tells him, how well-knowing and well-disposed the King
of England was thereunto. In a word, had he had as daring and active
a courage to obviate danger; as he had a steddy and undaunted in all
hazardous rencounters; or had his active courage equall'd his passive,
the rebellious and tumultuous humor of those, who were disloyall to
him, probably had been quash'd in their first rise: for thro'-out the
English story it may be observed, that the souldier-like spirit in the
Prince hath bin ever much more fortunate and esteem'd, than the pious:
a Prince's awfull reputation being of much more defence to him, than
his Regall (nay Legall) edicts.
17.
THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.
_Thomas Wentworth, knighted 1611, second baronet 1614, created
Viscount Wentworth 1628, Earl of Strafford 1640._
_Born 1593. Beheaded 1641._
By CLARENDON.
All thinges beinge thus transacted, to conclude the fate of this
greate person, he was on the 12. day of May brought from the Tower of
London, wher he had bene a prysoner neere six moneths, to the Skaffold
on Tower Hill, wher with a composed, undaunted courage, he told the
people, he was come thither to satisfy them with his heade, but that
he much feared, the reformation which was begunn in bloode, would not
proove so fortunate to the kingdom as they exspected, and he wished,
and after greate expressyons of his devotion to the Church of
Englande, and the Protestant Religion established by Law and professed
in that Church, of his loyalty to the Kinge, and affection to the
peace and welfare of the Kingdome, with marvellous tranquillity of
minde, he deliver'd his Heade to the blocke, wher it was sever'd from
his body at a blow; many of the standers by, who had not bene over
charitable to him in his life, beinge much affected with the courage
and Christianity of his death. Thus fell the greatest subjecte in
power (and little inferiour to any in fortune) that was at that tyme
in ether of the three Kingdomes; who could well remember the tyme when
he ledd those people, who then pursued him to his grave. He was a man
of greate partes and extraordinary indowments of nature, not unadorned
with some addicion of Arte and learninge, though that agayne was more
improoved and illustrated by the other, for he had a readynesse of
conception, and sharpnesse of expressyon, which made his learninge
thought more, then in truth it was. His first inclinations and
addresses to the Courte, were only to establish his Greatnesse in
the Country, wher he apprehended some Actes of power from the[1]
L'd Savill, who had bene his ryvall alwayes ther, and of late had
strenghtened himselfe by beinge made a Privy Counsellour, and Officer
at Courte, but his first attempts were so prosperous that he contented
not himselfe with beinge secure from his power in the Country, but
rested not till he had bereaved him of all power and place in Courte,
and so sent him downe a most abject disconsolate old man to his
Country, wher he was to have the superintendency over him too, by
getting himselfe at that tyme made L'd President of the North. These
successes, applyed to a nature too elate and arrogant of it selfe, and
a quicker progresse into the greatest imployments and trust, made him
more transported with disdayne of other men, and more contemninge the
formes of businesse, then happily he would have bene, if he had mett
with some interruptions in the beginning, and had passed in a more
leasurely gradation to the office of a Statesman. He was no doubte of
greate observation, and a piercinge judgement both into thinges and
persons, but his too good skill in persons made him judge the worse
of thinges, for it was his misfortune to be of a tyme, wherin very few
wise men were æqually imployed with him, and scarce any (but the L'd
Coventry, whose trust was more confined) whose facultyes and abilityes
were æquall to his, so that upon the matter he wholy relyed upon
himselfe, and decerninge many defects in most men, he too much
neglected what they sayd or did. Of all his passyons his pryde was
most prædominant, which a moderate exercise of ill fortune might have
corrected and reformed, and which was by the hande of heaven strangely
punished, by bringinge his destruction upon him, by two thinges, that
he most despised, the people, and S'r Harry Vane; In a worde, the
Epitaph which Plutarch recordes, that Silla wrote for himselfe, may
not be unfitly applyed to him; That no man did ever passe him, ether
in doinge good to his frends, or in doinge mischieve to his enimyes,
for his Actes of both kindes were most exemplar and notorious.
[Footnote 1: 'old' inserted in another hand before 'L'd'.]
18.
By SIR PHILIP WARWICK.
The Lord Viscount Wentworth, Lord President of the North, whom the
Lord Treasurer Portland had brought into his Majestie's affairs, from
his ability and activity had wrought himselfe much into his Majestie's
confidence; and about the year 1632 was appointed by the King to be
Lord Deputy of Ireland, where the state of affairs was in no very
good posture, the revenue of the crown not defraying the standing army
there, nor the ordinary expences; and the deportment of the Romanists
being there also very insolent, and the Scots plantations in the
northern parts of that Realm looking upon themselves, as if they had
been a distinct body. So as here was subject matter enough for this
great man to work on; and considering his hardines, it may well be
supposed, that the difficulties of his employment, being means to shew
his abilities, were gratefull to him; for he was every way qualified
for busines; his naturall faculties being very strong and pregnant,
his understanding, aided by a good phansy, made him quick in
discerning the nature of any busines; and thro' a cold brain he became
deliberate and of a sound judgement. His memory was great, and he made
it greater by confiding in it. His elocution was very fluent, and it
was a great part of his talent readily to reply, or freely to harangue
upon any subject. And all this was lodged in a sowre and haughty
temper; so as it may probably be believed, he expected to have more
observance paid to him, than he was willing to pay to others, tho'
they were of his own quality; and then he was not like to conciliate
the good will of men of the lesser station.
His acquired parts, both in University and Inns-of-Court Learning, as
likewise his forreign-travells, made him an eminent man, before he was
a conspicuous; so as when he came to shew himselfe first in publick
affairs, which was in the House of Commons, he was soon a bell-weather
in that flock. As he had these parts, he knew how to set a price on
them, if not overvalue them: and he too soon discovered a roughnes in
his nature, which a man no more obliged by him, than I was, would have
called an injustice; tho' many of his Confidents, (who were my good
friends, when I like a little worm, being trod on, would turn and
laugh, and under that disguise say as piquant words, as my little wit
would help me with) were wont to swear to me, that he endeavoured to
be just to all, but was resolv'd to be gracious to none, but to those,
whom he thought inwardly affected him: which never bowed me, till his
broken fortune, and as I thought, very unjustifiable prosecution,
made me one of the fifty six, who gave a negative to that fatall Bill,
which cut the thread of his life.
He gave an early specimen of the roughnes of his nature, when in the
eager pursuit of the House of Commons after the Duke of Buckingham,
he advised or gave a counsel against another, which was afterwards
taken up and pursued against himselfe. Thus pressing upon another
man's case, he awakened his own fate. For when that House was in
consultation, how to frame the particular charge against that great
Duke, he advised to make a generall one, and to accuse him of treason,
and to let him afterwards get off, as he could; which befell himselfe
at last. I beleive he should make no irrational conjecture, who
determined, that his very eminent parts to support a Crown, and
his very rugged nature to contest disloyalty, or withstand change
of government, made his enemies implacable to him. It was a great
infirmity in him, that he seem'd to overlooke so many, as he did;
since every where, much more in Court, the numerous or lesser sort of
attendants can obstruct, create jealousies, spread ill reports, and
do harme: for as 'tis impossible, that any power or deportment should
satisfy all persons: so there a little friendlines and opennes of
carriage begets hope, and lessens envy.
In his person he was of a tall stature, but stooped much in the neck.
His countenance was cloudy, whilst he moved, or sat thinking; but when
he spake, either seriously or facetiously, he had a lightsom and a
very pleasant ayre: and indeed whatever he then did, he performed very
gracefully. The greatnes of the envy, that attended him, made many in
their prognosticks to bode him an ill end; and there went current a
story of the dream of his Father, who being both by his wife, nighest
friends, and Physicians, thought to be at the point of his death,
fell suddenly into so profound a sleep, and lay quietly so long, that
his Wife, uncertain of his condition, drew nigh his bed, to observe,
whether she could hear him breath, and gently touching him, he
awaked with great disturbance, and told her the reason was, she had
interrupted him in a dream, which most passionately he desired to have
known the end of. For, said he, I dream'd one appear'd to me, assuring
me, that _I should have a son_, (for 'till then he had none) _who
should be a very great and eminent man: but--and in this instant thou
didst awake me, whereby I am bereaved of the knowledge of the further
fortune of the child_. This I heard, when this Lord was but in the
ascent of his greatnes, and long before his fall: and afterwards
conferring with some of his nighest Relations, I found the tradition
was not disown'd. Sure I am, that his station was like those turfs
of earth or sea-banks, which by the storm swept away, left all the
in-land to be drown'd by popular tumult.
19.
THE EARL OF NORTHAMPTON.
_Spencer Compton, second Earl of Northampton._
_Born 1601. Fell at Hopton Heath 1643._
By CLARENDON.
In this fight, which was sharpe and shorte, there were killed and
taken prysoners of the Parliament party above 200. and more then that
number wounded, for the horse charginge amonge ther foote, more
were hurte then killed; Eight pieces of ther Cannon and most of ther
Ammunition was likewise taken. Of the Earles party were slayne but
25. wherof ther were two Captaynes, some inferiour officers, and the
rest common men, but ther were as many hurte, and those of the chiefe
officers. They who had all the Ensignes of victory (but ther Generall)
thought themselves undone, whilst the other syde who had escaped in
the night and made a hard shifte to carry his deade body with them,
hardly believed they were loosers,
Et velut æquali bellatum sorte fuisset
componit cum classe virum:
The truth is, a greater victory had bene an unæquall recompence for a
lesse losse. He was a person of greate courage, honour, and fidelity,
and not well knowne till his Eveninge, havinge in the ease, and
plenty, and luxury of that too happy tyme indulged to himselfe with
that licence, which was then thought necessary to greate fortunes, but
from the beginninge of these distractions, as if he had bene awakened
out of a lethargy, he never proceeded with a lukewarme temper. Before
the Standard was sett up, he appeared in Warwickshyre against the L'd
Brooke, and as much upon his owne reputation as the justice of the
cause (which was not so well then understoode) discountenanced and
drove him out of that County, Afterwardes tooke the Ordinance from
Banbury Castle, and brought them to the Kinge; assoone as an Army was
to be raysed he leavyed with the first upon his owne charge a troope
of Horse and a Regiment of foote, and (not like other men, who warily
distributed ther Family to both sydes, one Sunn to serve the Kinge,
whilst the father, or another sunn engaged as farr for the Parliament)
intirely dedicated all his Children to the quarrell, havinge fowre
Sunns officers under him, wherof three charged that day in the
Fielde; and from the tyme he submitted himselfe to the professyon of
a souldyer, no man more punctuall upon commaunde, no man more diligent
and vigilant in duty, all distresses he bore like a common man, and
all wants and hardnesses as if he had never knowne plenty, or ease,
most prodigall of his person to daunger, and would often say, that
if he outlived these warres, he was certayne never to have so noble
a death, so that it is not to be woundred, if upon such a stroke, the
body that felte it, thought it had lost more then a Limbe.
20.
THE EARL OF CARNARVON.
_Robert Dormer, created Earl of Carnarvon 1628._
_Born 1610. Fell at Newbury 1643._
By CLARENDON.
This day fell the Earle of Carnarvon, who after he had charged and
rowted a body of the enimyes horse, cominge carelesly backe by some of
the scattered troopers, was by one of them who knew him runn through
the body with a sworde, of which he dyed within an howre. He was a
person with whose greate partes and virtue the world was not enough
acquainted. Before the warr, though his education was adorned by
travell, and an exacte observation of the manners of more nations
then our common travellers use to visitt, for he had after the view
of Spayne, France, and most partes of Italy, spent some tyme in Turkey
and those Easterne Countryes, he seemed to be wholly delighted with
those looser exercises of pleasure, huntinge, hawkinge, and the like,
in which the nobility of that tyme too much delighted to excell; After
the troubles begann, havinge the commaunde of the first or secounde
Regiment of Horse that was raysed for the Kinges service, he wholy
gave himselfe up to the office and duty of a Souldyer, noe man more
diligently obeyinge, or more dextrously commaundinge, for he was
not only of a very keene courage in the exposinge his person, but an
excellent discerner and pursuer of advantage upon his enimy, and had a
minde and understandinge very present in the article of daunger, which
is a rare benefitt in that profession. Those infirmityes and that
licence which he had formerly indulged to himselfe, he putt off with
severity, when others thought them excusable under the notion of a
souldyer. He was a greate lover of justice, and practiced it then most
deliberately, when he had power to do wronge, and so stricte in the
observation of his worde and promise, as a Commander, that he could
not be perswaded to stay in the west, when he founde it not in his
power to performe the agreement he had made with Dorchester and
Waymoth. If he had lived he would have proved a greate Ornament to
that profession, and an excellent Souldyer, and by his death the Kinge
founde a sensible weakenesse in his Army.
21.
LORD FALKLAND.
_Lucius Gary, second Viscount Falkland 1633._
_Born 1610. Fell at Newbury 1643._
By CLARENDON.
But I must heare take leave a little longer to discontinue this
narration, and if the celebratinge the memory of eminent and
extraordinary persons, and transmittinge ther greate virtues for the
imitation of posterity, be one of the principle endes and dutyes of
History, it will not be thought impertinent in this place to remember
a losse, which noe tyme will suffer to be forgotten, and no successe
or good fortune could repayre; In this unhappy battell was slayne
the L'd Viscounte Falkelande, a person of such prodigious partes of
learninge and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetenesse and delight in
conversation, of so flowinge and obliginge a humanity and goodnesse
to mankinde, and of that primitive simplicity, and integrity of life,
that if ther were no other brande upon this odious and accursed Civill
war, then that single losse, it must be most infamous and execrable to
all posterity:
Turpe mori post te, solo non posse dolore.
Before this parliament his condition of life was so happy, that it
was hardly capable of improovement; before he came to twenty yeeres of
Age, he was master of a noble fortune, which descended to him by the
gifte of a grandfather, without passinge through his father or mother,
who were then both alive, and not well enough contented to finde
themselves passed by in the descent: His education for some yeeres
had bene in Ireland, wher his father was Lord Deputy, so that when
he returned into Englande, to the possessyon of his fortune, he was
unintangled with any acquaintance or frends, which usually grow up by
the custome of conversation, and therfore was to make a pure election
of his company; which he chose by other rules then were prescribed
to the younge nobility of that tyme; And it cannot be denyed, though
he admitted some few to his frendshipp for the agreablenesse of ther
natures, and ther undoubted affection to him, that his familiarity
and frendshipp for the most parte was with men of the most eminent and
sublime partes, and of untouched reputations in pointe of integrity:
and such men had a title to his bosome.
He was a greate cherisher of witt, and fancy, and good partes in
any man, and if he founde them clowded with poverty or wante, a most
liberall and bountifull Patron towards them, even above his fortune,
of which in those administrations he was such a dispenser, as if he
had bene trusted with it to such uses, and if ther had bene the least
of vice in his expence, he might have bene thought too prodigall: He
was constant and pertinatious in whatsoever he resolved to doe, and
not to be wearyed by any paynes that were necessary to that end, and
therfore havinge once resolved not to see London (which he loved above
all places) till he had perfectly learned the greeke tonge, he went to
his owne house in the Country, and pursued it with that indefatigable
industry, that it will not be believed, in how shorte a tyme he was
master of it, and accurately reade all the Greeke Historyans. In this
tyme, his house beinge within tenn myles of Oxford, he contracted
familiarity and frendshipp with the most polite and accurate men of
that University; who founde such an immensenesse of witt, and such
a soliddity of judgement in him, so infinite a fancy bounde in by a
most logicall ratiocination, such a vast knowledge, that he was not
ignorant in any thinge, yet such an excessive humillity as if he had
knowne nothinge, that they frequently resorted and dwelt with him,
as in a Colledge scituated in a purer ayre, so that his house was
a University bounde in a lesser volume, whither they came not so
much for repose, as study: and to examyne and refyne those grosser
propositions, which lazinesse and consent made currant in vulgar
conversation.
Many attempts were made upon him, by the instigation of his mother
(who was a Lady of another perswasion in religion, and of a most
maskulyne understandinge, allayed with the passyon and infirmityes of
her owne sex) to perverte him in his piety to the Church of Englande,
and to reconcile him to that of Rome, which they prosequted with the
more confidence, because he declined no opportunity or occasyon of
conference with those of that religion, whether Priests or Laiques,
havinge diligently studyed the controversyes, and exactly reade all or
the choycest of the Greeke and Latine fathers, and havinge a memory so
stupendious, that he remembred on all occasyons whatsoever he reade:
And he was so greate an enimy to that passyon and uncharitablenesse
which he saw produced by difference of opinion in matters of religion,
that in all those disputations with Priests and others of the Roman
Church, he affected to manifest all possible civillity to ther
persons, and estimation of ther partes, which made them retayne still
some hope of his reduction, even when they had given over offeringe
farther reasons to him to that purpose: But this charity towards them
was much lesned, and any correspondence with them quyte declined, when
by sinister Artes they had corrupted his two younger brothers, beinge
both children, and stolen them from his house, and transported them
beyonde seas, and perverted his sisters, upon which occasyon he writt
two large discources against the principle positions of that Religion,
with that sharpnesse of Style, and full waight of reason, that the
Church is deprived of greate jewells, in the concealment of them, and
that they are not published to the world.
He was superiour to all those passyons and affections which attende
vulgar mindes, and was guilty of no other ambition, then of knowledge,
and to be reputed a lover of all good men, and that made him to much a
contemner of those Artes which must be indulged to in the transaction
of humane affayrs. In the last shorte Parliament he was a Burgesse
in the house of Commons, and from the debates which were then managed
with all imaginable gravity and sobriety, he contracted such a
reverence to Parliaments that he thought it really impossible, that
they could ever produce mischieve or inconvenience to the kingdome,
or that the kingdome could be tolerably happy in the intermissyon
of them; and from the unhappy, and unseasonable dissolution of that
convention, he harboured it may be some jealousy and præjudice of
the Courte, towards which he was not before immoderately inclined,
his father havinge wasted a full fortune ther, in those offices and
imployments, by which other men use to obtayne a greater. He was
chosen agayne this Parliament to serve in the same place, and in the
beginninge of it, declared himselfe very sharply and sevearely against
those exorbitances which had bene most grievous to the State; for
he was so rigidd an observer of established Lawes and rules, that he
could not indure the least breach or deviation from them, and thought
no mischieve so intollerable, as the præsumption of ministers of
State, to breake positive rules for reason of State, or judges to
transgresse knowne Lawes, upon the title of conveniency or necessity,
which made him so seveare against the Earle of Straforde, and the L'd
Finch, contrary to his naturall gentlenesse and temper; insomuch as
they who did not know his composition to be as free from revenge as
it was from pryde, thought that the sharpnesse to the former might
proceede from the memory of some unkindnesses, not without a mixture
of injustice from him towards his father; but without doubte he was
free from those temptations, and was only misledd by the authority
of those, who he believed understoode the Lawes perfectly, of which
himselfe was utterly ignorant, and if the assumption, which was
scarce controverted, had bene true, that an endeavour to overthrow
the fundamentall Lawes of the kingdome had beene treason, a stricte
understandinge might make reasonable conclusions to satisfy his owne
judgement, from the exorbitant partes of ther severall charges.
The greate opinion he had of the uprightnesse and integrity of those
persons, who appeared most active, especially of Mr. Hambden, kept him
longer from suspectinge any designe against the peace of the kingdome,
and though he differed commonly from them in conclusyons, he believed
longe ther purposes were honest; When he grew better informed what was
Law, and discerned a desyre to controle that Law, by a vote of one, or
both houses, no man more opposed those attempts, and gave the adverse
party more trouble, by reason and argumentation, insomuch as he was
by degrees looked upon as an Advocate for the Courte, to which he
contributed so little, that he declined those addresses, and even
those invitations, which he was oblieged almost by civillity to
entertayne: And he was so jealous of the least imagination that he
should inclyne to præferment, that he affected even a morosity to the
Courte, and to the Courtyers, and left nothinge undone which might
prevent and deverte the Kings or Queenes favour towards him, but
the deservinge it: for when the Kinge sent for him once or twice, to
speake with him, and to give him thankes for his excellent comportment
in those Councells, which his Majesty gratiously tearmed doinge him
service, his answers were more negligent and lesse satisfactory than
might be exspected, as if he cared only that his Actions should be
just, not that they should be acceptable, and that his Majesty should
thinke that they proceeded only from the impulsyon of conscience,
without any sympathy in his affections, which from a Stoicall and
sullen nature might not have bene misinterpreted, yet from a person
of so perfecte a habitt of generous and obsequious complyance with
all good men, might very well have bene interpreted by the Kinge as
more then an ordinary aversenesse to his service, so that he tooke
more paynes, and more forced his nature to actions unagreable and
unpleasant to it, that he might not be thought to inclyne to the
Courte, then any man hath done to procure an office ther; and if any
thinge but not doinge his duty could have kept him from receavinge a
testimony of the Kings grace and trust at that tyme, he had not bene
called to his Councell: not that he was in truth averse to the Courte,
or from receavinge publique imployment: for he had a greate devotion
to the Kings person, and had before used some small endeavour to be
recommended to him for a forrainge negotiation, and had once a desyre
to be sent Ambassadour into France, but he abhorred an imagination
or doubte should sinke into the thoughts of any man, that in the
discharge of his trust and duty in Parliament he had any byas to the
Court, or that the Kinge himselfe should apprehende that he looked for
a rewarde for beinge honest.
For this reason when he heard it first whispered that the Kinge had
a purpose to make him a Counsellour, for which in the beginninge
ther was no other grounde, but because he was knowne sufficient, haud
semper errat fama, aliquando et elegit, he resolved to declyne it,
and at last suffred himselfe only to be overruled by the advice, and
persuasions of his frends to submitt to it; afterwards when he founde
that the Kinge intended to make him his Secretary of State, he was
positive to refuse it, declaringe to his frends that he was most
unfitt for it, and that he must ether doe that which would be greate
disquyet to his owne nature, or leave that undone which was most
necessary to be done by one that was honored with that place, for that
the most just and honest men did every day that, which he could not
give himselfe leave to doe. And indeede he was so exacte and stricte
an observer of justice and truth _ad amussim_, that he believed
those necessary condescensions and applications to the weaknesse of
other men, and those artes and insinuations which are necessary for
discoveryes and prevention of ill, would be in him a declension from
the rule which he acknowledged fitt and absolutely
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/13751