mainder of the Queen's reign. Bacon mentions that on her death he was much visited there. On the first of April, 1603, six days only after her decease, King James sent a letter for his release; of which there is a copy in the Museum. It is dated at Holyrood House, and directed" to the nobility of England, and the right trusty and well beloved the counsel of state sitting at Whitehall."On the 10th of the same month Lord Southampton was released, the king, at the same time that he sent the order for his enlargement, honouring him so far as to desire him to meet him on his way to England. Soon afterwards his attainder was reversed, and he was installed a knight of the Garter. In the same year he was constituted governour of the Isle of Wight, and of Carisbrooke castle; in which office, says the historian of that island, (from the manuscript memoirs of Sir John Oglander), "his just, affable, and obliging deportment gained him the love of all ranks of people, and raised the island to a most flourishing state, many gentlemen residing there in great affluence and hospitality." By the machinations of lord Essex's great adversary, the earl of Salisbury, (whose mind seems to have been as crooked as his body,) it is supposed King James was persuaded to believe that too great an intimacy subsisted between lord Southampton and his queen; on which account, (though the charge was not avowed, disaffection to the king being the crime alleged), he was apprehended in the latter end of June, 1604; but there being no proof whatsoever of his disloyalty, he was immediately released. In the summer of 1613, he went to Spa, much disgusted at not having obtained a seat in the council. His military ardour seems at no period of his life to have deserted him. In 1614 we find him with the romantick lord Herbert of Cherbury, at the siege of Rees in the dutchy of Cleve. In April 30, 1619, he was at length appointed a privy counsellor. Two years afterwards, having joined the popular party, who were justly inflamed at the king's supineness and pusillanimity, in suffering the Palatinate to be wrested from his son-in-law, and, what was a still more heinous offence, having rebuked the duke of Buckingham for a disorderly speech that he had made in the House of Lords, he was committed to the custody of the dean of Westminster, at the same time that the earl of Oxford and Sir Edward Coke were sent to the Tower; but he was soon enlarged. On the rupture with Spain in 1624, he was appointed jointly with the young earl of Essex, and the lords Oxford and Willoughby, to the command of six thousand men, who were sent to the Low Countries, to act under prince Maurice against the Spaniards; but was cut off by a fever at Bergenop-zoom on the 10th of November in that year. The ignorance of the Dutch physicians, who bled him too copiously, is said to have occasioned his death. He left three daughters, (Penelope, who married William lord Spencer of Wormleighton; Anne, who married Robert Wallop of Earley, in the county of Southampton, Esq. son of Sir Henry Wallop, knight, and Elizabeth, who married Sir Henry Estcourt, knight;) and one son, Thomas, who was lord high treasurer of England in the time of King Charles II. His eldest son James, who had accompanied him in this his last campaign, died a few days before, of the same disorder that proved fatal to his father. Wilson, the historian, who attended Lord Essex in this expedition, is more particular. In his History of King James, he says, they were both seized with a fever at Rosendale, which put an end to the son's life; that lord Southampton, having recovered of the fever, departed from Rosendale with an in tention to bring his son's body into England; but at Bergen-op-zoom" he died of a lethargy, in the view and presence of the relater;" and that the two bodies were brought in the same bark to Southampton. He was buried at Tichfield in Hampshire. Lady Southampton survived her husband many years, King Charles I. having been concealed by her for some time in the mansion-house of Tichfield, (which Lord Clarendon calls "a noble seat,") after his escape from Hampton Court in Nov. 1647. Their son Thomas, the fourth earl of Southampton, dying in May, 1667, without issue male, the title became extinct. He left three daughters. Magdalene, the youngest, died unmarried. Rachael, his second daughter, married, first, Francis lord Vaughan, eldest son of Richard, earl of Carbery; and afterwards the illustrious William lord Russel, by whom she had Wriothesley, the second duke of Bedford. Lady Elizabeth, the eldest daughter, married Edward Noel, (eldest son of Baptist Viscount Campden), who in 1680 was created Baron Noel of Tichfield, and in 1682 earl of Gainsborough. Their only son Wriothesley Baptist, earl of Gainsborough, died in 1690, leaving only two daughters; of whom Elizabeth, the elder, married Henry the first duke of Portland, and Rachael married Henry the second duke of Beaufort. On a partition of the real and personal property between those two noble families, about the year 1735, lord Southampton's estate at Tichfield, which had belonged to a monastery of Cistercian monks in the time of King Henry VIII. was part of the share of the duke of Beaufort, and now belongs to Peter Delmé, Esq. Beaulieu, in Hampshire, which at present belongs to the repre sentatives of the late duke of Montagu, was formerly the property of our earl of Southampton. From Rowland Whyte's letters lord Southampton seems to have been very fond of tennis, at which game he once lost 18000 crowns in Paris, on one match; [22507. sterl.] and sir John Oglander, in his manuscript memoirs of the Isle of Wight, relates as a proof of his affable deportment in his government, that he used to play at bowls twice a week on Saint George's Down, with the principal gentlemen of the island. Of this amiable and accomplished nobleman there is an original portrait at Gorhambury, the seat of lord viscount Grimston, by Vansomer, as I conceive; another at Woburn Abbey, by Miervelt ; and two in the possession of his grace the duke of Portland; one a whole length, when he was a young man, and the other a half length, when he was a prisoner in the Tower. From the testimony of Camden and others, he appears to have been no less devoted to the muses than to military atchievements. We find his name, as well as that of his friend Essex, prefixed to many publications of those times; and two poets have expressly sung his praises. Their verses, though of little merit, serving in some measure to illustrate his character, I shall subjoin them. A third production having still less pretensions to poetical fame, for the same reason, and, as it is rarely to be met with, I have thought worthy of preservation. "Edwardus VI. eundem honorem anno sui regno primo Thomæ Wriothesley Angliæ Cancellario detulit, cujus e filio Henrico nepos Henricus eodem hodie lætatur; qui in primo ætatis flore præsidio bonarum literarum et rei militaris scientia nobilitatem communit, ut uberiores fructus maturiore ætate patriæ et principi profundat." Camdeni Britannia, 8vo. 1600, p. 240. To Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. By Samuel Daniel, 1605. Non fert ullum ictum illæsa fælicitas. He who hath never warr'd with misery, The world had never taken so full note Of what thou art, hadst thou not been undone, More fame than thy best fortunes could have done. Mutius the fire, the tortures Regulus, 6 Not to be unhappy is unhappiness, And misery not to have known misery: For the best way unto discretion is The way that leads us by adversity: And men are better shew'd what is amiss, By the expert finger of calamity, Than they can be with all that fortune brings, Who never shews them the true face of things. How could we know that thou could'st have endur'd And with a heart and countenance assur'd Have look'd stern death and horrour in the face? 6 I have in this and the preceding line preserved the old spelling, because it confirms an observation made in vol. xiv. p. 35, n. 1. MALOne. |