Characters from the Histories & Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century Part 28

Clarendon, MS. Life, pp. 212-15; _History_, Bk. VI, ed. 1703, vol. ii, pp. 158-62; ed. Macray, vol. ii, pp. 541-8.

These five characters of Parliamentary peers follow one another at the conclusion of Clarendon's sixth book, and are part of his 'view of those persons who were of the King's Council, and had deserted his service, and stayed in the Parliament to support the rebellion'.

A short pa.s.sage on the Earl of Holland, between the characters of Warwick and Manchester, is omitted.

Taken as a group, they are yet another proof of Clarendon's skill in portraiture. Each character is clearly distinguished.

Page 159, ll. 7-10. His grandfather was William Cecil (1520-98), Lord Burghley, the great minister of Elizabeth; his father was Robert Cecil (1563-1612), created Earl of Salisbury, 1605, Secretary of State at the accession of James.

Page 160, l. 9. He was member for King's Lynn in 1649, and Hertfords.h.i.+re in 1654 and 1656.

ll. 13-16. _Hic egregiis_, &c. Seneca, _De Beneficiis_, iv, cap. 30.

Page 161, ll. 3-19. 'Clarendon's view that Warwick was a jovial hypocrite is scarcely borne out by other contemporary evidence. The "jollity and good humour" which he mentions are indeed confirmed. "He was one of the most best-natured and cheerfullest persons I have in my time met with," writes his pious daughter-in-law (_Autobiography of Lady Warwick_, ed. Croker, p. 27). Edmund Calamy, however, in his sermon at Warwick's funeral, enlarges on his zeal for religion; and Warwick's public conduct during all the later part of his career is perfectly consistent with Calamy's account of his private life (_A Pattern for All, especially for n.o.ble Persons_, &c., 1658, 410, pp.

34-9).'--C.H. Firth, in the _Dictionary of National Biography_.

l. 13. _Randevooze_ (or _-vouze_, or _-vouce_, or _-vowes_) is a normal spelling of _Rendezvous_ in the seventeenth century. The words had been introduced into English by the reign of Elizabeth.

ll. 20-2. The proceedings are described at some length by Clarendon, vol. ii, pp. 19-22, 216-23. Warwick was appointed Admiral by the Parliament on July 1, 1642.

l. 23. The expulsion of the Long Parliament on April 20, 1653. A thorough examination of all the authorities for the story of the expulsion will be found in two articles by C.H. Firth in _History_, October 1917 and January 1918.

ll. 24-5. Robert Rich, his grandson, married Frances, Cromwell's youngest daughter, in November 1657, but died in the following February, aged 23. See _Thurloe's State Papers_, vol. vi, p. 573.

Page 162, l. 11. _in Spayne_, on the occasion of the proposed Spanish match.

ll. 22-3. He resigned his generals.h.i.+p on April 2, 1645, the day before the Self-Denying Ordinance was pa.s.sed.

ll. 24 ff. His first wife was Buckingham's cousin, their mothers being sisters. He married his second wife in 1626, before Buckingham's death. He was five times married.

Page 163, l. 11. _his father_, Henry Montagu (1563-1642), created Baron Montagu of Kimbolton and Viscount Mandeville, 1620, and Earl of Manchester, 1628. By the favour of Buckingham he had been made Lord Treasurer in 1620, but within a year was deprived of the office and 'reduced to the empty t.i.tle of President of the Council'; see the character (on the whole favourable) by Clarendon, vol. i, pp. 67-9.

l. 12. Manchester and Warwick are described by Clarendon as 'the two pillars of the Presbyterian party' (vol. iv, p. 245).

Page 164, l. 16. He was accused with the five members of the House of Commons, January 3, 1642. Cf. p. 123, l. 5.

l. 26. Elsewhere Clarendon says that Manchester 'was known to have all the prejudice imaginable against Cromwell' (vol. iv, p. 245). He lived in retirement during the Commonwealth, but returned to public life at the Restoration, when he was made Lord Chamberlain.

This character may be compared with Clarendon's other character of Manchester, vol. i, pp. 242-3, and with the character in Warwick's _Memoires_, pp. 246-7. Burnet, speaking of him in his later years, describes him as 'A man of a soft and obliging temper, of no great depth, but universally beloved, being both a vertuous and a generous man'.

Page 165, ll. 6-9. See Clarendon, vol. i, p. 259.

l. ii. _that unhappy kingdome_. This was written in France.

ll. 20-5. Antony a Wood did not share Clarendon's scepticism about Say's descent, though he shared his dislike of Say himself: see _Athenae Oxonienses_, ed. Bliss, vol. in, col. 546.

Page 166, ll. 25 ff. See Clarendon, ed. Macray, vol. i, pp. 333-5. Cf.

note p. 134, l. 3. After the King's execution he took little part in public affairs, but at the Restoration he managed to be made a Privy Councillor and Lord Privy Seal.

Clarendon has another and shorter character of Say, which supplements the character here given, and deals mainly with his ecclesiastical politics (vol. i, p. 241). He was thought to be the only member of the Independent party in the House of Peers (vol. iii, p. 507).

Arthur Wilson gives short characters of Ess.e.x, Warwick, and Say: '_Saye_ and _Seale_ was a seriously subtil _Peece_, and alwayes averse to the Court wayes, something out of pertinatiousnesse; his _Temper_ and _Const.i.tution_ ballancing him altogether on that _Side_, which was contrary to the _Wind_; so that he seldome tackt about or went upright, though he kept his _Course_ steady in his owne way a long time: yet it appeared afterwards, when the harshnesse of the humour was a little allayed by the sweet _Refreshments_ of Court favours, that those sterne _Comportments_ supposed _naturall_, might be mitigated, and that indomitable Spirits by gentle usage may be tamed and brought to obedience' (_Reign of King James I_, p. 162).

49.

Clarendon, MS. Life, pp. 48-9: _Life_, ed. 1759, p. 16.

This and the four following characters of men of learning and letters are taken from the early section of the _Life_ where Clarendon proudly records his friends.h.i.+ps and conversation with '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.' The characters of Jonson, Falkland, and G.o.dolphin which belong to the same section have already been given.

Page 167, l. 27. _his conversation_, fortunately represented for us in his _Table-Talk_, a collection of the 'excellent things that usually fell from him', made by his amanuensis Richard Milward, and published in 1689.

Page 168, l. 3. _M'r Hyde_, i.e. Clarendon himself.

l. 5. _Seldence_, a phonetic spelling, showing Clarendon's haste in composition.

l.10. Selden was member for Oxford during the Long Parliament.

ll. 15, 16. Compare Clarendon's _History_, vol. ii, p. 114: 'he had for many years enjoyed his ease, which he loved, was rich, and would not have made a journey to York, or have lain out of his own bed, for any preferment, which he had never affected. Compare also Aubrey's _Brief Lives_, ed. A. Clark, vol. ii, p. 224: 'He was wont to say "I'le keepe myselfe warme and moyst as long as I live, for I shall be cold and dry when I am dead ".'

50.

Clarendon, MS. Life, p. 57; _Life_, ed. 1759, pp. 26-7.

Izaak Walton included a short character of Earle in his _Life of Hooker_, published in the year of Earle's death: 'Dr. Earle, now Lord Bishop of Salisbury, of whom I may justly say, (and let it not offend him, because it is such a trifle as ought not to be concealed from posterity, or those that now live, and yet know him not,) that since Mr. Hooker died, none have lived whom G.o.d hath blessed with more innocent wisdom, more sanctified learning, or a more pious, peaceable, primitive temper: so that this excellent person seems to be only like himself, and our venerable Richard Hooker.'

See also _Athenae Oxonienses_, ed. Bliss, vol. iii, cols. 716-9.

Page 168, l. 25. _Earle of Pembroke_, the fourth Earl, Lord Chamberlain 1626-1641: see p. 4, l. 30, note.

Page 169, l. 3. _Proctour_, in 1631. The 'very witty and sharpe discourses' are his _Micro-cosmographie_, first published anonymously in 1628.

l. 23. Compare p. 72, ll. 29 ff., and p. 90, ll. 21 ff.

l. 28. He was made chaplain and tutor to Prince Charles in 1641. His 'lodginge in the court' as chaplain to the Lord Chamberlain had made him known to the king.

51.

Clarendon, MS. Life, pp. 57-8; _Life_, ed. 1759, pp. 27-8.

'The Ever Memorable Mr. John Hales, of Eaton-Colledge', as he is called on the t.i.tle-page of his _Golden Remains_, published in 1659 (second impression, 1673), is probably best known now by his remark 'That there was no subject of which any Poet ever writ, but he would produce it much better treated of in Shakespeare'. This remark was first given in print in Dryden's essay _Of Dramatick Poesie_, 1668, and was repeated in varying forms in Nahum Tate's Dedication to the _Loyal General_, 1680, Charles Gildon's _Reflections on Mr. Rymer's Short View of Tragedy_, 1694, and Nicholas Rowe's _Account of the Life of Shakespear_, 1709. But it had apparently been made somewhere between 1633 and 1637 in the company of Lord Falkland. It is the one gem that survives of this retired student's 'very open and pleasant conversation'.

Clarendon's portrait explains the honour and affection in which the 'ever memorable' but now little known scholar was held by all his friends. The best companion to it is the life by Wood, _Athenae Oxonienses_, ed. Bliss, vol. iv, cols. 409-15. See also John Pearson's preface to _Golden Remains_.

Page 170, ll. 10 ff. Hales was elected Fellow of Merton College in 1605, and Regius Professor of Greek in 1615. His thirty-two letters to Sir Dudley Carlton (cf. p. 58, l. 20) reporting the proceedings of the Synod of Dort, run from November 24, 1618, to February 7, 1619, and are included in his _Golden Remains_. On his return to England in 1619 he withdrew to his fellows.h.i.+p at Eton.

Sir Henry Savile's monumental edition of the Greek text of St.

Chrysostom, in eight large folio volumes, was published at Eton, 1610-12. Savile was an imperious scholar, but when Clarendon says that Hales 'had borne all the labour' of this great edition, he can only mean that Hales had given his a.s.sistance at all stages of its production. In Brodrick's _Memorials of Merton College_, p. 70, it is stated that Hales was voted an allowance for the help he had given.