He had four sons and one daughter.
No. 40. SIR THOMAS KILLIGREW.
HE was the younger son of Sir Robert Killigrew of Hanworth, County Middlesex, by Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Wodehouse, who married, secondly, Sir Thomas Stafford. Thomas, or as he was usually called, Tom Killigrew, was early initiated into the mysteries of Court life, being appointed Page of Honour to King Charles the First, to whom he remained faithful, and followed Charles the Second and his mother in their exile. About the year 1651 the King sent him in a diplomatic capacity to Venice, where Killigrew seems to have disported himself to his heart’s content, and it was evidently here that he imbibed that passion for music and the drama, which never forsook him, but which converted him into a dramatist and a theatrical entrepreneur, rather, we should say, confirmed him in these tastes which were already developed in his boyhood; for we have an anecdote of his school days, how he would go to the Red Bull Tavern, not far from the theatre, during the performance, and how, more than once, the waiter came in crying, ‘Who will go and be a devil on the stage, and he shall see the play for nothing?’ an offer with which young Tom gladly closed. Thus began his career; for was not he a merry devil the chief part of his life?
Venice, as we have seen, suited his humour well, and Thomas was evidently one of those foreigners who go on the principle of howling with the wolves, and doing at Rome more than the Romans do. In fact, he was so carried away by the vivacity of the Venetians, the maskings, flirtings, and what not, which he encountered in the fair city of the sea, that Thomas began to out-Herod Herod, and lived his life at such a rate as to scandalise the Venetian authorities, who directed their ambassador at Paris to wait on the English King, and urge the recall of his envoy. Charles complied, but it was not likely that the peccadilloes of which ‘Tommaso’ had been guilty should appear unpardonable in the eyes of the merry monarch, and he received the delinquent into especial favour, and on the Restoration Tom became Groom of the Bedchamber, and the King’s inseparable companion. Pepys, in his diary of 1660, about the time of Charles’s return to his dominions, records his meeting with Tom, when being on my Lord Sandwich’s ship, he met, ‘with other fine company, Tom Killigrew, a merry droll, but a gentleman, full of wit and humour, a general favourite, especially with the King. And I walked with him for some time on the deck, and he told most amusing stories.’
Killigrew had not been long in England before he put a darling scheme into execution, namely, to bring over an Italian troop of actors from Venice to perform in singing and recitative. He had by this time set up as a dramatic author, and was instrumental in introducing into England the fashion of female performers, for, until the Restoration, actresses had not appeared on the stage, although in Italy, Spain, and elsewhere, the female characters were always represented by women. It may easily be believed that this innovation fell in with the royal taste, and there was great amusement afforded by a representation of the Parson’s Wedding, a comedy of Master Killigrew’s own writing, entirely performed by females. In another portion of his diary Pepys relates how he met Tom at my Lord Brouncker’s one night in company with a certain musician, one Signor Baptista, and Killigrew told us how they proposed to give an opera entirely in the Italian language, and he goes on to say that Baptista was singer, poet, and all in one, and that he sang them one of the acts, and that from the words alone, without any music prickt, which seemed to astonish good Master Samuel, who makes some of his accustomed sapient remarks on the occasion: ‘I did not understand the words, and so do not know if they are fitted, but I perceive there is a proper accent in every country’s discourse, but I am not as much smitten by it as if I were acquainted with the language.’
Good Master Pepys had made a discovery in those early times, which we recommend to the notice of many who pass in these days for proficients in the vocal line. The newly-born Italian opera now became the rage, very often, indeed, to the detriment of the English theatrical companies, so much so that sometimes Killigrew’s own dramatic productions were played to empty benches. Besides Signor Baptista there was another eminent musician, Francesco Corbetta, who not only sang in opera, but gave lessons in singing and the guitar, an instrument hitherto almost unknown in this country.
Guitar-playing became a perfect mania among the fine ladies and gentlemen at Court, ‘the King’s relish for that instrument,’ says De Grammont, ‘helping to bring it into vogue, and the guitar (whether for show or use) was now as necessary an appendage to a lady’s toilet-table as her rouge or patch-box. In fact, there was a universal strumming of the whole guitarrery at Court.’ Lord Arran, a younger son of the Duke of Ormonde, and his sister were amongst the greatest proficients; indeed, Lady Chesterfield was as much admired for her musical talent as for her undoubted beauty, and it was whispered her lord was very jealous of the Duke of York’s evident appreciation of both these attractions. Tom Killigrew’s popularity with the King increased daily, and there was a report that his Majesty intended to revive the disused office of Court Jester in the person of his favourite. We believe such an officer had been attached to his father’s household, but the post could only have been nominal. An old writer thus describes the duties of a Court Jester, ‘A witty and jocose person kept by princes, to inform them of their faults, and those of other people.’ We scarcely give Charles the Second credit for such a motive in his election. Pepys alludes to the circumstance in these words, ‘Tom Killigrew has a fee out of the Wardrobe for Cap and Bells as King’s Jester, and may tease and rule anybody, the greatest person, without offence, in privilege of his place.’ Of this privilege Tom took advantage, sometimes in a good cause, for with all their faults and failings, both he and his kindred spirit, Nell Gwynne, regretted the bad odour into which Charles had fallen through his neglect of public affairs, and Nell often admonished her royal lover on the subject. One day the two friends hatched a small plot. Says Nelly, ‘I have been just listening to the complaints of one of the Court Lords, of Charles’s neglect of all duty, and how that he has quite forgotten the existence of such a thing as a Cabinet Council, upon which I bet his Lordship £100 that the King should attend the very next. He sneered, but accepted the wager.’ Now we do not know if Nelly promised her accomplice to go halves, but we do know that that evening, when the King was in Madam Gwynne’s apartments, the door flew open, and in burst Tom, disguised as a pilgrim. The King swore at him, and asked if he had not heard the royal command that he should not be disturbed. ‘Oh yes, sire,’ was the reply, ‘but I was obliged to come and take leave of your Majesty before my departure.’
‘Why, where the —— are you going, and what does this absurd masquerading mean?’
‘I am starting this very moment for hell.’
‘Already,’ sneered the King, ‘and on what errand?’
‘To beg and pray of the devil to lend me Oliver Cromwell, if for ever so short a time, to attend to the affairs of the country, as his successor spends all his time in pleasure.’
The Jester was forgiven, and Nelly won her wager.
Another time Charles taxed his fool with telling everybody that the King was suffering from torturing pains in the nose, and asked the meaning of such a senseless report. ‘I crave your Majesty’s pardon,’ says Tom, ‘I knew you had been led by the nose for so many years, that I felt sure it must have become tender and painful.’
But the Jester occasionally carried the jest too far; there was a play called ‘The Silent Woman,’ given in London about this time, wherein appeared the character of Tom Otter, a henpecked husband, a reputation which the Duke of York enjoyed at Court. One night Charles said, ‘I will go no more abroad with Tom Otter and his wife.’ Now the courtiers well knew that when the King made any slighting allusion to his brother, they were expected to be tickled, so there was a general roar. The Jester alone looked solemn. ‘I wonder,’ said he, ‘which is best, to play Tom Otter to your wife or to your mistress?’—a sally which made Charles very angry, for he felt the reference was made to Lady Castlemaine, of whom the whole world knew he stood greatly in awe.
Another evening Tom made a comic onslaught on Lord Rochester, and that nobleman, actuated perhaps by jalousie de métier, was so enraged that he dealt the Jester a swinging box on the ear, unmindful of the royal presence, and threw the whole Court circle into confusion.
Death alone could put an end to poor Tom’s fooling. He died at his post at Whitehall in 1682-3, and then ‘where were his gibes, his gambols, his flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table in a roar? Alas! poor Yorick.’
No. 43. MISTRESS HERBERT.
HE cannot do better in giving an account of this most remarkable and exemplary woman than to quote the words of her distinguished son, Edward, tenth Lord Herbert of Cherbury: ‘My mother, Magdalen, was the fourth daughter of Sir Richard Newport, by his wife, Margaret, daughter and heir of Sir Thomas Bromley, one of the Privy Council, and Executor of King Henry the Eighth. She married Richard Herbert, grandson of Sir Richard Herbert of Blackhall, County Montgomery, Knight, and surviving her husband, gave rare testimonies of an incomparable piety to God and love to her children. She was most assiduous and devout in her daily, both private and public, prayers, and so careful to provide for her posterity, that though it were in her power to give her estate, which was very great, to whom she would, yet she continued long unmarried, and so provident for them, that after she had bestowed all her daughters with sufficient portions upon very good neighbouring families she delivered up her estate and care of her housekeeping to her eldest son Francis. She had for many years kept hospitality with that plenty and order as exceeded all, either of her county or town, for besides abundance of provision and good cheer for guests, which her son Sir Francis continued, she used ever after dinner to distribute with her own hands to the poor, who resorted to her in great numbers. Alms in money she gave also, more or less, as she thought they needed it. After my mother had lived most virtuously and lovingly with her husband for many years (who died in 1597), she after his death erected a fair monument for him in Montgomery Church, brought up her children carefully, and put them in good courses for making their fortunes, and briefly was that woman Dr. Donne has described in his funeral sermon.’
Speaking of his father Lord Herbert says: ‘He was black-haired, and bearded, of a manly but somewhat stern look, but withal very handsome; compact in his limbs, and of a great courage.’ His grandfather was also distinguished for the same quality, and was noted to be a great enemy to the outlaws and thieves of his time, who appeared in great numbers in the mountains of Montgomeryshire. Lord Herbert also commends his grandfather’s extreme hospitality, which caused it to be an ordinary saying, if any one saw a fowl rise in the country at that time—‘Fly where thou wilt, thou wilt light at Blackhall.’
Mistress Herbert had seven sons, of whom the eldest was the aforementioned Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and three daughters. She seems to have merited her son’s encomiums. Izaak Walton says of her: ‘She was a person of superior abilities, and was highly esteemed for her great and harmless wit, cheerful gaiety, and obliging behaviour, which gained her a friendship with most of any eminent birth or learning in the University of Oxford, where she resided four years during the time of her widowhood, in order to superintend the education of her children, who were all young at the time of their father’s death. When she had provided for them she took to her second husband, Sir John Danvers, Knight, brother and heir to Henry, Earl of Danby, who highly valued both her person and most excellent endowments of mind. It was Magdalen Newport, Mrs. Herbert, and Dame Danvers, who inspired those favourite lines of Dr. Donne, Dean of St. Paul’s, so often quoted—
She lies buried at Chelsea.
No. 44. THOMAS CROMWELL, EARL OF ESSEX.
HE was the son of a blacksmith at Putney; his mother, who married again, sent him to a small school, where he learned little more than reading, writing, and the rudiments of Latin. When quite young he evinced a passion for travel, and set out for the Continent with very scanty means, which were soon exhausted, and he found himself at Antwerp without money or connections of any kind. But he was energetic and hard-working, and he soon found employment as a clerk in an English factory established in the city. Glad as Cromwell was to earn his livelihood, the drudgery and confinement of the life were irksome to the eager restless spirit of our young adventurer, and he took advantage of the first opportunity to escape. He made acquaintance with some countrymen from Boston in Lincolnshire, bound for Rome, in order to obtain certain indulgences from the reigning Pope, Julius the Second. These men soon became aware that Cromwell’s intelligence and capability were likely to make him a valuable fellow-traveller. They therefore proposed to convey him to Italy, an offer with which it may be imagined Cromwell eagerly closed. At Rome he rose into favour at the Vatican by his talent and ability, added to which substantial qualifications our young traveller made himself acceptable to the Pope by ministering to the well-known tastes of Julius for good living. He is said to have instructed the Papal cook in the art of preparing many a delicacy for the Pontiff’s table, till then unknown in Rome, especially ‘some rare English jellies, which his Holiness pronounced delicious.’ Italy was at that period the theatre of constant warfare, and Cromwell became not only a spectator, but an actor in many of the exciting events, serving for a time as trooper in the army of the Duke, afterwards Connétable, de Bourbon.
This great commander had left the service of France in disgust, and had espoused the cause of Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Germany. A companion in arms was John Russell, eventually Earl of Bedford; a man who shone alike as a soldier and a diplomatist, and had been employed in the latter capacity by Henry the Eighth, and his prime minister, Cardinal Wolsey. Being at Bologna a plot was formed to seize his person and send him prisoner to Paris, the hotel in which he lodged being already guarded by the soldiers of the Gonfaloniere. Thomas Cromwell was also in Bologna at that time, and no sooner did he receive intelligence of the affair than he went to the municipal authorities representing himself as a Neapolitan acquaintance of the English knight, and offering to persuade him to give himself up quietly. He thus gained access to Russell’s presence, and providing him with the disguise of a peasant contrived in the most skilful manner to effect his escape. Russell urged his deliverer to accompany him, but Cromwell was not disposed to leave Italy so soon, and entered the service of a rich merchant at Venice. Cromwell was said to have been present at the battle of Pavia, where Francis the First of France was taken prisoner. On his return to England, the man whose life and liberty he had saved, came forward to lend him a helping hand.
Russell, then in much repute at Court, recommended him to the patronage of Wolsey, then in the zenith of his power. The Cardinal took Cromwell into his service and confidence, and made him secretary and chief agent in the great scheme of the dissolution of the religious houses, which was now carrying on, the funds thus raised being ostensibly apportioned to defraying the expenses attendant on the erection of the colleges which Wolsey was now founding—
But there were whisperings abroad that much of the money thus obtained overflowed into the pockets of ‘master and man,’ a circumstance which Cromwell emphatically denied in a conversation with Master George Cavendish, one of the Cardinal’s gentlemen, and his eventual biographer. The question of Cromwell’s fidelity to his master, when Wolsey fell on evil days, has been differently treated by different writers; but there is no doubt that when Wolsey left London in disgrace, Cromwell followed him to Esher—or Asher, as it is written by Master Cavendish—who tells us he went into the great chamber, and to his surprise found Master Cromwell standing in the large window, the tears distilling from his eyes, with a primer in his hand, praying earnestly,—‘the which was a strange sight,’ for it did not appear that the said Master Cromwell was by any means given to devotion. Cavendish inquired into the cause of his sorrow, asking anxiously if he considered their master’s case to be so very hopeless, on which Cromwell, with much candour, confessed that it was his own fate he was bewailing, for it seemed most likely that he was on the point of losing everything for which he had been travailing all the days of his life; moreover, that he was in disdain of all men simply for doing his master’s service, through which he had never increased his living, on the contrary, had been a heavy loser. Then he confided to Master Cavendish how, that very afternoon, when the Cardinal had dined, it was his (Cromwell’s) intention to ride with all speed to London, and so to Court, ‘where I will either make or mar ere I come back again.’ Assuredly in the audience which he solicited and obtained did Master Cromwell make, and not mar, as far as he himself was concerned. He had a long and explicit conversation with the King, into whose favour he ingratiated himself by suggesting the very line of conduct on which he well knew Henry’s heart was bent. Acquainted with the Monarch’s infatuation for Anne Boleyn, he now suggested, as if from his own notion of advisability, that the King should throw off all allegiance to the Pope, declare himself supreme head of the Church throughout his own kingdom, and thus facilitate the much desired measure of his divorce from Queen Katherine. Such palatable advice was indeed well calculated to win Henry’s good graces, and from that moment Cromwell’s rapid rise began. The King, knowing what a valuable auxiliary he had proved to his late patron in the matter of the suppression of the religious houses, resolved to secure Cromwell’s services for the same purpose. He therefore confirmed him in the office of Steward of the Dissolved Monasteries, made him a Privy Councillor, a Knight, Secretary of State, Master of the Royal Jewel-house, Clerk of the Hanaper (a lucrative post in the Court of Chancery), and what Cromwell’s enemies termed ‘the Lord knows what.’ In 1535 Visitor-General of the said suppressed monasteries throughout the realm, in which capacity Sir Thomas incurred much censure, and was branded by many as cruel, rapacious, and overbearing. In our judgment of this sentence we must take into consideration the fever heat at which religious animosity now stood; suffice it to say that Cromwell satisfied the views of his royal master, and was not Henry cruel, rapacious, and overbearing? Fabulous sums were extorted from the exchequers of these establishments, and it was almost universally believed that the favourite came in for a considerable share of the booty. It was indeed evident he did not remember the injunction laid upon him by Sir Thomas More, namely, that he should advise the King what he ought to do, not only what he was able to do. In 1536 he was made Privy Seal, and the same year Baron Cromwell of Okeham, County Rutland, and (the authority of the Pope being by this time abolished in England) Henry instituted a new office, to which he appointed his favourite. This was Vicar-General, or in other words, Supreme Head of the Church, as representative of the King, in which capacity he sat in the House of Lords, and also at Convocation above the Archbishop of Canterbury. The office included that of Principal Commissary for the Administration of Justice in all ecclesiastical affairs; of the godly reformation, and the redress of all errors, heresies, and abuses of the English Reformed Church, both in Parliament and Convocation.
It was indeed strange that the man who, a very short time before, had professed infidel doctrines (and was so unsettled in his creed that when Cavendish found him at prayers, the primer in his hand should be our lady’s matins) strange to say that this individual should now come forward as the principal pillar of the Reformation. Dr. Hook, in his Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, says, Cromwell ‘was not a real Protestant, and was generally supposed to be a man who supported the party from which he could obtain most, a statesman whose religion depended on politics, and who had no knowledge of theological subjects.’ Yet from the circumstances in which he was now placed all the English Protestants rallied round him, and those of Germany treated with him. In his new capacity Cromwell issued the most stringent and binding regulations for the conduct of the reformed clergy, was indefatigable in propagating the Bible throughout the country, causing it to be read in churches, and placed in convenient parts of the building, where the parishioners themselves could refer to it on their own account. But Cromwell’s life forms part of the history of the reign of Henry the Eighth, and indeed of the Reformation itself. And it is incumbent on us to condense this narrative lest it exceed the prescribed bounds.
He continued to receive marks of favour from the King, but his keen eye detected the gathering clouds in his own future; and he knew if Henry once failed him there would be little hope of stemming the tide of unpopularity which threatened to overpower him. He well knew that he was hated by all classes; the nobility, who grudged all the titles and honours bestowed on ‘the blacksmith’s son’; the Roman Catholics, who had good reason to detest him; while the reformed clergy rebelled against many of the changes and innovations which the Vicar-General had instituted in the services and conduct of the Church; and the poorer classes were indignant with him for depriving them of the bounty which they had so long received from the religious houses. Cromwell had good cause to be uneasy. He began by propitiating ‘the poor and needy,’ who now flocked by invitation to the gate of his house in Throckmorton Street, oftentimes twice a day, where they were regaled with bread and meat and money. He then set on foot negotiations with the Protestant Princes of Germany, more especially the reigning Duke of Cleves, in order to bring about a marriage between that Prince’s sister and Henry the Eighth, who was at this moment in one of his transitory intervals of widowhood. Lord Cromwell imagined that a Protestant queen of his own selection would be an invaluable ally at Court, and help him to retain the favour of the King, who was persuaded into the belief that the Lady Anne of Cleves was not only ‘fair and portly,’ but comely in face and feature, an error in which Henry was confirmed by a very flattering portrait from the pencil of Holbein. So the Princess was sent for to come over to England, and a magnificent cortége was despatched, with the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, to bring her on her way to London; and Henry conceived the romantic idea of riding down to Rochester in disguise to waylay his bride. Alas! for the eager glance which his Grace cast into the travelling coach, where sat a lady tall and portly indeed, but coarse and ugly in face and feature! Henry, we are told, was ‘alarmed and abashed,’ but he also was furious. He felt he had been deceived, and he sent for Cromwell and bade him devise some means for the prevention of the marriage. It was too late; matters had gone too far, and the ceremony was performed.
It would appear that at the time the King did not realise the idea that Cromwell was the principal instigator of the hated union, for it was after the marriage that he was raised to the Earldom of Essex, and made Lord Chamberlain, and his son granted a separate peerage. We know from the pages of history how the King’s horror of ‘the Flanders mare’ increased day by day, and he never rested till he had obtained a divorce, soon followed by the downfall of the newly created Earl of Essex, whose ruin was resolved on.
The Duke of Norfolk was intrusted with the task of arresting his enemy at the Council Board on the opening of Parliament in June 1540, and despatching him to the Tower, nor was he loth to carry out the royal command. Essex claimed a trial by his Peers, but the privilege was denied him. He was condemned, says Dr. Hook, by the iniquitous statute, admitting of attainder without trial, a measure of which he was not the actual founder, as affirmed by some writers, but the reviver of the same, and therefore by many pronounced deserving of his fate.
He was accused of high treason, heresy, embezzlement, and a host of other misdemeanours, but there is little doubt the worst offence in Henry’s eyes was his instrumentality in promoting the hateful marriage with Anne of Cleves.
The only voice that was raised in his behalf was that of Archbishop Cranmer, who wrote a most eloquent letter to the King, entreating him to spare the life of Lord Essex, but it was unavailing. Cromwell’s demeanour in the Tower was very different from that which had characterised Sir Thomas More. He addressed the most abject letters to Henry, and would have accepted life at almost any price. He wrote ‘with a heavy heart and trembling hand,’ and signed himself, ‘Your highness’s most humble and wretched prisoner and poor slave, Thomas Cromwell.’ While underneath the subscription came the words, ‘I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy!’
Henry caused the letters to be read to him four times, and at one moment showed signs of relenting, but in the end was (as usual) inexorable. Four days from the passing of the sentence, Lord Essex was led forth to execution, and beheaded on Tower Hill. He made a speech full of loyalty and submission to the royal will, words which were thought to have been dictated by paternal solicitude for the welfare of his only son. He furthermore confessed his sins, repenting that he had ever abandoned the Catholic faith to which he now returned, for in that he was resolved to die; then kneeling in prayer, ‘he submitted his neck to the executioner, who mangled him in a shocking manner.’
No. 46. LADY KILLIGREW.
Mistress Cecilia Crofts, maid of honour to the Queen Henrietta Maria?