Richard Boyle, earl of Cork (1566-1643).
[462]Earl of Corke:—vide countesse of Warwick's funerall sermon, 2 or 3 shops[463] within Paul's churchyard.
[464]Earl of Corke[AV]—Thomas, earl of Strafford made him disgorge 1500 li. per annum, which he restored to the church—<from> Mr. ... Anderson.
Earl of Corke bought of captaine Horsey fourtie ploughlands in Ireland for fourtie pounds. (A. Ettrick assures me, 'I say againe fourtie ploughlands.')
The queen gave Lismore to Sir Walter Raleigh, and ... to Sir John Anderson, etc. to etc., eâ intentione to plant them, which they did not; and were not planted till since the last rebellion—quaere Mr. Anderson, who sayes that Ireland could not be secure till it was enough peopled with English.
My lady Petty sayes he had a wife or two before, and that he maried Mris. Fenton[AW] without her father's consent—(quaere Secretary Fenton's Christian name[AX]).
[465]... Boyle, the first earle of Corke:—the countesse of Thanet, his great-grand-daughter, daughter to this earle of Corke and Burlington, haz told me that her father has a booke in folio—thick—of her grandfather's writing, <giving> the place, day, and hour of birth, and by what steps, wayes, and degrees he came to his greatnes. Which she will doe her endeavour to gett me an extract of it, but it is in Ireland and (I thinke) must be kept there, and is an heir-loome to the family.
<Excerpts from Anthony Walker's Sermon.>
[466]Of Richard Boyle, first earl of Corke, and his seventh daughter, Mary, countess of Warwick.
'The Virtuous Woman found: Being a Sermon preached at Felsted, in Essex, at the Funerall of the most excellent and religious lady, the Right honourable MARY Countesse Dowager of Warwick. By Anthony Walker, D.D. rector of Fyfield, in the sayd countie. The 2d Edition corrected. Printed at London, for Nath. Ranew, at the King's Arms, in St. Paul's Church-yard, 1680.' (The Epistle dedicatory is dated May 27, 1678.)
Pag. 44.—'She was truly excellent and great in all respects: great in the honour of her birth, being born a lady and a virtuosa both; seventh daughter of that eminently honourable, Richard, the first earle of Cork; who being born a private gentleman, and younger brother of a younger brother, to no other heritage than is expressed in the device and motto, which his humble gratitude inscribed on all the palaces he built,
God's Providence, mine Inheritance;
by that Providence, and his diligent and wise industry, raised such an honour and estate, and left such a familie, as never any subject of these three kingdomes did, and that with so unspotted a reputation of integrity that the most invidious scrutiny could find no blott, though it winnowed all the methods of his rising most severely, which our good lady hath often told me with great content and satisfaction.
This noble lord, by his prudent and pious consort, no lesse an ornament and honour to their descendants than himself, was blessed with five sonnes, (of which he lived to see four lords and peeres of the kingdome of Ireland,[467] and a fifth, more than these titles speak, a soveraigne and peerlesse in a larger province,—that of universall nature, subdued and made obsequious to his inquisitive mind), and eight daughters. And that you may remark how all things were extraordinary in this great personage, it will, I hope, be neither unpleasant, nor impertinent, to add a short story I had from our lady's own mouth:—Master Boyl, after earle of Cork (who was then a widdower), came one morning to waite on Sir Jeofry Fenton, at that time a great officer[XXIV.] of state in that kingdome of Ireland, who being ingaged in business, and not knowing who it was who desired to speake with him, a while delayed him access; which time he spent pleasantly with his young daughter in her nurse's arms. But when Sir Jeoffry came, and saw whom he had made stay somewhat too long, he civilly excused it. But master Boyl replied, he had been very well entertayned; and spent his time much to his satisfaction, in courting his daughter, if he might obtaine the honour to be accepted for his son-in-lawe. At which Sir Jeoffry, smiling (to hear one who had been formerly married, move for a wife carried in arms, and under two years old,) asked him if he would stay for her? To which he frankly answered him he would, and Sir Jeoffry as generously promised him he should then have his consent. And they both kept their words honourably. And by this virtuous lady he had thirteen children, ten of which he lived to see honourably married, and died a grandfather by the youngest of them.
[XXIV.] Secretary of Estate.
Nor did she derive less honour from the collateral, than the descending line, being sister by soul and genius, as well as bloud, to these great personages, whose illustrious, unspotted, and resplendent honour and virtue, and whose usefull learning and accurate pens, may attone and[468]expiate, as well as shame, the scandalous blemishes of a debauched, and the many impertinencies of a scribling, age:—
(1), Richard, the truly right honourable, loyal, wise, and virtuous, earl of Burlington and Cork, whose life is his fairest and most laudable character;
(2), the right honourable Roger earle of Orery, that great poet, great statesman, great soldier, and great every-thing which merits the name of great or good;
(3), Francis lord Shannon, whose Pocket Pistol, as he stiles his book, may make as wide breaches in the walls of the Capitol, as many canons;
(4), and that honourable and well known name Robert Boyl, esquier, that profound philosopher, accomplished humanist, and excellent divine, I had almost sayd lay-bishop, as one hath stiled Sir Henry Savil; whose works alone may make a librarie[XXV.].
[XXV.] Why does he not mention ... lord Killimeke[AY]; who was slain at the great battell of Liskarrill, in Ireland?
The female branches also (if it be lawfull so to call them whose virtues were so masculine, souls knowing no difference of sex) by their honours and graces (by mutuall reflections) gave, and received lustre, to, and from, her:—
the eldest of which, the lady Alice, was married to the lord Baramore;
the second, the lady Sarah, to the lord Digby, of Ireland;
the third, the lady Laetitia, to the eldest son of the lord Goring, who died earle of Norwich;
the fourth, the lady Joan, to the earle of Kildare, not only primier earle of Ireland, but the ancientest house in Christendome of that degree, the present earle being the six and twentieth, or the seaven and twentieth, of lineal descent: and, as I have heard, it was that great antiquary King Charles the First his observation, that the three ancientest families of Europe for nobility, were the Veres in England, earls of Oxford, and the Fitz-Geralds in Ireland, earls of Kildare, and Momorancy in France: 'tis observable[469]that the present earle of Kildare is a mixture of blood of Fitz-Geralds and Veres;
the fifth, the lady Katharine, who was married to the lord viscount Ranelaugh[XXVI.], and mother to the present generous earle of Ranelaugh, of which family I could have added an eminent remark, I meet with in Fuller's "Worthies;" this lady's character is so signalized by her known merit among all persons of honour, that as I need not, so I dare not, attempt beyond this one word—she was our lady's Friend-Sister;
[XXVI.] <Arthur> Jones.
the sixth, the lady Dorothy Loftus;
the seaventh, (the number of perfection) which shutt-up and crown'd this noble train (for the eighth, the lady Margaret, died unmaried), was our excellent lady Mary, married to Charles, earle of Warwick; of whom, if I should use the language of my text, I should neither despair their pardon, nor fear the reproach of rudeness—Many daughters, all his daughters, did virtuously but thou—Prov. xxxi. 29, 30, 31.
----But shee[XXVII.] needed neither borrowed shades, nor reflexive lights, to set her off, being personally great in all naturall endowments and accomplishments of soul and body, wisdome, beautie, favour, and virtue;
[XXVII.] Mary, countess of Warwick.
great by her tongue, for never woman used one better, speaking so gracefully, promptly, discreetly, pertinently, holily, that I have often admired the edifying words that proceeded from her mouth;
great by her pen, as you may (ex pede Herculem) discover by that little[XXVIII.] tast of it the world hath been happy in, the hasty fruit of one or two interrupted houres after supper, which she professed to me, with a little regret, when she was surprised with it's sliding into the world without her knowledge, or allowance, and wholly beside her expectation;
[XXVIII.] Her ladyship's Pious Meditations.
great by being the greatest mistresse and promotress, not to say the foundress and inventress, of a new science—the art of obliging; in which she attain'd that sovereign perfection, that she reigned over all their hearts with whom she did converse;
great in her nobleness of living and hospitality;
great in the unparallelld sincerity of constant, faithfull, condescending friendship, and for that law of kindness which dwelt in her lips and heart;
great in her dexterity of management;
great in her quick apprehension of the difficulties of her affaires, and where the stress and pinch lay, to untie the knot, and loose and ease them;
great in the conquest of herselfe;
great in a thousand things beside, which the world admires as such: but she despised them all, and counted them but loss and dung in comparison of the feare of God, and the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.'
Notes.
[AV] Aubrey gives in trick the coat:—'per bend crenellée argent and gules [Boyle]; impaling, ..., a cross vert between 4 fleur de lys ... [Fenton],' surmounted by an earl's coronet.
A leaf containing an earlier draft of this life (as shown by the coat tricked in the inner margin) has been cut out between fol. 14 and fol. 15 of MS. Aubr. 6. The excision was made by Aubrey himself, a line being drawn by him across the excision from fol. 14v to fol. 15, to mark the transposition of a passage. The reason for the cutting out of this leaf is suggested in a letter of Aubrey to Anthony Wood (MS. Wood F. 39, fol. 360, July 14, 1681), where he says his 'Lives' contain 'severe touches on the earl of Corke, Dr. Wallis, etc.' In the margin of the excised leaf a note, given on the authority of 'Mr. A. E.' i.e. Anthony Ettrick, seems to speak of amours and bastards of the earl.
[AW] Catherine Fenton, daughter of Sir Geoffrey Fenton, Secretary of State for Ireland 1581-1603.
[AX] Anthony Wood, in answer to this query, suggests:—'Jeffrey, quaere.'
[AY] Lewis Boyle, second son of Richard, first earl of Cork, created viscount Boyle of Kynalmeaky, 1627/8.