Brief Lives, Vol. 2

Chapter 247: Sir Francis Stuart.

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About This Book

A collection of concise biographical sketches of contemporaries and earlier figures recorded by an antiquarian observer, combining factual entries—births, offices, publications, and inscriptions—with personal anecdotes, hearsay, heraldic and parish-register notes, bibliographic references, and occasional critical judgments. Entries range from terse records to extended reminiscences, often citing documentary sources or witness statements, and reflect an informal, detail-driven approach aimed at preserving lives, reputations, and local traditions for reference and remembrance.

Sir Francis Stuart.

[1016]This Sir Francis Stuart [1017] was uncle (or great uncle) to the present dutchesse of Richmond.

He was a sea-captaine, and (I thinke) he was one summer a vice or rere-admirall. He was a learned gentleman, and one of the club at the Mermayd, in Fryday street, with Sir Walter Ralegh, etc., of that sodalitie: heroes and witts of that time. Ben Jonson dedicates The Silent Woman to him.

'To the truly noble by all titles Sir Francis Stuart.

'This makes that I now number you not only in the names of favour but the names of justice to what I write, and doe presently call you to the exercise of the noblest and manliest vertue as coveting rather to be freed in my fame by the authority of a judge than the credit of an undertaker.'