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Spaniards were put to the fword, and the reft obliged to retreat. On this occafion lord Southampton behaved with fuch gallantry that he was knighted in the field by lord Effex, "ere (fays the writer above mentioned,) he could dry the sweat from his brows, or put his fword up in the fcabbard."

In 1598 he attended his noble friend to Ireland, as General of the horse; from which employment (after having greatly diftinguished himself by overcoming the rebels in Munster,) he was difmiffed by the peremptory orders of Queen Elizabeth, who was offended with him for having prefumed to marry Mifs Elizabeth Vernon, [in 1596,] without her majesty's confent; which in thofe days was esteemed a heinous offence. This lady (of whom there is an original picture at Sherborne Castle in Dorsetshire, the feat of lord Digby,) was first coufin to lord Effex.

When that nobleman, for having returned from Ireland without the permiffion of the Queen, was confined at the lord keeper's houfe, lord Southampton withdrew from court. At this period a circumftance is mentioned by a writer of that time, which correfponds with the received account of his admiration of Shakspeare. "My lord Southanon and lord Rutland (fays Rowland Whyte in a letter to Sir Robert Sydney, dated in the latter end of the year 1599, SYDNEY PAPERS, Vol. II. p. 132,) came not to the court [at Nonfuch The one doth but very feldome. They pafs away, the tye in London, merely in going to plaies every day." At.this time King Henry. which had been produced in the fpring of year and con tains an elegant compliment to lord Effex, was probly.exhi biting with applaufe. Roger earl of Rutland (to whoja-lord. Effex addreffed that pathetick letter which is printed in Howard's Collection, Vol. II. p. 521, where it is abfurdly titled "A letter to the earl of Southampton.") was married to the daughter of lady Effex by her first husband, Sir Philip Sydney.

Lord Southampton being condemned for having joined the earl of Effex in his wild project, that amiable nobleman generoufly fupplicated the Lords for his unfortunate friend, declaring at the fame time that he was himself not at all folicitous for life; and we are told by Camden, who was prefent at the trial, that lord Southampton requested the peers to intercede for her majesty's mercy, (against whom he protefted that he had never any ill intention,) with such ingenuous modefty, and fuch fweet and perfuafive elocution, as greatly affected all who heard him. Though even the treacherous enemies of Effex (as we learn from Ofborne,) fupplicated the inexorable Elizabeth, to spare the life of lord Southampton, he for fome time remained doubt

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ful of his fate, but at length was pardoned: yet he was confined in the Tower during the remainder of the Queen's reign. Bacon mentions that on her death he was much vifited there. On the first of April, 1603, fix days only after her decease, King James fent a letter for his releafe; 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 trufty and well beloved the counsel of state fitting at Whitehall."-On the 10th of the fame month lord Southampton was released, the king, at the fame time that he fent the order for his enlargement, honouring him fo far as to defire him to meet him on his way to England. Soon afterwards his attainder was reverfed, and he was inftalled a knight of the Garter. In the fame year he was constituted governour of the Isle of Wight, and of Carifbrooke castle; in which office, fays the hiftorian of that island, (from the manu fcript memoirs of Sir John Oglander,) "his juft, affable, and obliging deportment gained him the love of all ranks of people, and raifed the island to a moft flourishing ftate, many gentlemen refiding there in great affluence and hofpitality."

By the machinations of lord Effex's great adverfary, the earl of Salify. (whofe mind feems to have been as crooked as his body. It is fuppofed King James was perfuaded to believe that too great an intimacy fubfifted 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 what foever of his difloyalty, he was •Immediately releed. In the fummer of 1612, as we are told by Roland Whyte, he went to Spa, much difgufted at not having obtained a feat in the council. His military ardour feems at hoperiod of his life to have deferted him. In 1614 we find him with the romantick lord Herbert of Cherbury, at the fiege of Rees in the dutchy of Cleve. In 1619, he was at length appointed a privy counsellor. Two years afterwards, having joined the popular party, who were juftly inflamed at the king's fupinenefs and pufillanimity, in fuffering the Palatinate to be wrefted from his fon-in-law, and, what was a ftill more heinous offence, having rebuked the duke of Buckingham for a diforderly fpeech that he had made in the House of Lords, he was committed to the cuftody of the dean of Weftminster, at the fame time that the earl of Oxford and Sir Edward Coke were fent to the Tower; but he was foon enlarged.

On the rupture with Spain in 1624, he was appointed jointly with the young earl of Effex and the lords Oxford and Willoughby, to the command of fix thousand men, who were fent to the Low-countries, to act under prince Maurice against

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the Spaniards; but was cut off by a fever at Berghen-op-zoom on the 10th of November in that year. The ignorance of the Dutch phyficians, who bled him too copiously, is faid to have occafioned his death. He left three daughters, (Penelope, who married William lord Spencer of Wormleighton; Anne, who married Robert Wallop of Farley, in the county of Southampton, fon of Sir Henry Wallop, knight; and Elizabeth, who married Sir Henry Eftcourt, knight;) and one fon, Thomas, who was lord high treafurer of England in the time of King Charles II. His eldeft fon James, who had accompanied him in this his laft campaign, died a few days before, of the fame diforder that proved fatal to his father.

Wilfon, the hiftorian, who attended Lord Effex in this expedition, is more particular. In his Hiftory of King James, he fays, they were both feized with a fever at Rofendale, which put an end to the fon's life; that lord Southampton, having recovered of the fever, departed from Rofendale with an inten tion to bring his fon's body into England; but at Berghen"he died of a lethargy, in the view and prefence of op-zoom the relater;" and that the two bodies were brought in the fame bark to Southampton. He was buried at Tichfield in Hampshire.

Lady Southampton furvived her husband many years, King Charles I. having been concealed by her for fore time in the manfion house of Tichfield, (which Lord Clarendon calls "a noble seat,") after his escape from Hampton Court in Nov. 1547.

Their fon Thomas, the fourth earl of Southampton, dying in May, 1667, without iffue male, the title cecame extinct. He left three daughters. Magdalene, the younge, died unmarried Rachael, his fecond daughter, married, frft, Francis lord Vaughan, eldest fon of Richard, earl of Carbery; and afterwards the illuftrious William lord Ruffel, by whom he had Wriothefly, the second duke of Bedford. Lady Elizabeth, the eldeft daughter, married Edward Noel, (eldeft fon of Baptift Viscount Campden,) who in 1680 was created Baron Noel of Tichfield, and in 1682, earl of Gainsborough. Their only fon Wriothefly Baptift, 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 fecond duke of Beaufort. On a partition of the real and perfonal property between those two noble families, about the year 1735, lord Southampton's eftate at Tichfield, which had belonged to a monaftery of Ciftercian monks in the time of King Henry VIII. was part of the fhare of the duke of Beaufort, and now belongs to Peter Delmé, efq. Beaulieu, in Hampshire, which at prefent belongs to the representatives of the late duke of Montagu, was, if I mistake not, formerly the property of our earl of Southampton.

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From Rowland Whyte's letters lord Southampton feems to have been very fond of tennis, at which game he once loft 18000 crowns in Paris, on one match; [2250l. fterl.] and fir John Oglander, in his manufcript 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.

He is faid, on the authority of Sir William D'Avenant, to have given Shakspeare the fum of 1ocol. to complete a purchase, which was at leaft equivalent to 5000l. at this day. This alone will for ever immortalize his memory.

Of this amiable and accomplished nobleman there is an original portrait at Gorhambury, the feat of lord viscount Grimfton, by Vanfomer, as I conceive; another at Woburn Abbey, by Miervelt; and two in the poffeffion 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 prifoner in the Tower. Each of the noble poffeffors of these pictures, in the moft obliging manner permitted drawings to be made from them for the ufe of the present work.

From the telimony of Camden 5 and others, he appears to have been as devoted to the mufes than to military atchievements. We find his name, as well as that of his friend Effex, prefixed.tomany.publications of thofe times; and two poets have exprefsly fung.his praifes. Their verfes, though of little, merit, felving in fome measure to illuftrate his chasacter, I fall fubjoin them. MALONE.

HENRY

HE

то

WRIOTHESLY,

EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON.

By SAMUEL DANIEL, 1605. Non fert ullum ictum illæfa fælicitas. who hath never warr'd with misery,

Nor ever tugg'd with Fortune, and distress,

Hath had no occafion nor no field to try

The ftrength and forces of his worthiness:

5 "Edwardus VI. eundem honorem anno fui regno primo Thomæ Wriotheofley Angliæ Cancellario detulit, cujus e filio Henrico nepos Henricus eodem hodie lætatur; qui in primo ætatis flore præfidio bonarum literarum et rei militaris fcientia nobilitatem communit, ut uberiores fructus maturiore ætate patriæ et principi profundat." Camdeni Bri. tannia, 8vo. 1600, p. 240.

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Those parts of judgment which felicity

Keeps as conceal'd, affliction must exprefs;
And only men fhew their abilities,
And what they are, in their extremities.

The world had never taken fo full note

Of what thou art, hadst thou not been undone,
And only thy affliction hath begot

More fame than thy best fortunes could have done,

For ever by adversity are wrought
The greatest works of admiration,
And all the fair examples of renown
Out of distress and mifery are grown.

Mutius the fire, the tortures Regulus,
Did make the miracles of faith and zeal :
Exile renown'd and grac'd Rutilius :
Imprisonment and poifon did reveal
The worth of Socrates: Fabricius'
Poverty did grace that common-wealth

More than all Syllaes riches got with ftrife;
And Catoes death did vie with Cæfar's life.

Not to be unhappy is unhappiness,

And mifery not to have known mifery:
For the best way unto difcretion is

The way that leads us by adverfity:

And men are better fhew'd what is amifs,

By the expert finger of calamity,

Than they can be with all that fortune brings,

Who never fhews them the true face of things.

How could we know that thou could't have endur'd

With a repofed cheer, wrong and difgrace,
And with a heart and countenance affur'd

Have look'd ftern death and horrour in the face?

I have in this and the preceding line preferved the old spelling, be caufe it confirms an obfervation made in Vol. VII. p. 160, n. 2.

MALONE.

How

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